Tag: Tech Time Warp

Tech Time Warp is a weekly feature that looks back at interesting moments and milestones in tech history.

Tech Time Warp: Happy birthday to the Computer Misuse Act

Tech Time Warp: Happy birthday to the Computer Misuse Act

Happy 31st birthday to the British Computer Misuse Act (CMA), which went into effect Aug. 29, 1990, as one of the first cybercrime laws on the books. Although the CMA has undergone several revisions, many cybersecurity experts believe it’s desperately...

/ August 27, 2021
Tech Time Warp: The One-Two-Three Viral Punch of August 2003

Tech Time Warp: The One-Two-Three Viral Punch of August 2003

August qualifies as the dog days of summer. It’s a good time to take it easy and use some PTO.  But that’s not something the network administrators of 2003 could do, thanks to an onslaught of viruses. August 2003 brought...

/ August 20, 2021
Tech Time Warp: Andy Warhol and the Amiga

Tech Time Warp: Andy Warhol and the Amiga

The format of the Apple product launch is legendary, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the July 23, 1985, launch of the Commodore Amiga 1000. Held at Lincoln Center, with Commodore employees sporting tuxes and the music of a...

/ August 6, 2021
Tech Time Warp: Zeus, Ruler of Malware?

Tech Time Warp: Zeus, Ruler of Malware?

The Zeus malware, like its Greek god namesake, is a powerful and virile Trojan malware. Since it first surfaced in July 2007 in an attack on the U.S. Department of Transportation, Zeus, aka Zbot, and its variants have wreaked havoc on the...

/ July 30, 2021
Tech Time Warp: 1964 Olympic Games, aka the Technology Olympics

Tech Time Warp: 1964 Olympic Games, aka the Technology Olympics

As the world’s eyes turn to Tokyo for the postponed 2020 Olympic Games, delayed to this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s worth also looking back at the 1964 Tokyo Games. Known as the “Technology Olympics,” the 1964 Games...

/ July 23, 2021
Tech Time Warp: Sneaky SirCam worm slithers through inboxes

Tech Time Warp: Sneaky SirCam worm slithers through inboxes

When it comes to use of social engineering in malware, the SirCam worm must be among the most insidious. The worm propagated itself in the usual way via email attachment. But SirCam didn’t carry a new email attachment—the typical “invoice”...

/ July 16, 2021
Tech Time Warp: The Speak & Spell, far more than a toy

Tech Time Warp: The Speak & Spell, far more than a toy

Readers of a certain age will recall the Speak & Spell, a Texas Instruments toy that would impress no child of today, but has earned its rightful place in history as the first consumer product to use digital signal processing...

/ July 2, 2021
Tech Time Warp
Tech Time Warp: The Pikachu virus is not your friend

Tech Time Warp: The Pikachu virus is not your friend

It sounds so innocent: An email appears in your inbox, subject line “Pikachu Pokemon.” The message speaks of friendship and invites you to visit Pikachu on his website. And the attachment (warning bells going off yet?) features an animation of...

/ June 25, 2021
Tech Time Warp: Stuxnet takes malware to the next level

Tech Time Warp: Stuxnet takes malware to the next level

Today’s action movies and thrillers routinely feature some hacker-type who—armed with a laptop in a chunky military-grade case—can infiltrate the most impenetrable of digital fortresses in a few furious keystrokes. But in the real-life case of Stuxnet, first detected in...

/ June 18, 2021 / 8 Comments
Tech Time Warp: ExploreZip worm cleans out Microsoft Office files

Tech Time Warp: ExploreZip worm cleans out Microsoft Office files

Just a few months after the Melissa virus attacked computers, wreaking an estimated $80 million in damage, the ExploreZip worm began zipping through computers across the globe, destroying any Microsoft Office files in its path. First detected in June 1999,...

/ June 4, 2021