Tech Time Warp is a weekly feature that looks back at interesting moments and milestones in tech history.
Tag: Tech Time Warp
Tech Time Warp: Shamoon virus makes its first appearance
Tech Time Warp: Shamoon virus makes its first appearance
On Aug. 15, 2012, someone with high levels of network access at Saudi Aramco, one of the world’s largest oil companies, unleashed a virus that wiped data from more than 30,000 computers. The release of Shamoon is considered one of...
Tech Time Warp: The truth about shatter attacks
Tech Time Warp: The truth about shatter attacks
In this week’s Tech Time Warp, we’re looking back at August 2002, when security researcher Kristin Paget published a whitepaper on the dangers of “shatter attacks,” and Microsoft had more than a few quibbles with it.
Tech Time Warp: Koobface Worms Its Way Through Facebook
Tech Time Warp: Koobface Worms Its Way Through Facebook
For this week’s Tech Time Warp, we’re going back to August 2008—when you were still juggling Facebook and MySpace profiles—unsuspecting social networkers found their machines infected by Koobface, a particularly nasty computer worm. Koobface (an anagram for Facebook) caught its victims...
Tech Time Warp: Where did Carmen Sandiego come from?
Tech Time Warp: Where did Carmen Sandiego come from?
The same generation of schoolchildren who traveled the Oregon Trail also crisscrossed the globe in hot pursuit of one international supervillain named Carmen Sandiego. Apple’s early investment in the education market meant schools were filled with Apple IIs and children eager...
Tech Time Warp: The origin of the Oregon Trail
Tech Time Warp: The origin of the Oregon Trail
The real Oregon Trail began in Independence, Missouri, but for generations of American schoolchildren, the trail began in a Minneapolis classroom in 1971, when three student teachers combined their penchant for history with their knowledge of BASIC.
Tech Time Warp: Did you forget about the first iPhone?
Tech Time Warp: Did you forget about the first iPhone?
As ubiquitous as the iPhone is today (and as many competitors as it has inspired), it can be difficult to think back to June 2007, when the first iPhone went on sale. Disrupting the Blackberry world, the iPhone of 2007 was...
Tech Time Warp: The Early Days of IBM
Tech Time Warp: The Early Days of IBM
The monolith we know today as IBM got its start June 16, 1911, when the forward-thinking Charles R. Flint merged the International Time Recording Company, Computing Scale Company and the Tabulating Machine Company—all “computing and tabulating enterprises”—into the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company,...
Tech Time Warp: Computer users smell a RAT
Tech Time Warp: Computer users smell a RAT
The tech acronym “RAT” has two meanings: “remote administration tool,” or the software your friendly network administrator uses to install software or troubleshoot your computer issues, and “remote access trojan,” or the malware a nefarious individual uses to wreak havoc...
Tech Time Warp: The 411 on the 404 page
Tech Time Warp: The 411 on the 404 page
For this week’s Tech Time Warp, we’re talking about the origin story of the 404 Page Not Found error code. This error code is about as frustrating as actually reaching a 404 page. For years, a neat story has circulated...
Tech Time Warp: The Love Bug Bites
Tech Time Warp: The Love Bug Bites
One might say more than 3 million computer users had a bad date on May 4, 2000. In this week’s edition of Tech Time Warp, we’re going back to the day those users downloaded the ILOVEYOU virus, a Visual Basic...
