1990
ISO C (C90) is released.
1994
Netscape releases version 1.0 of Netscape Navigator, the first commercial web browser. Because Netscape has significantly more resources than the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and the popularity of Netscape will rapidly outstrip that of the Mosaic web browser, the first popular graphical Web browser.
Richard D. Kenadek, the sysop of the Davy Jones Locker BBS in Millbury, Massachusetts, pleads guilty to criminal copyright infringement. The 43-year-old Millbury man admitted that he had illegally distributed a variety of copyrighted software programs to subscribers in 36 states and 11 foreign countries who paid a US$99 annual fee. In March 1995, Kenadek will be sentenced to six months of home detention and two years of probation.
1995
Louis Monier of Digital Equipment Corp. publicly launches the AltaVista search engine, developed by researchers at Digital Equipment Research Laboratories, with an index of sixteen million documents from the domain altavista.digital.com. It will go on to become the first service to organize and find webpages to gain widespread popularity. On it’s first day, the search engine will receive over three hundred thousand users. By January 5th, the search engine will handle over two million requests a day. By November 1996, the site will handle twenty-two million requests a day.
Tri-Star Pictures releases Jumanji, directed by Joe Johnston and starring Robin Williams, Jonathan Hyde, Kirsten Dunst, and Bonnie Hunt to 2,487 U.S. theaters. It based on the 1981 book of the same name by Chris Van Allsburg. In it, two kids playing an old magic board-game they found release a man trapped for decades in it and a host of dangers that can only be stopped by finishing the game. The film is notable for the ground-breaking special effects used to bring the film’s countless computer generated characters to life. Produced on a budget of US$65 million, it will gross US$11,084,370 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG) Running Time: 1 hr 44 mins
1997
Fortran 95 ISO is released.
The website of the Huntington Nation Bank is hacked and defaced by “k3rm1t”. View an archived version of the defaced webpage.
1998
Adrenlin Interactive, Inc. announces a deal to develop games and game demos for forthcoming Nuon-enhanced DVD systems.
A twenty-four year old Tokyo woman takes her own life using cyanide capsules that were acquired from an Internet service offering them for the purposes of suicide. Later the same day, the twenty-seven year old man who operated the service takes his own life after learning about woman’s earlier death. The event ignites a national controversy over the popularity of sites offering advice on committing suicide.
Yahoo! launches Yahoo Address Book.
1999
Microsoft releases Windows 2000 to computer manufacturers.
2000
The website of Seattle-based Egghead.com is hacked. Their 3.7 million customer credit card database is left exposed on the Internet.
2004
Brian Salcedo, age 21, of Michigan is sentenced to nine years in prison for his involvement in hacking into the corporate systems of Lowe’s Home Improvement and attempting to steal customer credit card information. The sentence is the longest ever given to a hacker, exceeding even the 5½ years that hacker Kevin Mitnick spent behind bars. Salcedo had faced a possible fifteen years in prison, but at the prosecutor’s urging, federal Judge Lacy Thornburgh lightened the sentence in recognition of the assistance Salcedo gave to the retail giant towards securing its systems following his arrest. Two others await sentencing, including one of the first people to ever be convicted of wardriving. The three men allegedly tapped into the wireless network of a Lowe’s store in Southfield, Michigan, using the connection to enter the chain’s central computer systems in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina and installed a program to capture credit card information; however, no data was ever actually collected. Visit Salcedo’s website.
The Sprint Corporation announces that it will acquire Nextel Communications for US$35 billion. With a combined annual revenue of US$40 billion, the resulting company, Sprint Nextel, will be the third largest wireless telephone service provider in the U.S.
Versions 4.3.10 and 5.0.3 of the PHP programming language are released. Visit the official PHP website.
The Zafi Merry Christmas worm is released. The worm modifies the system registry of Microsoft Windows, automatically self-executing when the computer is rebooted. Zafi also seeks out antivirus and firewall applications to overwriting them. Then, the worm creates a backdoor, turning the system into a zombie for sending spam or launching a distributed denial of service attack.
2005
The forty-third known Mersenne prime is discovered by Dr. Curtis Cooper and Dr. Steven Boone, participants in the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) distributed computing project. The number consists of over nine million digits.
2006
Twentieth Century Fox releases the fantasy adventure film Eragon, directed by Stefen Fangmeier and starring Ed Speleers, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Guillory, Robert Carlyle, Djimon Hounsou, Garrett Hedlund, Joss Stone, Rachel Weisz, and John Malkovich, to 3,020 U.S. theaters. It is based on the book of the same name by Christopher Paolini. In it, a farm boy happens upon a dragon egg, a discovery that leads him on a journey on which he realizes that he’s the one person who can defend his home against an evil king. Produced on a budget of US$100 million, it will gross US$23,239,907 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG) Running Time: 1 hr 39 mins
2008
aXXo release group releases its thousandth movie upload, a copy of the Kiefer Sutherland horror film MIRЯORS, is posted to the Darkside Release Group internet forum. aXXo is one of the most popular release groups on the internet, and it released its first upload in November 2005.
Microsoft releases a “beta refresh” version of its Windows Live Mail e-mail client. Visit the official Windows Live Mail website.
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