1997
The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Canada, the United States, and some islands in the Caribbean and North Atlantic ocean, is incorporated as a nonprofit in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Visit the organization’s official website.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of JT Storage Corporation, Tom Mitchell, announces the discontinuation of development and production of the company’s three inch hard drive. He also reports a US$60.6 million loss in their third quarter ending November 2. In his report, he reveals that a thirty-one percent reduction in worldwide headcount was implemented reducing the company’s staff from 8,400 to 5,800.
The DocJoJo website is hacked by “Kaos97″. View an archived version of the defaced webpage.
The frontpage of the 347th Communication Squadron is hacked by “p00t”. View an archived version of the defaced webpage.
The website Ingmar.com is hacked by “Kaos97″. View an archived version of the defaced website.
1998
In Los Angeles, Federal United States District Judge Ronald Lew awards actress Alyssa Milano a default judgment of US$230,000 in a suit filed against John Lindgren of Nudecelebrity.com after Lindgren fails to respond to the lawsuit. Lindgren is also barred from posting more nude photos of the former Who’s the Boss star and ordered to pay US$8,200 in attorney fees. The suit was filed after photos altered to appear to depict Milano nude were posted without permission to Nudecelebrity.com. The judgment is the first monetary award handed down for the online publication of nude photos of celebrities.
MCI WorldCom Inc. eradicates a virus dubbed “Remote Explorer” that scrambles hard drive files and spreads through corporate networks.
Next Generation Online reports that Sony has shipped 14,250,000 PlayStation game consoles in Japan, 16,400,000 in Europe, and 19,350,000 in the United States.
Version 2.1.132 of the Linux operating system is released.
1999
Microsoft Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Greg Maffei, leaves Microsoft to become Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Worldwide Fiber Inc. based in Vancouver, Canada.
2000
Ravisent Technologies announces that Microsoft has selected the company to supply DVD playback software for Microsoft’s Xbox video game system. Visit the official Xbox website.
Version 1.0 of Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux), which was primarily developed by the United States National Security Agency (NSA), is release to the open source community for further development. SELinux is a set of modifications to the Linux kernel which provides a strong but flexible mandatory access control (MAC) architecture similar to the one used by the United States Department of Defense. Visit the software’s official website.
2003
The second and third film in the Matrix trilogy, both released earlier in the year, are shut out of visual effects Oscar consideration by the Visual Effects Award Nominating Committee.
Jon Lech Johansen, also known as DVD-Jon, is acquitted for the second time of hacking into DVD security codes. After Johansen released DeCSS, he was prosecuted in Norway for computer hacking in 2002. The prosecution was conducted by Økokrim, a Norwegian crime unit that investigates and prosecutes economic crimes, after a complaint was made by the U.S. DVD Copy Control Association (DVD-CCA) and the Motion Picture Association (MPA). Johansen denied writing the decryption code in DeCSS, saying that this part of the project was accomplished by someone in Germany. His defense was assisted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The trial opened in the Oslo district court (Oslo tingrett) on December 9, 2002 with Johansen pleading not guilty to charges that had a maximum penalty of two years in prison. The defense argued that no illegal access was obtained to anyone else’s information, since Johansen owned the DVDs himself. They also argued that it is legal under Norwegian law to make copies of such data for personal use. The verdict was announced on January 7, 2003, acquitting Johansen of all charges. This being the verdict of the district court, two further levels of appeals were available to the prosecutors, to the appeals court and then to the Supreme Court. Økokrim filed an appeal on January 20, 2003, and it was reported on February 28 that the appeals court (Borgarting lagmannsrett) had agreed to hear the case. Johansen’s second DeCSS trial began in Oslo on December 2, 2003, and it resulted in an acquittal on December 22, 2003. Økokrim will later announce on January 5, 2004 that it will not appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
Little GLORIAD (Global Ring Network for Advanced Application Development), a networked ring across the northern hemisphere with connections in Chicago, Amsterdam, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Zabajkal’sk, Manzhouli, Beijing, and Hong Kong goes into operation. This is the first-ever fiber network connection across the Russia-China border.
2005
The European Commission takes steps to fine Microsoft €2 million (US$2.4 million) a day if it does not comply by January 25 with its 2004 antitrust ruling.
In the European Union (EU), the 2001 Copyright Directive is implemented, effectively prohibiting peer-to-peer filesharing, claiming it to be a violation of the 1996 WIPO treaty (“World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty”). However, not every member of the EU incorporates the directive into its national legislation. In particular, the French Parliament passes two amendments legalizing the exchange of copies over the internet for private use. In a later proceeding, the French government withdrew the article in question and made the use of any p2p client obviously aimed at sharing copyrighted material illegal. How a client would be identified as being “obviously” intended for copyrighted material is left open to interpretation, though.
2007
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launches its “Next Generation Identification” (NGI), a project to expand its Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) into a billion dollar biometric database system that, upon completion, will be the largest of its kind in the world. The agency, which already compiles faces, fingerprints, and palm patterns, announces that it will be awarding a ten-year contract to expand its existing databases to include even more information. Read more at the FBI website.
2008
Electronic Arts begins selling the god game Spore without the controversial SecuROM copy protection through Valve’s Steam distribution platform.
Toyota Motor Corporation, the world’s largest automaker, announces that it expects its first operating loss in seventy years due to the global financial crisis of 2008. The company projects a loss of US$1.7 billion.
2009
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issues an injunction banning Microsoft from selling copies of its Word application containing code that infringes on a patent of Toronto-based software developer i4i Inc. involving custom XML in a document after January 11, 2010. Microsoft is also ordered to pay US$290 million for violating the patent. Shortly after the ruling, Microsoft will release a mandatory patch correcting the issue, but in November 2010, the Supreme Court will agree to hear the appeal.
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