The Great Geek Manual

1987
Cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko lands in a Soyuz spacecraft in Kazakhstan, ending his record 326 day mission, orbiting the Earth in the Mir space station. His stay in space broke the previous Soviet record of 237 days and the U.S. space endurance record of 87 days. He was launched into orbit on February 6, 1987. During the course of his mission, he assisted in conducting one thousand experiments.

NASA delays the planned June launch of the space shuttle which was to be the first since the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster disaster after a motor component failed during a test-firing of the shuttle’s redesigned booster rocket.

1993
Twentieth Century Fox releases the science fiction horror film Ghost in the Machine, directed by Rachel Talalay and starring Karen Allen, Chris Mulkey, Ted Marcoux, Wil Horneff, Jessica Walter, and Brandon Quintin Adams, to 1,031 U.S. theaters. In it, the consciousness of a serial killer who is mortally injured in a truck collision is transferred to a computer when an electrical surge runs through the CAT scan machine being used on him. It will gross US$1,854,431 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: R) Running Time: 1 hr 44 mins

1994
U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns dismisses the case against Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) student David LaMacchia in the Cynosure Piracy case, in which LaMacchia was accused of using MIT servers to run a bulletin board system (BBS) which offered pirated software. However, LaMacchia will continue to be under pressure until he learns on January 27 that prosecutors will not appeal the judge’s ruling. Although LaMacchia was alleged to have helped other users make illegal copies of software, there was no claim that he profited from the activity, and current laws that he was being prosecuted under only attach criminal penalties to copyright infringement done for profit. In his decision to dismiss the case, Stearns writes that the government’s “interpretation of the wire fraud statute would serve to criminalize the conduct of not only persons like LaMacchia, but also the myriad of home computer users who succumb to the temptation to copy even a single software program for private use.” The dismissal will later be referred to as “LaMacchia Loophole”, wherein it becomes difficult if not impossible to prosecute hobbyists who circulate pirated software recreationally. This loophole will later be closed by the 1997 No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act).

1997
The Sugar River Valley BBS is hacked by “L.O.U.” (Legions Of the Underground). Visit an archived version of the defaced website.

The website of Hudson Manufacturing is hacked by “L.O.U.” (Legions Of the Underground). Visit an archived version of the defaced website.

The website of Source for Deals, Inc. is hacked by “L.O.U.” (Legions Of the Underground). Visit an archived version of the defaced website.

The website of Unitech Communications is hacked by “L.O.U.” (Legions Of the Underground). Visit an archived version of the defaced website.

The websites of several radio and television stations, including Tri-County Broadcasting Inc. and WKYC-TV are hacked by “L.O.U.” (Legions Of the Underground). Visit an archived version of the defaced Tri-County Broadcasting website. Visit an archived version of the defaced WKYC-TV website.

1998
The Legions of the Underground (LoU) declares cyberwar on Iraq and China with the intention of disrupting and disabling internet infrastructure.

1999
The NASDAQ composite stock index closes over 4,000 (4041.46) for the first time. It had surpassed the 3,000 mark only a months earlier.

Virginia launches an online database of registered sex-offender living within the state.

2004
Dutch computer manufacturer Tulip Computers agrees to sell its Commodore International company to Yeahronimo Media Ventures for about US$32.7 million.

2005
The Pew Internet and American Life Project releases a report based on six years of Pew surveys revealing that Americans use the internet differently, according to their gender. According to the report, men go online to check financial, news, political, sports, and weather information, and they are also more likely to engage in filesharing or take a class. Meanwhile, women are more likely to to browse religious information, to seek out support for health or personal problems, or to use e-mail.

Seoul National University announces that it has determined that Hwang Woo-suk fabricated all eleven of the stem cells lines he claimed to have cloned from individual patients in a pair of articles published in the journal Science. The announcement comes after the December 15th announcement by Roh Sung-il, who collaborated on the articles, that nine of those eleven lines had been faked – specifically, that DNA tests illustrated that those nine lines shared identical DNA. The university will further announce on January 10, 2006 that Hwang’s articles were fabricated, and on January 11, 2006, Science will retract both of Hwang’s papers unconditionally.

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