1997
A large fire occurs aboard the Russian Space station, Mir. The fire spreads from the lithium perchlorate candles used to supply Oxygen to the station. According to a later account by American astronaut Jerry Linenger, the fire nearly forced the crew to abandon the station.
1998
The Jugi Tandon Storage (JTS) Corporation sells its Atari Division to HIACXI Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hasbro Interactive, Inc., which is a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc., for US$5 million in cash.
Tens of thousands of computers linked across the Internet, under the co-ordination of Distributed.net, decrypt a message encoded in the government’s 56-bit DES encryption algorithm as part of the DES-II-1 challenge posed by RSA Data Security, in what some have called the largest distributed-computing effort ever. The participants collectively attempted 6.3 x 10^16 (63 quadrillion) keys, or about eighty-eight percent of the entire keyspace, by the fortieth day. The correct key, 76 9E 8C D9 F2 2F 5D EA, is discovered and submitted to RSA Labs at 02:26 GMT. The final decrypted message read, “The secret message is: Many hands make light work.” The winning key is discovered by an Alpha-based computer running DEC Unix. Of the US$5000 prize from RSA Labs, the winner, who wishes to remain anonymous, will receive US$1000, the Free Software Foundation will receive US$3000, and distributed.net will receive US$1000. Read more about the DES-II-1 challenge in the Distributed.net press release.
The website of All Wrestling is hacked. View an archived version of the defaced website.
The website of Sistematix is hacked. View an archived version of the defaced website.
The website Systematic.com is hacked by “Claire Danes”.
2000
CNET News reports that Fry’s Electronics has threatened to file a lawsuit against Garret Maki for establishing a site with the domain name frysad.com and posting scanned copies of Fry’s newspaper advertisements on the site. David L. Frey, of the law offices of Foley McIntosh Frey & Claytor wrote to Maki on behalf of Fry’s Electronics demanding that he turn the domain over to Fry’s without compensation by Friday, March 2, 2001. When asked for confirmation about the letter, Frey told CNET News, “It’s got my name on it, doesn’t it?”
Ikenna Iffih, a computer science student at Northeastern University, is arrested and charged on three counts of hacking, after an extensive investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the US Attorney’s Office and university officials. Specifically, Iffih is charged with violating the following laws: Title 18, United States Code (USC), Section 2511(1)(a), the illegal interception and possession of electronic communications transmitted to and through a United States Government computer, Title 18, USC, Section 1030(a)(5)(B), the illegal and intentional access and damage of a computer used in interstate and foreign commerce, and Title 18, USC, Section 1362, the willful and malicious interference of a working communications system operated and controlled by the United States Government. These three counts combined carry a maximum penalty of twenty years incarceration and a potential fine of up to a quarter of a million dollars. Under a plea agreement, Iffih will be sentenced to six months’ house arrest, two years’ probation, and a five thousand dollar fine on October 25. Among Iffih’s extensive list of victims are the Defense Logistics Agency, which supplies and services the military, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and Zebra Marketing Online Services (ZMOS), a Washington-state based company that provides Web service to other firms.
2004
The The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King becomes the second film in cinema history to gross over a billion dollars in box office receipts globally, following the 1997 blockbuster Titanic.
2005
F-Secure, a Finnish anti-virus and computer security software company, publicly announces the detection of Cabir, the first mobile phone virus, in a Santa Monica, California. Specifically, Cabir is a worm which infects phones running the Symbian OS. Whenever an infected phone is activated, the message “Caribe” is displayed. Infected phones also attempts to spread the virus through Bluetooth signals.
2006
The iTunes Store announces the sale of its one billionth song to Alex Ostrovsky, age 16, of West Bloomfield, Michigan. The song is “Speed of Sound” from the Coldplay album X&Y. To commemorate the milestone, Apple Computer awards Ostrovsky an iMac, ten fifth-generation 60GB iPods, a ten thousand dollar gift card good for any item at the iTunes Music Store, and a scholarship to the world-renowned Juilliard School of Music. Read the press release at Apple website.
2007
Warner Bros. releases the science fiction film The Astronaut Farmer by Michael Polish and starring Billy Bob Thornton, Virginia Madsen, Bruce Dern, and Max Thieriot, to US theaters. In it, Charles Farmer, a former astronaut forced to give up his dream job at NASA when his father commits suicide, builds his own space craft in an effort to launch himself into space while struggling with debt and his own family’s doubts. The film’s release date is just three days after the forty-fifth anniversary of John Glenn’s historical first orbit of the Earth. Produced on a budget of US$13 million, it will gross US$4,454,319 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG Running Time: 1 hr 44 mins Visit the film’s official website.
2009
The British Journal of Dermatology publishes an article by scientists from the Department of Dermatology, University Hossspitals and Medical School of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland. The article outlines the case of a twelve year-old girl who was admitted to a Swiss hospital with intensely painful sores on the palms of her hands. They dubb the new skin condition “PlayStation palmar hidradenitis.” The recovered after abstaining from playing video game for ten days. Read more at the BBC.
India approves a £1.7-billion plan proposed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to launch its own astronauts into outer space for the first time by 2015.
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