1998
Servers at the University of Seville servers are hacked by “Zyklon”.
The website of the Colorado Legal Eagles is hacked by “The #pascal trio”. View an archive of the defaced website.
The website of Hartnet is hacked by “OptikLenz”. View an archive of the defaced website.
The website of Umeå Universitet is hacked by “ToxicEdge”. View an archive of the defaced website.
1999
The animated series Dilbert premieres on the UPN network with the episode “The Name.” The series is based on the Scott Adams comic strip Dilbert. It will run for thirty episodes over two seasons. TV.com entry
Intel announces the 300MHz mobile Celeron processors for notebook computers, featuring a integrated Level-2 cache.
Intel announces the new mobile Pentium II processors, featuring speeds of 300, 333, and 366MHz with integrated 256KB Level-2 cache. Code-name: Dixon
Linus Torvalds releases version 2.2 of the Linux operating system kernel. It includes several new features, including better support for multiple processors and a streamlined firewall setup. The number of people running Linux is estimated at over ten million users.
Sun Microsystems introduces the Jini network architecture, with the promise that it will give users “the simple connection of any device to any network, any time, anywhere.” Visit the official Jini website.
2000
US District Judge Ronald Whyte reinstates some restrictions on how Microsoft can use Sun Microsystems Java technology in its software. Microsoft may no longer distribute products that are not compatible with Sun’s Java license, but the company won’t be required to recall any of its non-complying products.
2001
Microsoft announces that some of its websites have been sabotaged by hackers using denial-of-service (DoS) attacks which overloaded routers with several thousand of messages received in a very brief span of time.
2002
Bandai Entertainment Inc. releases the anime film Escaflowne, directed by Kazuki Akane and starring Maaya Sakamoto and Tomokazu Sekim, premieres in 5 US theaters. The plot of the film is similar to the television series of the same name. It will gross US$16,692 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG-13) Running Time: 1 hr 38 mins
Wikipedia switches over to the MediaWiki software, entering “Phase II.” Founder Jimbo Wales declares “I hereby decree, in my usual authoritarian and bossy manner, that today shall forever be known as Magnus Manske Day. Wikipedians of the distant future will marvel at the day when the new software era dawned upon us. Tonight at dinner, every Wikipedian should say a toast to Magnus and his many inventions.”
2003
The SQL slammer worm, also known as the Sapphire worm, rapidly spreads across the Internet, becoming one of the fastest spreading viruses in history by exploiting a exploited a buffer overflow vulnerability in the Microsoft Desktop Engine and Microsoft SQL Server 2000. Just ten minutes after the worm’s release at 5:30UTC, it reaches a projected ninety percent of the Internet and infects over seventy-five thousand machines. Within just thirty minutes, twenty percent of data packets on the Internet are infected. It will grow into one of the most noted worms in history when ATM service is disabled worldwide.
2004
The NASA Mars Exploration Rover – B (MER-B), also known as Opportunity, lands on surface of Mars. Visit NASA’s official website for the MER-B rover.
2005
Take Two Interactive announces the acquisition of Visual Concepts Entertainment, the developer of the ESPN 2K5 series of sports games for US$24 million. Take Two also launches the publishing label 2K Games. Visit the official Take Two Interactive website.
2006
The discovery of the world’s smallest vertebrate, the Paedocypris progenetica, is announced in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B. A tiny member of the Carp family, the transparent fish was discovered in the highly acidic peat swamps of Sumatra. The females of the species are only 7.9mm (.3 inches) in length.
Konami Digital Entertainment announces that West Virginia public schools have entered into an agreement under which Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution arcade game will be used in all of its 765 public schools in a campaign against childhood obesity.
2007
Dan Bricklin releases wikiCalc, a web application for creating and editing spreadsheets collaboratively through a wiki-style interface, under a GNU General Public License. The application’s release is greeted with considerable publicity as it was Bricklin who created VisiCalc, the first commercial spreadsheet program for personal computers. Visit the official wikiCalc website.
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