Phreaks and geeks
Police arrested a 19-year-old man suspected of hacking into the government computers containing data from the entire 2011 census.
— Hacking evolved in the 1960s from phone ‘phreaking’, manipulating telecom systems to gain free calls. In 1972, one John T. Draper succeeded in accessing US telecoms systems by transmitting a 2600 hertz tone down the wires, obtained from a whistle given away with breakfast cereal. He was caught and put on probation.
— The first hacker convicted (for theft), was Ian Murphy, who in 1981 changed clocks in US phone company computers to make daytime calls on a late-night tariff.
Pirate gold
Three Britons were sentenced to 15 years in Somalia for the illegal import of £2.2 million with which they were trying to secure the release of a kidnapped ship.
Number of piracy incidents in 2010: 219
Approx number of pirates in action: 1,500
Ransoms taken in 2010: $75m-$238m
Pirate’s annual income: $33,000-$79,000
Most a pirate could expect to earn legally in Somalia: $500
Annual cost to the world of Somalian piracy: $4.
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