Virgil Griffith
Virgil Griffith, born in Alabama in 1983, is a hacker and author of several pages on artificial intelligence. He is also the developer of the WikiScanner software, which tracks Wikipedia edits that are done by unregistered users to their originating IP address. It is able to identify the source of the changes.
Fast Facts
- Born: 1983
- Birthplace: Alabama
- Alias: Romanpoet
- Education: Cognitive science at the University of Alabama
- Graduated from California Institute of Technology
- Occupation: hacker
- An IP address can be used to track the general location of an online user
- Griffith is on a quest to become #1 result on Google for a "Virgil" search
Lawsuit
In 2003, Griffith was served with a cease and desist letter from Blackboard, Inc. He and a friend had discovered security vulnerabilities within the company's software and had planned to give a talk at Interz0ne 2 regarding them, but they were thwarted when they were served with the papers. Just two days later a lawsuit was filed against the pair. Allegedly, they stole trade secrets and were in violation of the DMCA and the Espionage and Sedition Act. They eventually settled the lawsuit.
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