w00w00 (pronounced whoo-whoo) was a computer security think tank founded in 1996 and still active until the early 2000s. [1] [2] [ unreliable source? ] Although this group was not well known outside Information security circles, its participants have spawned more than a dozen IT companies, including WhatsApp and Napster. [3] [4]
The group at one point included over 30 active participants and spanned 12 countries on five continents. [1] [3] [5]
The following is a list of some of w00w00's participants:
A number of well known companies have been established by its participants. [1] [3] [12] [4]
Napster was a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing application primarily associated with digital audio file distribution. Founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, the platform originally launched on June 1, 1999. Audio shared on the service was typically encoded in the MP3 format. As the software became popular, the company encountered legal difficulties over copyright infringement. Napster ceased operations in 2001 after losing multiple lawsuits and filed for bankruptcy in June 2002.
In computing, SQL injection is a code injection technique used to attack data-driven applications, in which malicious SQL statements are inserted into an entry field for execution. SQL injection must exploit a security vulnerability in an application's software, for example, when user input is either incorrectly filtered for string literal escape characters embedded in SQL statements or user input is not strongly typed and unexpectedly executed. SQL injection is mostly known as an attack vector for websites but can be used to attack any type of SQL database.
WordPress is a web content management system. It was originally created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites, mailing lists and Internet forum, media galleries, membership sites, learning management systems and online stores. Available as free and open-source software, WordPress is among the most popular content management systems – it was used by 43.1% of the top 10 million websites as of December 2023.
Sean Parker is an American entrepreneur and philanthropist, most notable for co-founding the file-sharing computer service Napster, and serving as the first president of the social networking website Facebook. He also co-founded Plaxo, Causes, Airtime.com, and Brigade, an online platform for civic engagement. He is the founder and chairman of the Parker Foundation, which focuses on life sciences, global public health, and civic engagement. On the Forbes 2022 list of the world's billionaires, he was ranked No. 1,096 with a net worth of US$2.8 billion.
HackThisSite.org, commonly referred to as HTS, is an online hacking and security website founded by Jeremy Hammond. The site is maintained by members of the community after he left the organization. It aims to provide users with a way to learn and practice basic and advanced "hacking" skills through a series of challenges in a safe and legal environment. The organization has a user base of over a million, though the number of active members is believed to be much lower. The most users online at the same time was 19,950 on February 5, 2018 at 2:46 a.m. CT.
Solidity is an object-oriented programming language for implementing smart contracts on various blockchain platforms, most notably, Ethereum. Solidity is licensed under GNU General Public License v3.0. Solidity was designed by Gavin Wood and developed by Christian Reitwiessner, Alex Beregszaszi, and several former Ethereum core contributors. Programs in Solidity run on Ethereum Virtual Machine or on compatible virtual machines.
Microsoft Azure, often referred to as Azure, is a cloud computing platform run by Microsoft. It offers access, management, and the development of applications and services through global data centers. It also provides a range of capabilities, including software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), and infrastructure as a service (IaaS). Microsoft Azure supports many programming languages, tools, and frameworks, including Microsoft-specific and third-party software and systems.
Jordan Ritter is an American serial entrepreneur, software architect and angel investor. He is best known for his work at Napster, the file-sharing service he co-founded along with Shawn Fanning and others. His time at Napster was documented in Joseph Menn's book All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's Napster and Alex Winter's film Downloaded.
WhatsApp is an instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by technology conglomerate Meta. It allows users to send text, voice messages and video messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other content. WhatsApp's client application runs on mobile devices, and can be accessed from computers. The service requires a cellular mobile telephone number to sign up. In January 2018, WhatsApp released a standalone business app called WhatsApp Business which can communicate with the standard WhatsApp client.
Yahoo! Voices, formerly Associated Content, was hacked in July 2012. The hack is supposed to have leaked approximately half a million email addresses and passwords associated with Yahoo! Contributor Network. The suspected hacker group, D33ds, used a method of SQL Injection to penetrate Yahoo! Voice servers. Security experts said that the passwords were not encrypted and the website did not use a HTTPS Protocol, which was one of the major reasons of the data breach. The email addresses and passwords are still available to download in a plaintext file on the hacker's website. The hacker group described the hack as a "wake-up call" for Yahoo! security experts. Joseph Bonneau, a security researcher and a former product analysis manager at Yahoo, said "Yahoo can fairly be criticized in this case for not integrating the Associated Content accounts more quickly into the general Yahoo login system, for which I can tell you that password protection is much stronger."
NullCrew was a hacktivist group founded in 2012 that took responsibility for multiple high-profile computer attacks against corporations, educational institutions, and government agencies.
Kali Linux is a Linux distribution designed for digital forensics and penetration testing. It is maintained and funded by Offensive Security. Kali Linux is based on the Debian Testing branch: most packages Kali uses are imported from the Debian repositories.
Vitaly Dmitrievich Buterin, better known as Vitalik Buterin, is a Russian-Canadian computer programmer, and co-founder of Ethereum. Buterin became involved with cryptocurrency early in its inception, co-founding Bitcoin Magazine in 2011. In 2014, Buterin deployed the Ethereum blockchain with Gavin Wood, Charles Hoskinson, Anthony Di Iorio, and Joseph Lubin.
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Jan Koum is a Ukrainian-American billionaire businessman and computer programmer. He is the co-founder and former CEO of WhatsApp, a mobile messaging app which was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for US$19.3 billion. According to Forbes, he has an estimated net worth of US$15.2 billion as of October 2023, making him one of the richest people in the world. Koum was ranked 44th on the Forbes' list of richest Americans in 2023 with a net worth of $15.1 billion.
Brian Acton is an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur. Acton is the executive chairman of the Signal Technology Foundation, which he co-founded with Moxie Marlinspike in 2018. As of January 10, 2022, Acton also serves as interim CEO of Signal Messenger LLC.
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This article provides a detailed chronological account of the historical reception and criticism of security and privacy features in the WhatsApp messaging service.
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