New #blog! This is the story of two suburban Chicago kids who hacked a university computer & tried to hold it to ransom in 1980. Really early #hacker #history & a thread in the history of #ransomware, data extortion is almost as old as personal computing itself.
https://realhackhistory.org/2026/10/16/the-misadventures-of-system-cruncher-vladimir-history-of-ransomware/
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The next blog in the series will be as far back as I think I can take it, physical theft of data tapes for ransom in the 1970s.
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@CStamp@mastodon.social I can’t seem to find a concrete answer on the inspiration for Sneakers but apparently it was originally based on ideas that came to people who worked on WarGames. I think the inspiration was partly the Yippies and phone phreaks and partly the early years of the privacy computer security firms.
https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/sneakers-the-finest-crime-caper-movie-of-the-1990s/
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I couldn't find anything much written about case this online and it doesn't appear in any of the #hacking #history timelines I've looked at. It got a fair bit of coverage at the time but I think because it was pre-1983 it just fell off the radar.
This is part of a planned blog series on ransomware.