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| Virgil Griffith | |
 Virgil Griffith, 2007
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| Born | 1983 (age 24–25) Alabama, USA |
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| Education | Cognitive science (University of Alabama) |
| Occupation | Hacker |
| Website http://virgil.gr/ |
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Virgil Griffith (born 1983), also known as Romanpoet, is an American hacker, known for his involvement with a 2003 lawsuit with the Blackboard Inc. company and his creation of the WikiScanner. He has also published papers on artificial life.[1]
Contents |
Biography
Griffith was born in Alabama in 1983 and graduated from the Alabama School of Math and Science in 2002,[2] and then attended the University of Alabama, studying cognitive science in New College. He was a member of the Mallet Assembly. He transferred to Indiana University in 2004, but returned to graduate cum laude from Alabama in August 2007.[3] Griffith is now a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology.[4] He is affiliated with the Santa Fe Institute as a visiting researcher.[5]
Griffith has given talks at the hacker conferences Interz0ne, PhreakNIC, and HOPE. It was at Interz0ne 1 in 2002 that he met Billy Hoffman, a Georgia hacker who had discovered a security flaw in the campus magnetic ID card system called "BuzzCard". He and Hoffman proceeded over the next year to learn more about the flaw and attempted to give a talk at Interz0ne2 in April 2003. However, a few hours before the presentation, he and Hoffman were served with a cease and desist letter. Two days later, it was followed by a lawsuit from Blackboard Inc. alleging that they had stolen trade secrets as well as violated both the DMCA and the Espionage and Sedition Act.[6][7][8] The lawsuit was later settled.
On August 14, 2007, Griffith released a new software utility, "WikiScanner," that tracks Wikipedia article edits from unregistered accounts back to their originating IP addresses and identifies the corporations or organizations to which they belong.[9]
Writing
- Virgil Griffith, Markus Jakobsson, 2005. "Messin' with Texas: Deriving Mother's Maiden Names Using Public Records", ISBN 978-3-540-26223-7.
- Virgil Griffith, Larry Yaeger, 2005, MIT Press. "Ideal Free Distribution in Agents with Evolved Neural Architectures. A-Life 10 Conference".
- Griffith is listed as one of the contributors (as "Virgil G") in The Mammoth Book of Secret Codes and Cryptograms, 2006, ISBN 0-7867-1726-2.[10]
- Two articles in Phishing and Counter-Measures: Understanding the Increasing Problem of Electronic Identity Theft, ISBN 0-471-78245-9.
References
- ^ John Borland (August 14, 2007). "See Who's Editing Wikipedia - Diebold, the CIA, a Campaign", Wired (magazine). Retrieved on 14 August 2007.
- ^ "Alumnus Virgil Griffith Creates and Releases Wikipedia Scanner" (September 3, 2007).
- ^ See David Virgil Griffith in "Commencement" (PDF). The University of Alabama (2007). Retrieved on 29 August, 2007.
- ^ "Scanner Tracks Who's Changing What on Wikipedia", NPR (August 16, 2007).
- ^ "SFI Profile: Virgil Griffith". Santa Fe Institute (March 27, 2008).
- ^ "Blackboard Gets Gag Order Against Smart-Card Hackers", Washington Post (2003-04-17). Retrieved on 14 August 2007.
- ^ "Unintended Consequences: Seven Years under the DMCA", Electronic Frontier Foundation (April 2006). Retrieved on 14 August 2007.
- ^ Foster, Andrea L (2003-04-16). "At Blackboard's Request, Judge Prevents Students From Discussing Security of Debit-Card System", The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved on 16 August 2007.
- ^ Jonathan Fildes (August 15, 2007). "Wikipedia 'shows CIA page edits'". BBC News. Retrieved on 2007-08-15.
- ^ "Mammoth Book of Secret Code Puzzles: Acknowledgements". Retrieved on 2007-08-14.
External links
- Virgil Griffith's homepage
- Binary Revolution webcast , May 17, 2005
- Salon, April 15, 2003
- Santa Fe Institute talk
- Slashdot interview, April 14, 2003
- Polyworld: Using Evolution to Design Artificial Intelligence, November 8, 2007
