1982 — Soviet gas pipeline. Operatives working for the Central Intelligence Agency allegedly (.pdf) plant a bug in a Canadian computer system purchased to control the trans-Siberian gas pipeline. The Soviets had obtained the system as part of a wide-ranging effort to covertly purchase or steal sensitive U.S. technology. The CIA reportedly found out about the program and decided to make it backfire with equipment that would pass Soviet inspection and then fail once in operation. The resulting event is reportedly the largest non-nuclear explosion in the planet’s history.

1985-1987 — Therac-25 medical accelerator. A radiation therapy device malfunctions and delivers lethal radiation doses at several medical facilities. Based upon a previous design, the Therac-25 was an “improved” therapy system that could deliver two different kinds of radiation: either a low-power electron beam (beta particles) or X-rays. The Therac-25’s X-rays were generated by smashing high-power electrons into a metal target positioned between the electron gun and the patient. A second “improvement” was the replacement of the older Therac-20’s electromechanical safety interlocks with software control, a decision made because software was perceived to be more reliable.

What engineers didn’t know was that both the 20 and the 25 were built upon an operating system that had been kludged together by a programmer with no formal training. Because of a subtle bug called a “race condition,” a quick-fingered typist could accidentally configure the Therac-25 so the electron beam would fire in high-power mode but with the metal X-ray target out of position. At least five patients die; others are seriously injured.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a consumer privacy and digital rights organization, alleged Tuesday that there are codes embedded in printouts made by some color laser printers that can be used to track the origin of a printed document.

The codes are ostensibly a part of anti-counterfeiting measures developed by government agencies to curb the creation of fake currency but could have serious implications for consumer privacy, according to privacy advocates.

A research team led by the EFF said that it has broken the code behind tiny tracking dots that some color laser printers secretly hide in every document.

“We’ve found that the dots from at least one line of printers encode the date and time your document was printed, as well as the serial number of the printer,” said Seth David Schoen, staff technologist at EFF.

• Built-in optical sensor reads and remembers whatever you write on special FLY Paper
• Internal computer figures math problems, remembers dates, records notes and much more
• Create music by drawing an instrument and using FLY to “play” it
• Growing library of FLYware games and educational software provides endless interactive fun

Many encyclopedias and other reference works state that the first large-scale automatic digital computer was the Harvard Mark 1, which was developed by Howard H. Aiken (and team) in America between 1939 and 1944. However, in the aftermath of World War II it was discovered that a program controlled computer called the Z3 had been completed in Germany in 1941, which means that the Z3 pre-dated the Harvard Mark I.

The Z3’s architect was a German engineer called Konrad Zuse, who developed his first machine, the Z1, in his parents’ living room in Berlin in 1938. Although based on relays, the Z3 was very sophisticated for its time; for example, it utilized the binary number system and could perform floating-point arithmetic.