David S. Bennahum

Wired: Be Here Now

November 2001

Forget the World Wide Web on your cell phone. The key to the always-on, everywhere wireless Internet comes down to three things: location, location, location.

From the first paragraph:

One of the most interesting moments I've had as a venture capitalist took place this past spring, when I visited the offices of Vindigo, on Manhattan's West Side. Seated in the company's conference room, I stared at an image of New York City rendered on a laptop. It was unlike anything I'd seen before. The company's 32-year-old CEO, Jason Devitt, who'd started Vindigo barely a year earlier, explained that I was looking at a map of what New Yorkers like to do and, more interesting, where they like to do it.

Click here to read this story at Wired.com.

Wired: Dameon Seed

May, 1999

Old email never dies...

This story was about the way that people's email can live on long after they've moved on... The first paragraph:

It's almost impossible to hide your email from John Jessen. To him, the word delete is an invitation. Jessen can restore email from magnetic tapes that have been overwritten several times, resuscitating information off "deleted" files. He can read email and documents from obsolete computer systems. Jessen can capture phantoms; he understands the foibles of wordprocessing programs that leave undo lists and backups of old edits in hidden parts of files and disks.

"You see everything," he says, "from high and low comedy to human tragedy."

Click here to read the rest of the story at Wired.com.

Wired: Terminal Velocity

February, 1999

Can Mike Bloomberg, self-made man's man and master of the real-time financial news universe, learn to think out of the box?

From the first paragraph:

"My daughter is tall and busty and blonde," Michael Bloomberg is telling a table of Boston College graduates. "We went to China together. And what's a 16-year-old going to do on a business trip?" He pops another carefully buttered piece of bread in his mouth. "So I got her dates in every city in China." Remembering that I'm also at the table, he glares in my direction. "That's off the record!" he barks. It's typical Mike Bloomberg, wanting to have it both ways: imperious man of the people, coarse billionaire, earthy business leader, accessible control freak.

Click here to read the rest of the story at Wired.com.

Wired: The United Nations of Iridium

October 1998, Cover Story

It's a bird, it's a phone, it's the world's first pan-national corporation, able to leap geopolitical barriers in a single bound.

From the first paragraph:

When the rocket finally lifted off, nine motors pushing hard against the ground, carrying five satellites cushioned against the staccato shock of acceleration, there weren't many people left to watch from the hardscrabble hilltop, with its bleachers and Portosan and pay phone. The May launch was three weeks late, delayed once when the payload specialists detected a leak of the deadly green fluid hydrazine, and again when a US Air Force weather balloon calculated that the wind would blow the plugs in the motors down into the Lompoc Valley, lethal discs falling from the sky - maybe onto someone's roof - ruining an otherwise perfect day.

So only a few remained - engineers and Air Force personnel and a few lucky kids - to see the last launch in a series that would create the world's biggest satellite constellation.

Click here to read the rest of the story at Wired.com.

Wired: The Hot New Medium Is...Email

April, 1998

List publishing is not merely information delivered to your mailbox, it's the devolution of mass media into the hands of everyday people. And it's growing faster than the Web.

From the first paragraph:

Monday, March 4, 1996, begins normally enough. At my office in New York, writing an article. I'm reluctant to start working, so I do what most writers do when they don't want to work: I procrastinate, checking my mailbox for new messages. A few arrive. Nothing particularly interesting. Then one catches my attention. "MEME: georgia6@hr.house.gov joined the list." I sit up. Georgia6? That's Newt Gingrich's district. The Speaker of the House just joined Meme? Well, I think, that's extraordinary. The power of ideas. Gingrich is on my list!

Click here to read the rest of the story at Wired.com.

Spin: Mars or Bust!

February, 1998

From the editors...

"In relative obscurity, a team of young NASA scientists is planning the most ambitious space mission yet. But before they put Man on the Red Planet, they'll have to reinvent the astronaut first."

Read my story on the challenges NASA faces in sending people to Mars; in PDF format (3.7 MB).

Wired: Heart of Darkness

November, 1997

David S. Bennahum travels to ground zero of the global epidemic, the hot zone that spawned the infamous Bulgarian computer viruses.

From the first paragraph:

What do you think of Bulgaria?

"I hate it."

What do you think of Vesselin Bontchev, I asked.

"He is an idiot!"

And Sarah Gordon?

"She is a nice lady."

I held the telephone close to my ear. Through the broad windows of my hotel room I stared at Mount Vitosha, the tip of its rounded peak glistening with faint traces of June snow. The city of Sofia spread out below.

What about Dark Avenger, what do you think of him?

"I do not want to talk about him. That time is gone. It is finished! I will not talk about it."

Click here to read the rest of the story at Wired.com.

Wired: The Internet Revolution

April 1997

Serbian students and protesters call their revolt the Internet Revolution. For the first time, the Net is playing a crucial role in a popular uprising against an authoritarian regime.

From the first paragraph:

"There is nothing we can do here," Simonovic says, smiling. It is a smile I have come to loathe, although I'm smiling the same way. "You must fax this letter to the foreign ministry in Belgrade, and they will give us permission to issue you a visa." How long will that take? I ask. "Three, maybe five weeks. I do not know." Separated by a few feet of dingy carpeting in the basement of the Yugoslavian consulate in Berlin, we smile. Novica Milic, my Serbian advocate, then begins one final assault.

Click here to read the rest of the story at Wired.com.

New York Magazine: Mr. Big Idea

November 13, 1995

From the editors...

"No. 1 cyber guru Nicholas Negroponte--MIT Media Lab Director, best-selling author, Wired columnist--believes computers will eventually be implanted in our bodies, forever chaning what it means to be human. This sound like a good plan?"

Read my profile on Nichloas Negroponte in PDF format (2.8MB).

New York Times Op-Ed: Getting Cyber Smart

May 22, 1995

Once upon a time, the Congress thought it would be a good idea to make it illegal for people to send "obscene" matial using the Internet and to fine them $100,000 and give them two years in prison if caught and convicted. Thankfully the 1995 "Communications Decency Act" never became law, in part because of editorials like this one, which I wrote to oppose the idea.

Read this Op-Ed, in PDF format (460KB).