David S. Bennahum

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).

New York Times Op-Ed: Mr. Gingrich's Cyber-Revolution

January 17, 1995

This was my first Op-Ed in the New York Times, and possibly the first Op-Ed ever that focused on the Internet and this new phenomenon called "cyberspace."

Read this story in PDF format (485KB).

Lingua Franca: Genius Ex Machina

From the September-October 1994 issue of Lingua Franca:

I recently had a conversation with Julia. She spend all her time on the Internet. Her boss, Michael Mauldin, a scientist at the Center for Machine Translation at Carnegie Mellon University, makes her available for chats with anyone...

Continue reading by downloading the PDF of this story (2.4MB):

Download 19941000lf.PDF

Lingua Franca: Fly me to the Moo

From the May-June 1994 issue of Lingua Franca:

I've been invited to join a freshman composition class at Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan. I live in New York; we're going to be meeting halfway, in Mushville. I was told to take the Internet and get off at palmer.sacc.colostate.edu 6250. My beat-up Mac gets me there in a couple of seconds. This is what I see...

Read the rest by downloading the PDF; approximately 6.7MB:

Download 19940600lf.PDF