Virgil Griffith

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Virgil Griffith, 2005

Virgil Griffith (b, 1983), also known as Romanpoet, is an American hacker, best known for his involvement with a 2003 lawsuit with the Blackboard Inc. company. He has also published papers on artificial life.

[edit] Biography

Griffith was born in Alabama in 1983, the older of two children. Both of his parents are medical doctors. He attended the Alabama School of Math and Science, graduated in 2002, and then attended the University of Alabama, studying cognitive science. He transferred to Indiana University in 2004.

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, which was followed up two days later by a lawsuit from Blackboard Inc., alleging that Griffith and Hoffman had violated the DMCA, had stolen trade secrets, and had also violated the Espionage and Sedition Act. The lawsuit was later settled.

Griffith is presently studying cognitive science at Indiana University.

[edit] Writing

Virgil Griffith, Markus Jakobsson, 2005. "Messin' with Texas: Deriving Mother's Maiden Names Using Public Records", [1]
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" [2]) in The Mammoth Book of Secret Codes and Cryptograms, 2006, ISBN 0-7867-1726-2
Two articles in Phishing and Counter-Measures: Understanding the Increasing Problem of Electronic Identity Theft, ISBN 0-471-78245-9