A little bit of online naughtiness

As well as dealing with modern-day privacy and cyber security matters, The Big Data Show tells the story of the first headline hacking attack in the UK. This is known variously as the Great Prestel Hack or the Prince Philip Hack: those of you who come to the show will get to meet HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, as well as his impersonator, H. R. Hacker. (Or at least one of them...)

But all stories have beginnings before they begin: it's been one long chain of cause and effect ever since the Big Bang. Here's one part that isn't in the show but that's close to my heart. 

Warning - this post almost contains a rude word. If your normal bedtime is before 9pm, best not read any more. 

The exciting world of Prestel - the dawn of online, as only BT could make it

 Part of the Great Prestel/Prince Philip hack story started when me and my mate Keith (who is in the show, and I'm delighted you're going to meet him) got access to an area of Prestel called Scratchpad (on page *651#) which gave limited editing access for those developing hardware and software. 

Keith was writing a Prestel editor for the ZX Spectrum/VTX5000, and that was good enough for BT. However, the pages we created on Scratchpad were viewable by everyone with Prestel access and we immediately realised that we had been given access to a national online publishing platform, with no grown-up oversight. 

ZX Spectrum with VTX5000 modem. Looks innocent enough, right? 

I created a site called Micromouse and Keith and I started to do little hardware and software reviews (Hard Cheese and Soft Cheese - we were into our puns and mouse references) - and, later, Keith decided to stop writing stuff for it and fellow hacker Steve Gold got on board.

This rather discomfortited BT, which didn't intend for Scratchpad to be used for actual content, but it decided to let us be - after all, it wasn't as if Prestel was writhing with fun stuff, Micromouse began to get a bit of a fan base and it turned into what would now be called a blog. Squeeky Da Mouse, the eponymouse critter who ostensibly wrote all of Micromouse, was well under way. 

"Make someone happy - give them a phone call" said BT. I did, but it didn't.

However, one day I came across a page on Prestel that had a big colourful animated viewdata rendition of BT's spirit animal, a large yellow cartoon bird called Buzby, who was voiced by Bernard Cribbins in TV adverts. You probably remember it... Gleefully, I downloaded the page, edited it and uploaded it to Micromouse - which gained a happy full-screen image of Buzby waving his wing happily while perched on a telephone wire, and labelled 'Join The Buck Fuzby Fan Club'.

Strangely, this proved too much for British Telecommunications plc, who somehow saw this as an affront to its corporate dignity. After a day or so - a mere nanosecond in telecom bueaurocracy - we got thrown off and Squeeky da Mouse was out of his house. No more Micromouse. Curtains. 

Behind this unassuming screen lurked anarchy and madness. Now that's more like it.

Or was it? Enter David Babsky, editor for Micronet 800, Prestel and EMAP's home computer news and reviews online publication. Babsky had been watching Micromouse and thoroughlt approved, and he loved making mischief, so he got in touch. Would we like to host Micromouse on his site? Moreover, in honour of our history and to really rub BTs nose in it, he'd put it on *800651#

Of course we would. And so we got our first official beachhead into the Prestel system, and learned many good things that would later be put to even better use...

No idea who made this badge, but I'm glad they did. 

And today, I found that someone, somehwere, made this badge - which I'd certainly wear with pride. I did subsequently meet a travel agent who told me that finding the Buck Fuzby page was 'the only time Prestel ever made me laiugh', WHich makes everything worthwhile.