Searching for Ron Britvich(continued)
Roderick C. Moyes
After graduating early from high school he began his full-time studies at UCI. Eventually his desire for more programming time got the better of him and lead to the "discovery" of a way to get free mainframe time. After a successful semester at the school, the university's System Administrator confronted him while he was logged on to the network. When Britvich was asked whose account he was using, he replied, "I don't have to tell you." Little did he know, the account belonged to the head of the physics department. When the administrator reached for the phone to call campus security, Britvich made a break for the door. He ran from the campus and never looked back.
He soon enrolled at Orange Coast College and found some friends there who shared his passion and curiosity for programming. Eventually, that curiosity led them to gain unauthorized access to the school's mainframe. This naturally led to the exploration of the college records for all of Orange County and parts of Los Angeles. Not much time passed before Britvich once again found himself under the scrutiny of school officials. It was here that things took a dramatic and unexpected turn. Instead of punishing them, an enlightened educator offered Britvich and his hacker friends a job. They became programmers, earning five times the minimum wage, with privileged accounts and unlimited mainframe access.
Years later, in 1993, he found himself working for a software company in Carlsbad, California. It was there that he witnessed the introduction of "Mosaic", the first web browser. He was so fascinated by this new development, that he abruptly dropped his assignments and began work on "Web World", a 3D Visualization of the World Wide Web. The talented programmer used his company's equipment and bandwidth to bring Web World to over 350,000 users in just a few months. It was arguably one of the biggest Web successes of the year, and it all transpired without the knowledge or consent of his employer. When word finally reached company officials of Web Worlds existence, they were unamused and unimpressed by it. Joined by fellow programmers at work, he made an appeal to the company's management to pursue potential business development for the Web. After all, his most recent company endorsed product had brought in five million dollars in its first year. After two weeks and no word from management, a familiar series of events took place. He and his fellow visionary programmers were told to clear out their offices immediately. Security escorted him out of the building. That same day, the company pulled the plug on Web World forever.
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