Nobody wants to be PWNED. But what does this mean and why should you pay attention to it if you hear it concerns you.
There are incredible terms in computer science. In fact, some of them in their Greek version are beyond imagination. But there are some English terminology that can not be translated into Greek, because it is simply slang. One such is the word PWNED. Although it first appeared in Warcraft, the term has a very specific meaning on the internet now. And, it is not for good.
What is PWNED?
According to the Urban Dictionary, PWNED is a "corruption" of the English word "OWNED" (meaning owned) and existed in the first online game Warcraft. It was the result of a game map designer misspelling the word "owned". When the computerwhen a player was winning he was supposed to say “so-and-so, has been owned”. Instead it said "so-and-so, has been pwned".
Besides, the letters o and p are next to the keyboard. Do not be surprised by the language of the Warcraft game. Almost all video games have their own terminology and slang, which if you listen to it you will think that they speak passwords so that you do not understand what they are saying.
So the origin of the word "PWNED" is from the culture of video games, which soon made this mistake widely known (viral in English). In gamer slang it is a misspelling of "owned" which meant that a person is completely dominated by an opponent.
In recent years, PWNED means that some of your personal data online has been compromised. This secondary definition comes from the hackers and programming community, who used the misspelled word to describe the acquisition unauthorized control someone else's computer or if you want, its complete conquest.
In recent years, you may have heard of the site Have I Been Pwned or “HIBP”. It serves as an amazing resource for internet users to check if there are data breaches in privacy. Additionally, visitors can sign up with their email to receive alerts whenever a new breach occurs.
Created in 2013 by the researcher better safetyof the Internet Troy Hunt, and reviews data breaches, at no cost or registration. Visitors to the site can check if their email or phone number is part of a current or historical breach. If they have indeed been breached you will see a list of the type of data breached.
In addition to email and phone numbers, this may include dates of birth, gender, geographical locations, IP addresses, names, passwords, social media profiles, user site URLs, usernames, and more. HIBP also lists the date of the breach, when it was added to its website, and the number of accounts breached for each data breach.
