In 1992, while a sophomore of Cornell University and a part-time employee of a Cornell computer center, Pilgrim and another student, David Blumenthal, embedded a computer virus, "MBDF", into three games that were transferred to an archive at Stanford University, causing disruption to computers internationally. The origin of the virus was traced, and Pilgrim and Blumenthal were arrested on the misdemeanor charge of "second-degree computer tampering". The two students were found guilty, ordered to pay restitution to those affected and perform ten hours of community service every week for a year.
Books and articles
''Dive into Python''
Pilgrim's book Dive into Python is a teach-by-example guide to the paradigms of programming in Python and modern software development techniques. It assumes some preexisting knowledge of programming, although not necessarily in Python. The first edition was published in 2004, and a 2009 second edition covers Python 3. Both are available online as well as in print. Much of the book consists of example programs with annotations and explanatory text, and it generally describes how to modify an example to serve new purposes. One early example program reads through a directory of MP3 files and lists the header information, such as artist, album, etc. Other topics covered include object oriented programming, documentation, unit testing, and accessing and parsing HTML and XML.
Other works
, a free book on web accessibility, for web designers
From 4 October 2011, Mark Pilgrim's various websites returned HTTP status410 Gone. He also deleted his Twitter, Reddit, Google+ and GitHub accounts. On 5 October 2011Jason Scott tweeted that Pilgrim himself was "alive/annoyed we called the police". Commenting on the event, a writer for The Economist wrote that the concern showed for Pilgrim's well-being demonstrated that "the internet, often mocked as impersonal and uncaring, can be quite the reverse." Both Pilgrim's actions in October 2011 and why the lucky stiff's similar disappearance in August 2009 have been described as "infosuicide". The incident was reminiscent of Pilgrim's 2004 hiatus from blogging, which lasted approximately 18 months. In 2004, rather than deleting his content, he posted a short entry entitled "Every Exit" in which he said, "It’s time for me to find a new hobby. Preferably one that doesn’t involve angle brackets. Or computers. Or electricity."
