Story Behind Babushka99

Many of you, who know of me (online) also know that I mostly use “babushka99” as my online handle/nick. You’ve probably thought, what the heck does that mean? why does he call himself that?

Here is the answer as to why I call myself “babushka99″

When I was in college, in 1990s (early). I was infatuated with CIA/KGB books. So much so, that I enrolled in a Russian Language class (yes, I can speak the language……somewhat rusty!). At the same time a movie came out called “SNEAKERS”  — one of the characters a lead hacker in the movie is called “Mother”.

Babushka if you don’t know – means Grand Mother in Russian. It is also referred to as a beret (cap) in Polish, and Kate Bush has a song called Babooshka.

Anyhow, since we were very much plugging into the internet, BITnet, FIDOnet, COMPUServ for the very first time, I choose my nick as Babushka.

The “99″ got added to it – to be almost 100% sure that when ever I apply for a User ID, the Username “babushka99″ would always be available.

So the name is a combination of the CIA/KGB fascination, Russian Language, and the Grand Master association to Hacking from the Movie SNEAKERS.

Now you can sleep easy.