The Virgin Connect service was innovative — for $50, a user would get the Webplayer and unlimited dial-up Internet access (provided through Prodigy) for three years.

A user discovered the scheme and created a utility to guess the rotating password frequently enough to allow an owner to reprogram the device to call into any ISP.

Since the Webplayer is architecturally similar to a typical x86 PC and included an IDE header, initial attention was focused on accessing the password-protected system BIOS.

Users could simply purchase a 44-pin IDE cable and hard disk drive and run any PC-compatible operating system.

Some users modified the Webplayer case to accept a built-in CD-ROM drive, Ethernet ports, and Wi-Fi antennas.