Focusing more on the "social side" rather the HW part, there is the part about the "Viral email", which must have been something that went viral in the UK Internet circles but not outside (I don't remember it and Y2K Internet was much smaller). Investigating about it you can end up reading The Register "article" about it [1] and well, that's something that definitely would not be published nowadays. Names and surnames of all the people involved in it, the literal sentence of the viral email copypasted there. It really shows how a different time it was regarding privacy and personal data.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20010413114456/http://www.thereg...
EDIT: I mean, things like this obviously keep happening nowadays in closed (and not so closed) social media circles, but you won't see an online publication putting down names in written form like that.
I remember the fuss about that email. Yes thats a good point, our concept of privacy has evolved a lot since then. Privacy as a technical and political theme changed a lot post-2000. To my mind, Wikileaks in 2006 and Snowden in 2013 were big turning points, with Snowden essentially confirming that mass snooping was a reality (as many people had supposed, but then it became inarguable). Also on the social side, there's a much better understanding now of how damaging it can be for someone to suddenly go viral (e.g. star wars kid, etc).
> which must have been something that went viral in the UK Internet circles but not outside (I don't remember it and Y2K Internet was much smaller).
From a quick google it seems to have been reported in most of the tabloids and broadsheets.
https://www.upi.com/Archives/2000/12/16/Woman-in-hiding-afte...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1081543.stm
I'm not in an anglophone country, but I also have bad memory and n=1 so obviously I cannot speak for everyone else.
It's wonderful how they kept the name of the company where she worked, Magic Button, and Blueberry, out of the press. And the veil of mystery concocted by the crack marketing team has since seen the event cross the line into possible hoax. Time marches on never-ending!