
Morris Worm Turning 20 - nickb
http://www.networkworld.com/cgi-bin/mailto/x.cgi?pagetosend=/export/home/httpd/htdocs/news/2008/103008-morris-worm.html&pagename=/news/2008/103008-morris-worm.html&pageurl=http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/103008-morris-worm.html&site=printpage
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bootload
_"... The Morris worm was written by Cornell University student Robert Tappan
Morris, who was later convicted of computer fraud for the incident. Today,
Morris is a respected associate professor of computer science at MIT. Launched
around 6 p.m. on Nov. 2, 1988, the Morris worm disabled approximately 10% of
all Internet-connected systems, which were estimated at more than 60,000
machines ..."_

That's a hard to beat hack.

 _"... Nonetheless, the attack was covered widely by mainstream publications
such as The New York Times ..."_

I remember not far back an old NYT article someone here posted referring to
the incident, _"Student Testifies His Error Jammed Computer Network"_ :
[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE4D91639F...](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE4D91639F93AA25752C0A966958260&sec=&spon=&&scp=1&sq=computer%20worm%20Morris%20Graham&st=cse)
I did a quick search again and found a few others

\- Computer Stunt Helped Security, Witness Says:
[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEEDF1131F...](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CEEDF1131F936A25752C0A966958260&scp=2&sq=computer%20worm%20Robert%20Tappan%20Morris&st=cse)

\- From Hacker to Symbol:
[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE0D8173BF...](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE0D8173BF937A15752C0A966958260)

Reading through these articles with the quaint descriptions of legal authority
you sense the outrage and hysteria of a single user disrupting 6000 computers
seemingly at will.

    
    
        Significantly, the Morris case may represent a 
        turning point in how society views its computer
        wizards. Until the early 1980's, those who broke 
        into computer systems were widely admired, at 
        least if movies and novels are any indication, 
        for their combination of daring and technical 
        skill. Markoff, NYT, From Hacker to Symbol,
        January 24, 1990.
    

Reading the John Markoff article, _'From Hacker to Symbol'_ , writing at the
time of sentencing, I found one legacy that I didn't previously know of - the
point in time where term _"hacker"_ became demonised in the press. Another
detail was a reference to a book, _"Shockwave Rider"_ by John Brunner. Has
anyone read this book and care to give an abstract?

