[COFF] [TUHS] Happy birthday Morris worm

[COFF] [TUHS] Happy birthday Morris worm

[@ 2019-11-04 22:10 UTC (permalink / raw)]

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On 4 Nov 2019 15:27 -0500, from crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross):
> On Mon, Nov 4, 2019 at 1:58 PM Bakul Shah <bakul at bitblocks.com> wrote:
>> I am surprised no one mentioned *The Shockwave Rider *by John Brunner,
>> published in 1975. Excerpt:
> 
> In the 1983 movie "Wargames", at the very end as the staff at NORAD
> desperately try and disable the rogue artificial intelligence hell-bent on
> starting World War III, at one point they make a suggestion to send a
> "tapeworm" into the system", but it's judged too risky.

In the 1984 movie _2010_, it seems using a tapeworm was more of a
standard, if unusual, procedure for solving a very different problem.

Copying from <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/2010:_The_Year_We_Make_Contact#Dialogue>

> Dr. Chandra: I've erased all of HAL's memory from the moment the
> trouble started.
> 
> Dr. Vasili Orlov: The 9000 series uses holographic memories, so
> chronological erasures would not work.
> 
> Dr. Chandra: I made a tapeworm.
> 
> Dr. Walter Curnow: You made a what?
> 
> Dr. Chandra: It's a program that's fed into a system that will hunt
> down and destroy any desired memories.
> 
> Dr. Floyd: Wait... do you know why HAL did what he did?
> 
> Dr. Chandra: Yes. It wasn't his fault.

I also suggest to migrate this part of the discussion to COFF as it
has very little to do with UNIX history per se.

-- 
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
  “The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person
              is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)