[TUHS] Re: rtm

[TUHS] Re: rtm

[Dennis Ritchie]

Garcia is correct to praise the Hafner/Markoff account
of the worm incident.  There were some details about
the kids' accounts and exploits that Markoff decided
to elide; by the time he wrote that chapter he had
become rather sympathetic with the Morris family.

In 1995 another big incident occurred: the exploitation
of the SYN TCP-connection takeover attack (Mitnick
etc.)  Markoff got another front-page NYT story out
of this (and a book with Shimomura).  I sent mail
to Markoff at the time of the newspaper coverage reminding
him that RTM had discovered the basic attack
in 1985 (see CSTR 117 at
 http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cstr.html );
while here during a summer.  Markoff replied in part,

>Interesting how often RTM figures, one way or another, in your front-page
>stories, and of course the [Cyberpunk] book....
>
>        Dennis Ritchie

  yes, this is true. you know i sat there on sunday for about ten minutes and
   thought about whether i should include rtm in my story - it would obviously
  have spiced it up. i finally decided not to on the grounds that 1. i have
  done enough to mythologize him for one decade 2. he is probably entitled
  not to be dragged through all this again. i still wonder whether i did the
  readers a disservice...

Incidentally, "RTM Sr." was (while here) "rhm" by login name,
and always called Bob; I don't think he actually has a middle name (at least
I don't know it.)  I think it's like Harry S Truman.  RTM
is called Robert, and never used Jr.

About

 > [Bob] Morris, he said, was the kind of guy who always liked to tinker with
 > things, and if an object had buttons, Morris just had to push them.
 > In fact, sometimes Morris was just a little too quick with his fingers.
 > On one side of a machine room was the light switch, and on the other
 > side was the power to the machine.

 > On at least one occasion, you guessed it -- Morris hit the wrong switch.
 > Some people hung a disk pack that got ruined around his neck, and someone
 > put up a big sign as a reminder: "THIS IS THE WEST WALL!"

I suspect that we may be dealing with the "Schryer filter" regarding
some of the details.  Norm S. was right about Bob's being
an aggressive investigator and fiddler,  but I don't
connect the west-wall sign with Morris in particular, but my
memory could be failing too.  Norman Wilson
might have been around for advent of the sign.
In the event, it had more to do with circuit breakers
labelled in small print "east wall" and "west wall"
and someone choosing the wrong one.

	Dennis

[TUHS] Weinberger stencil? (was: rtm)

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Monday, 14 October 2002 at 23:40:56 -0400, Dennis Ritchie wrote:
> Garcia is correct to praise the Hafner/Markoff account
> of the worm incident.  There were some details about
> the kids' accounts and exploits that Markoff decided
> to elide; by the time he wrote that chapter he had
> become rather sympathetic with the Morris family.

Interesting stuff.  While you're in historic reminiscences mode, can
you shed any light on the "Peter Weinberger stencil" incident?  My
understanding of the story, gleaned from multiple sources, is
something like this:

  At some point, presumably round the time of the appearance of AT&T's
  death star logo, Peter Weinberger was promoted from techie to some
  kind of management position.  Somebody came across the idea of
  making a large stencil of his face in death-star like technology,
  and used it to paint an image of him on a nearby water tower.
  Allegedly the costs were charged to Peter's department.

  Some years later, this stencil arrived in Greg Rose's office in
  Australia from an anonymous sender.  Greg has a suspicion who the
  sender was, but no proof, so he doesn't want to comment.  He gave it
  to our own Warren Toomey, who still has it in his garage.

  At some point, Peter Salus suggested that the image was of Rob Pike,
  not of Peter Weinberger, but both Rob and Greg R. have denied this
  version.

Things that intrigue me about this story are:

1.  Who made the stencil, and why?
2.  What was the time frame?
3.  Who sent it to Greg Rose, and why?

I suppose that even now it's possible that this information should not
be made public, and I can accept that.  But if there is anything which
can be used to fill it in, I'm sure I wouldn't be the only person to
find it interesting.

Greg
--
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key
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[TUHS] Re: rtm

[Gregg C Levine]

Hello from Gregg C Levine