From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id c6198645 for ; Sat, 2 Nov 2019 14:12:51 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id C7FED9BF84; Sun, 3 Nov 2019 00:12:49 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C32499B598; Sun, 3 Nov 2019 00:12:20 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 574869B598; Sun, 3 Nov 2019 00:12:17 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail.cs.Dartmouth.EDU (mail.cs.dartmouth.edu [129.170.212.100]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id C1FD193D9B for ; Sun, 3 Nov 2019 00:12:16 +1000 (AEST) Received: from tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU (tahoe.cs.dartmouth.edu [129.170.212.20]) by mail.cs.Dartmouth.EDU (8.15.2/8.15.2) with ESMTPS id xA2ECEX6011879 (version=TLSv1.3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 bits=256 verify=NO) for ; Sat, 2 Nov 2019 10:12:14 -0400 Received: from tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU (8.15.2/8.14.3) with ESMTP id xA2ECEs6137267 for ; Sat, 2 Nov 2019 10:12:14 -0400 Received: (from doug@localhost) by tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU (8.15.2/8.15.2/Submit) id xA2ECEMr137264 for tuhs@tuhs.org; Sat, 2 Nov 2019 10:12:14 -0400 From: Doug McIlroy Message-Id: <201911021412.xA2ECEMr137264@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2019 10:12:14 -0400 To: tuhs@tuhs.org User-Agent: Heirloom mailx 12.5 7/5/10 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [TUHS] Happy birthday Morris worm X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" Full disclosure: I served as a character witness at Robert Morris's trial. Before the trial, the judge was quite incredulous that the prosecutor was pursuing a felony charge and refused to let the trial go forward without confirmation from the prosecutor's superiors in Washington. > I'm sure that Bob was proud of his son's accomplishments -- but not that one. As Bob ut it, "It {being the father] is not a great career move." Robert confessed to Bob as soon as he realized the folly of loosing an exponential, even with a tiny growth rate per generation. I believe that what brought computers to their knees was the overwhelming number of attacks, not the cost of cecryption. The worm did assure that only one copy would be allowed to proceed at a time. During high school, Robert worked as a summer employee for Fred Grampp. He got high marks for finding and correcting an exploit. > making use of known vulnerabilities Buffer overflows were known to cause misbehavior, but few people at the time were conscious that the misbehavior could be controlled. I do not know whether Berkeley agonized before distributing the "debug" feature that allowed remote super-user access via sendmail. But they certainly messed up by not documenting it. Doug