From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: clemc@ccc.com (Clem cole) Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2017 21:08:45 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Happy birthday, Morris Worm! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5F5DAFD3-0833-451E-9FC0-E6F5A2D14FBD@ccc.com> +1 Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not quite. > On Nov 1, 2017, at 8:09 PM, Dan Cross wrote: > >> On Wed, Nov 1, 2017 at 6:17 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote: >> The infamous Morris Worm was released in 1988; making use of known >> vulnerabilities in Sendmail/finger/RSH (and weak passwords), it took out a >> metric shitload of SUN-3s and 4BSD Vaxen (the author claimed that it was >> accidental, but the idiot hadn't tested it on an isolated network first). A >> temporary "condom" was discovered by Rich Kulawiec with "mkdir /tmp/sh". > > I feel obligated to mention out that Robert Tappan Morris is really > very nice and quite humble in real life. As I understand it he's never > sought to capitalize on his infamy from the worm, and while I've never > asked him about it (I'm sure that would be very rude) I understand > from some of his former students that he feels very contrite about the > whole thing. He made a mistake when he was young; the same is true of > many of us (myself included). His mistake had the misfortune of being > much better known than those most of us make. > > I should mention that I only know him slightly, but what I have seen > of his personality reminds me very much of how I remember Dennis > Ritchie: affable, kind and extremely approachable. > > - Dan C.