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From: will.senn@gmail.com (Will Senn)
Subject: [TUHS] Happy birthday, Morris Worm!
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 09:42:22 -0500	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <7335deff-4c63-51d9-ec9b-7435a32ae3c7@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1509630411.25641.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

On 11/2/17 8:46 AM, Norman Wilson wrote:
> Robert T Morris (the son who committed the famous worm) was an
> intern at Bell Labs for a couple of summers while I was there.
> He certainly wasn't an idiot; he was a smart guy.
>
> Like many smart guys (and not-so-smart guys for that matter),
> however, he was a sloppy coder, and tended not to test enough.
>
> One of the jokes in the UNIX Room was that, had it been Bob
> Morris (the father) who did it,
> a.  He wouldn't have done it, because he would have seen that
> it wasn't worth the potential big mess; but
> b.  Had he done it, no one would ever have caught him, and
> probably no one would even have noticed the worm as it crept
> around.
>
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON

I seem to recall that this story was included as part of The Cuckoo's 
Egg, by Clifford Stoll. I don't recall the specifics and I wonder if it 
has a bit of myth included, but somehow it was peripherally related to 
the investigations. Fuzzy recollection is that the worm got out during 
the investigation Clifford was involved in and it was Morris's son 
(Morris being in on the investigation somehow), and the kid getting off 
because of the position of the dad and the newness of the crime... or 
somesuch - don't shoot the messenger, but nobody mentioned Stoll, so I 
thought I'd chime in, in the hopes it might jog someone else's memory :).

Will

-- 
GPG Fingerprint: 68F4 B3BD 1730 555A 4462  7D45 3EAA 5B6D A982 BAAF



  parent reply	other threads:[~2017-11-02 14:42 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 62+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2017-11-02 13:46 Norman Wilson
2017-11-02 14:32 ` Chet Ramey
2017-11-02 14:42 ` Will Senn [this message]
2017-11-02 15:00   ` Michael Kjörling
2017-11-02 15:26     ` Tim Bradshaw
2017-11-02 16:48       ` Don Hopkins
2017-11-02 16:50       ` Don Hopkins
2017-11-02 16:52       ` Don Hopkins
2017-11-02 16:54       ` Don Hopkins
2017-11-02 16:56       ` Don Hopkins
2017-11-02 16:57       ` Don Hopkins
2017-11-02 17:00       ` Don Hopkins
2017-11-02 17:57         ` Don Hopkins
2017-11-02 15:25   ` Dan Cross
2017-11-02 15:52     ` Will Senn
2017-11-02 18:42     ` Ken Thompson
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2019-11-01 20:36 Dave Horsfall
2019-11-01 21:12 ` Dan Cross
2019-11-01 21:49 ` A. P. Garcia
2019-11-02  6:35   ` William Corcoran
2019-11-02  6:44     ` William Corcoran
2019-11-02  7:31       ` A. P. Garcia
2017-11-16 23:24 Doug McIlroy
2017-11-16 23:35 ` Ralph Corderoy
2017-11-03 10:23 Noel Chiappa
2017-11-03 11:20 ` arnold
2017-11-03 13:11 ` Arthur Krewat
2017-11-03 19:26   ` Toby Thain
2017-11-03 20:54     ` Arthur Krewat
2017-11-03  0:53 Doug McIlroy
2017-11-03  1:39 ` Ken Thompson
2017-11-03  9:25   ` arnold
2017-11-02 12:10 Noel Chiappa
2017-11-02 14:26 ` Dan Cross
2017-11-02  3:46 Doug McIlroy
2017-11-02  5:53 ` George Michaelson
2017-11-01 22:17 Dave Horsfall
2017-11-01 22:32 ` Lyndon Nerenberg
2017-11-02 16:43   ` Don Hopkins
2017-11-01 23:03 ` Charles H. Sauer
2017-11-01 23:15 ` Paul Winalski
2017-11-02  0:06 ` Ralph Corderoy
2017-11-02  0:09 ` Dan Cross
2017-11-02  1:08   ` Clem cole
2017-11-02  8:18 ` arnold
2017-11-02 17:56 ` Don Hopkins
2017-11-02 18:32   ` Lars Brinkhoff
2017-11-02 20:32     ` Don Hopkins
2017-11-02 21:59       ` Don Hopkins
2017-11-02 22:27         ` Ralph Corderoy
2017-11-04  1:15 ` Dave Horsfall
2017-11-15 21:36   ` Erik E. Fair
2017-11-15 21:50     ` Don Hopkins
2017-11-15 21:54     ` Ron Natalie
2017-11-16  1:05       ` Erik E. Fair
2017-11-16  1:22     ` Will Senn
2017-11-16  1:56       ` Erik E. Fair
2017-11-16  2:41         ` Ron Natalie
2017-11-16  3:00         ` Don Hopkins
2017-11-16  7:39         ` Steve Simon
2017-11-16 15:54         ` Clem Cole
2017-11-16 15:58           ` Jon Steinhart

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