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From: ken@google.com (Ken Thompson)
Subject: [TUHS] Happy birthday, Morris Worm!
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2017 18:39:54 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAG=a+rgY7uPuLUPsMnzRxTFPyF+RJQiJPO5QcAgQ5M38pLXyMw@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <201711030053.vA30romM005084@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

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spafford was the prize witness for the
offense at the trial. strident and evil.


On Thu, Nov 2, 2017 at 5:53 PM, Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
> I think "classlessness" is intened as an antonym to "classy".
>
> Spafford with high dudgeon called early for punishment. He had tempered
> it somewhat by the time he wrote his CACM article, published in June
> 1985. But still some animus shows through, in "even-handedly"
> speculating about whether the worm was intended as a lark or as
> something nefarious. He evidently had mellowed a lot by the
> time of the last quotation below.
>
> In the CACM article Spaff quoted someone else as suggesting that
> Morris did it to impress Jodie Foster, and he called Allman's
> back door in Sendmail a debugging feature that people could
> optionally turn off. As far as I know it was not disclosed that
> DEBUG allowed remote control of Sendmail. In fact Sendmail was
> so opaque that Dave Presotto declined to install it and wrote
> his own (upas) for Research.
>
> I don't recall the cited "contest". And Dennis's reaction to
> the CaCM article seems somwhat harsh. But the context is that
> Spafford's overheated initial reaction did not win friends in
> research.
>>
>> Can anyone remember or decipher what this was about???
>>
>> Date: 24 Mar 90 06:52:43 GMT
>> From: dmr at alice.att.com
>> Subject: Re: Contest announcement
>> To: misc-security at uunet.uu.net
>>
>> My own contest is "Most appalling display of classlessness in dealing with
>> a serious subject."  The nominees are:
>>
>> 1) National Center for Computer Crime Data, Security Magazine, and
>>    Gene Spafford, for their "How High Shall We Hang Robert Morris?"
>>    contest.
>>
>> 2) Gene Spafford, for the most tasteless article ever to appear in CACM
>>    (special credits for the Jodie Foster joke).
>>
>>         Dennis Ritchie
>>
>> Some context maybe?
>>>
>>> “He has not tried to make any money or work in this area,” Purdue
>>> University computer science professor Eugene Spafford said of Morris
>>> in an interview with The Washington Post. “His behavior has been
>>> consistent in supporting his defense: that it was an accident and he
>>> felt badly about it. I think it’s very much to his credit that that has
>>> been his behavior ever since.”


  reply	other threads:[~2017-11-03  1:39 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 62+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2017-11-03  0:53 Doug McIlroy
2017-11-03  1:39 ` Ken Thompson [this message]
2017-11-03  9:25   ` arnold
  -- 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
2017-11-02 13:46 Norman Wilson
2017-11-02 14:32 ` Chet Ramey
2017-11-02 14:42 ` Will Senn
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
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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