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Morris Worm Turning 20
netbuzz writes "The Internet will mark an infamous anniversary Sunday, when the Morris worm turns 20. Considered the first major attack on the 'Net, Morris served as a wake-up call about the risk of software bugs, and it set the stage for network security to become an important area of computer science. It was also the first time many non-techies heard of the 'Net, as the mainstream media covered the story extensively."
Reader maximus1 contributes a brief ITWorld story about Robert Morris himself.
Robert Tappan Morris, the 21-year-old Cornell University student who unleashed the first worm attack on the Internet in 1988, has fully rehabilitated his reputation in the computer science community. Today, he is a respected associate professor of computer science at MIT.
Sounds like a terrorist to me. And anyone who's ever taken one of his classes or worked with him is guilty of palling around with terrorists.
This guy's the limit!
Technically, I think it makes programmers better and THAT makes the net safer... more or less. Back then people could say "oh shit, didn't know they could do that!" but today it means, or can mean, loss of revenue via real data loss or via decreased reputation. So now instead of "shit, didn't know they could do that" has become "shit, they did it again. Quick, delete the evidence, and don't tell anyone... someone call marketing/legal, get the spin machine goin."
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I was only 8 years old at the time. But I remember it well, because I was already very into computers (programming in BASIC on an Apple IIe, and my friend's C64).
Anyway, I remember it being on the news every day, and they were using all kinds of scary "Computer virus" graphics, and talking about virus this and that. I don't recall the word "worm" being used.
But the thing I remember most about the coverage was some of the journalists warning that it is still unknown whether or not computer viruses can be transferred to humans! I'm not kidding, they actually were trying to spread fear that people could catch this virus too. I don't know if this was intentional, or due to sheer ignorance. And they were also saying it could be transferred between PC's over the air (and I'm not confusing this with sneakernet)...
So yea, I wish I could see some of that old footage too :)
THE MAGIC WORDS ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE
How can a worm on the "net" be 20 years old? Gore wasn't in office yet!
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... served as a wake-up call about the risk of software bugs, and it set the stage for network security...
Calling it a wake-up call would imply that people actually woke up and fixed things afterwards.
I don't think that happened. ActiveX was invented after the Morris worm. People wrote email programs that interpreted VBScript in the mail and executed it after the Morris worm.
Remember the goodtimes virus hoax? It was a joke that a virus could propagate via email. It was funny, because viruses *couldn't* propagate via email. Then people implemented that feature in mail programs, opening the door to a rapid rise in email viruses. All, *after* the Morris worm.
So give me a break, but I don't think anybody woke up that time. Or later, for that matter. I don't think the mainstream is taking network security seriously to this day.
Found something:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2i_6j55bS0
Its so silly now it almost seems like a joke. Luckily the people from MIT actually do seem reasonable, but the newscasters and their production team are just crazy.
Man, i can't believe 1988 was 20 years ago... I was 4.
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
Here, learn something...
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .