2 Nov
2017
2 Nov
'17
3:42 p.m.
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
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