5 Nov
2019
5 Nov
'19
12:10 a.m.
Another possible source of inspiration — including the name “worm” — were the publications
by John Shoch and Jon Hupp on programs they wrote at Xerox PARC around 1979-1980 and
published in 1980 and 1982:
John F. Shoch and Jon Hupp:
The “Worm" Programs — Early Experience with a Distributed Computation.
Xerox SSL-80-3 and IEN 159. May 1980, revised September 1980
http://www.postel.org/ien/pdf/ien159.pdf
John F. Shoch and Jon Hupp:
The “Worm" Programs — Early Experience with a Distributed Computation.
CACM V25 N3 (March 1982)
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs261/background/shoch.pdf
On Nov 3, 2019, Paul Winalski
<paul.winalski(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 11/2/19, Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com <mailto:imp@bsdimp.com>> wrote:
the notion of a self propagating thing
was quite novel (even if it had been theoretically discussed in many places
prior to the worm, and even though others had proven it via slower moving
vectors of BBS).
Novel to the Internet community, perhaps, but an idea that dates back
to the 1960s in IBM mainframe circles. Self-submitting OS/360 JCL
jobs, which eventually caused a crash by filling the queue files with
jobs, were well-known in the raised-floor world.
In hindsight people like to point at it and what
a terrible thing it was,
but Robert just got there first.
Again, first on the Internet. Back in 1980 I accidentally took down
DEC's internal engineering network (about 100 nodes, mostly VAX/VMS,
at the time) with a worm. ...
Robert Morris worked as an intern one summer in DEC's compiler group.
The Fortran project leader told Morris about my 1980 worm incident.
So he certainly had heard of the concept before he fashioned his
UNIX/Internet-based worm a few years later.
-Paul W. 
5 Nov
5 Nov
12:57 a.m.
New subject: Happy birthday Morris worm
I am surprised no one mentioned The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner, published in 1975.
Excerpt:
Then the answer dawned on him, and he almost laughed. Fluckner had resorted to one of the
oldest tricks in the store and turned loose in the continental net a selfperpetuating
tapeworm, probably headed by a denunciation group "borrowed" from a major
corporation, which would shunt itself from one nexus to another every time his credit-code
was punched into a keyboard. It could take days to kill a worm like that, and sometimes
weeks.
I read it in late 70s/early 80s and don't remember much of it but this bit had
burrowed its way in my subconscious. I have been meaning to re-read it along with Stand on
Zanzibar but they would be too depressing in the present era!
On Nov 4, 2019, at 10:10 AM, Paul McJones
<paul(a)mcjones.org> wrote:
Another possible source of inspiration — including the name “worm” — were the
publications by John Shoch and Jon Hupp on programs they wrote at Xerox PARC around
1979-1980 and published in 1980 and 1982:
John F. Shoch and Jon Hupp:
The “Worm" Programs — Early Experience with a Distributed Computation.
Xerox SSL-80-3 and IEN 159. May 1980, revised September 1980
http://www.postel.org/ien/pdf/ien159.pdf
<http://www.postel.org/ien/pdf/ien159.pdf>
John F. Shoch and Jon Hupp:
The “Worm" Programs — Early Experience with a Distributed Computation.
CACM V25 N3 (March 1982)
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs261/background/shoch.pdf
<http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs261/background/shoch.pdf>
On Nov 3, 2019, Paul Winalski
<paul.winalski(a)gmail.com <mailto:paul.winalski@gmail.com>> wrote:
On 11/2/19, Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com <mailto:imp@bsdimp.com>> wrote:
the notion of a self propagating thing
was quite novel (even if it had been theoretically discussed in many places
prior to the worm, and even though others had proven it via slower moving
vectors of BBS).
Novel to the Internet community, perhaps, but an idea that dates back
to the 1960s in IBM mainframe circles. Self-submitting OS/360 JCL
jobs, which eventually caused a crash by filling the queue files with
jobs, were well-known in the raised-floor world.
In hindsight people like to point at it and what
a terrible thing it was,
but Robert just got there first.
Again, first on the Internet. Back in 1980 I accidentally took down
DEC's internal engineering network (about 100 nodes, mostly VAX/VMS,
at the time) with a worm. ...
Robert Morris worked as an intern one summer in DEC's compiler group.
The Fortran project leader told Morris about my 1980 worm incident.
So he certainly had heard of the concept before he fashioned his
UNIX/Internet-based worm a few years later.
-Paul W. 
1:24 a.m.
New subject: Happy birthday Morris worm
The John F. Shoch and Jon Hupp paper extensively credits Brunner, and uses
quotes from the book as section intro's.
On Mon, Nov 4, 2019 at 1:58 PM Bakul Shah <bakul(a)bitblocks.com> wrote:
I am surprised no one mentioned *The Shockwave Rider
*by John Brunner,
published in 1975. Excerpt:
9:48 a.m.
New subject: Happy birthday Morris worm
I might have been the fan who called John Shoch and Jon Hupp’s attention to John Brunner.
At some point, Brunner came to visit PARC and we had a nice discussion about how Brunner
had been able to anticipate this aspect of networking.
-Larry
On 2019, Nov 4, at 2:24 PM, Richard Salz
<rich.salz(a)gmail.com> wrote:
The John F. Shoch and Jon Hupp paper extensively credits Brunner, and uses quotes from
the book as section intro's.
On Mon, Nov 4, 2019 at 1:58 PM Bakul Shah <bakul(a)bitblocks.com
<mailto:bakul@bitblocks.com>> wrote:
I am surprised no one mentioned The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner, published in 1975.
Excerpt:
10:04 p.m.
New subject: Happy birthday Morris worm
We got hit at Rutgers on some of our ancillary machines early in the day (the 750 that
belonged really to the the JVN computing center mostly) and I collected the evidence and
learned through the internet grapevine where the vulnerabilities were and plugged them
(also wrote some scripts to look for the holes and evidence of the worm on other machines
at RU). Got everything cleaned up by noon time or so and I figured that was the end.
The next day I was scheduled to be in DC on other business so I felt confident on
leaving.
Apparently however, the biggest impact on us of the worm had yet to hit. The news caught
wind of it that evening and started calling the computer center early the next morning.
I wasn’t there so it pretty much chewed up all of Chuck Hedrick’s day answering press
inquiries.
6 Nov
6 Nov
4:37 p.m.
New subject: Happy birthday Morris worm
Ronald Natalie <ron(a)ronnatalie.com> wrote:
We got hit at Rutgers on some of our ancillary
machines early in the day ...
Our Unix systems (Emory U. Computer Center and Math/CS systems) were running
a custom sendmail config that I wrote, so the worm bypassed us. We were lucky. :-)
Arnold
7:35 p.m.
New subject: Happy birthday Morris worm
The WIZ hack was well known by the time the worm exploited it. I’d recompiled sendmail
to get rid of it even being an option on all the machines directly under my control.
The 750 in question was operated ostensibly by the JVNCNet people, but I had the root
pasword (I guess I really didn’t need it with that security hole in it anyhow).
On Nov 6, 2019, at 5:37 AM, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote:
Ronald Natalie <ron(a)ronnatalie.com> wrote:
We got hit at Rutgers on some of our ancillary
machines early in the day ...
Our Unix systems (Emory U. Computer Center and Math/CS systems) were running
a custom sendmail config that I wrote, so the worm bypassed us. We were lucky. :-)
Arnold 
5 Nov
5 Nov
1:25 a.m.
New subject: Happy birthday Morris worm
El lun., 4 nov. 2019 19:58, Bakul Shah <bakul(a)bitblocks.com> escribió:
I am surprised no one mentioned *The Shockwave Rider
*by John Brunner,
published in 1975.
What a *great* novel, as the previous of Brunner in the 60s. "Stand on
Zanzibar" and Salmanesser are guilty of my computing career. Visionary in
many ways. You've made my day :-)
Excerpt:
Then the answer dawned on him, and he almost laughed. Fluckner had
resorted to one of the oldest tricks in the store and turned loose in the
continental net a selfperpetuating tapeworm, probably headed by a
denunciation group "borrowed" from a major corporation, which would shunt
itself from one nexus to another every time his credit-code was punched
into a keyboard. It could take days to kill a worm like that, and sometimes
weeks.
I read it in late 70s/early 80s and don't remember much of it but this bit
had burrowed its way in my subconscious. I have been meaning to re-read it
along with Stand on Zanzibar but they would be too depressing in the
present era!
On Nov 4, 2019, at 10:10 AM, Paul McJones <paul(a)mcjones.org> wrote:
Another possible source of inspiration — including the name “worm” — were
the publications by John Shoch and Jon Hupp on programs they wrote at Xerox
PARC around 1979-1980 and published in 1980 and 1982:
John F. Shoch and Jon Hupp:
The “Worm" Programs — Early Experience with a Distributed Computation.
Xerox SSL-80-3 and IEN 159. May 1980, revised September 1980
http://www.postel.org/ien/pdf/ien159.pdf
John F. Shoch and Jon Hupp:
The “Worm" Programs — Early Experience with a Distributed Computation.
CACM V25 N3 (March 1982)
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs261/background/shoch.pdf
On Nov 3, 2019, Paul Winalski <paul.winalski(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 11/2/19, Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
the notion of a self propagating thing
was quite novel (even if it had been theoretically discussed in many places
prior to the worm, and even though others had proven it via slower moving
vectors of BBS).
Novel to the Internet community, perhaps, but an idea that dates back
to the 1960s in IBM mainframe circles. Self-submitting OS/360 JCL
jobs, which eventually caused a crash by filling the queue files with
jobs, were well-known in the raised-floor world.
In hindsight people like to point at it and what a terrible thing it was,
but Robert just got there first.
Again, first on the Internet. Back in 1980 I accidentally took down
DEC's internal engineering network (about 100 nodes, mostly VAX/VMS,
at the time) with a worm. ...
Robert Morris worked as an intern one summer in DEC's compiler group.
The Fortran project leader told Morris about my 1980 worm incident.
So he certainly had heard of the concept before he fashioned his
UNIX/Internet-based worm a few years later.
-Paul W.
2:27 a.m.
New subject: Happy birthday Morris worm
On Mon, Nov 4, 2019 at 1:58 PM Bakul Shah <bakul(a)bitblocks.com> wrote:
I am surprised no one mentioned *The Shockwave Rider
*by John Brunner,
published in 1975. Excerpt:
Then the answer dawned on him, and he almost laughed. Fluckner had
resorted to one of the oldest tricks in the store and turned loose in the
continental net a selfperpetuating tapeworm, probably headed by a
denunciation group "borrowed" from a major corporation, which would shunt
itself from one nexus to another every time his credit-code was punched
into a keyboard. It could take days to kill a worm like that, and sometimes
weeks.
In the 1983 movie "Wargames", at the very end as the staff at NORAD
desperately try and disable the rogue artificial intelligence hell-bent on
starting World War III, at one point they make a suggestion to send a
"tapeworm" into the system", but it's judged too risky. They
ultimately
defeat the computer by getting it to play tic-tac-toe against itself and
learn that nuclear war is unwinnable.
- Dan C.
I read it in late 70s/early 80s and don't remember much of it but this bit
had burrowed its way in my subconscious. I have been
meaning to re-read it
along with Stand on Zanzibar but they would be too depressing in the
present era!
On Nov 4, 2019, at 10:10 AM, Paul McJones <paul(a)mcjones.org> wrote:
Another possible source of inspiration — including the name “worm” — were
the publications by John Shoch and Jon Hupp on programs they wrote at Xerox
PARC around 1979-1980 and published in 1980 and 1982:
John F. Shoch and Jon Hupp:
The “Worm" Programs — Early Experience with a Distributed Computation.
Xerox SSL-80-3 and IEN 159. May 1980, revised September 1980
http://www.postel.org/ien/pdf/ien159.pdf
John F. Shoch and Jon Hupp:
The “Worm" Programs — Early Experience with a Distributed Computation.
CACM V25 N3 (March 1982)
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs261/background/shoch.pdf
On Nov 3, 2019, Paul Winalski <paul.winalski(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 11/2/19, Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
the notion of a self propagating thing
was quite novel (even if it had been theoretically discussed in many places
prior to the worm, and even though others had proven it via slower moving
vectors of BBS).
Novel to the Internet community, perhaps, but an idea that dates back
to the 1960s in IBM mainframe circles. Self-submitting OS/360 JCL
jobs, which eventually caused a crash by filling the queue files with
jobs, were well-known in the raised-floor world.
In hindsight people like to point at it and what a terrible thing it was,
but Robert just got there first.
Again, first on the Internet. Back in 1980 I accidentally took down
DEC's internal engineering network (about 100 nodes, mostly VAX/VMS,
at the time) with a worm. ...
Robert Morris worked as an intern one summer in DEC's compiler group.
The Fortran project leader told Morris about my 1980 worm incident.
So he certainly had heard of the concept before he fashioned his
UNIX/Internet-based worm a few years later.
-Paul W.
4:10 a.m.
New subject: Happy birthday Morris worm
On 4 Nov 2019 15:27 -0500, from crossd(a)gmail.com (Dan Cross):
On Mon, Nov 4, 2019 at 1:58 PM Bakul Shah
<bakul(a)bitblocks.com> wrote:
In the 1984 movie _2010_, it seems using a tapeworm was more of a
standard, if unusual, procedure for solving a very different problem.
Copying from
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/2010:_The_Year_We_Make_Contact#Dialogue>
I am surprised no one mentioned *The Shockwave
Rider *by John Brunner,
published in 1975. Excerpt:
In the 1983 movie "Wargames", at the very end as the staff at NORAD
desperately try and disable the rogue artificial intelligence hell-bent on
starting World War III, at one point they make a suggestion to send a
"tapeworm" into the system", but it's judged too risky. Dr. Chandra: I've erased all of HAL's memory
from the moment the
trouble started.
Dr. Vasili Orlov: The 9000 series uses holographic memories, so
chronological erasures would not work.
Dr. Chandra: I made a tapeworm.
Dr. Walter Curnow: You made a what?
Dr. Chandra: It's a program that's fed into a system that will hunt
down and destroy any desired memories.
Dr. Floyd: Wait... do you know why HAL did what he did?
Dr. Chandra: Yes. It wasn't his fault.
I also suggest to migrate this part of the discussion to COFF as it
has very little to do with UNIX history per se.
--
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael(a)kjorling.se
“The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person
is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)
6:25 a.m.
New subject: Happy birthday Morris worm
Bakul Shah <bakul(a)bitblocks.com> once said:
I have been meaning to re-read [...] Stand on
Zanzibar
but [it] would be too depressing in the present era!
I read it shortly before my first vicennial. Even though
I'm closer now to my second, I still think about it from
time to time.
"Christ, what an imagination I've got."
Cheers,
Anthony
1873
days inactive
1875
days old
10 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
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Anthony Martin -
arnold＠skeeve.com -
Bakul Shah -
Dan Cross -
Lawrence Stewart -
Michael Kjörling -
Paul McJones -
Richard Salz -
Ronald Natalie -
SPC