I assume you all know that Robert Morris is one of the YC (and Viaweb) cofounders? [1] Together with Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, and Trevor Blackwell.
This week in 1988, Robert Morris unleashed his eponymous worm
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Re: This week in 1988, Robert Morris unleashed his eponymous worm
#22I find it funny that: 1) He released it from MIT to avoid suspicion. 2) After he was convicted, he went from Cornell to Harvard to complete his Ph.D. 3) He became an assistant professor at MIT after that. He had to be really spectacular/have crazy connections to still be able to finish his training at a top program and get a job at the institution he tried to frame.
You know his dad ran research at the NSA right? His dad's also a badass and super fun to talk to. Never talked to the son though, but I'd love to some day.
I did not. That actually makes everything make much more sense. I was even wordering how he got out of jail time for something like this and just thought he had amazing lawyers.
Re: This week in 1988, Robert Morris unleashed his eponymous worm
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
> tried to frame. MIT really respects good hacks and good hackers. It was probably more effective than sending in some PDF of a paper.
>MIT really respects good hacks and good hackers. Oooof in light of Aaron Swartz. He plugged directly into a network switch that was in an unlocked and unlabelled room at MIT so he could download faster and faced "charges of breaking and entering with intent, grand larceny, and unauthorized access to a computer network". MIT really didn't lift a finger for this either. >Swartz's attorneys requested that all pretrial…
Agreed, it's hard to see this as some sort of "hacker respect hacker" in light of MIT's other actions.
It's very hard to extract Robert Tappan Morris from the context of his father being an extremely powerful man when trying to figure out how he managed to get away with what he did.
Re: This week in 1988, Robert Morris unleashed his eponymous worm
#24Hypothetically if the m$ cloud ecosystem got completely oblibetated (including backups) would customers switch? Or is the lockin as complete as it is with the operating system customers?
Re: This week in 1988, Robert Morris unleashed his eponymous worm
#25Wikipedia says the Morris worm went out on 1998 Nov 2. No idea why they would publish the article on 2025 Nov 4 with that title.
The article is from a somewhat reliable source; Wikipedia is not a reliable source (by Wikipedia's own rules). Maybe you should use the article to update Wikipedia?
Re: This week in 1988, Robert Morris unleashed his eponymous worm
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_worm 1988
A quick search shows: - a github repo containing "the original, de-compiled source code for the Morris Worm" - see https://github.com/agiacalone/morris-worm-malware - a high level report about the worm - see https://www.ee.torontomu.ca/~elf/hack/internet-worm.html
Both of those agree that is was '88...
Re: This week in 1988, Robert Morris unleashed his eponymous worm
#27It's a little shocking to me that there haven't been more things like this. While we're much more conscientious and better at security than we were way back then, things are certainly not totally secure. The best answer I have is the same as what a bio professor told me once about designer plagues: it hasn't happened because nobody's done it. The capability is out there, and the vulnerability is out there. (Someone w…
they're just better at hiding now.
Re: This week in 1988, Robert Morris unleashed his eponymous worm
#28I find it funny that: 1) He released it from MIT to avoid suspicion. 2) After he was convicted, he went from Cornell to Harvard to complete his Ph.D. 3) He became an assistant professor at MIT after that. He had to be really spectacular/have crazy connections to still be able to finish his training at a top program and get a job at the institution he tried to frame.
One of my favourite quiet jokes is the "Editorial Board" list for The Annals of Improbable Research¹ where RTM is listed under Computer Science. Asterisks after each name denote qualifications, RTM's being "Convicted Felon"
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¹Awarders of the Ig Nobel prize
Re: This week in 1988, Robert Morris unleashed his eponymous worm
#29I followed his course 6.5840 on distributed systems (https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.824/, YouTube videos at https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrw6a1wE39_tb2fErI4-WkMbs...) and completed the labs. One day, out of curiosity, I looked up his name. Then I realized what a legend he is.
Great course by the way.
Re: This week in 1988, Robert Morris unleashed his eponymous worm
#30This Week in 1988 rather.