Morris Worm Turning 20 84
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.
Re:We should be celebrating! (Score:5, Insightful)
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."
Wakeup call implies people actually woke up (Score:5, Insightful)
... 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.
Re:We should be celebrating! (Score:2, Insightful)
In other words, I disagree with your implied point that these "hiccups" should not be looked at as giving focus to the real threats we face as opposed to the imagined ones.
I don't think that was my implied point at all. My statement was a response to the comment of the parent comment. His statement was that we should celebrate these events because they helped to make the internet a better and safer place (He then sarcastically added "Right?").
I then gave another (albeit different) example of exactly what he was talking about. In actuality, I agree with what you (and the original comment) are saying. We are constantly learning from these disasters, but at the same time, I don't think we learn the real lesson. We can say that the lesson of the Morris Worm is that you need security, but I think the real lesson with the Morris Worm is that complete security doesn't exist. By the same token, you can say that Katrina showed us how poor our disaster response is, but I would be more concerned about the lesson of "They built a city under sea level, and were surprised when it flooded".
I think the first mod who came across my post thought about it a little and that's why he modded it Insightful rather than Funny or Off-topic. I could be wrong though, I don't know the guy.