To: Rebecca James <rjames@clarityconnect.com>
Subject: Re: Reporter writing about Robert Morris
References: <39EF4C60.A25CE88E@clarityconnect.com>
From: nathanw@mit.edu (Nathan J. Williams)
Date: 19 Oct 2000 19:50:00 -0400
In-Reply-To: Rebecca James's message of "Thu, 19 Oct 2000 15:32:49 -0400"
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Rebecca James <rjames@clarityconnect.com> writes:

> Nathan,
> 
> I'm writing a story about Robert Morris, who was responsible for the
> famous Internet worm and is now an assistant professor at MIT.
> 
> I'm writing to you because I saw from the class Web site that you took
> 6.033. That class dealt with security issues, including the Morris case.

Wow, you did a fair bit of digging there; I took the class in the
spring of 1996....

> Morris also happened to be a recitation leader for the class. A lecture
> handout talking about the case said, "You might even find several of the
> players around MIT."

Morris was a recitation leader last spring, and not before that, I
believe. So I haven't had the experience of being in a class he
staffed. We did read a classic paper on the worm, even back when I
took it (Eugene Spafford's "Crisis and Aftermath", from the June 1989
Communications of the ACM).

> I was wondering if you or other students knew much about Robert Morris
> and if people seemed to catch on to the fact that he was now on the MIT
> faculty. The Morris worm is relatively ancient -- 1988 -- and I'm sure
> some students had never really heard much about it. But it's still
> considered a watershed event and Morris was one of the first people
> convicted for this sort of computer crime. What do you think about the
> case and the fact that he's on the MIT faculty now?

Well, I'm a member of a student computing organization (the Student
Information Processing Board, http://www.mit.edu/sipb) that has as
active alumni some of the people who were responsible for the orignal
detection and analysis of the worm, so my awareness of that and
related issues is probably higher than that of many students. The
community of students I am around is quite aware of it.

It was certainly interesting when Morris became a faculty member at
MIT, knowing that he was responsible for the worm. His active research
isn't in security-related issues, so I don't see much of a connection
between his history with the worm and his faculty position. I think it
just adds to his character; people, including professors, who have had
colorful pasts (criminal or otherwise) are more interesting than if
they didn't have that color.

        - Nathan

