brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (01/14/90)
I am glad to say that our daily coverage in clari.tw.computers is using the term "worm." Here is a free sample of our latest story on it, from Friday. If you want more info on ClariNet, you can reply to me. From: clarinews@clarinet.com (STEVE SCHAEFER) Newsgroups: clari.tw.computers,clari.tw.electronics,clari.tw.education,clari.news.law.crime.trial,clari.news.gov.usa,clari.news.top Subject: Classmate testifies he watched Morris develop `worm' Keywords: computers, electronics, science, higher education, education, criminal proceedings, legal, usa federal, government Date: 12 Jan 90 21:21:36 GMT Lines: 58 Approved: clarinews@clarinet.com ACategory: usa Slugword: hacker Priority: major Format: regular SYRACUSE, N.Y. (UPI) -- A graduate student said Friday it was ``pretty amazing'' to watch classmate Robert Morris break into a computer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a program that could land the computer whiz in jail. Dawson Dean III testified that five days before Morris allegedly unleashed a destructive program called a ``worm,'' he showed Dean he could enter an MIT computer without the machine acknowledging the intrusion. ``The machine didn't know that he was logged in,'' said Dean, an MIT graduate and doctoral candidate at Cornell Univesity. ``It was pretty amazing.'' Morris, 25, of Arnold, Md., is the first person to be prosecuted under a portion of the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He was indicted in July on a charge of causing financial loss by intentionally introducing a program into a military and research computer network without authorization. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Dean said the incident on Oct. 28, 1988, was preceeded by Morris allowing him to look over his shoulder at a computer terminal on Cornell's Ithaca, N.Y., campus and scan a list of more than 400 passwords Morris had discovered. The passwords had been translated from an ``encrypted,'' or coded, form into English. ``There are 4,096 ways to encrypt a given password,'' Dean said. ``He said he had done it basically to see if it was possible to do.'' Dean said Morris gave him the ``impression'' a computer at Cornell spent four days running a program the defendant had designed to find the true spelling of the encrypted passwords. ``I asked him, `Is mine in the list?''' Dean said. ``I also asked him if the password of this other really obnoxious graduate student was (listed).'' Dean confirmed for Justice Department trial lawyer Ellen Meltzer the list he read that night was similar to one investigators found in computer files Morris maintained at Cornell. Dean testified Morris told him he would pursue a doctorate and career in computer languages and, although he already had extensive experience in computer security, did not plan to write his thesis on security issues. ``He told me he had hacked around with computers before,'' Dean said. Under cross examination from defense attorney David O'Brien, Dean said he thought the suspect's efforts to break computer security systems was the result of an inquisitive mind. ``He was a graduate student of computer science. You're learning to do research. It's a real natural instinct to want to learn how the thing works,'' Dean said. Earlier, William Johnston, a computer systems manager at the Lawrence Berkely Laboratory in California, said the worm did not at any time endanger cancer patients at the research center, but cost the lab in excess of $10,000 to purge the system. Morris was a 1988 Harvard University graduate attending his first semester of graduate school when, prosecuters argue, his program replicated out of control Nov. 2, 1988, and froze about 6,000 computers linked to the major military and research computer networks Internet and Arpanet. A Cornell investigation found Morris, who has been suspended from the university until September, worked alone on the program, which it termed a ``juvenile act that ignored the clear potential consequences.'' -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473