[comp.virus] Potential impact of internet worm

TMPLee@DOCKMASTER.ARPA (11/23/89)

Gene Spafford notes that the Morris worm (I still prefer to call it a
virus; afterall, it DID use the machinery of what it was infecting to
propagate itself) only infected 5% of the machines on a
known-to-be-insecure net.  It was stopped because it was noticed.  It
was noticed because of bugs that made it replicate much faster than
was intended.  Has anyone estimated how far it would have gotten had
those bugs not been there, i.e., if it had replicated so slowly as not
to be noticed?