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update: morris post corrections
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## Morris - A Worm for Our Times

On this day in history the Morris worm was released onto the Internet, wreaking havoc on a number of systems and becoming notorious as one of the first worms distributed on the net. While _the only crime was curiosity_ at the start, aiming to exploit a number of vulnerabilities and explore possibiltiies, the end result was a damaging viral spread thanks to the effects of including code that directed the software to replicate itself in many systems. The impact was far-reaching with systems bogging down to a an unusable state.
On this day in history the Morris worm was released onto the Internet, wreaking havoc on a number of systems and becoming notorious as one of the first worms distributed on the net. While _the only crime was curiosity_ at the start, aiming to exploit a number of vulnerabilities and explore possibiltiies, the end result was a damaging viral spread thanks to the effects of including code that directed the software to replicate itself in many systems. The impact was far-reaching with systems being bogged down to an unusable state.

<figure class="figure">
<a href="/images/morris-worm-source-code-floppy-disk-computer-history-museum-intel-free-press-2013oct25-cyberdelianyc.jpg" title="(click for big)"><img class="figure-img img-fluid" loading="lazy" src="/images/morris-worm-source-code-floppy-disk-computer-history-museum-intel-free-press-2013oct25-cyberdelianyc.jpg" alt="Photo of a display case at the Computer History Museum containing a single black 3.5-inch floppy disk. A yellow paper tag sitting beneath it with handwriting in pencil: Internet Worm - Source Code X1294.96A-D. A black museum description plackard sits to the left: 'The Morris Internet Worm source code - This disk contins the complete source code of the Morris Internet worm program. This tiny, 99-line program brought large pieces of the Internet to a standstill on November 2nd, 1988. The worm was the first of many intrusive programs that use the Internet to spread.' A red square logo is at bottom of plackard with binary ones and zeroes symbols and white text COMPUTER HISTORY MUSEUM."></a>
<figcaption class="figure-caption"><em><strong>Internet Worm - decompilation</strong></em>: a floppy disk at the <a href="https://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/1988/#169ebbe2ad45559efbc6eb35720646a8" title="Link to Timeline of Computer History 1988 at the Computer History Museum">Computer History Museum</a> that contains the source code of the Morris worm. Catalog Number <a href="https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/X1294.96A-D" title="Link to Computer History Museum Artifact Details page">X1294.96A-D</a>.
<figcaption class="figure-caption"><em><strong>Internet Worm - decompilation</strong></em>: a floppy disk at the <a href="https://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/1988/#169ebbe2ad45559efbc6eb35720646a8" title="Link to Timeline of Computer History 1988 at the Computer History Museum">Computer History Museum</a> that contains the source code of the Morris worm. Catalog Number <a href="https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/X1294.96A-D" title="Link to Computer History Museum Artifact Details page">X1294.96A-D</a>.</figcaption>
</figure>

With thousands of systems downed and high removal costs incurred its author Robert T. Morris was tried in the U.S. under the _1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act_ and was its first conviction.
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<figure class="figure">
<a href="https://neal.fun/internet-artifacts/morris-worm/" title="Link to the Internet Artifacts Museum Morris worm page"><img class="figure-img img-fluid" loading="lazy" src="/images/morris-worm-interactive-source-code-neal-fun-internet-artifacts-1080x608.jpg" alt="Screenshot of a web page from the Internet Artifacts Museum showing a blue and yellow DOS-style text editor screen mounted on a marble stand with marble background as in a museum. The editor screen as various C programming source codes for the Morris Worm. The year highlighted at the top of the interface for the website is 1988. Top corner says NEAL.FUN."></a>
<figcaption class="figure-caption">Thanks to the recent _Internet Artifacts Museum_ project by Neil Agarwal you can see and interact with the source code of the Morris worm in a nice retro-styled IDE in your browser.</figcaption>
<figcaption class="figure-caption">Thanks to the recent <em>Internet Artifacts Museum</em> project by Neil Agarwal you can see and interact with the source code of the Morris worm in a nice retro-styled IDE in your browser.</figcaption>
</figure>

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