Robert Tappan Morris

Robert Morris is a computer expert. He made a tiny program called a worm. This worm moved through the web. It used holes in computer systems to get in. The worm made computers work too hard. This caused big problems for many people. He was the first person caught for this. Later, he helped start a big company. He also helps new businesses grow. He even teaches at a famous school. He is a very important scientist.

Robert Tappan Morris is a computer scientist. He is famous for making the Morris worm. This happened in 1988. It was the first worm on the Internet. A worm is a type of computer program. It spreads from one computer to another.

Morris made the worm while at Cornell University. He sent it from MIT to hide his tracks. The worm looked for holes in computer systems. It used these holes to get inside. The worm had a mistake in its code. It would copy itself too many times. This made computers work too hard. It caused many problems for people.

Morris was the first person caught under a new law. This law is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He had to pay a fine. He also did community service. Morris said he wanted to show security flaws. He wanted to show that networks were not safe.

Later, Morris helped start a company called Viaweb. It helped people build online stores. He also helped start Y Combinator. This firm gives money to new businesses. Now, Morris teaches at MIT. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Robert Tappan Morris is a famous computer scientist. He was born on November 8, 1965. He grew up in New Jersey. His father was also a scientist at Bell Labs. This father helped design systems like Unix. Robert studied at Harvard University. He later went to Cornell University for graduate school.

In 1988, Morris created the Morris worm. This was the first worm on the Internet. A worm is a type of computer program. It spreads from one computer to another. The worm looked for holes in computer systems. It used a hole in a program called sendmail. It also used a hole in a service called fingerd. It even used logins that had no passwords.

Morris made a mistake in the worm's code. The worm was supposed to check if a computer was already infected. Morris worried that people might lie to the worm. He told the worm to copy itself anyway 14% of the time. This mistake caused the worm to spread too much. It made computers work too hard. This slowed down the systems. The total cost of this damage was up to $10,000,000.

Morris was the first person caught under a new law. This law is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He released the worm from MIT. He did this so people would not trace it to Cornell. In 1989, he was indicted for his actions. In December 1990, a judge gave him his sentence. He received three years of probation. He also had to do 400 hours of community service. He had to pay a fine of $10,050.

After his sentence, Morris became a successful entrepreneur. He helped start a company called Viaweb. This company made software for online stores. Yahoo! later bought it for $49 million. He also helped start Y Combinator in 2005. This firm gives money and advice to new businesses. Today, Morris is a professor at MIT. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2019.

Robert Tappan Morris is a prominent American computer scientist and entrepreneur. He is most famous for creating the Morris worm in 1988. This program is considered the first computer worm to spread across the Internet. His actions led to significant legal changes in how computers are protected. Morris was the first person convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Today, he is a respected professor and a leader in the technology industry.

In 1988, Morris was a Ph.D. student at Cornell University. During his first year of graduate school, he developed the Morris worm. He chose to release the worm from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He did this to prevent the worm from being traced directly back to Cornell. The worm was designed to find and exploit specific weaknesses in computer systems. It used a hole in the debug mode of the Unix sendmail program. It also used a buffer overflow, or an overrun hole, in the fingerd network service. Additionally, it used rexec/rsh to exploit transitive trust. This happened when people set up network logins without password requirements via remote execution.

The worm included a specific mechanism to ensure its spread. It was programmed to check if a computer was already infected. Morris feared that system administrators might lie to the worm. They might instruct a computer to report a false positive to stop the spread. To prevent this, Morris programmed the worm to copy itself anyway 14% of the time. This decision was a major design flaw. The worm became too persistent and created heavy system loads. These loads disrupted target computers and alerted administrators to the problem.

The economic impact of the Morris worm was very large. Experts estimated the cost of lost productivity and removal efforts per system. These costs ranged from $200 to $53,000 for a single machine. The total economic impact reached up to $10,000,000. In 1989, Morris was indicted for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. This was a new law at the time. During his trial, Morris explained his motive. He wanted to demonstrate the inadequacies of current network security measures. He aimed to show the security defects he had discovered.

In December 1990, a court sentenced Morris for his actions. He received three years of probation and 400 hours of community service. He was also ordered to pay a fine of $10,050 plus supervision costs. He appealed the decision, but his conviction was affirmed the following March. Morris completed his sentence in 1994. After this, he returned to Harvard to finish his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.). He earned his degree in Applied Sciences in 1999. His thesis was titled Scalable TCP Congestion Control.

Morris went on to become a very successful entrepreneur. In 1995, he cofounded Viaweb with Paul Graham. This startup created software for building online stores. Yahoo! eventually purchased the company for $49 million. The software became known as Yahoo! Store. In 2005, Morris cofounded Y Combinator with Paul Graham, Trevor Blackwell, and Jessica Livingston. Y Combinator is a venture capital firm. It provides seed money, advice, and connections to new startups. The firm runs two three-month programs every year.

Morris has achieved many honors in the scientific community. He joined the faculty at MIT in 1999 as an assistant professor. He received tenure at MIT in 2006. He was awarded the SIGOPS Mark Weiser award in 2010. In 2015, he became a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). This honor recognized his work in computer networking and distributed systems. In 2019, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. His research continues to focus on computer network architectures. This includes work on wireless mesh networks and distributed hash tables like Chord.