Robert Tappan Morris
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Robert Tappan Morris (born November 8, 1965) is an American
computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...
and
entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...
. He is best known for creating the Morris worm in 1988, considered the first
computer worm A computer worm is a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. It often uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. It will ...
on the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
. Morris was prosecuted for releasing the worm, and became the first person convicted under the then-new Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). He went on to cofound the online store
Viaweb Viaweb was a web application, web-based application that allowed users to build and web hosting, host their own online stores with little technical expertise using a web browser. The company was started in July 1995 by Paul Graham (computer progr ...
, one of the first
web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, ...
s, and later the
venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...
funding firm
Y Combinator Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, Californi ...
, both with Paul Graham and Trevor Blackwell. He later joined the faculty in the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
(MIT), where he received
tenure Tenure is a type of academic appointment that protects its holder from being fired or laid off except for cause, or under extraordinary circumstances such as financial exigency or program discontinuation. Academic tenure originated in the United ...
in 2006. He was elected to the
National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...
in 2019.


Early life

Morris was born in 1965 to parents Robert Morris and Anne Farlow Morris. The senior Robert Morris was a computer scientist at
Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...
, who helped design
Multics Multics ("MULTiplexed Information and Computing Service") is an influential early time-sharing operating system based on the concept of a single-level memory.Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", Communications of t ...
and
Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...
; and later became the chief scientist at the National Computer Security Center, a division of the
National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and proces ...
(NSA). Morris grew up in the Millington section of Long Hill Township, New Jersey, attended The Peck School, and graduated from Delbarton School in 1983. Morris attended
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
, and later went on to graduate school at
Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...
. During his first year there, he designed a
computer worm A computer worm is a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. It often uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. It will ...
(see below) that disrupted many computers on what was then a fledgling internet. This led to him being indicted a year later. After serving his conviction term, he returned to Harvard to complete his
Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...
(Ph.D.) under the supervision of H. T. Kung. He finished in 1999.


Morris worm

Morris's
computer worm A computer worm is a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. It often uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. It will ...
was developed in 1988, while he was a graduate student at
Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...
. He released the worm from MIT, rather than from Cornell. The worm exploited several vulnerabilities to gain entry to targeted systems, including: * A hole in the debug mode of the
Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...
'' sendmail'' program * A buffer overflow or overrun hole in the '' fingerd'' network service * The transitive trust enabled by people setting up network
login In computer security, logging in (or logging on, signing in, or signing on) is the process by which an individual gains access to a computer system or program by identifying and authenticating themselves. Typically, user credential ...
s with no
password A password, sometimes called a passcode, is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of password-protected services t ...
requirements via '' remote execution'' (rexec) with '' Remote Shell'' (rsh), termed ''rexec/rsh'' The worm was programmed to check each computer it found to determine if the infection was already present. However, Morris believed that some
system administrator An IT administrator, system administrator, sysadmin, or admin is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems, especially multi-user computers, such as Server (computing), servers. The ...
s might try to defeat the worm by instructing the computer to report a false positive. To compensate for this possibility, Morris programmed the worm to copy itself anyway, 14% of the time, no matter what the response was to the infection-status interrogation. This level of persistence was a design flaw: it created system loads that brought it to the attention of administrators, and disrupted the target computers. During the ensuing trial, it was estimated that the cost in "potential loss in productivity" caused by the worm and efforts to remove it from individual system ranged from $200 to $53,000 per system, representing a total economic impact of up to $10,000,000.


Criminal prosecution

In 1989, Morris was indicted for violating
United States Code The United States Code (formally The Code of Laws of the United States of America) is the official Codification (law), codification of the general and permanent Law of the United States#Federal law, federal statutes of the United States. It ...
Title 18 (), the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). He was the first person to be indicted under this act. In December 1990, he was sentenced to three years of probation, 400 hours of community service, and a fine of $10,050 plus the costs of his supervision. He appealed, but his conviction was affirmed the following March. Morris's stated motive during the trial was "to demonstrate the inadequacies of current security measures on computer networks by exploiting the security defects ehad discovered." He completed his sentence as of 1994.


Later life and work

Morris's principal research interest is computer network architectures which includes work on
distributed hash table A distributed hash table (DHT) is a Distributed computing, distributed system that provides a lookup service similar to a hash table. Key–value pairs are stored in a DHT, and any participating node (networking), node can efficiently retrieve the ...
s such as Chord and wireless mesh networks such as Roofnet. He is a longtime friend and collaborator of Paul Graham. Along with cofounding two companies with him, Graham dedicated his book ''ANSI Common Lisp'' to Morris and named the
programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...
that generates the online stores' web pages
RTML RTML is a proprietary programming language used exclusively by Yahoo!'s Yahoo! Store and Yahoo! Site web hosting services. History The language originated at Viaweb, a company founded in 1995 by Paul Graham (computer programmer), Paul Graham and ...
(Robert T. Morris Language) in his honor. Graham lists Morris as one of his personal heroes, saying that Morris is "never wrong."


Timeline

*1983 – Graduated from Delbarton School in
Morristown, New Jersey Morristown () is a Town (New Jersey), town in and the county seat of Morris County, New Jersey, Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.
*1987 – Received his
Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...
(B.A.) from
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
*1988 – Released the Morris worm (when he was a graduate student at
Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...
) *1989 – Indicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) of 1986 on July 26, 1989; the first person to be indicted under the Act *1990 – Convicted in ''United States v. Morris'' *1995 – Cofounded
Viaweb Viaweb was a web application, web-based application that allowed users to build and web hosting, host their own online stores with little technical expertise using a web browser. The company was started in July 1995 by Paul Graham (computer progr ...
, a start-up company that made software for building online stores (with Paul Graham) *1998 – Viaweb sold for $49 million to
Yahoo Yahoo (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web portal that provides the search engine Yahoo Search and related services including My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, y!entertainment, yahoo!life, an ...
, which renamed the software ''Yahoo! Store'' *1999 – Received Ph.D. in Applied Sciences from Harvard for thesis titled ''Scalable TCP Congestion Control'' *1999 – Appointed as an
assistant professor Assistant professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doct ...
at MIT *2005 – Cofounded
Y Combinator Y Combinator, LLC (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator and venture capital firm launched in March 2005 which has been used to launch more than 5,000 companies. The accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, Californi ...
, a seed-stage startup
venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...
funding firm that provides seed money, advice, and connections at two 3-month programs per year (with Paul Graham, Trevor Blackwell, and Jessica Livingston) *2006 – Awarded
tenure Tenure is a type of academic appointment that protects its holder from being fired or laid off except for cause, or under extraordinary circumstances such as financial exigency or program discontinuation. Academic tenure originated in the United ...
at MIT *2006 – Technical advisor for Cisco Meraki *2008 – Released the
programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...
Arc, a
Lisp Lisp (historically LISP, an abbreviation of "list processing") is a family of programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized Polish notation#Explanation, prefix notation. Originally specified in the late 1950s, ...
dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...
(with Paul Graham) *2010 – Awarded the 2010 Special Interest Group in Operating Systems (SIGOPS) Mark Weiser award *2015 – Elected a Fellow of
Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membe ...
(ACM, 2014) for ''"contributions to
computer network A computer network is a collection of communicating computers and other devices, such as printers and smart phones. In order to communicate, the computers and devices must be connected by wired media like copper cables, optical fibers, or b ...
ing, distributed systems, and
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
s."'' *2019 – Elected to
National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...


See also

* List of convicted computer criminals


References


Further reading

* *
A Report on the Internet Worm
*


External links

* , at MIT {{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, Robert Tappan 1965 births Living people American computer programmers Computer systems researchers Cornell University alumni Place of birth missing (living people) Delbarton School alumni MIT School of Engineering faculty American computer security academics American cybercriminals American technology company founders People from Long Hill Township, New Jersey Lisp (programming language) people American computer businesspeople Y Combinator people Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni People convicted of cybercrime People charged with computer fraud Hackers