Word: arpanet
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...reports spread that Cornell grad student Robert T. Morris Jr. '87-'88 had disabled thousands of computer terminals at 300 universities, hospitals and research institutions across the country. By introducing a computer virus (a program which reproduces itself from system to system), Morris effectively brought the Pentagon's Arpanet network to a dead stop without so much as an electronic whimper...
...least publicized achievements of the computer revolution: a huge, arching communications network connecting 60,000 computers by high-speed data links and ordinary telephone lines. Developed by the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency in the late 1960s, Arpanet, as the information grid is called, has carried everything from unclassified military data to electronic love notes sent from one lonely researcher to another. But last week it became the conduit for something much more dramatic: one of the most sophisticated and infectious computer viruses the world has yet seen...
...biological counterpart, an electronic virus is a program that copies itself by taking control of a computer's internal machinery. Unlike more malicious versions, the new virus did not destroy data stored in computers, but it did disrupt the work of tens of thousands of researchers hooked into Arpanet. It also penetrated unclassified branches of a second, more secure network called Milnet, which is used by military researchers. Said a Government computer expert: "The kid simply put us out of action...
...younger Morris apparently created the virus as an experiment, intending that it would slowly copy itself across Arpanet, resting harmlessly in thousands of computers. But a tiny mistake in the programming reportedly caused the virus to replicate much more rapidly than planned. Otherwise, Morris' program was an impressive piece of work. It flew around Arpanet and Milnet at nearly the speed of light, disguised as a piece of ordinary electronic mail. Once inside a computer, it released a small army of surreptitious subprograms. One instructed the computer to make hundreds of copies of the original program. Another searched...
...alerted to the problem by colleagues at Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., immediately "guillotined" their computers from the network to keep from getting hit. As a preventive measure, Maryland's Goddard Space Flight Center shut off its system on Thursday. Eventually, the Defense Department brought down both Arpanet and Milnet and began efforts to tighten the security of the networks...