Robert Tappan Morris. Those who have mastered the historical development of the Internet must have heard of this name. He was one of the first people in history to be prosecuted for internet crimes. Morris managed to "accidentally" eliminate one of humanity's greatest inventions, the internet, many years ago. Let's take a look at the strange story of this man.
November 1988.
Robert Tappan Morris, whose father was a cryptographer, started his graduate
studies with 19 other students at Cornell University to specialize in the
internet, which was just beginning to spread around the world at the time. Morris'
goal was to write a program to understand how big the internet was back then. Detecting
how many devices are connected to the Internet at the same time could be the
answer to his question.
Morris succeeded. He wrote a
program that circulates from computer to computer, sending information that
each computer is connected to the Internet to the control server. Morris has
set limits to his software to avoid any problems. Problems could arise if the
transmitted signals travel too fast. The software was designed to copy itself
to computers. Morris was shocked by what he saw the first time he coached. By
the time he realized what had happened, he had failed to notify the internet
providers of the situation. The young man literally crashed the internet.
It was a student who orchestrated the first cyberattack in history
Morris' mistake was recorded as the first cyber attack in history, because it
pulled traffic from all computers, cameras and other devices connected to the
Internet. Today, the biggest weapon of hackers who carry out cyber attacks is
to cause overload by creating heavy traffic. Morris was the first to do so.
The program he wrote became known as the "Morris worm"
There is a difference between worms and digital viruses. A virus software
needs an external command from the user or hacker to work. Wormware, on the
other hand, can run on its own. For example, even if you never open the application
that checks your e-mail, the worm software that reaches your computer can send
a copy of itself to everyone on your list.
Of course, such a term didn't exist when Morris created his own wormware...
Even the concept of cyber security was still a matter of concern by a few
scientists. It was very easy for the Morris worm to spread, as there was no
security software. It took 72 hours for researchers in Pardue and Berkeley,
which were universities where the foundations of the internet were laid, to get
rid of the Morris worm. The Morris worm, which infected 10% of devices
connected to the internet globally, spread to tens of thousands of devices. It
took hundreds of dollars to clear the worm from a system.
The world internet did not know the digital world at all. Some newspapers
ask, “Do computer infections infect humans?” They sought answers to their
questions
The world was so alien to such a thing that if Morris had lived in a world
of more obscurity, perhaps he would have been declared a demon. News spread
rapidly in the press that computer infections could infect humans. Actually, if
you look at it, it was a very futuristic point of view. In the future, when
human bodies can be connected to the Internet, perhaps we will be infected with
wormware. We are sure that those journalists were not even aware of such a
prediction.
Morris' goal was not to crash the internet by overloading, but when his
software made a huge impact, he was prosecuted under the "Computer Fraud
and Abuse", the first internet crimes law in the US at the time. His
sentence was 3 years in prison and $10,000.
The first hacker in history, now
a millionaire scientist
MIT, one of the best technical universities of all time in the USA, became
Morris' new address after serving his sentence. He completed his master's and
doctorate education and succeeded in being among the world's leading figures in
the field of computer science. The man who crashed the internet in 1988 was a
millionaire in the early 1990s.
Today, more than 20 billion
devices are connected to the internet, cyber security should be given more importance
We live in a world where there are millions of worms, and every day in a
different corner of the world real criminals conduct cyber attacks. These
devices are now in every aspect of our lives. Of course, the problems are not
just limited to wormware, DDoS attacks have also been involved. The number of
vulnerabilities will continue to increase as the number of devices connecting
to the Internet increases.
The main problem is that computer criminals cannot be identified. When
Morris committed his crime, he had come forward and apologized because it
wasn't his intention anyway. Despite dozens of government organizations and
research institutions today, most hackers go undetected. In the world of the
future, law will take shape according to the internet and digital. Maybe those
who read this article, including Morris, will not see those days, but the
strange story of the Morris worm will never be forgotten.
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