Xref: utzoo news.sysadmin:1248 talk.bizarre:21907
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!labrea!agate!garnet!weemba
From: weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin,talk.bizarre
Subject: Putting the Morris worm to good use: ho ho ho
Message-ID: <16740@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 9 Nov 88 11:18:14 GMT
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Followup-To: news.sysadmin
Organization: Brahms Gang Posting Central
Lines: 25

You know, that worm was kind of boring.  All it did was propagate.

Wouldn't this have been a great opportunity to update code uniformly
across the ARPANET?  Imagine the effect, for example, were B news 2.11
and GNU Emacs 18.52 and X11R4 all part of the worm?  It would have been
a complete cinch to write a nifty little AI program to identify exist-
ing configurations, and then painlessly update everything in the dead
of night and then boldly seek out new machines to bring sweetness, har-
mony and enlightenment to.  Just so that no one panics the next day,
it would also add a little note to /etc/motd, sign the comment "Your
Friendly Neighborhood System Administrator Man!", and everyone would
suspect that it was the *other* person with root access who did all
the grunt work the night before.

To minimize disruptions and also suspicions and investigations, I have
one more capital suggestion.   Wait until some major holiday comes along.
This Thanksgiving is too close for comfort: as there are right now all
these sysadmins WHO MIGHT STILL BE A TINY BIT VIGILANT ABOUT SECURITY
then.  I'd say it's best to give this idea a rest until late December
--by then all these sysadmins will be thinking EVERYTHING IS ONCE MORE
A-OK and STRENGTH THROUGH IGNORANCE.  Dumb but true.

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720
      'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the firm,
            Not a creature was stirring, not even a worm.