Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!kong!emory!stiatl!john
From: john@stiatl.UUCP (John DeArmond)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: CALL FOR VOTES:  DID HE DO US A SER
Message-ID: <1564@stiatl.UUCP>
Date: 16 Nov 88 15:53:27 GMT
References: <1330@stiatl.UUCP> <79700016@p.cs.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: john@stiatl.UUCP (John DeArmond)
Distribution: na
Organization: Sales Technologies Inc., Atlanta, GA
Lines: 54

In article <79700016@p.cs.uiuc.edu> gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>I believe we should string Robert Morris up by his thumbnails.
>
>Why?  Consider this.  Ten years from now, a graduate student in
>biology decides to make a *REAL* virus.  He says, "geez, why hasn't
>the NIH innoculated the general population against this virus?
>Obviously, any strain of X, Y, or Z could mutate into this virus at
>any time, causing lots of harm!"  So secretly, he builds the virus.
>He intends to show off a weakend form of the virus, to get people to
>do something.  But before he finishes it, he makes a serious mistake,
>and the virus escapes in mutant form.  Millions of deaths follow.
>
>What would you do to this person?  How can you (ethically)
>differentiate between this graduate student and Robert Morris?
>
>
>We are so lucky that digital systems don't die from software bugs
>(usually).
>
>
>Don Gillies, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Illinois
>1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, Ill 61801      
>ARPA: gillies@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP: {uunet,harvard}!uiucdcs!gillies

Gawd!!!! This is getting out of control.  I'm usually highly resistant
to name calling but damned if this is not the stupidest thing I've ever
heard.  Are you really so weak between the ears that you cannot distinguish
the difference between filling some memory with extraneous bits and mass 
murder?  Does you school allow students to get anywhere near a recombinant
DNA lab without some qualification and control?  God, I hope not.  
That'd be like allowing just any old student
to walk into the nuclear engineering lab and pull rods on the reactor.
And do you really think any degree of punishment of Morris would have
even an iota of effect on anyone so sick as to try your form of mass murder?

lets face it.. About the worst thing Morris could have done if he'd been 
of a mind would have been to clean off every file system on the Arpanet.
Big Deal!!!  Sure, it would piss me off and I'd waste a bunch of time and 
perhaps loose some irreplacable data but outside of my maybe beating my
head against the wall, no one would have suffered any real injury.
And if you are foolish enough to have ANY vital function computer on the
Arpanet or any other public net, then you pretty much deserve what you
get.

In reality, Morris wasted a few hours of each of a few dozen to perhaps
a hundred people.  *WOW*  If that's so bad, then I would have to ask
the rhetorical question:  How many thousand man-hours are wasted on Net-
news each day? (waste = (total hours) - (hours getting something useful))
I'd think the Morris worm would pale by comparison.

anyway, back to wasting time.... 

John De Armond