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From: weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin,comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: "Morris did it"--the new excuse?
Message-ID: <16915@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 12 Nov 88 23:22:10 GMT
References: <552@comdesign.CDI.COM> <1570@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu>
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: 65
In-reply-to: deke@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu (Dikran Kassabian)

In article <1570@valhalla.ee.rochester.edu>, deke@valhalla (Dikran Kassabian) writes:
>Consider some of the less obvious consequences of his actions.

OK.

>Scientists and researchers at a university like mine were unable to use
>their computers and network links during the virus attack, and lost
>valuable time.  As always, some were up against deadlines and may well
>be hindered now in their chances for getting results before a confer-
>ence, or in getting a grant proposal out before deadlines.

When I've taught courses that use computers, I told students that under
almost all circumstances, computer downtime would not be an excuse for
lateness.  The one exception I've ever made involved granting everyone
a week's extension.  I've never worked assuming that the machines I use
are 100% reliable.  Do the scientists/researchers at your site do so--
even on critical stuff?  If someone has a grant proposal riding on get-
ting something done by a certain deadline, what happens if there's a
major disk crash at your site?

>The medical center/teaching hospital at my university is also network
>connected.  What if the network overload caused patient monitoring systems
>there to be sluggish and inadequate?  Would that be OK because Mr. Morris
>"did not do it on purpose"?  As it turns out, this was not a problem here,
>but it's not out of the question... it could have happened somewhere.

Are you saying that the patients at your university are in possible trouble
on days when the ARPANET is slow?  That if a machine crashes unexpectedly
that patients have nothing to rely on but prayer?  I find it frightening
that hospitals exist which have perhaps decided to rely heavily on some
computers working according to a perfect schedule.  Don't you?

Hospitals generally have a backup power supply.  For a very good reason.

>This is serious business!

Yes this is *all* serious business.  Computers used primarily for USENET
or hack or what-not can be dead for awhile and merely inconvenience lots
of people.  But now you cite computers where users cannot afford to have
computers to be down for long--do the sites that run them without having
any contingency plans whatsoever?  Such sites are irresponsible.

I find it remarkable that in such a computer-literate group that we all
supposedly represent, and thus all know that "the computer did it" is NOT
an acceptable excuse, that anyone, let alone the apparent horders here,
would quickly adopt "the worm did it".

What is the difference between:

	I'm sorry, Mrs Brown, your husband died because of a
	computer power failure.

and

	I'm sorry, Mrs Brown, your husband died because the
	Morris worm knocked out our computers.

?  To Mrs Brown, I would expect none whatsoever.

And you seem to be implying that the latter is to be blamed solely on RTM;
I believe the hospital that would or should be held culpable in the first
case is just as negligent in the latter, and should not be allowed to pass
the responsibility buck.

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720