Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!convex!killer!ames!oliveb!olivey!jerry
From: jerry@olivey.olivetti.com (Jerry Aguirre)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin
Subject: The worm; Who blabbed to the media
Message-ID: <32591@oliveb.olivetti.com>
Date: 14 Nov 88 20:25:12 GMT
Sender: news@oliveb.olivetti.com
Lines: 40

Our site wasn't hit by the worm so I am not even going to comment on it
or Mr. Morris.  Possibly racing around trying to figure out what what
all those "sh" processes were doing would have influenced me.

I do have a new question.  What self serving ham (making an enemy here)
released the story of the worm to the media?  And before someone
says that the person was doing us a service consider the story presented
by the media.  I sure couldn't tell what types of computers were
effected and whether I should be concerned.  When I came in Monday
morning I had no idea whether the worm was of concern to me or only
effected IBM computers on BITNET.

So, I conclude that the media, as usual, "popularized" the story to the
point of making it useless as a warning for system admins.  I fully
expect that someone will shout "freedom of the press" but I don't think
that applies.  The press is has a freedom to publish information but
that doesn't imply a requirement to volunteer it to them.  If they get
wind and start investigating then fine, give them the story and hope
they won't garble it too much.  I doubt that is what happened in this
case though.

It is my opinion that releasing the story to the media, who don't know
a damn thing about computers, so they can further misinform the public
was more of a disservice than the relase of the worm.  Whoever called
the press was guilty of the same desire for notoriety that people have
accused Mr. Morris of.

Please note that I consider this a completely separate issue from
keeping security holes secret.  Posting holes to the net might do some
good, posting them on the 11:00 news won't help anybody, not even the
system cracker.  Do you want your administration making some kind of
knee-jerk reaction based on the story the media presented?

It is interesting that the media can correctly report the model of a car
that has been recalled, or what brand of Tuna is dangerous to eat, but
shies away from terms like Vax, sendmail, and 4.3BSD.  That level of
detail would be too booring for the menial worker with a 6th grade
education that they perceive their readers to be.

					Jerry Aguirre