[TUHS] Happy birthday, Morris Worm!

[Dan Cross]

On Thu, Nov 2, 2017 at 10:42 AM, Will Senn <will.senn at gmail.com> wrote:
> I seem to recall that this story was included as part of The Cuckoo's Egg,
> by Clifford Stoll. I don't recall the specifics and I wonder if it has a bit
> of myth included, but somehow it was peripherally related to the
> investigations. Fuzzy recollection is that the worm got out during the
> investigation Clifford was involved in and it was Morris's son (Morris being
> in on the investigation somehow), and the kid getting off because of the
> position of the dad and the newness of the crime... or somesuch - don't
> shoot the messenger, but nobody mentioned Stoll, so I thought I'd chime in,
> in the hopes it might jog someone else's memory :).

Stoll mentions the worm in an epilogue to The Cuckoo's Egg; it happens
after the main events of the book. Apparently, for a brief time, some
folks thought that he might be the one behind the worm and someone
called him up and asked him if he'd written it.

Cliff Stoll talked to a number of people in law enforcement and in
government and thus made a number of contacts while he was pursuing
Markus Hess (the pursuit of Hess being the main story of The Cuckoo's
Egg): Robert Morris Sr was among those contacts. When the worm hit, he
talked to Morris Sr and asked him if he knew who started it. The
response was something along the lines of, "Yes, but I can't tell
you."

        - Dan C.