A Look Back: When a Single Line of Code Had a Monumental Impact on the Internet
On July 1st, 2025, the French technology news outlet Korben.info published an article titled “Comment le fils d’un expert NSA a planté Internet avec 99 lignes de code” (How the Son of an NSA Expert Planted the Internet with 99 Lines of Code). While the title itself is dramatic and immediately grabs attention, the piece delves into a fascinating historical event that profoundly impacted the early development and security of the internet. The article, published at 11:37 AM, revisits the story of Robert Tappan Morris, the son of a prominent NSA computer scientist, and the infamous Morris Worm.
The article likely highlights the genesis of the Morris Worm, which was unleashed on November 2, 1988. Created by Robert Tappan Morris as an experiment for his Master’s thesis at Cornell University, the worm was intended to gauge the size of the internet. However, a flaw in the program’s design caused it to replicate far more aggressively than intended. Instead of simply counting computers, the worm began to infect systems, making copies of itself and spreading rapidly.
Korben.info’s piece would undoubtedly paint a picture of the internet as it was in 1988 – a much smaller, more nascent network, largely populated by academic and government institutions. The surprise and disruption caused by the worm were significant, as it overwhelmed systems, slowed down networks to a crawl, and in some cases, caused complete outages. This event was one of the first major incidents of its kind, bringing to the forefront the vulnerabilities of interconnected computer systems.
The article probably details how the worm exploited several security weaknesses present at the time, including vulnerabilities in the SENDMAIL program and the FTP (File Transfer Protocol) services, as well as weaknesses in the way that operating systems like Unix handled remote logins. The 99 lines of code, while seemingly small, were enough to exploit these vulnerabilities and propagate the worm across a significant portion of the nascent internet.
Furthermore, Korben.info’s narrative would likely touch upon the immediate aftermath and the broader implications of the Morris Worm. It served as a stark wake-up call to the cybersecurity community, demonstrating the potential for malicious code to cause widespread disruption. This event is widely credited with spurring the creation of the first Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), dedicated to addressing such security incidents. It also led to the first conviction under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in the United States.
The story of Robert Morris, as likely presented by Korben.info, is a complex one. While his intentions were reportedly academic rather than malicious, the consequences of his experiment were far-reaching. The article offers a valuable retrospective on a pivotal moment in internet history, reminding us of the constant evolution of both technology and the threats it faces, and the critical importance of robust cybersecurity practices from the very early days of the digital age. The publication date of this retrospective, in July 2025, suggests a continued interest in understanding the foundational events that shaped our current digital landscape.
Comment le fils d’un expert NSA a planté Internet avec 99 lignes de code
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Korben published ‘Comment le fils d’un expert NSA a planté Internet avec 99 lignes de code’ at 2025-07-01 11:37. Please write a detailed article about this news in a polite tone with relevant information. Please reply in English with the article only.