75 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
75 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
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THE WORM BEFORE CHRISTMAS
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Twas the night before finals and all through the lab
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Not a student was sleeping, not even McNabb.
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Their projects were finished, completed with care
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In hopes that the grades would be easy (and fair).
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The students were wired with caffeine in their veins
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While visions of quals nearly drove them insane.
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With piles of books and a brand-new highlighter,
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I had just settled down for another all-nighter --
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When out from our gateways arose such a clatter,
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I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter
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Away to the console I flew like a flash
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And logged on as root to fend off a crash
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The windows displayed on my brand new Sun-3
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Gave oodles of info -- some in 3-D.
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When, what to my burning red eyes should appear
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But dozens of "nobody" jobs. Oh dear!
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With a blitzkrieg invasion, so virulent and firm,
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I knew in a moment. It was Morris's Worm!
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More rapid than eagles his processes came
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And they forked and exec'd and they copied by name!
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"Now Dasher! Now Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen!
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On Comet! On Cupid! On Donner and Blitzen!
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To the sites in .rhosts and host.eqi
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Now, dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
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[ Note: the machines dasher.cs.uiuc.edu, dancer.cs.uiuc.edu,
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prancer.cs.uiuc.edu, etc., have been renamed deer1, deer2,
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deer3, etc., so as not to confuse the already burdened
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students who use those machines. We regret that this poem
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reflects the older naming scheme and hope it does not
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confuse the network administrator at your site. -Ed. ]
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And then in a twinkling, I heard on the phone,
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The complaints of the users (thought I was alone!)
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"The load is too high!" "I can't read my files!"
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"I can't send my mail over miles and miles!"
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I unplugged the net, and was turning around,
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When the worm-ridden system went down with a bound.
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I frettedI fritteredI sweatedI wept.
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Then finally I core dumped the worm in /tmp.
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It was smart and pervasive, a right jolly old stealth,
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And I laughed when I saw it, in spite of myself.
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A look at the dump of that invasive thread
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Soon gave me to know we had nothing to dread.
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The next day was slow with no network connections
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For we wanted no more of those pesky infections.
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But in spite of the news and the noise and the clatter
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Soon all became normal, as if naught were the matter.
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Then later that month, while all were away,
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A virus came calling, and then went away.
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The system then told us, when we logged in one night:
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"Happy Christmas to all! (You guys aren't so bright.)"
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(Received in a mailfile on Cornell's computer network.)
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(Copied from m-net, Ann Arbor, MI)
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|===================================|
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| m-net!o-forum!brad |
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| (or) brad@m-net.uucp |
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|<Brad Foster> |
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|o-forum direct-dial: (313) 971-8848|
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|===================================|
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