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also doing something else. It had infected tens of thousands of machines, which were all cranking away in unintended harmony. During the 48 hours of its brief and unforgettable life, it was later calculated, the Morris Worm had become the most powerful parallel computer in history. At its peak, it managed to achieve a processing speed of 400 billion operations per second – about twice the speed of the most expensive supercomputers of the day.

Like any unexpected epidemic, the worm became a social, cultural and technological milestone. First, it caused Morris to be arrested. He was handed a $10,000 fine, some community service and several years of probation. He later went on to found an important Internet company, to join the faculty of MIT and to receive the highest honors in computing for his (other) efforts.

Then, a year or so after the virus had been finally corralled, the computer scientist Fred Cohen, one of the earliest specialists in malware – in fact, the man who invented the term “computer virus” – wrote an article that challenged the notion that all computer viruses are, inherently, bad.215 What drew his attention was that fabulous, unbelievable record of the Morris Worm: 400 billion computations each second. “The features that make computer viruses a serious threat to computer integrity,” he wrote, “can also make them a powerful mechanism.”216 This optimistic gloss, which sounded an awful lot like “The Plauge was great for humanity!” if you didn’t follow Cohen’s logic, triggered a furious response. Eugene Spafford, also a well-regarded computer researcher, fired back: “For someone of Dr. Cohen’s reputation to actually promote the uncontrolled writing of any virus, even with his stated stipulations, is to act irresponsibly and immorally.”217

So here, then, is a line, of sorts. The Morris Worm, an expression of really massive connection and interaction and speed, is a model for the world we live in now. Fast, linking with a mind of its own, running best (or at least fastest) when it uses the design of the system to spread on a topology optimized for speed. But who is right about the implication of such an historic design. Cohen? Spafford? Do we want our whole world cranking away, super fast, compressing time to nothing?

We can, all of us, decide to fight against the very ideas of a network. Or we can, like Cohen suggested, look at the terrifyingly fast nature of this world and begin to see something else. The totally unimaginable. Of course Spafford was not wrong. There is something scary and thought-muddling about the idea of intentionally authored computer viruses, running wild, ever faster. But there is something thought-muddling about this whole world we’re entering. Networks are pulling at every existing structure. They hum, really, with the most elemental and precious human

215 Fred Cohen: Frederick B. Cohen. A Short Course on Computer Viruses (Pittsburgh, PA: ASP Press, 1990)
216 “The features”: Fred Cohen, “Friendly Contagion: Harnessing the Power of Computer Viruses”, The Sciences Sept/Oct 199, 22
217 Eugene Spafford: Eugene Spafford, “Three Letters on Computer Security and Society,” Purdue e-Pubs 1991, 91-088

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