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''United States v. Morris'' was an appeal of the conviction of Robert Tappan Morris for creating and releasing the Morris worm, one of the first Internet-based worms. This case resulted in the first conviction under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. In the process, the dispute clarified much of the language used in the law, which had been heavily revised in a number of updates passed in the years after its initial drafting. Also clarified was the concept of "unauthorized access," which is central in the United States' computer security laws. The decision was the first by a U.S. court to refer to "the Internet",〔(''The Path of Internet Law: An Annotated Guide to Legal Landmarks'' ). 2011 Duke L. & Tech. Rev. 12 〕 which it described simply as "a national computer network." == Case background == Robert Tappan Morris was a Cornell student, who began work in 1988 on an early Internet worm. He had been given explicit access to a Cornell computer account upon entering the school, and used this access to develop his worm. Morris released the worm from MIT, in an attempt to disguise its source. The worm spread through four mechanisms: * Through a bug in Sendmail, an email program. * Through a bug in Finger, a program used to find out information about other users on networked computers. * Through a "trusted hosts" feature, which allows users from one system to use another system without a password. * Through a password brute-force attack. The worm was designed so that it would not spread to computers that it had already infected. To prevent computers from defending against this by pretending to have the worm, however, it would still infect an already infected computer one out of seven times. The worm was also designed so that it would be erased when an infected computer was shut down, thus preventing multiple infections from becoming problematic. Morris' underestimation of the rate of reinfection causing this safeguard to be ineffective, and "tens of thousands" of computers were rendered catatonic by repeated infections.〔〔Elmer-Dewitt, Philip (14 Nov. 1988). ("Technology: The Kid Put Us Out Of Action" ). ''TIME.''〕 It was estimated that between $200 and $53,000 was required per infected facility to clean up after the worm.〔 Morris was found guilty by the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York of violating 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(5)(A), sentenced to three years of probation, 400 hours of community service, a fine of $10,050, and the cost of his supervision.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「United States v. Morris (1991)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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