So Michael Specter wishes to lift up Robert Morris as an example of American software ingenuity {"Revenge of the Nerds," Outlook, Feb. 4}. Perhaps he would also like to praise Frank and Jesse James for their efforts toward improving bank security. Perhaps he would like to recompense the universities attacked by Morris's software worm for the damages he did -- at last count, almost a million dollars' worth.
Fortunately, "RTM" was not out to deliberately cause damage. What would have happened if he had been? Millions of dollars in time and research data gone into the bit-bucket? What if he had "hacked" into a credit-card database, a hospital records computer or your newspaper's publishing system?
Specter obviously does not realize that we in the scientific community operate on trust and cooperation. No computer is penetration-proof -- to make it so would take resources away from the research and engineering that are our reason for existence. Instead, we try to make computers reasonably idiot-proof and to trust one another as much as possible.
Actions such as Morris's ruin the usefulness of shared computer resources for everyone. I hope that the government does succeed in "telling the young computer adventurers ... that one wayward stop is all it takes to lock you up." They need to learn that being adventurous does not mean being irresponsible. Computer science offers plenty of challenges without larceny being advocated as "training."
With all fairness, the term "computer hacker" is properly used to mean any (usually amateur) person who attacks various problems of computer design and software -- usually to the point of obsession; 99.9 percent of hackers are responsible and work through legitimate means. People such as Robert Morris blacken their reputation.
Oh, and by the way, I strongly object to Specter's use of the "nerd" label. Most computer programmers are respectable people with families and noncomputer hobbies. -- W. Paul Blase
