Justice Department Wary in Computer Case

Justice Department Wary in Computer Case

By Matthew Spina
Syracuse Herald-American

May 28, 1989

"Is Washington Fearful Of Losing A Landmark Trial?"

Some computer experts theorize that the Justice Department, afraid of bungling what could become a landmark computer case, still doesn't know how to treat the Cornell student whose computer worm slithered nationwide in November, 1988.

A further concern in Washington: A trial in the case might embarrass the Department of Defense if its scientists are asked to detail how their computers were among the thousands crippled by the worm.

For several months, the decision on how to charge 23-year-old Robert T. Morris, Jr. had been before Mark Richard, a deputy assistant attorney general. Within the last few weeks, Richard made a decision that now is being reviewed by an assistant attorney general, according to a computer professional who has been talking with the Justice Department.

"I thought we would have heard something from Washington by now," said Andrew Baxtoer, the assistant U.S. attorney who in November and December presented the case to a grand jury in Syracuse.

The grand jury's report was sent on the the Justice Department, which refuses to comment publicly on the matter because Morris has not been indicted.

"Within the next two weeks I assume that a decision will be made," said one official.

"If they decide to begin an expensive trial, they have to make sure they win so as not to damage future attempts to prosecute under that law," said Eugene H. Spafford, an assistant professor at Purdue University whose analysis of the worm has helped federal investigators. "If they decide not to prosecute, and the total thing that happens is he gets suspended (from Cornell), I will be outraged."

So far, Cornell has taken the only disciplinary measure against Morris, suspending him for the 1989-90 academic year. But the graduate student left the computer science department early in November, the day after the worm spread out of a computer in Upson Hall.

Morris, a computer science graduate student, has been called the author of a rogue computer program, called a worm, that was spread from a Cornell University computer. The program was designed to reproduce and infect any computer linked to the Internet, a network shared by colleges, research centers and military institutions.

However, experts say an error caused the program to replicate out of control, sending thousands of copies into thousands of computers.

If Morris is to be charged with a felony, prosecutors would then have to show he intended to destroy or extract information.

Proving that would be difficult since the program neither destroyed nor removed information from any computer.

To convict Morris on most lesser charges, prosecutors would have to show he intended to harm computers. Prosecutors also could use a misdemeanor charge requiring them to prove only that Morris gained access to a federal government computer. The worm did reach computers at the Army Ballistics Research Laboratory and NASA's Langley Research Center, among others.

Some computer experts wonder, though, if Defense Department officials will be reluctant to testify publicly about how their computers were penetrated -- even those computers holding non-classified information. In February, at a computer convention in San Diego, Defense Department computer experts detailed some security improvements made to the network since November, but then refused to release copies of their presentation to people at the seminar.

The FBI -- which enforces the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 -- and some people in the computer industry are pushing for a vigorous prosecution to display a strong case against computer hacking. Others in the industry, including some of Morris' friends from Harvard University and Cornell, urge leniency because he was trying to demonstrate security flaws with computers.