🚀 go-pugleaf

>From rslade@sfu.ca  Fri Dec 25 08:15:00 1992
>Date:    Fri, 25 Dec 92 00:15:35 -0800
>From:    rslade@sfu.ca
>Subject: The Internet Worm (CVP)
>
>HISVIRO.CVP   921215
> 
>                         The Internet Worm
> 
>By the fall of 1988, VIRUS-L had been established (let's hear it for
>Ken!) and was very active.  Issues were, in fact, coming out on a
>daily basis, so I was quite surprised when I didn't receive one on
>November 3rd.  I didn't get one on November 4th, either.  It wasn't
>until November 5th, actually, that I found out why.

This is incorrect. The first digest of VIRUS-L appeared on 9th Nov 88.
I suspect that this was triggered by the FLOOD of undigested messages
that had to be sent all around the place during the week 1 Nov to 8th
Nov 88. (am I right, Ken ?)

[Moderator's note: For the e-record, VIRUS-L Volume 1 Issue 1 was
posted Wednesday, 9 Nov 1988, just a few days after the Internet worm
incident.  The primary input behind going digest+moderation at that
time was a storm of ASCII "pictures" that were posted to the group.
That, plus the added discussions due to the worm prompted several
people (including myself) to want the list to go to digest format.  In
any event, VIRUS-L was distributed unmoderated and undigested from
Fri, 22 Apr 88 07:48:39 EDT (when I sent the first announcement to the
newly formed group) until 9 November.  The distribution was from
LEHIIBM1.BITNET aka IBM1.CC.Lehigh.Edu - the same IBM 4381 mainframe
that served the group until July 1992, when we switched over - not
without pain - to an RS6000 running AIX and IDA's sendmail.]

VIRUS-L was a BITNET listserv list (LEHIIBM1.BITNET) and was just an
email exploder, forwarding messages on BITNET and traffic went-on
throughout the internet worm. I recall receiving messages here in UK
via EARN-RELAY (known as UKACRL.BITNET). It was interesting to read
messages as they came in. I remember spending most of the 4th of
November 1988 on my terminal, reading message after message. (or was
it 5th ?)

Receiving so many messages per day was quite exciting, since I had
only started to subscribe to VIRUS-L a week earlier. An amazing
coincidence. Judging from the nonsense that was often written, the
amount of confusion amongst those affected by the worm was at a peak.
Rumours spread so quickly.

- -- 
Olivier M.J. Crepin-Leblond, Digital Comms. Section, Elec. Eng. Department
 Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London SW7 2BT, UK
       Internet/Bitnet: <foobar@ic.ac.uk> - Janet: <foobar@uk.ac.ic>