
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, May 5, 1990                   TAG: 9005050105
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SYRACUSE, N.Y.                                LENGTH: Short

HACKER GETS PROBATION, FINE

A computer expert who created a "worm" program that paralyzed thousands of computers nationwide was placed on three years' probation Friday and fined $10,000 for the crime.

U.S. District Judge Howard Munson also ordered 25-year-old Robert T. Morris to perform 400 hours of community service.

Prosecutors had asked Munson to order the maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. They sought at least some jail time for the former Cornell University graduate student.

Defense attorney David O'Brien said Morris was "too decent a kid" to be sentenced to jail.

"There is a world of difference between what Robert did and what others who have used this technology did," O'Brien said.

Morris did not speak at the sentencing or talk to reporters after the hearing.

In January, Morris became the first person to be convicted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for breaking into a federal computer network and preventing authorized use of the system.

He created the "worm" program while at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., on Nov. 2, 1988. The rogue program immobilized an estimated 6,000 computers linked to the Internet research system, including ones at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, military bases and major universities.

Morris testified that the worm was an experiment that went out of control because of a programming error he made.

by CNB