worm
[from `tapeworm' in John Brunner's novel `The
Shockwave Rider', via XEROX PARC] n. A program that propagates
itself over a network, reproducing itself as it goes. Compare
virus. Nowadays the term has negative connotations, as it is
assumed that only
crackers write worms. Perhaps the
best-known example was Robert T. Morris's `Internet Worm' of 1988,
a `benign' one that got out of control and hogged hundreds of
Suns and VAXen across the U.S. See also
cracker,
RTM,
Trojan horse,
ice, and
Great Worm, the.
