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From the archives....

One of the faculty here was going through his file cabinet, and ran
across a clipping from our campus newspaper, The Purdue Exponent,
dated April 13, 1984 (page 4).  He passed it on to me because of the
article title: "FBI sponsors campus seminar on 'Computer Security and
Ethics'."

The article describes a seminar held here on April 11, 1984, at which
various people spoke, including people from the FBI, and security
people from IBM and CDC.  I suspect that the seminar was arranged by
one of the Dennings (here at the time).

The article is interesting for 3 reasons:

  1) It demonstrates that there is a long history of interest here at
Purdue in issues of computer security and ethics,

  2) It contains a perjorative use of the word "hacker" demonstrating
that the word has been used to designate unauthorized access for some
time.  (viz., "'The profile of a computer criminal is ... not normally
violent (but) temptation and pressure tend to set them off,' Porter
[Paul Porter of CDC, a speaker at the seminar] said.  Whether hackers
break into other systems for the fun or excitement of it or whether
they break in to steal information, it's important to take action.")

  3) It contains a prime example of poor reporting that struck me as
incredibly funny.  Obviously, the reporter (one Jeannine Kacmar)
either did not understand the story, or took defective notes, because
she wrote in her article:
   "Closer to home, George Goble, Purdue's computer system manager,
spoke of the security of campus computers. ... 
    Goble also spoke of the attempted 'DMR' break-in at the
Engineering Computer Center.  DMR was Dennis Richie [sic], a former Purdue
student, who was working at Bell Laboratories and breaking into file
at Purdue.
    It was by accident that Goble saw Richie [sic] logged in late one
night. 'We monitored his actions on the computer and followed him for
a week before we stopped him short of breaking into the files.'"

It just goes to show  --- hack Unix long enough, pick up a couple
awards here and there, and soon you're claiming you used to be a
Purdue student and you're breaking into university system files!

What a concept -- having to defend our systems against people like
Dennis, Brian, Ken, and the rest.  Now *that's* a Legion of Doom!