Robert Tappan Morris, Jr.
Robert Tappan Morris, Jr. is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, best known for creating the Morris Worm in 1988, considered the first computer worm on the Internet.
Morris created the worm while he was a graduate student at Cornell University. The original intent of the worm, according to him, was to gague the size of the Internet. However, it spread rapidly, infecting every computer it touched. On July 26, 1989, Morris became the first person to be indicted under the Computer Abuse and Fraud Act of 1986. He was convicted in 1990 and sentenced to three years of probation, and ordered to pay a fine.
In 1995, Morris and Paul Graham founded Viaweb, a start-up company that created online store tools for websites. Yahoo bought Viaweb in 1998, and incorporated their online store into Yahoo! Store.
Morris is now an assistant professor at MIT.