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worm n.
[from `tapeworm' in John Brunner's novel "The Shockwave Rider", via XEROX PARC] 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 [cracker]s write worms. Perhaps the best-known example was Robert T. Morris's [Great 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].
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