Robert H. Morris Sr. (July 25, 1932 – June 26, 2011) was an American

cryptographer Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or '' -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adve ...

and

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (a ...

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Family and education

Morris was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His parents were Walter W. Morris, a salesman, and Helen Kelly Morris, a homemaker. He received a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six y ...

in mathematics from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1957 and a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathematical ...

from Harvard in 1958. He married Anne Farlow, and they had three children together:

Robert Tappan Morris Robert Tappan Morris (born November 8, 1965) is an American computer scientist and entrepreneur. He is best known for creating the Morris worm in 1988, considered the first computer worm on the Internet. Morris was prosecuted for releasing the ...

(author of the 1988 Morris worm), Meredith Morris, and Benjamin Morris.

Bell Labs

From 1960 until 1986, Morris was a researcher at

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

and worked on

Multics Multics ("Multiplexed Information and Computing Service") is an influential early time-sharing operating system based on the concept of a single-level memory.Dennis M. Ritchie, "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", Communications of t ...

and later

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

. Together with

Douglas McIlroy Malcolm Douglas McIlroy (born 1932) is a mathematician, engineer, and programmer. As of 2019 he is an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Dartmouth College. McIlroy is best known for having originally proposed Unix pipelines and developed se ...

, he created M6 macro processor in FORTRAN IV, which was later ported to Unix. Using the TMG compiler-compiler, Morris, together with McIlroy, developed the early implementation of

PL/I PL/I (Programming Language One, pronounced and sometimes written PL/1) is a procedural, imperative computer programming language developed and published by IBM. It is designed for scientific, engineering, business and system programming. I ...

compiler called EPL for Multics project. The pair also contributed a version of

runoff Runoff, run-off or RUNOFF may refer to: * RUNOFF, the first computer text-formatting program * Runoff or run-off, another name for bleed, printing that lies beyond the edges to which a printed sheet is trimmed * Runoff or run-off, a stock marke ...

text-formatting program for Multics. Morris's contributions to early versions of Unix include the math library, the

dc programming language dc (''desk calculator'') is a cross-platform reverse-Polish calculator which supports arbitrary-precision arithmetic. Written by Lorinda Cherry and Robert Morris at Bell Labs, it is one of the oldest Unix utilities, preceding even the invention ...

, the program crypt, and the password encryption scheme used for user authentication. The encryption scheme (invented by

Roger Needham Roger Michael Needham (9 February 1935 – 1 March 2003) was a British computer scientist. Early life and education Needham was born in Birmingham, England, the only child of Phyllis Mary, ''née'' Baker (''c''.1904–1976) and Leonard Wil ...

), was based on using a

trapdoor function In theoretical computer science and cryptography, a trapdoor function is a function that is easy to compute in one direction, yet difficult to compute in the opposite direction (finding its inverse) without special information, called the "tr ...

(now called a

key derivation function In cryptography, a key derivation function (KDF) is a cryptographic algorithm that derives one or more secret keys from a secret value such as a master key, a password, or a passphrase using a pseudorandom function (which typically uses a crypt ...

) to compute hashes of user

password A password, sometimes called a passcode (for example in Apple devices), is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of ...

s which were stored in the file /etc/passwd; analogous techniques, relying on different functions, are still in use today.

National Security Agency

In 1986, Morris began work at the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collectio ...

(NSA). He served as chief scientist of the NSA's

National Computer Security Center The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collectio ...

, where he was involved in the production of the

Rainbow Series The Rainbow Series (sometimes known as the Rainbow Books) is a series of computer security standards and guidelines published by the United States government in the 1980s and 1990s. They were originally published by the U.S. Department of Defen ...

of computer security standards, and retired from the NSA in 1994. He once told a reporter that, while at the NSA, he helped the FBI decode encrypted evidence. There is a description of Morris in

Clifford Stoll Clifford Paul "Cliff" Stoll (born June 4, 1950) is an American astronomer, author and teacher. He is best known for his investigation in 1986, while working as a systems administrator at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, that led to th ...

's book ''

The Cuckoo's Egg ''The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage'' is a 1989 book written by Clifford Stoll. It is his first-person account of the hunt for a computer hacker who broke into a computer at the Lawrence Berkeley National ...

''. Many readers of Stoll's book remember Morris for giving Stoll a challenging mathematical

puzzle A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct or fun solution of the puzzl ...

(originally due to

John H. Conway John Horton Conway (26 December 1937 – 11 April 2020) was an English mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He also made contributions to many branches ...

) in the course of their discussions on computer security: ''What is the next number in the sequence 1 11 21 1211 111221?'' (known as the

look-and-say sequence In mathematics, the look-and-say sequence is the sequence of integers beginning as follows: : 1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221, 312211, 13112221, 1113213211, 31131211131221, ... . To generate a member of the sequence from the previous member, read off ...

). Stoll chose not to include the answer to this puzzle in ''The Cuckoo's Egg'', to the frustration of many readers. Robert Morris died in

Lebanon, New Hampshire Lebanon is a city in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 14,282 at the 2020 census, up from 13,151 at the 2010 census. Lebanon is in western New Hampshire, south of Hanover, near the Connecticut River. It is the home ...

Quotes

* Rule 1 of cryptanalysis: check for

plaintext In cryptography, plaintext usually means unencrypted information pending input into cryptographic algorithms, usually encryption algorithms. This usually refers to data that is transmitted or stored unencrypted. Overview With the advent of comp ...

. * The three golden rules to ensure computer security are: do not own a computer; do not power it on; and do not use it.p. 1, ''Inside Java 2 Platform Security: Architecture, API Design, and Implementation'', Li Gong, Gary Ellison, and Mary Dageforde, Boston: Addison-Wesley, 2003, 2nd ed., .

Selected publications

* (with Fred T. Grampp) UNIX Operating System Security, ''AT&T Bell Laboratories Technical Journal'', 63, part 2, #8 (October 1984), pp. 1649–1672.

References

External links

Dennis Ritchie Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (September 9, 1941 – October 12, 2011) was an American computer scientist. He is most well-known for creating the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the Unix operating system and B p ...

"Dabbling in the Cryptographic World"
tells the story of cryptographic research he performed with Morris and why that research was never published. {{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, Robert H. Modern cryptographers 1932 births 2011 deaths Scientists at Bell Labs Computer security academics Harvard University alumni National Security Agency cryptographers People from Boston Multics people Unix people