As a graduate student at Cornell University, Robert Morris created his claim to fame: the computer worm. According to Morris, he created the worm as an attempt to gauge the size of the internet at the time. After its release on Nevember 2nd, 1988, the Morris Worm went on to infect approximately 6,000 systems (about 10 percent of the internet attached computers at the time). The worm was intended to be unobtrusive, but due to a flaw in its replication algorithm, it copied itself excessively, causing heaving system loads and
ultimately leading back to Morris. In 1989, Morris became the first person indicted and later convicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986.