Great Worm: n. The 1988 Internet worm perpetrated by RTM.
This is a play on Tolkien (compare elvish, elder days). In the
fantasy history of his Middle Earth books, there were dragons
powerful enough to lay waste to entire regions; two of these (Scatha
and Glaurung) were known as "the Great Worms". This usage expresses
the connotation that the RTM crack was a sort of devastating
watershed event in hacker history; certainly it did more to make
non-hackers nervous about the Internet than anything before or since.
![[prev]](../gif/left.gif){kind=small}
![[up]](../gif/up.gif){kind=small}
![[next]](../gif/right.gif){kind=small}