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 crackers 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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