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Great Worm the
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Great Worm, the /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
hack was a sort of devastating watershed event in hackish history;
certainly it did more to make non-hackers nervous about the
Internet than anything before or since.
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