The First Flood
November 2nd, 1988. Something is wrong with ARPANET, mail delays, logins failing, machines falling over. You're the grad student on duty who gets the phone call.
Briefing
It is the evening of November 2, 1988. Campus modems are jammed. Every third machine reports `Not enough space` or a dead sendmail. You do not have outbound network tools in this reconstruction, only the local log fragments and a scratch file someone started. Work the evidence.
Your role
Junior systems operator on a BSD 4.3 timeshare connected to early ARPANET.
Objective
From logs and notes alone, characterise what is spreading, how it moves between hosts, and why it knocked out so many machines in one night.
Terminal environment
- user
- operator
- host
- mit-ai-lab
- cwd
- /home/operator
- steps
- 4
Safety note. This is a safe reconstruction. All systems, files, hosts, credentials, and outputs are simulated. Do not use these techniques on systems you do not own or have explicit permission to test.