Robert Morris, a cryptographic genius and one of the founding fathers of the Unix operating system, has died at the age of 78. Morris obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics from Harvard in 1957 and 58 respectively, and then worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories from 1960 to 1986. At Bell Labs, Morris wrote Unix’s math library, the crypt program, and the encryption scheme that would be used for Unix user authentication for years to come.

From 1986 to 1994, Morris worked for the US National Security Agency (NSA), where he served as the chief scientist of the National Computer Security Center. As chief scientist, he was involved with creating the Rainbow Series of standard security practices, and with electronic attacks on Saddam Hussein’s government in the lead-up to the 1991 Gulf War. Because his work for the US government is classified, it’s impossible to say exactly what he did as chief scientist, but he has admitted that he helped the FBI decode encrypted evidence.

Morris’ death will strike a chord with every developer that has intimate knowledge of Unix, or any of its myriad derivatives. Linux, Android, iOS, HP-UX, Solaris, and more, all have their roots in Unix, and Robert Morris’ work in the field of math and crypto processing. Morris always fought for better encryption techniques, and noisily detested plaintext — a point of view that, in light of the spate of recent security breaches, should have been more readily listened to.

Robert Morris is survived by his wife, a daughter, and two sons, one of which is Robert Tappan Morris, the creator of the what is usually considered the first internet worm, the Morris Internet worm.

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