Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation
     
         (ARMM) A {Usenet} robot created by Dick Depew of
        Munroe Falls, Ohio.  ARMM was intended to automatically cancel
        posts from anonymous-posting sites.  Unfortunately, the
        robot's recogniser for anonymous postings triggered on its own
        automatically-generated control messages!  Transformed by this
        stroke of programming ineptitude into a monster of
        Frankensteinian proportions, it broke loose on the night of
        1993-03-31 and proceeded to {spam} {news:news.admin.policy}
        with a recursive explosion of over 200 messages.
     
        Reactions varied from amusement to outrage.  The pathological
        messages crashed at least one mail system, and upset people
        paying line charges for their {Usenet} feeds.  One poster
        described the ARMM debacle as "instant {Usenet} history" (also
        establishing the term {despew}), and it has since been widely
        cited as a cautionary example of the havoc the combination of
        good intentions and incompetence can wreak on a network.
     
        Compare {Great Worm}; {sorcerer's apprentice mode}.  See also
        {software laser}, {network meltdown}.
     
        (1996-01-08)