John Markoff joined The New York Times in March of 1988 as a reporter for the paper's business section. He now writes for the Times from San Francisco where he covers Silicon Valley, computers and technology issues. At the Times he broke the story identifying Robert Tappan Morris as the author of the 1988 Internet worm that crashed thousands of computers. He writes frequently on technology policy issues and he also broke the story of the Clinton Administration's plan to introduce "Clipper" chip surveillance system.
He came to the Times from the San Francisco Examiner where he worked for three and a half years. He has written about the field of technology since 1977. From 1984 to 1985 he was West Coast editor for Byte Magazine and from 1981 to 1983 he was a reporter and an editor at Infoworld. From 1983 to 1985 he wrote a column on personal computers for the San Jose Mercury.
In 1988 he received the Software Publishers Association's award for best news reporting.
Born in Oakland, California on October 24, 1949, Mr. Markoff grew up in Palo Alto, California and graduated from Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington, in 1971. He attended graduate school at the University of Oregon where he received a masters degree in 1976.
Mr. Markoff is the co-author with Lennie Siegel of The High Cost of High Tech, published in 1985.