> I suppose the notion that you could just distribute untested software onto an unlimited amount of other peoples computers without consent wasn't yet considered unethical

As someone who is old enough to have been a teenage hacker back in this timeframe and who spent his time on old Diversi Dial dialup systems which lead to early internet systems via gnu/fsf's open access policy, which lead to bitnet relay, and who was around during the initial development of irc right around this very year (1988) I can say that it was absolutely considered a bad act to do this sort of thing back then even as just a prank or demonstration (which made it kind of cool to back-then me, as a teenager, but which made it certainly unethical in a professional sense even for the time).

... however when you oopsied and the shit hit the fan, you could get away with it if your dad worked for the NSA.

The vast majority of people who weren't RTM would have had a far more severely negative outcome in his situation.

He was treated comparably to other people prosecuted for computer felonies post-CFAA. Non-remunerative crime, first-time offense, super unclear intent, damaged a research network. Felony conviction. What more do you want? The next wave of people who were sentenced, to like 1 year, were owning up phone switches.

I mean, he did get convicted of a felony.