Ping author dies in car crash

Michael Muuss, author of the ubiquitous Ping network tool, was killed two weeks ago in an automobile accident near his Maryland home. Muuss, 42, wrote Ping in only one evening and was fond of saying he would have spent more time on it had he envisioned its future importance. At first a Unix-only diagnostic program, the tool is now part of almost every operating system. Muuss worked at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground, where he did groundbreaking work in areas ranging from computer networks to graphics.