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Four Kids Confess to Goner Worm
imrdkl writes: "4 kids in Israel have confessed to writing and distributing the Goner worm, according to Fox."
Yet another annoying worm comes and goes, wasting countless IT hours, to say nothing of bandwidth. The kids face up to five years -- of course since they aren't in the U.S., they might actually be punished.
This is more like handing someone a handgrenade,
with an attached note saying "pull this pin,"
and that person then proceeding to pull it,
even though they have been told OVER AND OVER
that if they pull the pin on a hand grenade,
it will hurt them.
The virus is dormant, completely harmless
UNTIL SOMEONE RUNS IT.
The fact that someone wrote and engineered it
to spread in this way, and convince people to run
it, they (the writers) should be held accountable.
But just because they are responsible doesn't
mean every other person down the line
isn't responsible as well.
Makes me think of an episode of Space Ghost Coast To Coast (Snatch, I think..)
which goes something like this:
"The rays... Its... Its feeding on the rays!"
"Then don't shoot it!"
"But.. The rays... It's feeding on them! Ohh."
They're first time offenders who confessed. They're high school students who would otherwise be preparing to be drafted to the Israeli army soon, and the government will not want to disrupt that if it isn't necessary. Finally, they are from a town that is notorious for inducing boredom for its teenagers. They may get a few months, but I wouldn't count on it, and they'll get assigned to the Ma'asiahu prison, where conditions are very good (it's Israel's prison for first time offenders, and it's probably the only place in the world you could call a re-education camp without irony.)