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Blaster Writer Caught
Henry V .009 writes "The FBI will be arresting an 18 year-old in connection with MS Blaster, reports The Washington Post." According to the article, the teen was witnessed testing the worm, and then turned in by a bystander. It's also worth noting that this is merely one of the Blaster variations. Hope whoever it was had fun, because a world of pain is waiting in store now.
How on Earth do you witness somebody writing a virus?
He's sitting in front of a computer, hitting keys on the keyboard and looking at the monitor. That describes the person who wrote this story, the person who submitted this story, the person who posted the story, me getting first post, and everybody reading and moderating this and every other post to come.
It also describes RMS writing Emacs, Linus debugging the kernel, and SCO issuing another press release.
Did this witness actually read the code? What kind of idiot virus-writer lets someone he doesn't know pull up a chair and start auditing his code?
Or was the witness tipped off when the screen start flashing "NOW TESTING VIRUS"? Damn, I hate when that happens!
This doesn't sound quite right.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
I mean, maybe he borrowed his mates computer to do something, saw something interesting, then got told to take a long walk off a short plank when he tried to blackmail him.
Well until someone is caught and Proven to have written the virus, as far as im concerned it is a bunch of FUD.
Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know when your gonna get food poisoning.
Well if he's reads slashdot, he'll be long gone by now
Is it standard FBI practise to anounce to the public they will arrest someone before they actually do?
Perhaps, as some kids are at that age do (not all before you flame me), he had been bragging about it in an irc chat room, had an enemy/concerned chatter catch wind of it and reported it to the feds with logs and IP information.
Why not eh? stranger things have happened at sea.
--Mods giveth, Mods taketh away--
I'm a firm believer that Microsoft, for all it's faults, isn't nearly as much of a problem as it's doting customers. Microsoft has ALWAYS been terrible at security. This is not news. So who the hell keeps buying their crap?
Start charging the folks who deploy Microsoft for negligence.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Yo, RFTP/RTFA. It says in both the article and the post that the witness saw the person "testing" the virus, not writing it. Which is even more scary in a way. How did the witness know what he was doing? What day was it? Which version is he supposed to have written? Oh, and there has been "no arrest made in this matter yet."
The BBC article contains a bit more info: It says he's suspected of altering the original MSBlast worm into one that would cause more damage.
It also says: "Reports suggest he is likely to be arrested by the end of the day." WTF? They're giving him advance warning?!? Run, boy, RUN!!! LOL.
IIRC, the boy tried to DDOS www.windowsupdate.com, which is not the URL people usually use for windowsupdate.
Makes you wonder what a professional terrorist could do. The worm could have been far more destructive.
Ralph Nader brought the automotive industries up to safety standards. I'm too young to remember the public's preception of him, but it sounds like we need someone like him around again. Microsoft has enough defects inside it's operating system to make it the 2000's equivalent of the Ford Pinto. They should be held accountable.
What about the users though? This isn't the 70's and information is readily available about Microsoft's security practices. Why do they do it? Is it like riding a rollercoaster that has a 6 junction split at the end, only 2 of which leads to the egress queue, 3 of which leave you hanging on the top of a hill until you debug the rollercoaster, and the final split has a jump through a fiery ring with no landing zone? I mean come on, they all saw the rollercoaster... They all knew the ramifications of their actions.. What about them?
-B
I expect the comments in the first place. It's inevitable among any community that has people the likes of the "Frist p0st" and "go to cnn.com [secret link to goatse.cx]" commenters. But the moderation system is in place so that crap like that can get ignored by the people who don't want to hear it.
If you think it's funny, Obviously I can't/won't stop you from moderating it that way. But think about the real issue behind it before you encourage lighthearted humor about rape.
Look it up, amigo. If you know about a felony and you don't report it, you are guilty of cover-up and can serve time for your avoidance of doing the right thing.
You have an amazingly rosy view of how the law works in this country. You must be those law-abiding citizens with nothing to fear that I keep hearing about. When we have laws that will revoke habeas corpus for the bizarre and impossible crime of loitering with space aliens (1982, Department of defense appropriations bill) and the hard-hitting "conspiracy of one", you can and will go down for anything if they want you.
Do you think it's an accident that we have the largest prison population, in absolute and relative terms, in the world?
Laws are for people with no friends.