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WebTV 911 Hacker... Cyber Terrorist?
Mastab286 writes "Federal agents have arrested David Jeansonne, 43, of Louisiana on cyberterrorism charges under the USA PATRIOT Act for a malware attack against eighteen MSN TV (formerly known as WebTV) customers. As part of an online conflict in July 2002, Mr. Jeansonne wrote a script to change the dial-up number of MSN TV equipment to the 911 emergency number. He disguised the script as a tool to change the colors of the user interface, and sent it to his eighteen foes; the next time they tried to log on, they would end up calling the police instead. Several of the customers sent the tool to friends, bringing the total number of victims up to twenty-one. The script also posted the users' browser history to a website and e-mailed hardware serial numbers to a free webmail account. Prosecutors charge that the act meets the definition of cyberterrorism since it endangered public safety."
Please, it would be something *near* "cyberterrorism" and a danger to public safety if it were self propgating, but this relied entirely upon the studity of the
user to not only run it, but manually propogate it to other people, which is kind of hard when it makes their system unusable after having run it.
Another example of the DOH'S trying to justify their existance.
Just because you disagree doesn't make it offtopic or flamebait.
All Slashdotters will be rounded up and sent to gulags. Thank you for compliance.
Regards,
John Ashcroft
Guys, terrorism is where you like blow up a building or gas people in the subway in the name of a political or religious cause.
What's going to be next next, kids who make prank calls ending up on death row for "terrorism"?
Denial of Service Attack against 911??? Maybe 911 should change their phone number just like SCO changd their DNS name to http://www.thescogroup.com/.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
terrorism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (tr-rzm)
n.
The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.
...may not seem like much, but what if this file found its way onto the net or one of the popular peer-to-peer services? If it were to propigate it would create genuine problems for people who have a serious need to get their call to 911 through.
As someone who has worked in emergency response, this could have more consequences than if it called, say Dominoes.
The 911 system is not a toy; lives are at stake.
On the other hand, calling it a terrorist act for maybe 21 calls is way overboard.
WTF has this got to do with terrorism?
A crime - sure, felony - if you like, even wicked. It has got absolutely nothing to do with terrorism. Why are your authotities mixing up that with your illegal invasions and war on "terror"?
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Prosecutors charge that the act meets the definition of cyberterrorism since it endangered public safety.
The act also meets my definition of "this guy is a total dick".
-kgj
-kgj
This isn't justification for use of the Patriot Act. It did not have the intent of anything remotely considered terrorism.
Now, I'm not saying he should go to jail, however it's a sad look at the United States when anything that you could mildly construe as something that a terrorist might do, becomes a terrorist act.
http://use.perl.org
there a kiddiess about there with hundreds of thousands of DDoS bots, kiddies out there releasing viruses costing billions.. and this guy gets arrested for making 21 people call 911 ?
._.
Only in America
isn't getting on a plane with the flue or even just a really bad cold purposfully spreading biological weapons? The flue can kill people.....
breathing is a terrorist act!!!
... to justify the existance of the Orwellian Patriot Act. Not only did OBL manage to kill 3000 people and two buildings, it seems that he managed to kill common sense and reason as well.
When all else fails, run.
Messing with an emergency number is really stupid. Not only do you waste people's time, but you may end up causing a real emergency to be left unheard. I don't think it's terrorism, but definitely criminal negligence. I honestly feel that this person should be put into prison.
Help I'm a rock.
"Ahh! Ahh! The Government is run amok! My library records, my library records! Patriot Act! Ahhh ahhh!"
Guess what. If the 43 y/o dimwad had the WebTV call Domino's Pizza no one would care. He chose 911.
This has ZERO (0) effect on me. I'm never going to break the law this way. (Beside who the Hell has WebTV anymore anyway? Were those the last 22 people?) This guy broke the law in a stupid way; fuck him. Don't break the law and you won't go to jail. There is no slippery slope here -- just one assclown going to jail because he should.
This
... so I guess he gets charged under the Patriot act. I don't condone what he did - he deserves a damn good kicking (metaphorically speaking, of course) for taking time from the emergency services, but a TERRORIST ? WTF ?
I can't believe there's not a more-appropriate crime to charge the guy with. Is there some sort of requirement to charge him with the most-serious charge you can, in the USA ? Perhaps that would explain it ?
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Heh, the script kiddies need to learn not to incriminate themselves in public places.
I think it's pretty funny actually. Did he think that he wouldn't be caught if he sent it to his foes? Come-on man, mask you identy somehow.
Is this the first case of a WebTV hacker?
Since there isn't a good descriptive phrase yet for someone who deliberately seeks to damage emergency infrastructure (which just happens to be based on a computer in some manner), I'll find "cyber terrroism" acceptable for this.
Technically speaking, it's about as 'cyber' a crime as splashing a hospital with gasoline and lighting it on fire is a 'chemical' crime, but it's still a deliberate act which put other people in harm's way.
His penalty? Well, it has to be severe enough that folks learn this is completely unacceptable behaviour and far from a simple prank. Jail for 10 years should do the trick.
If my own 911 call was blocked because of this goof, I know I sure wouldn't find it harmless. This was potentially life-threatening and served no purpose other than to be maliciously harmful.
Time to stop treating 'cyber kiddies' as something special just 'cuz they didn't think through the consequences of their actions.
will it ever stop? people definately tend to go crazy once they learn they've been owned or cracked, however this whole thing is more of a prank than terrorism. I wonder, if I was to press one of those call button boxes here on campus for the police and just run away, if I was caught, would I be arrested for terrorism? how about if I pulled the fire alarm in my dorm during a drunken stupor? would I be a terrorist then? overreaction isn't good, just try overreacting when the roads are covered in snow and ice, you'll end up in a ditch.
may the source be with you
. . . I had a BBS with call back verification call 911 (no, the author wasn't smart enough to program around it). Fortunately, I wasn't caught. More fortunately, I wasn't a kid during the PATRIOT Act's reign.
Seems to me that extra special zeal used by the prosecution should serve the public well as a publicized deterrent.
This is somewhat of a novel crime. Based on that, there is no such thing as standard guidelines for prosecution. The beauty of the prosecution to invoke the Patriot Act for this TYPE of crime, serves the public's best interests regardless of the severity or damages. This isn't Bart Simpson doing a denial of service attack on Moe's, it's 911! Improvised justice is fun!
"Don't fuck with 911, that's what terrorists do" makes sense on a number of different levels.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
Or at least sued into oblivion. I don't understand why a massive class action lawsuit has not been brought against Microsoft for all of the hundreds of thousands of computers that have been infected with worms and viruses and cluttering up the internet with packet white noise.
-- SKYKING, SKYKING, DO NOT ANSWER.
The public is NOT a specified group of 18-21 people, it just isn't. And at no time was their safety endagered, since they stood to loose neither health nor property... (unless by property, you mean the temporary ability to connect to ther internet, but if that's property, than virtually all ISPs are guilty of endangering the public safety)
For each one of these episodes that get's posted here, I get more and more happy that I don't live in the US.
Move sig!
D.H.S. - The Series. ... a multimillion-dollar episodic series, will explore the inner workings of the Department of Homeland Security, teaming the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and National Security Administration (NSA) together with first responders such as local police, fire and safety administrators.
The series is being pitched to prospective networks and has the full support of President Bush and Tom Ridge. They love it. They think it is fantastic, say the series' producers at Steeple Productions. Not familiar with Steeple Productions? Well, perhaps you might find their four-episode Creation Vs Evolution series enlightening.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
It seems to me that the punishment does not fit the crime here. Yes, I know he hasn't been convicted yet, but if he is, how do think that will affect his life? That will go on every resume and permanent record or whatever for the rest of his life. Would you be willing to hire a convicted Cyber Terrorist? I think it's safe to say his life might be ruined. Sure he should be punished, but not of Cyberterrorism.
Does anyone else think this is cruel/unusal punishment? You know, that 8th ammendment thing?(IF he is convicted of course! But appears he likely will be!)
While you can certainly argue in favor of prosecuting someone who endangers public safety, I'm more concerned about the company that allowed such a security hole to exist. Why isn't there a PKI infastructure around configuration changes in the MsnTV firmware? Why aren't scripts that change user settings required to be signed? At some point the vendors who provide these infarior and dangerous products must be held liable. Recently, slashdot had a with a quote from one of the heads of Microsoft security who said that in the case of Windows (where patch application is optional) We have never had vulnerabilities exploited before the patch was known'. In the case of NsnTV, firmware updates are not optional, and the fact that an update still doesn't exist which would authenticate scripts that change user settings, is extremely telling. Is it that it never occured to Microsoft that settings changes should be validated? That scripts which perform cuch changes should be signed or otherwise secured? Unbelievable...
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
"To a boy with a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail".
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
Maybe they should go after the butthead who keeps burning popcorn in my building complex. Every couple weeks the fire engines are here. Maybe the apartment manager for setting the alarms too sensitive.
Jail
Bubba: "What are you in for?"
newguy: "Burnt popcorn"
Bubba: "Ok. Bend over"
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
What a hacker! Finally there is a law against being an asshole.
I know this is really stupid, and the person shouldn't be labeled a cyber terrorist but what if this was a real act of terrorism? What if a terrorist decided to do something like this on a much larger scale?
If some sort of worm was on the internet changing peoples dialup numbers to 911, would we then claim it was an act of terrorism? How large does an attack have to be before it's labeled as terrorism?
Keep in mind I am NOT saying what he did was terrorism, I am just asking, if this affected 21,000 computers instead of 21 would we still feel it wasn't terrorism?
But a terrorist? That's a mighty strong word these days. I don't think I'd be willing to put this guy in the same camp as the 9/11 terrorists, the DC snippers, or the folks who plan to blow up a bus.
If his crimes do manage to fit the legal definition of "Cyber Terrorist", then it's LAME legal terminology, and someone ought to change it. I'd bet there are smarter legal terms that fit his crime.
And yeah, I think jail might be a good solution for this guy.
He gets pissed off at people so he decides to interfere with the 911 system? What if the delays in taking those misrouted calls prevented help from getting to someone who truly needed it?
I am glad that they are throwing the book at idiots like this.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
yes, this guy's an idiot.
yes, he should be prosecuted for what he did
however, there are plenty of existing laws on the books that can punish him for screwing with 911 - use them.
this is too-bad-cop - a bit like the teacher in whale rider who tells the boys their dicks will fall off if they don't obey him - just deal with the situation and let the laws work.
but a few years down the line, the hs dept is going to have to show some deliverables - and one of them will be how many people were prosecuted under terrorism laws, and this sort of thing helps raise the count.
in that regard patriot could end up being the rustproof undercoating of the law enforcement world - make sure you try and tag it on top anything you can...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
911 would really only have to worry about an extra 10-15 calls a day.
Oh how I like this quote...
"WebTV: bringing the Internet into the shallow end of the gene pool since 1995" - Martin Bishop
With the calls going to 911 it can easily be put in the category of endangering public saftey. Since it's easy to assume that the machines make the calls late at night.
3:21am
911 operater: Hello
caller: Dead air
In this situation what do they do? They dispatch.
So with this great new wonderful bill they get to tack on more to something that already had a stiff penalty.
What possesed this guy to do this anyway? Come on "I'll hack it to call 911". That's just asking for them to hunt you down.
Looks like they'll have to add 'WebTV' to the next Computer Attack and Cyber Terrorism: Vulnerabilities and Policy Issues for Congress revision.
When will some of you guys learn it's not about the act, nor the group, nor the victim, nor the attacker. It's about the ability to control perception. The spookier the 'villain' the more money gets funneled to 'groups' like the Department of Homeland Insignificance. It's how they justify their budgets at the end of the year. "By golly Mabel them be terrorists, maybe we should pay more taxes to them mighty fine boys at the DOJ they be tough on terrorists" Nothing less, nothing more. It's about stats. Sure the guy was moronic, and now he will pay for being an idiot, and the sinful part is many - if he goes to a jury - will be blinded by pseudo sympathy spin on terror. To quote that old annoying song "It's all about the Benjamins baby"
MoFscker
This isn't cyberterrorism. This is instead a classic case of someone writing a malicious script, that does not spread by itself, that alters dial-up settings. Yes, it does dial 911, but a load of 18+ people calling 911 isn't likely to put a major load on the 911 system. If it had, then by all means, call it what you will. It didn't though. The potential doesn't mean that it should be charged as if it had. If I shoot someone, it isn't murder. I shouldn't be charged with murder unless they die. That's what ATTEMPTED murder is for. He should be charged at the most with attempted cyberterrorism.
Bored? Why not join a decent mess
A 3 year old was sent to Guantanamo Bay after mashing random numbers on a telephone and reaching 911.
Overboard a bit? Not EVERYTHING is terrorism. Shit, this post is terrorism. Shit, that last statement was terrorism. I better hide.
IANAL, but since when is Microsoft a licensed investigator? Do I have this wrong or are searches supposed to be done by law enforcement?
Isn't it funny that something like this, in the past, would have not been considered terrorism? This was just a prank that went too far. It wasn't fair to the police for getting the prank to their 911 line. Their business line, yes, but not the emergency line. Does anyone think this have a different outcome if he had it go to their "business" line instead?
Also, I have seen others say the script relied on the stupidity of the person's foes. The guy had no motive to do anything after the fact, so how did it endanger public safety? Shouldn't the police be able to handle a few false calls to their emergency system? You think that prank calls to 911, as sad as they are, would be built into the equation of deciding how many people they need on shift in order to cover their district.
I guess this is just another overreaction by our lovely government.
--If only there was a license required to use a computer.
yar! thar be terrorist in ye cyberspace
MoFscker
He committed an attack against 911, took over peoples pc's, released a trojan, waster police time. Plenty for a judge to send him to jail. This guy sounds more like an idiot then a hardened criminal and for idiots even a week jailtime is enough.
Terrorism sounds a bit over the top. Yes the attack was potentially serious but during a recent "flood" (few centimeters of water) you had idiots on tv claiming that 112 (our 911) was unable to respond when they called to have their cellar drained. Hello? Flooded cellar ain't an emergency and all these idiots DID overload 112 and stopped real calls from getting through. Are they all terrorists? No. Deserving a night in jail with a guy called bubba sure. But not terrorists.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
OK, the guy had this quarell and all, but to direct the calls to 911 was plain stupid. I hope he couldn't get a line when he was being raped by five guys that break into his place...
You're writting a script to mess some people life (people that already use webTV, so you need to annoy them big time to even be noticed) and instead of redirecting the calls to a porn number, or even the house of the others webTV owners he wanted to annoy... noooo. He choose 911. Very clever. Period.
Such broad definitions would result in including speeding as part of the definition of being a terrorist. Speeding does indeed "endangered public safety."
"The purpose of terrorism is to terrorise".
What exactly is so hard to believe? Does my Red Hat box refuse to let a script edit ifcfg-ppp0 until it sees a GPG signature? Does OS X prevent you from installing a modem unless you're dialing an Apple-approved phone number? Could any company sell a product which refused to let users make arbitrary changes to their own settings, and not be rightfully reviled for it on Slashdot?
Are you just hunting for the (+1, anti-Microsoft) mod points?
"Jail for 10 years should do the trick."
Uh, as far as I'm aware the average murderer in America spends about 8 years in prison. Are you really claiming that having 21 people call 911 is a worse crime than murdering someone?
Yes he's an idiot, and yes he deserves some kind of punishment, but sending him to jail for ten years as a "terrorist" would merely demonstrate to any rational people left in America that the US government has gone totally insane... if they didn't know that already.
Tying up 911 as a prank does endager the public safety. Let the kiddie spend a bit of time in the pen for that prank.
sent it to his eighteen foes
Wow, I don't know anyone who has WebTV and this guy knows 18, all of whom happen to be foes!
Oh yeah, and if you're dialing 911 for your internet access, how is the evil program supposed to post your browser logs to a website?
What don't you people get about the word endangerment
When Michael Jackson dangled his kid over a balcony, the kid wasn't hurt... but that was still endangerment. Endangerment is not that something bad happens. It means the probability of something bad happenning is raised to unacceptable levels.
This asshat created an environment where someone's life could have been in grave peril if emergency services where responding to "MSN TV in distress" (and 911 always dispatches when no-one talks to them) instead of being available for a truly life-threatening emergency.
I am all for this guy rotting for quite a while. I have no tolerence for people who endanger public safety in a fit of pique.
Clowns.
"This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence" - Vyvyan "The Young Ones"
Doesn't "terrorism" imply a very specific intention in the crime? I'm not going into whether the reason for a crime should affect the sentence, but surely it affects what you call it! This is like confusing manslaughter with wrongful death with first/second degree murder.
Terrorism is disruption of public services? So if bus drivers in a city strike, they're terrorists. If someone plays a prank on a local pool causing them to close, they are a terrorist.
This is one of the many words that take on new meanings every week. Someone define this thing before it goes even more out of control. While the person did interrupt emergency services, what was their intent? Or is every public nuisance now a terrorist act?
but if my life was on the line, and I couldn't get the 911 help I needed. I can only hope they give him all they've got ...
Sunny Dubey
> But what if it had been 100 users? 10,000 users? 1 million users?
There is a difference between body-slamming some one once, and body-slamming someone a million times. (I've body-slammed well over 100 people in my career, but that's all legit.)
You're talking about a hyopthetical, alternate crime. In *this* instance, 21 people we involved/victimised. So: is *this guy* a terrorist?
webster:
Terrorist Ter"ror*ist, n. F. terroriste.
One who governs by terrorism or intimidation; specifically,
an agent or partisan of the revolutionary tribunal during the
Reign of Terror in France. --Burke.
Doesn't quite seem to fit the bill.
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
The only thing this guy is guilty of is making a large number of prank calls to 911. Does this really count as cyberterrorism?
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, Never drive a car when you're dead
Some dude cut me off in traffic and because I am a law minding citizen I deem it was an act of Domestic Urban Terrorism. I was so frightened by the way they were driving. It put the fear and terror in to minds of anyone driving on that public throughfare.
That, or MS is too rich to deal with. Such a lawsuit would run for decades and cost significant more than could be claimed for damages. MS' Army of Darkness and Evil (its lawyers and cooperating people in high places) would make sure of that.
I fully understand why this is a big deal. They should instead charge him with attempted cyberterrorism, or something to that effect. Reguardless if someone does something stupid and reckless, they shouldn't have a cruel or unusual punishment. By all means, 3 years in a federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison is a good punishment. The punishment should fit the crime, after all. I'm just saying not to charge him with something he didn't really do. Cruel and unusual punishment is forbidden in that silly little document called the Bill of Rights.
Bored? Why not join a decent mess
How did this get modded Insightful?
It's a danger to public safety, not because it was malware, but because it was interfering with the operation of 911.
wishing that he just put a flaming bag of dog shit on their doorsteps instead right now.
This doesn't even match the US government's definition of terrorism.
...The concept of "terror" as systematic use of violence to attain political ends was first codified by Maximilien Robespierre during the French Revolution. He deemed it an "emanation of virtue" that delivers "prompt, severe, and inflexible" justice, as "a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to our country's most pressing needs."
From a Science article:
According to the U.S. Department of State report Patterns of Global Terrorism 2001 (1), no single definition of terrorism is universally accepted; however, for purposes of statistical analysis and policy-making: "The term `terrorism' means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience." Of course, one side's "terrorists" may well be another side's "freedom fighters" (Fig. 1). For example, in this definition's sense, the Nazi occupiers of France rightly denounced the "subnational" and "clandestine" French Resistance fighters as terrorists. During the 1980s, the International Court of Justice used the U.S. Administration's own definition of terrorism to call for an end to U.S. support for "terrorism" on the part of Nicaraguan Contras opposing peace talks.
For the U.S. Congress, "`act of terrorism' means an activity that--(A) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life that is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State; and (B) appears to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping." (2). When suitable, the definition can be broadened to include states hostile to U.S. policy.
But isnt time someone started suing the stupid f***s who executed the script. Ignorance usually dont work as a defence in other legal situations so why should the people who executed the script go unpunished?
Seriously, people need to understand that executing code can have consequences.
It will only get worse unless the deep psyche of policement is radically changed.
Policemen are nothing but meatbag robots whose shrunken brains cannot conceive actions outside a thin set of narrowly-defined rules, and whenever they see something that overstep those rule boundaries, act to irrevovably eradicate the rulebreaker.
Cops do not have the brain power to adjust to differing circumstances, or to properly assess situations according to their context.
If cops were harmless, it would only be a source of hilarity; the problem is that those peabrains have the legal authority to totally destroy lives.
A good place to start would be to make sure policemen get at least three years of college, including a full year of philosophy, both occidental and oriental. Then, they should regularly teach civic classes in schools.
Such a process will inevitably weed-out the control freaks and the abnormally conservative, people who have absolutely no use in an evolved society as citizens and even more so as public officials.
And they should have salaries that are 20% over the median salary of their assignated areas, to safeguard against corruption. Places like New-Orleans where cops are the lowest paid in the USA also have the highest incidence of cop-commited crime.
He should have programmed it to call 411 or 611 instead. And a real sonavabitch would have programmed it to call a $65 per minute sex line...
Or a fishing net....
The "Patriot" Act was passed without some Congressmen and women even reading it. It was named that to intimidate members of Congress. Vote against this bill and you will be against patriotism!
The "Patriot" Act was supposed to protect us against people who want to destroy our entire society. Now its being used to harass citizens who do something stupid, and have no political motive. If they get away with this, you will see more and more extensions of government police power. History has shown that, even if they don't get away with it, they will try again.
More and more we are seeing examples of prosecutors who don't want sensible justice, but who just want other people to hurt, because of their own personal mental issues. Last week the Oprah Winfrey show provided another example: An 18-year-old man had sex with a 16-year-old woman at his school. (Big surprise, there.) Later she accused him of rape, and he was found NOT guilty. But he was put into prison for 10 years anyway. The prosecutor said that was entirely justified, and that he had no problems with the punishment.
The U.S. government is rapidly becoming more corrupt. Here are just a few examples:
Killing people and destroying their property:
N.Y. Times editorial
"... Americans paid Ahmad Chalabi to gull them into a war that is costing them a billion a week and a precious human cost."
Lying about scientific facts:
"The Bush administration has deliberately and systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals..."
N.Y. Times
The Guardian
Wired News
Union of Concerned Scientists
The present terrorism against the U.S. people is partly the result of the U.S. government's secret violence:
About a year ago, I hastily put together a short, incomplete history that shows what has happened: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories.
... and everything looks like a nail.
Ok, the guy deserves to go to jail.
He wrote malware, distributed it and got caught.
Pretty straightforward.
But... this jackass wrote the thing to call 911.
(Would he have been caught if he hadn't made the damn thing call the cops?) So all of a sudden this is terrorism.
But wait... wait... wait... lil Johnny Dipshit in 12th grade and his hooligan friends all decide to start prank calling 911 after school one day from a friends house. Cops show up, no one's there, cops leave. Rinse and repeat, finally the cops take care of it and more than likely lil Johnny Dipshit and his friends will get a notice to appear in court. But would they be called "cyber-terrorists" for using telephone technology to "endanger the safety of the public"? I think not. There are already perfectly good criminal codes that deal with the misuse of 911 lines. There is no legitimate excuse to try this under any terrorism statue and only goes to show that the Patriot Act on it's face is overly broad and in itself a threat to public safety and our constitutional liberties. Threat to public safety you ask? Yeah... if it means I'll lose to years off my life to go live in an ass slammer for doing something that would have never drawn a charge or carried a much lesser sentencing requirement, I think that's unsafe as it damages unduly those effected by it.
His penalty?
ARE YOU FUCKING INSANE? It makes me want to crawl out of my skin when I hear jackasses say things like this. Today everyone's solution to problems is "We need longer jail sentences. More jail time now!". You are advocating 10 YEARS for writing a script? Everyone knows that white collar criminals are scared just by being taken to court, let alone jail time.
If this guy went to jail for even two months I'd bet you all the money I have that he would never do something like this again. After being in jail for two months, his job would probably be gone, he'd have to suffer the embarassment of telling his friends, his family, his wife's family, his children, etc, that he has to go spend some time in jail because of a stupid thing he did.
10 YEARS!! You've got to be kidding me. I'd like to ask anyone that has ever thought that putting someone in prison for 10 years to think about what they were doing ten years ago. Think of what you were doing ten years ago, and what's happened since then. The people you've met, the girlfriends you've had, places you've been. Now replace that with the inside of a concrete room. Every day. For 10 years.
You are in idiot and an asshole for suggesting 10 years for a scripting prank. I guarantee you any jail time he gets will cause him to lose his job, he will lose his right to vote, he will lose a fortune on legal costs, and countless other things. If anyone here on slashdot had to suffer through all that, we would all be crying "Why? Why?", and it would be enough to straighten our fellow slashdotter out.
Before screaming for 10 years of someone's life to be stolen from them, think about what the hell you're saying. I'm sure the simple fact that he has been caught and is involved with the police and the courts will make this guy never do anything like this again. Don't make it obvious what a jackass you are by putting him in jail for a decade while ignoring real criminals like, say, the president.
Small nit, otherwise your correct. Terrorism isn't necessarelly "massive". One can terrorise an individual (the staple of grade B movies). The massive fits those with agendas of conformity for the masses (do as I do. believe as I do. brok no dissent).
http://www.omnienergy.com/news45.html :-D ... I'd call it a pretty good hacking job if he could do it from the afterlife.
She loves me: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0 She loves me not: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688BF
The Patriot Act - unconstitutional powers that were promised only to be used against terrorists.
BULLSHIT!
This guy obviously commited a crime, but that crime is prank calling 911, as well as illegally entering another person's computer system - both serious crimes - but would probably warrant 30 days in prison, tops, or probably a fine and community service.
Thanks to Ashcroft, NO terrorists have been prosecuted, but plenty of regular Americans have been.
F*ck that fascist c*cks*cker.
Please. I admit the guy is a criminal, what he did was completely wrong and he should be arrested, prosecuted, and if/when found guilty, sentenced appropriately.
Ladies and Gentlemen, calling this act "Cyberterrorism" likens it to the electronic equivelent of a suicide bombing. For some reason, I don't think this was a politically motivated attack designed to gain a high profile for the extremist political/religious beliefs of this man, and therefore, to consider it terrorism is a gross misuse of the legal system.
If it holds up as is, this will be a sad day for America.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
That word is used far to often in the USA, and the rest of the world, today.
Even the terrorists call their enemies terrorists today. "Bush is the real terrorist! Hunting is terrorism! Prank calls are terrorism!"
After 9/11, I've started saying "direct action activism". It is not really more precise, but it is used less wrongly than the word "terrorism".
Today, you'd have to look hard for someone willing to describe themselves as terrorists, except in jest. Self-declared "direct action activists" are easier to find, although they are still less popular now than before 9/11. Bombing abortion clinics, federal buildings, animal testing facilities etc. are not in vogue anymore.
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
The police are going to investigate the calls and that would lead back to him. The numbnut was effectively calling the police on himself. What a freakin' genius!
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
looks like you're going to have some fun in the coming years..
still, you brought it on yourselves.
can be found at Snopes.
Not quite the case of corruption you paint it out to be.
Otherwise I agree with everything you said about the UnPatriot Act.
In my day, the prank was to give people the pizza guys number when you wanted to trick someone. At the very worst, someone ended up with a couple extra large pepperoni pies.
-Valiss
I've done shit like that, but I guess now cyber pranks are considered cyber terrorism. Come on people.... the federal government needs to stay out of our lives. These damn republicans however want to regular everything and increase the size of government x10000 by creating a big military. Republicans are NOT conversative.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
I wonder what the feds would think of this little bit of immaturity? http://cia.zemos.net/~the1/friend.bat Yes I coded it (several years ago). No I don't really want/expect to infect anyone.
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
How the fuck is this offtopic? Fucking coward mods; reply if you disagree. Modding a relevant post offtopic because it's not the /. line is lame.
he has now something to write a book about
ViVa America!
It's described here as a "conflict", and in another article as a "squabble"; but nowhere have I seen an explanation of what the fight was about. I'm sure it was something stupid, and I realize it's not material to the charges; but still, I'd like to know. Just what did motivate him to do this?
Share and Enjoy: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Although the label of "CyberTerrorism" is a poor one because of the intent of the writer (to harass individual people), I'm not sure I'm disinclined to argue with whatever punishment he might get from this even under such a grim label.
I see this as a question of scale and responsibility. If you want to screw with a few people and you call them in the middle of the night or egg their house, that is one thing. But the tool chosen was a means that could easily scale to hurt those far beyond the targets. I actually don't see much difference between the 911 auto-dialer and releasing a container of West Nile mosquitos in the neighborhood.
In terms of responsibility, people need to learn that the things you can do with computers even though seemingly virtual can cause real damage, mostly monetary but in this case there is a potential for real physical danger involved if someone cannot get through to 911 for even a minute or two!!! Serious actions deserve serious consequences. You cannot treat something with such power so lightly as you used to be able to.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
People, it isn't like he just affected one or two MSN TV users. He affected all 21 users of MSN TV.
Aexia, thanks for the link to the story about Marcus Dixon. But the story does show corruption: "The prosecutor, in what can only be perceived as an act of complete disregard for the law, facts and justice in general,
and, "In the jurors own words, the look of horror across their faces when the judge sentenced Marcus to ten years minimum could be seen by everyone. They never knew the consequences. They could not fathom that a boy could go to jail for consensual sex, and certainly not for 10 years with no possibility of parole."
When the government does something completely screwy because of deliberately pursuing some purpose other than good government, that is corruption.
MSN TV list price is only $99. It's even cheaper on eBay.
Well, yes, in the same way that you can scale a small firecracker to 5 tons of explosives in a truck...
How about:
- Removing the stopsigns at an intersection for a laugh?
- Splashing gasoline down a school hallway for a laugh?
- Spraying a road with oil for a laugh?
- Creating a scripting prank in an attempt to jam the 911 system for a laugh?
What if any of these cases hit their 'worst case'? How many people could have been killed?
Sorry, I don't buy the 'it's just a prank' B.S. line. This was a deliberate attempt to damage emergency infrastructure and put the lives of other people at risk purely for someone's amusement.
I don't care if the 'worst case' didn't happen. The idiot who did this was an adult and aware of the possible impact of what they were doing. Putting this guy away for what some might consider to be too long a time would send a _very_ clear message that you do not mess with emergency infrastructure. Ever.
This is precisely why people who quote dictionaries and think that they are justifying their arguement are usually just adding more heat than light. From your quote, Al-Quaida, black September, the Red brigades, and the provo wing of the IRA aren't terrorists, because they don't any of them live in late 18th century France. There are no living examples of the word Terrorist, and in fact, cannot ever be again. We can all stop using this word now, unless we are talking about French history. Oh, and Bush has won the war on Terror, cause their 100% dead.
So what's your point in offering the definition? I could quote the definition of the word 'dog' as a verb (as in "He dogged the fleeing felon's heels"), and claim that proves those things with the wet noses that always want to be walked at inconveniet times are cats, but quoting Webster that way wouldn't make me right.
Who is John Cabal?
Sitting up in the Great White North (Canada), the general consensus up here is that OBL achieved his goals quite nicely. The terrorists have in fact won, at least as much as they attempted to win from 9/11.
The very existence of the Patriot Act, the hysteria that resulted from the anthrax scare, the massive delays going on with some flights, the incredibly annoying security checks, the fact that quite simply the life of the average American seems to have changed greatly...
You folks down there may not realize it, but what we see up here is that the US has changed, changed dramatically, changed permanently, and changed for the worse. The fact that the word "terrorism" even came up with this guy hacking WebTV is pretty much proof of that.
Yup, you (and we, in the larger global community) let the terrorists win. Now it's up to us to try to reverse some of the damage before it's too late. And I have no idea how to do that, sadly. The best I can come up with is "stop being so damn scared of your own shadow". I think we'll be dealing with these issues for decades to come.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Since you and the government seem to feel that doing something bad to someone else or doing something to intimidate them or influence their decision qualifies as terrorism, schoolyard bullies could be arrested, armed robbers are terrorists, stalkers, drug dealers, and anyone who threatens someone else could all come under the technical definition of terrorists. The problem is that the definition is far too vague and broad. A lot of people (i.e. Ashcroft) would say that is because terrorists don't always walk around wearing "I am a terrorist" shirts. So the vagueness is there to make sure that they can apply it to terrorists who don't necessarily have 10 pounds of TNT strapped to their waist in the obvious terrorist fashion. Sure, I could accept that if the government would stop applying terrorism laws to crap like this, to drug dealers (they charged a guy with a meth lab of terrorism), and to all kinds of other crimes so that they could have increased powers in those cases. There are reasons that they don't have increased powers in those cases. If they were meant to have it, it would have been granted to them. The FBI has a tendency to abuse the law by stretching them beyond their intended scope. I think this should be considered a terrorist act since the purpose in most cases is to intimidate the accused and influence their decision on how to handle the case. "Plead guilty and we'll drop the terrosim charge (20 years in jail) and you'll just get the 3 years that the other charges carry (the ones actually related to the crime you're charged with). If I were innocent and charged with a 3-year crime, and faced with the prospect of doing 20 years if I lose (yes, sometimes innocent people can lose) I might choose to take a guaranteed 3 years over a possible 23 years. Terrorism I tell you - terrorism. :)
If you mod me down, I shall become less powerful than you could possibly imagine.
If you look at the US Code as amended by the USA PATRIOT Act, you'll see exactly what he's being charged with:
And it seems to me the punishment prescribed in section (c) for the crime above is reasonable and fitting:
In other words, the guy broke a bunch of computers in such a way that he endangered the public safety. If convicted, he gets a fine or up to a year in prison (or both). I fail to see what the problem with this is.
This whole "terrorism" law is poorly applied. We already have sufficient laws on the books to cover any mishap without adding Terrorism laws. We already had "secret evidence" provisions before the Patriot Act. In fact, that was one of Bush's campaign promises, to dismantle them.
What really gets me mad is that a podiatrist named Dr. Goldstein with the JDL was arrested for plotting to destroy up to 50 mosques and Islamic schools in Florida, and was caught with explosives, assault weapons, and maps and plans. He didn't get sentenced under the Terrorism statute, though many wanted him to be.
The word "Terrorism" has been hijacked like the person who eats chicken calls themselves "vegetarian".
The families of Lockerbie, Sept. 11, IRA bombings, etc do not deserve to be disrespected in this way by a government deciding on an emotive term like "terrorism" in the same way a marketing dept would come up with a product name that "captures the public imagination".
Don't car pool to work? Then you aren't irresponsble with regard to the environment. You slaughter jews for a living.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
911 is really a joke in yo town I guess.
People are sheep. Can't we find a shepherd to lead them somewhere else so the rest of us can be free?
Your Red Hat or OS X box is not an appliance. WebTV is. You can't tie down a Linux, Windows or Mac box too much without severly limiting its functionality. WebTV has only one function, so you can lock down and white-list it up the wazoo. You're comparing apples and oranges.
Are you just hunting for the (+1, anti-Microsoft) mod points?
Hunting for cheap anti-anti-Microsoft points isn't any better, you know.
You have to set out to cause terror to be a terrorist, seting out to really piss off some people you don't like isn't terrorism it's just normal computer crime.
Terrorism has to be an act designed to create terror.
" Sorry, but I just have to ask - at what number of people involved does an act actually become terrorism? "
At one? Or perhaps a billion.
I don't know, because in my dictionary, the number of people involved has no effect on whether its terrorism.
Perhaps you like to be imprecise with your language; when you see a horse, you call it a zebra because they both have 4 legs. But I prefer to stick with facts, not emotions. You may feel differently.
Yes... though we're not "giving up" these freedoms, they're being taken from us. By Bush, Ashcroft, and the congress. If Bush gets re-elected, THEN the phrase "giving up" will truly apply.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
This guy is this new world of warlords a terrorist. Not in the
land of the free. He used a tool to cause some disturbance.
911 is more healthy than ever, so stop you posting that we
deserve to live in this land of the free with a terrorist label just
becouse we fart a really bad gas odor.
Whatever.
it's biochemical warfare.
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
ZIP! open wide for my throbbing islamic cruise missle.
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Just look at it this way - there's mention of terrorism, and 911 (I do hope they use 'emergency services phone number' during the hearings, for the guy's sake) + a load of stuff the average judge/jury doesn't understand.
This guy is going to fry...
The term "terrorism" is essentially undefined beyond a certain gut feeling. So anyone faced with a borderline case where it's hard to tell if it is "terrorism" or "regular crime" will choose "terroism" or risk being called soft on terror. So the definition will keep expanding until "terror" and "crime" are synonymous.
The only change from now will be that there will be a new word invented for what we now call "terrorism", and all "emergency" legislation meant to apply to terrorism will apply to all crimes.
...people will think twice about doing stupid shit like this. This guy has ruined it for everybody else who wants to pull an otherwise harmless prank. I think he should go to jail for a long time. What shmuck would choose 911 for their prank?
I think cases like this one call for a new form of punishment. The "Beat within an inch of your life" penalty. Human trash like this guy should be placed in a room with about six big burly bikers or maybe bouners who will then proceed to beat the shit out of him for as long as possible without causing permanent disfigurement or death. For more heinous crimes the penalty would be applied multiple times with the criminal given time in between to recover. The costs of the program could be paid for by broadcasting the ass whoppings on pay-per view. This penalty would be followed by a prison sentence of normal duration for the crime.
,and crackers, would all benefit from a dose of knuckle sandwich justice.
I don't know that this penalty would do much to lower crime, but it sure would be satisfying to see and hear people like this guy get beat half to death.. Spammers, virus writers
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
"terrorism" is becoming such a category of convenience; if you can't find a convincing *justification* for your case then squeeze something about terrorism into ur arguments...
Last time i was in the cinema there was some RIAA related anti-piracy infomercial that said "piracy funds terrorism"
> That's just what I said. We don't know, the courts will decide, charges != conviction.
That's true.
It's also true that we don't know if YOU are a terrorist or not.
Does that mean we should let the courts decide?
Not everything should go to court. Innocent people have had their lives ruined by unfounded court cases. Money that could have saved lives has been wasted by unfounded court cases.
"The Court" isn't an infinite and free resource; every time a bullshit case is tried, people are hurt and money is wasted that could have helped people. You want better 911 service? Try one less bullshit case and hire another 911 operator with that money.
There are already specific laws and penalties for attacking that infrastructure. They are what should apply in this case. If the penalties aren't sufficiently severe, increase them. Don't make up an extra charge for the purpose. Inciting 18 people to call 911 repeatedly for a few days (even though the 'people' in this instance are computers) is approximately what he did. Those 18 people incited an additional 3. That's conspiracy as well as attacking the infrastructure. Use those crimes, and quit messing about with terrorism accusations.
"Do not drill any holes in your cat - it will not like it."
-- Nick Davies
This is the most dangerous thing to come out of the US Congress in years. Sounds like McCarthy all over again.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Remember that the cost of dispatching emergency services has to be factored in.
"Do not drill any holes in your cat - it will not like it."
-- Nick Davies
If he planned to screw up the 911 system on paper (especially if he involved other people), he's a conspirator, and should recieve closer to (or perhaps the maximum) penalty under law for the crimes he has already commited, including applicable conspiracy laws if a group of people is involved.
If he actually began execution of his plan, perhaps then he would be a terrorist, depending on his motives. If it was done to draw attention to his group of political or religious extremists through the immediate and high-profile use of fear and death, I would consider it terrorism. While it may cause some lives to be lost among confusion while 911, the phone company, and WebTV deal with this problem, it isn't exactly flying a plane into the WTC, or even walking into a resteraunt with a bomb strapped to your chest. It is most certainly criminal, and quite a major offense at that...but terrorism? Absurd.
It doesn't exactly strike "terror" into my heart that the 911 switchboard isn't working reliably, I can always call 411 and get patched directly to the Police, who can use their radios to call in other emergency services for assistance.
The sad thing is, the threat of terrorism is just as real as it has always been, but now people feel as if they HAVE to be overly paranoid, and we all know where that is going to lead us.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
I absolutely hate the patriot act and I beleive that is taking away something very important from the American people, but I think that if someone interfears with the 911 system in any malicous way deserves whatever the goverment throws at them. I dont care if there wernt any real damages, therere could have been so screw'em.
Whoever intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, causes damage and by [such] conduct [causes] a threat to public health or safety ... shall be punished as provided in subsection (c) of this section.
There are several threshold issues here:
1. What protected computer did he access without authorization? The 911 system? I don't think this qualifies as he wasn't accessing it, the individual WebTV users were. Even if you can make this argument, you still have to prove the high level of "intent." The WebTV? Perhaps. THis was his goal, and intentionally is much easier to prove here.
2. What damage did he cause? If it were the 911 system, arguable the damage is trespass, diversion of resources, etc. If WebTV, is there qualifiable damage? Does changing of the dial-out number equate to damage? Who knows.
3. Threat to public health or safety? If the 911 system, arguably yes. But notice that that the damage must actually cause a threat to public health or safety. This is an uphill battle for the prosecution if they have to prove this. If the WebTV sytem, this will likely fail. I don't imagine there is any threat to human health or safety in having WebTV boxes unable to dial up for ISP service.
... Osias Griffin, who owned one of the first dozen telephones.
"Hello, Johnathan?"
"Nope. What number are you trying to dial?"
"Seven."
"Ah, well this is three."
This loser should be imprisoned, I hate these fuckers messing up our society. I hope he ends up at Guantonimo Bay in a tent with some smelly, asshole-fucking camel jockey for what he did. Teach all you fucking hackers a lesson. I say "good job" to the U.S. Government.
I think microsoft should get reprimanded for not making it so the system would weed out obviously fake numbers (like emergency numbers and other ones like 411, 311 [non-emergency police line] in addition 911, etc.).
what I'd like to know is what sort of punishment he'll get if found guilty. It better not be prison time....since it's wasting taxpayers money for something that's not that heinous (compared to mass murder, or Enron). Make him serve community service or better yet, make him work the phones at 911 since he did waste their time with the prank.
He distributed a virus - last I heard there wasn't any law against that, except maybe something in the PATRIOT act. Is the FBI trying to track down the MyDoom author? Not all that hard - what would they charge him with? Probably being a cyberterrorist.
I think the problem here is that everyone agrees that this person needs to be put away and fined. But I don't believe there is any specific law - outside of the PATRIOT act that makes this illegal.
1 year in prison and a $1 million dollar fine.
sounds good to me.
"At least we only had that one very scary incident... the US has an administration that seems intent on turning everything since 9/11 into a scary era."
The bottom line on all this is that the very reason for existing of the rightwing--the global Communist conspiracy--has evaporated. They needed a new villian to latch on to and they found it in the Arabs/Bin Laden/Oil politics, etc. Does anybody remember the House Unamerican Activities Committee? These folks don't give a wit about the law or the constitution. All they care about is protecting their asses by focusing our attention on something other than the hideous mess they have made of domestic affairs.
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
He would be lucky if the police got to him
before I did >:(
The program is run, then it sends the data to those email addresses. Then it changes the settings so that the next time the machine is turned on, it dials 911.
An individal aka "Tyhart" on WebTv is/was one of the most detested individuals on WebTv. His actions and methods so angered many individuals, that a WebTv discussion group, alt.discuss.clubs.public.tysux was formed and attracted a large number of posters.
Jeansonne was a close friend and ally of "Tyhart", and was in contact with him and received advice from him on how to avoid detection after the exploit was released.
The targets of the 911 exploit were the founders and frequent posters at the tysux newsgroup. The exploit was intended to embarass these people by bringing police and emergency services to their homes. Several of these individuals were threatened with being charged with making prank/false calls to their local 911 services. Especially after the second or third call to 911 by the WebTv unit.
Eventually, calls to MSNTv's service center got things straightened out. The victims were given the codes to reset the WebTv units and restore the normal dial up phone numbers.
The victims are personal friends and acquaintences of mine. They are just average people; housewives, retirees, etc. They were quite upset and distressed by the sudden appearance of police at their doors. The exploit was sent to them in emails using the return address of their personal friends. They had no reason to not open the emails. Only the quick posting of news about exploit in many alt.discuss news groups prevented it from spreading much farther.
"Tyhart" and Jeansonne have been TOSed by MSNTv and their accounts closed.
For those unfamiliar with WebTv, it has a very strong community of users. Strong friendships are formed and bitter enemies made. The alt.discuss news groups were set up by WebTv/MSNTv to enable their users to have fora for their specific interests, which are not always shared by the internet community at large. These groups are firewalled from the PC community for the sanity of both sides. When trolling became a huge problem, club news groups were introduced. Every user can set up a public (open to all) or private (open by invitation only) news group and can moderate the posts. The control extends to banning those who can not abide by rules.
WebTv is often reviled by many PC users. For many of us it was an inexpensive introduction to the wonders of the internet and a wonderful way to move beyond our own narrow interests. While it is indeed limited in many ways, it is wonderful for the technically inept and those who just do not wish to go through the trouble of learning to use an OS that does a million things they didn't want in the first place.
.sig? Ok: Hey, Chirac, I spit in your general direction you misogynist, you.
It's the same reason that people who joke about bomb threats at airports or make threats are dealt with harshly.
Whether it was 20 people or not is irrelevant. The author of the *virus* decided to use 911, and not 411 or 1234 or whatever. If the virus randomly came up with 911, then you could argue it is overreacting to charge him with terrorism.
Do any of you REALLY WANT anyone to think they can just f*uck around with the 911 system and be given a slap on the wrist?
Jeansonne was undone when cyber sleuths at Microsoft's MSN unit searched e-mail logs and found that the "Timmy" account had previously sent beta versions of the malware to Jeansonne's MSN TV account. Microsoft pillaged Jeansonne's e-mail, and found messages between him and an online friend that suggested Jeansonne was responsible for the hack. In December, the FBI raided his home and seized his computers.
So, with no warrent, or even police backing, microsoft took it upon themselves to read through the email of two of his accounts, one of which he was a paid subscriber for. Yeah, I'll believe M$ when they talk about privacy in the future. They then called the cops...is this shit even legal?!?
You, gentlemen, are suspiciously easy to terrify. Here in Moscow we had people blow up houses and subway cars, fast food joints and phone booths, we had hostages taken on a musical showing, people call in with bomb threats every other day, but I hardly see anyone at all terrified to sleep at night or ride a subway, or eat a big mac, or go to a theater, and nobody even shrugs anymore when there's another bomb threat.
That might be very irrelevant, but somehow I feel it's very to the point. If you are terrified of a single guy with a trojan just because he caused ten to twenty more 911 calls out of thousands, I guess he could be a terrorist, alright...
In Soviet Russia... RUSSIANS comment on YOU.
This case illustrates the problems we run into when we try to define something like "terrorism." One of the assignments I give my students is to try to define terrorism. For example, they can check off boxes saying it only targets civilians or it targets anyone including military personell, or saying it is intended to cause terror or is intended to fulfill some other objective. Then I give them the folowing list of cases -- all real-world examples with names removed to reduce bias when applying the student's definition:
Case 1
Powerful government troops ravage insurgent resources to hasten the end of civil war. They burn their way through a swath of rebel territory, sparing civilians and (sometimes) their homes but destroying crops, livestock, buildings, and railways. After seizing a major city, they expel its entire population and put the city to the torch. The government commander says, ?If the people raise a howl against my barbarity and cruelty, I will answer that war is war and not popularity-seeking. If they want peace, they and their relatives must stop the war.?
Case 2
A loosely-knit group of dissidents bands together to protest unfair tax policy. Wearing disguises, they trespass on the property of a corporation favored by the government and destroy the corporation?s goods.
Case 3
A group fighting a "war of liberation" against a government it calls ?an unjust occupying power? secretly plants a bomb in a hotel being used as a military headquarters. The group calls ahead, warning of the attack, but the blast still claims scores of victims, including many civilians in the hotel.
Case 4
Marxist rebels in uniform invade a foreign embassy and take hostages during a civil war, demanding the release of ?political prisoners.? No hostages are harmed by the rebels, but the government counter-attack kills several hostages in the cross-fire. Was the hostage-taking by the rebels terrorism?
Case 5
A band of political rebels, aiming to overthrow a government they claim is oppressive, assassinates the head of state.
Case 6
After a revolution in Country A, Country B decides to do everything in its power to overthrow the new leaders of Country A. It begins funding a guerrilla army that attacks Country A from another country next door (call it Country C). Country B also builds army bases in the next door country and allows the guerrilla army to use its bases. Country A supplies almost all of the weapons and supplies of the guerrilla army fighting Country A. The guerrillas generally try to avoid fighting Country A's army. Instead, they attack clinics, schools, and farms. Sometimes they mine the roads. Many, many civilians are killed and maimed by the Country B-supported guerrillas. Consistently, the guerrillas raid Country A and then retreat into Country C for protection.
Case 7
In wartime, the armed forces of a country bomb the cities of another country, hoping that the victims of the bombing will be terrorized, become angry at their own government, and then overthrow it.
Case 8
During peacetime, a weapons scientist goes to work for Country A. Fearing that his weapons might give Country A an advantage, Country B -- the longtime foe of Country A ? sends secret agents to assassinate the scientist. The assassination is carried out while the scientist is staying in a neutral country.
Case 9
Retaliating for an attack on its headquarters, an armed political group (neither uniformed nor employed by a government) bombs a warship, killing many soldiers.
Case 10
After it finds out that an environmental group is planning to conduct a peaceful but illegal protest, a government secretly plants a bomb on the group?s ship while it is docked in a neutral, peaceful country. The blast sinks the ship, killing the group?s photographer.
Case 11
Following a horrific incident in which nine of its citizens are killed by terrorists, a government retaliates by sending out agents to assassinate the terrorists. These agents mist
Make cheese not war 8:)
This stretches the definition of "terrorism." Real terrorism is an act against a civil populace for a political purpose...basically, trying to attack a government through its citizens. This particular instance seems to fall entirely under criminal law...maybe vandalism at best. The fact that he directed them towards 911 just shows that he wasn't a very bright criminal. (I would have sent them to the NAMBLA help desk--kill two birds with one stone!)
Never confuse movement with action. --Hemingway
"You folks down there may not realize it, but what we see up here is that the US has changed, changed dramatically, changed permanently, and changed for the worse."
Kind of like Israel, or Ireland, or any of the other countries terrorism has made an apperance. People trying to kill you will do that.
Just imagine if he had taken another route.
Setting up an offshore account where the MsnTv users could dial in and still have internet access. And charge by the minute($26). Thus the user would know nothing and continue using the MsnTv until their phone company smacked them with a large ass bill at the end of the month.
you don't fuck with 911 and not expect to get everything they can find thrown at you.
Now if he made it call pizza hut and they called it cyber terrorism I'd be outraged, but he made it call 911. He gambled and lost.
poke a dog and get bitten.
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
Look we have a new law. Quick, now we have to find somebody to arrest under it.
All these comments sound like senators in togas debating what a word like "terrorism" word means.
This isn't a trial or question of law. He's only been arrested.
Cops are not judges. They don't think a lot about Why, they just grab people doing what they see to be stupid or bad things and then find a reason to hold them until the courts either agree to lock them up or let them go.
So this guy was not only 'hacking' (something that bothers cop type people) he was also out-thinking stupid enemies (another thing that bothers and threatens cop type people) and worst, he was bothering the cops who answer 911.
As much as I ha..ve difficulty dealing with cops, I can certainly see why they would go nuts trying to find a law to lock this idiot up.
It's almost totally beside the point that 'terrorism' and 'freedom' are words that are getting abused into new nebulous and meaningless ideas.
Additionally, why did this retard have his script calling 911? That's about as stupid as crank calling someone and then starting a 3-way call with the cops. Or stopping off for doughnuts after robbing a bank.
The proper nerdy thing to do would be to have them dial up SCO. This would annoy idiots on both ends, and neither would know what's happening. That would be funny.
Unnecessarily calling 911 is as lame (and as dangerous to others) as not getting out of the way of an ambulance.
Cops wouldn't need to be arresting him on 'terrorism' charges if we simply had laws against being too stupid. Ever since America became the bastion and protectorate of all things stupid, the normal course of natural selection in weeding out idiots has been slowed to the point where society is choking to death on pure stupid-people-overload.
And so cop type people respond by retrenching into fascism, just as abstract thinkers retrench into pointless dialogues (like mine) and people who are neither really thinkers or really cops retrench into watching sports and shopping.
Isn't there a difference between terrorism and mere sabotage? This jerk just sabotaged a dozen or so people's entertainment console, out of a personal vendetta. He didn't promote the threat, either to the victims, the 911 system, or others, nor did he promote any other "agenda", in any medium. Nor did this sabotage actually threaten "public safety", either in plan or execution. So he's a criminal, a saboteur, but where's the "terror"? Is any criminal of which many people are afraid now a terrorist? Isn't the terrorist's crime really a media crime?
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make install -not war
I am going to have to agree with a couple of the posts above - this does not invoke terror in any way shape or form. It was stupid and the perp should be punished to the full extent of the law. If this is all it takes - think of how bad those that did wardialing back in the day would have to be prosecuted under todays law. Those people were dialing hundreds of numbers 24/7.
"Action is the thing that escapes most people. Great ideas are a dime a dozen. Great actions are few and far in between.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Terrorism \Ter"ror*ism\, n. [Cf. F. terrorisme.]
The act of terrorizing, or state of being terrorized; a mode
of government by terror or intimidation. --Jefferson.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
terrorism
n : the calculated use of violence (or threat of violence)
against civilians in order to attain goals that are
political or religious or ideological in nature; this is
done through intimindation or coercion or instilling fear
[syn: {act of terrorism}, {terrorist act}]
Terrorism-related acts are those intending to inflict terror on a *civilian* population.
This was pretty clearly not intended to "inflict terror".
Note that some serial killers, the kind that write letters to the paper to try to put the general populace in the state of fear, probably fall under this umbrella.
It's quite true that "terrorism" means something very much different from what it's been used for.
An assassin may or may not be a terrorist. If the assassin specifically hates the President and kills him, it is not terrorism. If the assassin kills the President because he is a member of an extremist ecology group and wants to demonstrate that politicians that ignore the environment will be killed, he could be considered a terrorist.
People that set off bombs are not necessarily terrorists.
Guerilla warfare aimed at military targets is *not* terrorism. It's guerilla warfare.
May we never see th
You ever speed because you started for work a couple of minutes late? What about the worst-case scenerio there, running down some six-year-old that can't get out of the way in time? Should *you* be put in prison for ten years?
How about parking your car illegally in front of a store, near a driveway, or near a hydrant? A family could *burn to death* because a ladder or pump truck couldn't get close enough. Should *you* be put in prison for ten years?
It's easy to just say "ten years" if you're the one talking about it. When you choose to take ten years from someone's life, it should be for a darn serious reason. They are going to be ten years less skilled when they get out. They are going to be living on the taxpayer's dime for ten years. We went to the trouble of educating this guy, and now we want to throw him in a caged box for years? Is he likely to ever do this again?
If this were a repeat offense, I could see something like this. I claim that 99% of people out there have done something *stupid* like this are really unlikely to do it again, even without ten years in jail.
Let's say that he gets $21,000 in fines -- $1000 for each incident, potentially more if this guy is wealthy enough to shrug this off -- and maybe 200 hours of community service. Most appropriate would be assisting a local 911 center, so that he can realize how much hassle he's putting people through. He's out the equivalent of around a new car, and he's going to be spending a couple hundred hours of not-fun-time doing work to benefit the community, as opposed to mooching off of taxpayer money.
If he goes out and does it again, then you can nail his ass to the wall. This generated a small amount of annoyance.
If he were a repeat offender, I could see nailing his ass to the wall. There's no reason to drop someone in an iron box for a quarter of their working life because they did a really stupid prank.
May we never see th
The law this putz was charged with violating makes it illegal to: (1) intentionally damage (which he obviously did);
I would say yes.
(2) a "protected computer" (which the 911 system obviously was);
No. The system he damaged were the home webtv systems, which happened to interact briefly with the 911-controlling computer. Interaction with a computer certainly does not qualify something as a cybercrime. If I call up almost any 1-800 number just because I'm bored, I'm interacting with a protected computer and potentially keeping someone else from using it. I am not damaging that computer, though I am doing the *same. He *might* be said to be "damaging the integrity of the 911 system as a whole", which is not a computer system.
(3) causing a threat to public health or safety (which multiple fraudulent calls to 911 obviously does).
I agree.
Frankly, speaking from a common sense standpoint, rather than from a "what's currently law" standpoint, I don't think that his penalties should be significantly worse than the penalty of directly calling up 911 as a bogus call from a payphone 21 times. He did not build a propagation mechanism in, so it's hard to blame him for the propagation (as it would have been if someone had made a worm with this same impact). What he did is reprehensible, but it really shouldn't involve "cyberterrorism".
Of course, one could argue that for political reasons, "computer crime" is simply called "cyberterrorism" by politicians these days...
May we never see th
I haven't read it since last year, but I think the USAPATRIOT act increased the minimum sentence for cyberterrorism to 10 years. That's 10 years for 11 crank 911 calls and obtaining 21 people's web browser history by getting them to run your script. The former is an annoyance to police and the latter happens all the time. That's hardly worthy of 10 days. If found guilty, that's 10 years that this guy won't be contributing to the economy or paying taxes, but rather he'll become a drain on our economy against his own will. All this for a prank. I doubt any of his victims will support the punishment he appears to be about to face.
I have no problem with someone being prosecuted for abuse of the 911 system.
As long as the penalties are commensurate with the penalties received by non-technical non-programmer abusers of the 911 system, such as when Mrs Wilson's cat gets caught in a tree and she deems it an emergency and ties up the valuable operator.
Otherwise, it's unfair, it's posturing, playing on the general public's fear of "terrorism" and on their fear and ignorance of technology.
"Provided by the management for your protection."