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."

Comments

The problem is not the laws

[Pig Hogger]

It's the police.

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.

Re:In case you were unclear on the subject

[operagost]

What's so chilling? So some people think the theory of evolution (at least macroevolution) is wrong. Does that threaten you? The first amendment applies to everyone's ideas, not just yours. And if you can't see the irony in that statement, you may be a left-winger.

Beat within an inch of his life penalty

[leereyno]

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.

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 ,and crackers, would all benefit from a dose of knuckle sandwich justice.

Lee