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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."
... 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.
I agree that he should go to prison. But not under a "cyberterrorism" provision.
Call (206) 338-5780 COLLECT for information about a genuine BA, BS, MA, MS, MBA, or Ph.D.
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!)
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?
Right, I worked at an ISP years ago and that's what would happen when one of the 28.8k modems in our stacks would run amuck (probably from overheating) and start dialing random digits, eventually including 911. Two policemen would arrive, and we'd have to trace the number, tear the stack apart, and replace the offending modem. And when I say "stack", I mean exactly that. These were external 28.8k modems that were stacked on top of another. That's the high class way that this ISP ran it's computer room.
-- SKYKING, SKYKING, DO NOT ANSWER.
One person repeatedly calling 911 could tie up a good portion of the resources for a *small* 911 call center, I would think - not to mention, the police have to come out and investigate. Can you imagine the load of shit a police department would get if, shortly after this happened, someone was getting severely beaten, tried to call 911 but couldn't speak, and the 911 call center decided that it was just another one of those damned prank calls and ignored it?
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
We don't need broad new powers to fight one guy who does a random criminal act just to show he's smart/cool. He didn't plan it for years and years, didn't get overseas funding and moral support, and didn't try to choose a crime that would scare the crap out of the most people.
Bush/Ashcroft's "trust us, we won't misuse it" line was always BS, it's just easier to convince the rest of the population now.
What the parent said is that your supositions ARE considered terrorism.
When you say: "what if this had been an al-Qaeda agent who had done this?" Then you're just saying that "they HAD political/religious motivation", hence: Terrorism
The parent wasn't refering to "only bombing or mass killing", i think it was only a weak example. The important part there was the "political or religious cause".
See? So, if al-Qaeda jammed 911 lines, it WOULD be terrorism. If a 9years old jammed 911 lines, it would be a unfortunate accident and a huge fine to the parents.
But IANA (i'm not american) and you guys already sued a 8years old for "sexual abuse" when he showed his tongue to a class-mate (sorry, don't have the link, but this is notorious news)
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?
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
Let's check the dictionary
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.
Nope, no force or violence, no real intimidation (annoyance perhaps), no attempt to coerce. Seems fairly straightforward. Since not even one person was intimidated, coerced, or threatened, it doesn't matter how many it takes - it still wasn't reached.
Also, if we make the definition of terrorism apply to one person, we make pretty much all major crimes (murder, extortion, rape, etc.) into terrorism. This is not the way it should work. Sometimes there is no logical place to draw the line, and it's up to the law (or the judges) to find a reasonable one.
Contact Me (got tired of viruses emailing me).
It's even possible to "terrorise" one person, but it would be weird imo to call that "terrorism". i mean even threatening one person would then be considered to be terrorism. I guess in the US loads of things have gotten the terrorism tag.
anyway, all im saying is that it's quite a slippery slope if you begin calling all illegal actions which involve one person in some way damaging or negatively influencing another with the big word "terrorism". why not arrest all trolls on ./ for terrorising this site... hmmm might not be a bad idea...
PjotrP
The attack was against individuals, the government is only involved as a means to that end. This is a case of government using over-broad legislation to hack together charges against someone where older statute would do (but maybe not set as big of an example). This is a great illustration of the danger in bad law, bad administrators of the law, and the erosion of freedoms in the name of national security... except there is no national security issue here, only the erosion of freedoms.
Canadians have lived with this fear for some time thanks to the War Measures Act, especially after Pierre Idiot Trudeau's invocation in the 1970s in response to Quebec separatist terrorism:
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. Good luck guys, the whole world is going to need it if Bush, Ashcroft, and others have their way.perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
Just my 2c. This is the most insightful post in the whole thread. I don't really have anything to add to it.r rorism/ 20011025_hr3162_usa_patriot_bill.html/ /www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/1030NEW.h tm
However, while the question of "terrorism" is important, in this case we're talking about a legal issue. Change the name of the crime to "loitering" and then review the definition of the crime, and see if the act is an instance of that crime. In this case, it's called cyberterrorism, and the crime is defined here:
http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Te
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I would consider planting/spreading a script that deceptively changes the dialer to call 911 an act of terrorism, in the same way I would consider falsely reporting a fire, or accusing someone of a crime that you know they did not commit, to be terrorism. But I don't consider it at all to be terrrorism in the same way that I consider bombings or murders to be terrorism. It's not terrorism in the conventional sense that we talk about terrorists, and terrorist networks attacking people and nations around the world.
It is malicous, it is intimidation, and it is uacceptable behavior. If I had to call it something, i'd call it reckless endangerment, a threat to public safety, abusing a public resource, illegal wiretapping, creating/distributing a trojan horse, and unauthorized use of a computer. If you try to decduce the intent, I think you can conclude that the script author had the following intentions:
a) the victim(s) use the script for an entirely different purpose than changing the dial script
b) the victim(s) unknowingly placing multiple calls to 911 emergency response
c) the 911 emergency response operator to dispatch a response to the call(s)
d) the victim(s) to be approached by law enforcement responding to the call
e) the victim(s) to feel threatened/intimidated by the law enforcement response
f) the victim(s) computer to be bugged/monitored without the victims knowlegde
g) the logs of the monitoring to be transmitted from the victim(s) computer to the author
So I think this guy is beyond old enough to know better, and should be punished accordingly. The important point about the patriot act is that these acts were already illegal, and that using the patriot act is a hedge be prosecutors against te possibility that the court determines there was less than $5,000 in damages. I think you can easily show more damage by tallying the cost of the 911 response to the bogus calls. Nevermind that MSN may have been required by law to investigate, and they would have been forced to incurr expenses due to the script.
Making prank calls to an emergency-only system like 911 is akin to throwing rocks onto the freeway. Even if you don't hit any cars, even if there's no cars coming by while you're throwing rocks, it still a stupid thing to do, and more importantly, it's dangerous. Only children are expected to do such stupid things without considering the consequences. This is a 40+ year old man who has no excuse for such irresponsible behavior.
We don't know what evidence exists.
Did you read the story? He had a spat with the people he sent the script to.
I don't see how it's a problem to charge someone under terrorism statutes while investigating something like this.
You do not charge someone with something unless you already have evidence and reason to believe that is the crime they committed or intended to commit.
If I get in a span and cut down my neighbor's tree, you crage me with valdalism or destruction or property or something. You do NOT charge me with attempted murder simply because it might have been a "small test-run" of killing someone by dropping a tree on them. You only charge me with attempted murder if you already have evidence that was my intent.
But this argument misses the actual point. The outrage here isn't that he is being charged with an absurd crime he didn't commit. The outrage is that he is it being charged with a crime he most likely DID commit. Under the law he most likely DID violate the PATRIOT act and most likely is guilty of "terrororism" as the law defines it.
The outrage is that the law is fuxored. It's like a law defining "murder" as causing the death or a person or a part of a person. Under that law someone could be charged and convicted of murder for simply scratching someone and causing the death of a couple of skin cells. Accidentally scratching someone and causing the death of a few skin cells would be manslaughter. Scratching a police officer would open you to death sentence.
The PATRIOT act is a horrendous law passed in a fit of lunacy.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.