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

well they have to do something....

[Whammy666]

... 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.

Re:Waste of tax dollars

[EvilAlien]

It isn't terrorism without meeting the definition, and this clearly does not meet the definition: "with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."

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:

Although strong, the provisions of the War Measures' Act are necessary to meet a crisis such as war. Evidently, a democratic state must be able to take all necessary steps to protect itself and to act quickly under crisis situations. Such was the argument made by Pierre Trudeau during the October Crisis of 1970. However, the Act allows for invocation of these strong measures even in times of peace, in particular when there would be an "apprehended" insurrection. In this instance, there is clearly a need for reform as the invocation of such measures can easily lead to clear violations of our most basic freedoms and rights as was shown in several instances in Canadian history

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.