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Blaster Variant Creator Pleads Guilty
Hello Kitty writes "Robert Parson, the 18-year-old who modified and re-released a version of Blaster last year, is on his way to being made an example of, after pleading guilty Wednesday in a Seattle courtroom. According to AP, he can now look forward to 18-36 months behind bars and -- shades of Kevin Mitnick's phantom damages -- may be expected to pay millions in restitution. And then there's that lifelong 5cr1pt k1dd13 title. of course."
(Hint to foolish wannabe kiddiez: stick to posting 'me toooo!!!!111' on the warez channel du jour. They won't send your sorry ass to prison for that.)
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
A smarter system would have this kid be a digital janitor for a year or so. Disinfect this computer, now disinfect that one. You know, like an intern, and maybe he could get a job out of it when he's done.
More productive than license plates, and more likely to pay society back.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
i can say this: if you don't know enough to keep from getting caught, well, enjoy the penalty. On that note, no, i don't condone doing such a thing, but with the many ways to get online anonymously (no, not some crappy online anonymizer or some such...i mean, the real ways...if you don't know, i'm sure as fuck not going to tell you) you should never be caught....
...unless you are stupid, reuse code, code with the wrong tools (read up), and release from your own fucking email account, etc. The ways to get away with this shit are many, the stupid take-the-easy-way-out folks get caught and the normal user will click away like there's no tomorrow regardless of the source (ask your local IT guy if you don't believe me on that one).
Sorry, no remorse for those that act without knowing enough.
He pled guilty, so he's guilty. good. send him to jail. I've got no problem with that.
But as for the millions, who actually get's the money?
an IT profesionals JOB is to deal with problems, much like blaster caused (and still ocasionally does).
What other costs do these companies incur, as a result of a worm/virus?
Do these companies want money to pay the wages of these tech's?
if the worm did it's job through the use of an OS exploit, why isn't the OS creator picking up part of the bill?
legal fee's I can ken, but the rest doesn't quite make sense to Me...
I'm not the only person who's happy that the asshole that made me waste hours fixing the dozens of idiot-owned unpatched boxes is going to jail?
You can go ahead and blame the user all you want (a popular thing to do in the Slashdot crowd, because of course, us IT people NEVER MAKE MISTAKES), but the user didn't "write" the virus.
There's a balance somewhere inbetween these two statements. It will always be illegal to unleash a virus, just as it will always be illegal to murder. However, just as civil suits can and do win against negligent manufacturers of equipment for failing to include adequate and reasonable safety measures, so should civil class-action suits win against makers of software who haven't done their due diligence on the security side of things. I'm not a fan of punitive damages against the manufacturer, but I think cost-of-purchase would be in order, covering the product bought (or the whole cost of any bundle containing the product). IOW, consumers should be able to sue Eudora for the cost of their mail client if they get penetrated and virused through it, and should be able to sue M$ for the entire cost of Windows since Outlook Express was a bundled component. (And again, not just because there was a bug - those are inevitable - but as a class action suit alleging that they were completely negligent in the area of security as evidence by the pattern of recurrent successful attacks on their software).
11*43+456^2
I'm sorry, but how did he not cause damages with a virus which disrupted work and forced companies to disinfect their machines?
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Saying that this guy wrote a virus is like me changing the names in The Lord of the Rings and calling myself an author....
That's one way to look at it.
One could also argue that this kid modified and released a piece of software that he knew for a fact would run rampant and infect countless systems worldwide. He'd already seen it in action, and he knew exactly what it did to an infected system. He can't even run the Morris defense of 'it was released accidentally and I had no idea it would be this bad'.
This punk got his hands on a very nasty computer virus, made changes to it, and released it back into the wild knowing fully well what he was doing and would happen as a result of his actions. That it was a mind-numbingly simple change doesn't make his actions any less malicious or criminal. Throw the book at him.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Unless you don't think time has any value.
While the Mitnick case was unjust in, that I understand anyway, he "stole" code which he might have gotten if he asked very nicely through a student program, but being hit with exorbitant damages, Blaster and variants costed a lot in bandwidth, productivity losses and cost/time of removal.
Well, if they can charge a kid with gajillions of dollars in unsubstantiated damages, then why shouldn't we be able to sue Microsoft and others for whatever damages we can dream up and somehow connect to their crappy software?
Because you perfectly knew their software was insecure, it's been commonly known for years. You also waived all your rights to Microsoft when you clicked OK to the EULA.
People should take responsibility for their own actions, not sue left and right too..
This is just to show there is more to this argument..
So by using this logic, any victim of a crime deserves what they get if they did not take every effort to prevent it from happening. Example, a person leaves on vacation and locks their home. They stop their mail and have someone take care of their dog. However, they forget to stop their paper, and thus, a criminal notices they are gone and breaks into their home and steals their belongings. By your definition, it is the homeowners who are at fault, and the burglar, if caught, should not be punished. Also, in that same situation, if a person noticed that the house had been broken into, and went in, and stole a painting that been left by the previous burglar, does that mean the individual wasn't guilty, because he hadn't broken into the house originally? By your logic, he isn't. I would argue he is just as guilty as the previous burglar. This kid committed a crime. He deliberately caused harm to people's property. It doesn't matter if he wrote the original virus or not. He needs to be punished. And I don't think the punishment is off base.
"he is forever be known as a script kiddy" (which begs the question, Why? Modifying a virus isn't a good way to make yourself popular).
Script kiddies aren't popular (at least outside script kiddie circles) - they are usually considered the lowest form of life.
* Virus writer: understands how stuff works, spends a long time putting together viruses (this is not right but he's put some effort into it)
* Cracker: again, like the virus writer, understands how exploits work, spends lots of time writing the exploit (again, not right but some effort has gone into it and in the long run it _does_ uncover bugs in software, which might be a good thing)
* Script kiddie: Can't type properly, inserts numbers in everything because he thinks it looks "cool" (actually it make him look like a 12 year old tosser). Uses someone else's virus/exploit code and either uses it as-is or makes some minor modifications. This guy has done absolutely no work in writing the code he's using and almost certaionly doesn't havea clue how it works.
Virus writers and crackers deserve some respect because they understand stuff and work for it, even if it is wrong. Script kiddies don't deserve respect because they don't understand anything, just rip off someone else's code and then think it's cool to compromise a few thousand/million machines.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Would you imprison a two year old for, well, anything? Why not? Of course because they are incapable of realising that if they stick a hairpin into a power outlet (ie "investigating their world" aka "trying shit out") they might start a fire that burns down their house.
Similarly teenagers are literally incapable of realising that there are consequences to their actions- the part of the brain required to do so simply does not develop until they are in their early twenties. Simple. Scientific. Fact. They might look like adults but they do not think like adults.
Now, how about this lynch mob turn around and go home.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
but he didn't did he, he showed no compassion for his victims so why should we show him? He wanted to play with the big boys, cause discomfort to countless people, be the though guy. Well now he can be though in jail. Something tells me he is going to be crying for his mommy.
I don't agree with many things american but the saying "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime" I can get behind. This guy was no victim of society. He was not a poor man stealing bread for his family. He was nothing more then a little punk who went around smashing peoples car, a thief stealing every bike around because he is to lazy to walk, a parasite.
Sure he was an idiot but an idiot who deliberatly set out to cause other people harm. What do you suggest we do? Give him a 50 dollar penalty? Slap on the wrist? Then he will be boasting in seconds on the net on how the pigs couldn't touch him and his leet hacking skills brought down the net.
No let him rot for a couple of months. I doubt it will send a message to other script kiddies but there is always the element of revenge. Ghandi may have a thing or two to say about revenge but Ghandi also left a country wich now has been at war for 50 yrs with itself and its neighbour. (tamils and pakistan)
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Who is really to blame for this? People who run unsecured Windows installs, or the original worm writer? Is cyber-punk really getting a fair shake, when authorities have made it clear they are making an example out of him?
What lawyer is going to let their client walk in to a courtroom dressed the way he was, and expect to sway the judge?
Why is Microsoft not held liable for an OS full of exploits?
Why are /.ers so angry at dumb cyber-dork and not angry at the company that makes the OS that makes these worms possible, or people that continue to use Outlook Express - when there are alternatives for both?
Is it a /. thing that everyone who goes to prison should be raped? Is anal rape rehabilitation to /.ers?
What you're doing here is just being contrarian. Its always been agreed by philosophers that revenge was as potentially valid a reason for punishment as rehabilitation or protection.
Just out of curiousity. Which philophers argue that revenge is a valid reason for punishment? I would argue against those philosophers as I will argue now against you.
You simply assume that revenge is an invalid reason, without providing any argument thereof. Worse, you call it 'absurd' to believe in vengeance, almost definately creating an ad hominem argument since you [again] haven't provided an argument.
Dismissing an argument by simply labeling it ad hominem then name-calling the arguer as being "simply contrarian" is an ad hominem argument itself, and far worse, it is ad personum.
The fact that revenge is absurd is easy to establish. And obvious to anyone with any sense or intelligence beyond the preschool level. No. It is "you" who are simply being contrarian. You are arguing a position that you could not possibly believe in.
Furthermore, you are using argumentum ad vericundiam by deferring to the authority of the 'philosophers'. Philosophers you do not even bother to identify. Philosophers which obviously do not exist, unless they are as contrarian and senseless as you. Your reliance on the authority of these so called philosophers isn't going to fool anyone.
You want a valid reason for vengeance? One is that it can be preventative, i.e. a deterrant. Obviously it cannot be in one-hundred-percent of the cases, but thats why most justice systems are hybrids [of two or three of the purposes for punishment].
But "deterrence" is already one of the stated purposes for punishment. Therefore courts are free to apply whatever remedy will accomplish deterrence. This may include causing reasonable harm to the convict, that can be justified by the benefit of the deterrence.
Because the court is already free to achieve as much deterrance as it deems to be justified, the kind of revenge you must be advocating, is the kind of revenge that actually does not provide deterrence.
Want another reason? Vengeance is capitalist: it suggests that there is a value to all things, i.e. goods and services including people and property, and that you are responsible for making retribution to the value you take from someone: if you take their hand, you deserve to pay the price you unfairly exacted from them.
Clearly you must agree therefore that revenge has no place in a socially just society, as capitalism has absolutely nothing to do with justice.
But even though you agree that revenge is not appropriate in a just society, your argument does not favour revenge in a capitalist society.
The victim gets nothing of any worth of the revenge. No capital. Furthermore, your premise that a principle of capitalism is 'making retribution to the value you take from someone' is utter nonsense. The principle of capitalism is making MORE than the value you take from someone, or in the alternative paying less. Buy low... sell high. No capitalist would invest money in an enterprise, if their only hope was to get exactly the same amount of money in return. They could just hang on to their money and make the same return.
No. It is CRIME which is capitalist. And it is CRIME that you are advocating when you advocate revenge.
No one suggests that it makes everything 'even' or 'square', but rather helps appease the pain of loss for your victim[s].
only if your victims are sadists or cruel.
However, when you are on the topic of appeasing the urges of the cruel and the sadistic: couldn't giving the victims a 'free pass' to commit murder and mayhem also appease such urges? Why is it better to inflict unjustified harm on the criminal, rather than on the innocent? That is.. if appeasement (rather than actual justice) is your only argument in favour of revenge.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.