Slashdot Mirror
Teen Sentenced for Releasing Variant of Blaster Worm
ScentCone writes "Minnesota teen Jeffrey Lee Parsons got a year and half for releasing a Blaster variant. The lightweight sentence was due, said the judge, to the parents' neglect. Quoting the judge: 'It's not a healthy thing to lock yourself in a room and create your own reality.' Which means most slashdotters basically have a get out of jail free card."
I resent this sterotype that I "lock myself in my room and create my own reality".
Im playing World of Warcraft: surely thats Blizzards trademarked reality?
Get out of jail free card! FUNNY! REALLY!
Maybe Their Charity, the Lord Protector, will assign him to tranlate old MS-DOS textbooks.
18 months in a Minnesota prison may only seem like 2000 years. Maybe his cellmate will be like that guy from Fargo...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
why should he be punished for the ineffectiveness of others people's software/inabiltiy to update?
My door doesn't have a lock, you insensitive clod!
... and because he was a teenager. If this was a 40 year old geek he probably would have been made an example of.
Don't forget MMORPG players, masturbation addicts and D&D fans...
Who is more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows?
He going to have an interesting "first date"
...his first girlfriend experience will not work out as planned?
Average joe would say "send him to Gitmo with the others." I am personally glad that people not yet 18 -basically children- can get away with doing stuff like that.
'It's not a healthy thing to lock yourself in a room and create your own reality.' Which means most slashdotters basically have a get out of jail free card."
Don't you mean a "locked yourself into jail already" card?
I think if a child commits some kind of crime that requires a trial that there needs to be some consequence for the parents. I can't understand squirting out some kids and then letting them run rampant and not having any responsibility for a minor's actions. The excuses for bad parenting need to stop or they need to stop being bad parents.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
Why didn't his parents get some time in the klink, if they're contributory in their neglect? And why does "try a child as an adult" make any sense at all? He was 17 when committed the crimes - the "child" treatment acknowledges that children have a chance to learn from their corrections *differently* than adults, for whom it's usually too late to form their social attitudes. Children can be educated, while adults usually must be intimidated with punishment. Kids don't get "mercy" because we're "nice"; they get different treatment because it works better on them, with less cost and risk to us. Meanwhile, the adults at Microsoft, who wrote the malware that his Blaster exploited, have learned that Microsoft profits from security holes, and we'll never see the end of them.
--
make install -not war
'It's not a healthy thing to lock yourself in a room and create your own reality.'
But it is healthy to lock YOU in a cell to create your new reality!
"Jeffrey Lee! Stop writing malicious code and get a life!"
"And take out the trash!"
I try to lock myself in a room with my computer, but my wife keeps getting in.
Web Design Tips
When did Slashdot math change it so 18 months in jail is like getting no jail at all?
"He will still have to pay restitution to Microsoft and to people whose commuters were affected in an amount to be determined at a hearing set for Feb. 10."
"The judge imposed three years of supervised release following his prison term, during which Parson can only use computers for business and education - not video games or file-sharing or hacking."
Come on. He's not getting off easy. He didn't do anything irrepairable, why would more jail time change things?
From the article: The Internet "has created a dark hole, a dungeon if you will, for people who have mental illnesses or people who are lonely," Pechman said.
Well, gee, welcome to Slashdot!! ; )
On a more serious note, I'm not sure our judges should really be handing out extra-light sentences to people they believe are deranged. SAT classes? Scary stuff. This seems like a slap on the wrist for someone who caused such a tremendous amount of damage. It sets a bad example for other script kiddies.
I don't know that it makes any difference, but if anyone wants to express their outrage in the "real world", here's her address:
U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman
U.S. District Court
U.S. Courthouse
1010 Fifth Avenue
Seattle, WA 98104
I guess he's taking Martha Stewart (Mar7ha S73war7) to the pr0m.
Can we mod this whole article -1, Flamebait?
You know, the thing that really pisses me off is the fact that whenever companies start using a technology, they make everything that the scientists and engineers who don't work for them illegal. In the meantime, they release products (like MS Windows) that are totally insecure. I don't advocate releasing viruses--especially script kiddies--but it seems like more an more things are going to be illegal to give businesses a tool to punish those who reveal the flaws in their shitty products. Soon Nmap will be considered a terrorist tool used to infiltrate networks. Maybe MS can succeed in making all of Linux illegal, since it was put together by a bunch of European commies anyway. That is the attitude of the Bush administration toward Europe anyways--just hope it doesn't whittle Linux down.
Instant thought (which I'm sure you've all had too!): Isn't that what all creative artists (writers, painters, programmers etc.) actually do?
Plus I guess we can assume that the punishment of locking him away in a room is also not healthy?
Don't go to a brothel if you want to buy broth
See Definition 1
18 months is a lot for a guy who took the code of a worm wrote by somebody else. He just did what anybody who knows how to code could have done. What about the guy who wrote the first worm, he didn't even got sued.
"Which means most slashdotters basically have a get out of jail free card."
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<head>
<voice id="Homer Simpson">
WooHoo!
</voice>
<voice id="Mr. Burns">
Excellent!
</voice>
<voice id="Ralph Wiggum">
I think I broke my wookie.
</voice>
</head>
Sugapablo
You knew this was coming as soon as you saw his picture...
Behold the comparison.
...he might still become one.
After all, we all know what they say about prison and dropping soap, right? (Advice to Mr. Parson: Don't.)
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
I should have known they'd be good for something. Too bad I had them killed all those years ago.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/01/28/intern et.attack.ap/
maybe they will make him excersize and work some of that blubber off and actually build some muscles...
"Parson had been out of jail on a $25,000 pretrial bond pending sentencing. He was not allowed to leave his home in Minnesota except to go to work, or if supervised and preapproved by the court." So it's not healthy to lock yourself in a room and make your own reality, but it is ok to force you to stay at home. Amazing.
Cellmate: So, whatta you in for? Kid: Uh... Killing a guy ('s computer)...
Yeah, this kid is screwed.
Kids do stupid things. I know I did my fair share of stupid things when I was younger. Now I consider myself a highly moral, good standing citizen of society, with great future prospects. But if I had been put in jail for one of the silly things I did when I was younger, my life today would probably be a disaster, and to society's detriment.
Now we see the benefits. John Ashcroft was an ardent supporter of mandatory sentences. With the recent supreme court decision that upheld the sovereignty of a Judge's judiciary powers in determining sentence. Had he been sentenced just three months ago he'd be looking at 5 years in pound me in the ass prison.
What could possibly go wrong?
*cough* As opposed to locking yourself in a room and creating the reality of others?
Kid shouldn't be making a worm, but who is he to criticize a personal situation?
...if he got sentenced for violating the copyright of the original myDoom...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
You really think this is worth wasting a productive life over?!?
I guess the reason that I got rejected for this story is that I thought the sentance was oppressive, and this submitter felt it was lightweight. Get out of jail free card?? How about felony speech?!
Surely, there was some ground that both got the point home to him well before prison. Were they worried about Anarchy breaking out all over?
before surfing to Slashdot to check the headlines.
I remember seeing this kids picture when he was busted, and now that i've read his story, I've gotta say I feel sorry for him.
Not so much for his punishment, as much as his life thus far. His parents did get blamed by the judge for being neglectful, but I don't think that begins to explain how bad it was.
The guy was afraid to go outside. You can see in his photo that he's rather large, and not at all the typical 19 year old (He was what? 17 when he got busted?). It just looks like another case wherein a kid was an outcast, primarily due to a bad home situation, and rather than have friends or relatives to help him through, he retreated into his room, and kind of lived in his own world, which the parents did nothing to prevent, or try to help him outta.
Just sounds like a sad story... Kinda like you feel after watching one of those HBO Specials like "Black Tar Heroin" or something. It sucks that he is where he is, but what sucks worse is that there's lotsa other people out there in similar situations.
The Skatenigs said it best w/their debut album: "Stupid people shoudn't breed!".
'It's not a healthy thing to lock yourself in a room and create your own reality.'
so let's lock him in a room with someone else who will love creating a whole 'nother reality for him.
one man's reality is another man's fantasy.
If this Judge thinks having a taste of reality is a healthy thing, they should have themselves placed into the prison system with which they punish people and see if they have any better grasp of reality afterwards.
Seastead this.
I'm not sure how it works is his state, but 18 months in California generally works like this:
- 1-3 months in County jail awaiting transport
- Remaining 15-17 months can actually be served as 1/3 time, given good behavior. That leaves about 5 -6 months left
Total time: around 7 or 8 months.
It's not a healthy thing to lock yourself in a room and create your own reality." Writing a virus variant is creating your own reality?
And if it's true, is it worse than living others reality?
ajf
WAIT A MOMENT.
You've got a woman, and you're locking her out?
I mean, I try, and try, and try, and for some reason I can't even get one to step in my house.
And you're locking her OUT....I am so confused....
"18 months in a Minnesota prison may only seem like 2000 years."
Yet oddly enough 18 months in a Minnesota prison will seen alot like 18 months in Minnesota.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Like Kevin Mitnick?
Yes, his crimes were a bit more on the border and less damaging, but he was in jail longer, convicted older, and still seems to have gotten on with his life pretty well. I'd hardly call the guy useless.
I figure this kid has at least as good a chance of turning out a normal guy as Mitnick. (Though only time will tell if he has the moxie for it)
They're going to lock the guy in a room where they create their own reality, to show him that locking himself in a room to create his own reality is wrong?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
When you're a fatty little weakling computer geek forced to toss the salad of a guy named Bruno who's been pumping iron since he was convicted of bashing his girlfirends skull in because he found out she was going cyber with some fatty little weakling computer geek.
The judge imposed three years of supervised release following his prison term, during which Parson can only use computers for business and education - not video games or file-sharing or hacking.
The judge should have denied him any access to computers, to hell with the kids education. Would a judge allow a drunk driver to get back in a car if he caused damage to 50,000 cars? It is the same thing.
I hope there is a federal law they can nail him on a second time. He needs a stronger punishment. I don't think telling kids that if they get caught doing this stuff all they will get is a year will deter them.
The parents are not responsible for what the kid does. He knew what he was doing was wrong and did it anyways.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
for giving him the middle name Lee. That name just seems to be trouble.
Way to rip off the Fark headline
How many dollars of damage did he cause? How much prison time would somebody who stole that much get? Hell, a member of DrinkOrDie got 41 month (three years and change). That's for just putting software on the Internet! This jerk gets about half that for deliberately causing harm! I hope the idiot judge gets every computer virus known to man.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
Will Jeffrey Lee Parson remember these words in a year and half from now?
Probably not, he will just blame his parents.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
Qyntel Woods was suspended from the Portland Trail Blazers (a losing team) because of legal and behavioral troubles. Including animal abuse...
The Blazers suspended him for the WHOLE rest of the season, and then fired him.
But he gets picked up by the Heat, who are a championship bound team, and given only a 5 game suspension.
So not only is his sentence lighter - but he gets "promoted" to a better team.
All while making obscene amounts of money for doing something most of us would consider "recreation" and some even pay for the rights to play (via gym memberships and whatnot).
Slashdot has nothing to worry about...
I don't understand the folks saying that 18 months is "too much". Just how do you expect us to deter these little bastards at all if not with harsh sentencing? It's hard enough to catch them as it is, but if there are no penalties (or light ones, like this) then they have no reason not to keep doing it.
Virus and worm authors should get 20 years minimum, and they should never be allowed to touch a PC again, for any reason.
Which means most slashdotters basically have a get out of jail free card.
Well, according to this poll from a while back, no more than 24% of slashdotters could be considered "teens." Is ScentCone implying that the longer we read Slashdot, the more childish we become?
Not that I'm saying he'd be wrong, mind you. . .
I figure by 2030 or so my 6-digit UID will be something to brag about.
they punish him by locking him in a room. Smart.
sigh,
just another AC, cause no way would I admit this in public!
I love it....
I should have been committed a long time ago...
LOL.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
It's a shallow enough childishness that a few months in the pokey should slap us right back into adulthood.
Luke, help me take this mask off
It's not a healthy thing to lock yourself in a room and create your own reality.
A federal judge saying this makes the federally-mandated V-Chip seem kind of ironic, huh?
Just wondering if anyone knows what law firm represented Jeffrey Lee Parsons?
Remember him? The guy who wrote the Melissa virus? He got twenty months for writing that critter.
Prosecutors took pity on him because of his parents! His parents? Folks, I don't take pitty on a deadly cyber-terrorist who causes three-hundred-twenty million dollars of damage to the US economy. I for one hope he rots in prison for his heinous cyber-crime, right beside his predecessor.
At least those one hundred community service hours won't be spent on a computer like his predecessor spent his. The judge had some forethought at least.
Memo to "Complete Idiot II": If someone drops a bar of soap in the shower, don't pick it up. You might get infected by a virus!
Use Evolution instead of Outlook? Bewa
Whats the difference between this guy and most people that work for microsoft?
federal "pound me in the ass" prison? I'm asking because I'm hoping it's the latter. These motherfuckers deserve _harsh_ sentences for what they do. I have no mercy towards them.
So it's not healthy to lock yourself in a room and make your own reality, but it is ok to force you to stay at home. Amazing.
It's ok to get locked away by other people for creating your own reality that inflicts damage upon other people. If you stay within the bounds of your own reality without damaging other people, then you can impose whatever locking you like on yourself. That kid got what he deserves.
In Finland, when a lowlife celeb world champion and all tried to do a manslaughter when drunk, the punishment was 24 months. If he behaves, and he's a first timer, the actual punishment is 12 months. So, if you run hexeditor on a worm in America, the punishment equals to that if you stick a knife to someone's back in Europe.
Nice.
A key example of this from my old CF reserve unit: We had young men in there of 18 years of age who could go places and die for their country *but who could not have a beer in the mess!*. So, it was okay to give them a firearm and let them call in artillery, but Dear Lord don't let them touch a light beer. (Well, combining the two is a bad idea, but that's not really what I was getting at....)
Of course, this just led to the 'blind eye'. Many of us felt if you were old enough to wear the uniform, take the oath, and kill and die for your country, you could at least have a beer from time to time.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
A YEAR AND A HALF is getting off light? I mean, it sure is for a hacking case, but jesus, a year and a half is not something you just sleep through.
Damn! How embarrassing. I've totally forgotten what i did? Just now, over the river. Look again, i swear it was massive in its knowledge base a tiny number of features which somebody else has guaranteed to be safe.
Just in case anyone saw your exerpt but didn't RTFA, you might come to an amusing conclusion. The reason for the resititution to MS isn't that MS was one of the victims of the virus spread itself, but rather, because the virus' payload launch a DDoS attack against a MS server.
If the restitution had been due to the virus going crazy at MS, people would be laughing their asses off in a legit case of "blame the victim." But that's not what happened, folks.
Unfortunatly the creation of viruses is almost the most anti-social thing imagineable.
These people deserve the greatest punishment our society can inflict because their crime has no purpose beyond destruction.
Not to underestimate selfishness, but wanton hatred and destructiveness are terrifying vices in adults.
This guy just lashed out at some bullies!
I was reading another story on this, and they talked about damages being paid to Microsoft. Why should Microsoft be paid because they wrote code that is vulnerable? What kind of precedent does this set?
--WooooHoooo--
Probably 18 months more than Ken Lay will receive.
I'm surprised nobody's commented about Microsoft being treated as the primary victim in this case. The worm attacked tons of machines across the entire Internet, not just ones owned by Microsoft, yet the offender is ordered to pay restitution to Microsoft. They're not the victim here! In fact, I'd go so far as to say that their shoddy programming and quality control contributed to the situation (as it has many times over for various other bugs since Blaster). Why are they receiving restitution when they could more easily be considered liable?
We've had prisons since at least the Roman era. The idea also lies behind the slave galley, the road crew, and the continent of Australia.
In all honesty, you're putting criminals in with a bunch of other criminals that got CAUGHT. What are they going to do, learn to be more incompetent? Besides, if living free and surrounded by mostly law-abiding citizens turned them into criminals, why wouldn't being confined with a bunch of incompetent criminals turn them straight?
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
That was at least one of the two best ST movies EVER. I'm still deciding if it should be that, or First Contact. Lately, I've decided that neither is better or worse than the other, and since it's a different cast, crew, and story line, it'd be apples to oranges. But, nevertheless... your geek fu is goooood.
The guy is dumb enough to release a worm... that affects thousands of his computers... with his NAME on it.
I wouldn't trust this kid to tie his own shoelaces, much less contribute to society.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
Throughout history, most societies have built places in which to hold persons accused of criminal acts pending some form of trial. The idea, however, of confining persons after trial, as punishment for their crimes, is relatively new. from ancient times till about the 15th century crimes were dealt with some sort of corporal punishment. from the 16th century onward convicted criminals were remanded to rehabilitation facilities known as workhouses which were much different then the prison systems. Prisons as they are today have only been around about ~200 years.
Get a free Ipod!
sigh. "thousands of computers", not "thousands of his computers". It appears I'm not that bright either.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
This kinda shoots to shit the idea of reform-through-a-prison-sentance then, hmm?
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
...is a good little boyscout. Having spent a few nights 'drying out' or 'cooling my heels' in my time, I can say you get the occasional badass who doesn't realize it's not supposed to be like Oz. And hey, even pansy ass offenders get lonely, start missing pussy, and their thought turn to driving up the exit ramp.
'It's not a healthy thing to lock yourself in a room and create your own reality.'
Project for the New American Century.
Need I say more? o_O
How much time have you spent cleaning virii, spyware, and worms from your systems? I use Linux, but I'll be damned if I can get all of my friends to switch, nor is it appropriate that they all do so, but invariably I find myself hacking registry entries and hunting down errant processes and doing stack trace greps, and more than once I've had to backup someones data and reinstall their OS all because of idiot fat fucks like this who pound their own pudd over the notion of writing software that rends other peoples systems apart. I guarantee you his time in jail is a far, far better fate than he'd have known if I had gotten to him first after one of my testing servers got corrupted.
I wouldn't exactly call Douglas Adams healthy either.
'It's not a healthy thing to lock yourself in a room and create your own reality.'
Hey, if the reality that they give you sucks, why not create your own?
With all the machines infested with spyware and those 100000s of support calls and people spending hours cleaning their systems and reinstalling, whats thats worth? 1 day in prison * 1000000 counts?
They should treat the spyware makers equally to the way teh FBI treated Kevin Mitnik since the spyware makers cause REAL resources drain, where the only resource drain mitnik caused was the dumb fbi wasting their time with him and years wasted in prison at tax payers expence.
NOTE to the asian FED who hunted him down... what are you doing now you lazy ass, go after the 10000 spyware makers key logers and phishers. Or are you too scared the russian mafia will hunt YOU down like Tony Soprano?
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
He can now study law 7 days a week end comeout a lawyer or the skills of a lawyer and all 100% paid for , no debts and smiling away :) wicked
So now in prison hes going to learn from all the other bad guys all new bad things too.
Maybe on paper he can invent the next big virus that will steal everyones etrade accounts and seel all stocks and purchase everything on amazon and deliver it to cuba's poor.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
sucks to be him
The author of the THIS IS TRUE ( http://www.thisistrue.com/ ) newsletter made these great takeoff of the Monopoly Get Out of Jail cards, called GET OUT OF HELL FREE cards. You can see them here: http://www.goohf.com/
pwned
Reality is for people who can't handle Gaming.
Karma: Bad is the liberal way of saying this guy won't drink the kool aid here on slash dot. I wear my Karma with pride
Why marry someone you don't get along with?
People who tell jokes like that shouldn't have gotten married
'It's not a healthy thing to lock yourself in a room and create your own reality.' But its ok for the judicial system to lock you in a room and create a seperate reality for you, please enjoy your 18 months in a Minnisoeta Pound me in the Ass Prison.
"Parson, 19, of Hopkins, Minn., pleaded guilty in August to one count of intentionally causing or attempting to cause damage to a protected computer." Protected computer? I thought his virus went after a Microsoft O/S?
that's way too much information about your sex life for us, k? thanx
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Guess he got what every teen-aged nerd wants: attention. And a full /. article and discussion about themselves, how cool!!
-Peace
"Versions of the Blaster worm, also known as the LovSan virus, crippled computer networks worldwide. The government estimates Parson's version inundated more than 48,000 computers."
That proves the efficience of Microsoft Service Packages.there's a world outside of shashdot???
Get your torrents...
There has been enough violence already from people citing religious works (US ProLife, Islamic Fundies)
...I do have that shirt.
Locking yourself up in a room? Is that another name for Think Tank?
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.