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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."
No Kidding...
I used to read slashdot a lot. I have over 1000 posts, Karma bonus, I have had articles submitted. But i NEVER read slashdot anymore. Its not becuase i dont enjoy it. Its becuasei play WoW all the time im on my computer. Why am i here typing this up right now then if i never read slashdot. Well becuase there is a que to connect the the server. Well time to go check to see if i can go back to my reality.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
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.
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make install -not war
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.
I think 18 months is more time than he deserves, he was stupid yes, but when this young, giving them years to life in prison does nothing but makes citizens fund his imprisonment, and create a useless person that can't give back to society.
If we looked at this at the cost of putting someone in jail for nonviolent crimes, and had him on probation doing community service, community service would win out. He could serve his time while going to school, much better for everyone.
We are not only trying to punish them, but also rehabilitate them. Which by all accounts, using the death penalty as an example, criminals will do criminal activity no matter what the punishment.
Our legal system is broke, and people are paying for it. The cost of law enforcement vs prison is really out of balance. Of course, Texas has turned prison into a money making business, which should show how absurd the whole thing is.
Kids still do stupid stuff, and writing viruses seem to be something kids do. Same as smoking pot, nothing is going to change if we put everyone in prison, other than making a prison state.
Non-violent criminals should be treated different, and then circumstances taken into account. Stealing excluded.
I can't understand squirting out some kids and then letting them run rampant and not having any responsibility for a minor's actions.
First off, he's 17, and is an adult in most ways that count. At 17, he can't really hide behind the shield of your parents. He should be held responsible for most or all of his actions.
Secondly, I doubt his parents would realize he was making a virus even if they were looking. As far as they probably knew, he was programming, learning computers. He didn't get busted for drugs or playing with guns, which means his parents were doing something right.
Obviously they weren't perfect parents, but no parents are perfect.
94% of Repubs and 21% of Dems voted to renew the Patriot Act
what exactly did he do to "release it to 40,000 computers".. it's a worm. he modified the copy that infected his machine and it went on doing what it does. Had he not done that 40,000 computers would still have been infected just not with his modified version.
He probably took too much credit for it thinking he wasn't going to get caught. If he had a better lawyer he probably could've walked clean
bite my glorious golden ass.