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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."
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?
Don't forget MMORPG players, masturbation addicts and D&D fans...
Who is more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows?
'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?
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
"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?
You knew this was coming as soon as you saw his picture...
Behold the comparison.
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.
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?
18 months sucks from a loss of life perspective, but you won't be totally obsolete when you get out.
1. The Web will still not even have even half the sites HTML 4 compliant, XHTML compliant sites will still be less than 10% at best.
2. Java will still be slow, cumbersome and buggy. Most Java programs will still abort with exceptions (what good is exception handling if you just crash) much of the time.
3. GNOME will still be siphoning mindshare from KDE. (the license wars are over, join forces with KDE already!)
4. Software will still be bloated.
5. CPUs will just be faster versions of the ones today, but never fast enough.
6. Apple will still be expensive, Apple users will still be elitist.
7. There will still be plenty of lawsuits going on.
8. Same with patents.
9. IPv6 still won't be available to most of the Internet.
10. People will still worship XML and web services, but not actually have a use for them.
11. There will still be many sites which only work in IE.
12. There will still be many sites that need Active X.
13. Same for windows only plugins.
Mid 2006 will be a lot like today.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
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!".
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
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....
I doubt his parents would realize he was making a virus even if they were looking.
He used a hex editor to change the name of the virus and put his "handle" in. That's it. He didn't write a variant of the blaster worm, he changed a couple strings in a binary.
Black and grey are both shades of white.
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.
Read the parent before flaming off into oblivion. He's not advocating script kiddies. He's railing against the fact that it is illegal to even POINT OUT that security holes exist.
Let's say for example that you experience some persistent bug in your web server software, that is triggered whenever a user hits your site and does not have IE or Netscape/Mo'. This bug causes the server to crash whenever it reads the line that would contain the alternate browser's id... for whatever reason it cannot handle the 'malformatted' line that says 'browser=Opera'.
Gee, that's a pretty frickin' annoying bug. Now, normally when you buy a defective product, you can sound off on it, and give a bad review of the product for example.
Not so with BigIP's software. Sure, you can write a non-flattering review about how their server software crashes. But, just mentioning that carries very little weight. Prospective buyers, even if they SEE your review, are comparing your personal review with against the massive onslaught of the company's marketing machine. The marketing machine is going to say that the server software has records for uptime, and is fully compliant with all standards, and works with all sorts of end user tech, etc.. How is the end user to know you just aren't some jerk who didn't know what he was doing and is now pissed off because he misconfigured his web server?
The answer is, you post the conditions of how the software misbehaves and you dispell the notion that you simply incompetent. People will be able to see that the 'malformatted' line of code is actually something that could plausibly be sent to the server, and that the server will crash as a result. NOW... you've got something. Now your words have some force behind them as it is provable that your bad review of the software is not just spite, it points out legitimate flaws in the software.
HOWEVER.... posting this information can now get you into all kinds of trouble. The company that produces the web server product can now look at it in a couple of ways... one, how much will it cost us to fix the problem (Soft. Eng.s cost money, you know), and two, how much will it cost us to silence the problem (Lawyers aint free either). If one is cheaper than two, the problem gets fixed. If two is cheaper than one, the site owner gets a letter telling them to remove infringing materials from their site, that they are culpable for any hacking that occurs as a result, and that they are liable for any damages resulting from the offending review.
And that, to me, is the problem. Rather than fix the security holes, companies try to silence people who point them out. The theory is that by making exploitive information go away, they can make the problem go away. This is the "weak lock" theory. However, the problem DOES NOT go away simply because it is more difficult to find the flaw in the lock. The flaw still exists and dedicated theives will still find it. The weak lock with the widely known flaw will be exploited by the casual thief. The weak lock with not-so-widely known flaw will be exploited by the professional thief. This does not make the lock any better at protecting you against theft by those equipped to take advantage of it. Studies of whether or not casual, script kiddie type hackers do more damage picking a thousand locks than a few dedicated hackers using the picks on several dozen machines, and then using those machines to commit further crimes is another topic entirely. (My bet is on the dedicated types doing more. Reinstalling windows across 2000 machines is time consuming. Having a few hundred machines to run identify theft out of, is incredibly damaging.)
By using the weak lock theory, BigIP can market software as a strong lock when in fact it is a weak lock. They are free to state this and anyone who disagrees is written off / sued. Whenever it is against the law to hurt a company's revenue, by making truthful statements... well, I don't want to complete that thought, as it leads to all sorts of horrific ramifications.