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?
'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?
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.
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!
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
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.