Slashdot Mirror
Louisiana Man Pleads Guilty to Creating 911 Worm
mabu writes "The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced that, roughly a year after his arrest, David Jeansonne pleaded guilty Tuesday to two criminal counts in a scheme that sent email to users of Microsoft's WebTV Internet service containing an attachment that, when opened, reprogrammed their computers to dial 9-1-1 without their knowledge. It still unclear what motivated this 43-year-old to launch such a bizarre worm."
"It still unclear what motivated this 43-year-old to launch such a bizarre worm."
...
What? Mean and stupid doesn't cover it?
It's like asking why that person cut you off in traffic endangering the lives of a half-dozen others... cuz their mean and stupid. It's not some huge racist or plot
The guy probably thought he was hot shit writing a virus [instead of something productive like an OSS project that could benefit others...] and released something destructive.
The balance in me wants to say "for every good there is a bad" but fuck it. The dude's just plain mean and stupid.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
It still unclear what motivated this 43-year-old to launch such a bizarre worm.
My guess is he wanted to flood the 911 service with useless calls, and in the long run potentially harm people because they can't get through to 911.
Perhaps he wanted to create a Denial of Service attack against the 911 system.
According to TFA, only 21 people actually received this thing. I've cause more damage most days just driving to work.
Next on slashdot: Bill Gates picks nose, AGAIN! Film at 11.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
Sorry. I must disagree. Flooding the Larry King Show with fake calls is somewhat funny. Flooding a 911 center with fake calls is NOT.
Some people just like causing destruction. These are the same people who drop cherry bombs down toilets.
ROTFL - seriously, if you're going to email your 25 closest friends - shouldn't you first make sure your virus doesn't directly involve the police coming to their door? Granted, it might be considered a funny prank - but at least make sure you can't be traced as easily as the from: 'Best Friend in Louisianna'.
Actually, it would have been funny if it called up the local Pizza Hut. Or maybe if it randomly dialed people and asked if their refrigerator was running. This, on the other hand, was just dangerous.
Unknown host pong.
He had reprogramed them to dial romanian sex chat numbers he would have been invited to join the Direct Marketing Association.
If you're 12 it might seem like a prank, and you don't want to ruin the kid's life but hit him hard enough that he realizes that what he did is dead serious and never thinks of doing it again. He certainly deserves to be punished, but not as severely as a 43 year old who should be capable of fully understanding the consequences of his actions.
A prank done to annoy people results in a much greater sentence than a thousand petty crimes done for profit under a corporate banner.
You mean like printers should not be allowed to print images of money?
Where will it end? Frankly, I'd rather never see it get started.
As soon as the OS becomes your own personal government controlled police force, then we'll really be sorry.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
"None. He's just a dick."
None is not an answer to that question, and dick is broad, relative, and just plain stupid. Maybe he is a "dick", but that does not clear up a complicated issue such as creating such a coordinated attack. There is obviously some sort of motivation behind something as direct as attacking 911 call centers. Although unreasonable as it sounds to a normal person, he himself did it for some reason. Please do not waste our time with such quick thoughtless posts.
Were you motivated to post so quickly so that you could be modded up and be seen by most readers? Or did you actually feel it was important that we read your unintersting post?
We all know there are people that are quite destructive. Calling them dicks does little to explain their reasoning though.
Question everything.
How does this have anything to do with my rights online?
Some people are just griefers in real life. You know the type online, I'm sure. Well, some people are simply like that in reality. They just like destroying things and making other people unhappy.
I think there was a good Calvin and Hobbes strip that kind of explains it, where Calvin explains that the best way to get rid of a bad mood is to give it to someone else.
Same basic idea - some people feel happy by making other people miserable.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
He's an asshole?
Frankenmuth, Michigan has like 10,000 people not counting tourists and the prison (If it's still open, they might have moved them up to the TCCF), which more than qualifies for "small town." If you call 911 on something like this, the police might flag the license plate number of the guy you reported (if he's pulled over ever again, he's not supposed to get a warning), but they won't go track him down. They will, however, slap you with a very hefty fine, which is guaranteed. They just call the phone company and it's added as a special charge to your phone bill along with a number to call if you want to contest it (Which is usually a bad idea. Even the most permissive judges in the state who let people off with a warning on their 10th DUI don't play games with 911 abuse anymore, and the statutory maximum they can slap you with is something like $25,000 and 14 days in jail. Saginaw judges especially just love statutory limits, and will throw the whole thing at you and leave you to try and bargain it down on appeal. I think that if somebody dies because an ambulance, police cruiser, or fire truck is unnavailable, and one that could have responded is on an unjustified call, the 911 abuser responsible for that call can even get hit with wrongful death.
Why is it that so many people seem to think anal rape in prison is funny?
I don't care what he says. Dialing HIS OWN PHONE and then publishing the call stats would be a proof of concept. Dialing 911, taking police away from other situations where people really need them is not a proof of concept, it's called "being an asshole."
He could have done this a bunch of different ways if he wanted a private chuckle. He could have had virus call any number even a number at a public place where he could see it happening. Set it to happen at a particular time.
He didn't do that. He had it call one of the few places the would make it certian that the police would come after him. He had it call the police.
If it had called the local Denny's he could have sat there and watched and after it was all over most people would not care to persue it.
Because we are no better than the people in Iraq we call barbarians for their "rape rooms".
It's interesting to me how rarely it comes up that anal rape isn't funny: that it's torture, and torture is a criminal human rights violation that would have us clamoring to invade another country. Yet we not only allow it, we practical cheer for it. On a large scale.
And for any fool who thinks it's about giving people their just desserts, tell me what happens when these anal gang raped men reenter society. What kind of respect for others do you think they'll have?
And what type of people are in prison anyways? Dangerous people? Or non-violent pot-smokers or what?
Anyways... sorry for the rant but it's amazing how at this point in human history mob mentality still rules even the most allegedly civilized nations.
Cheers.