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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."
"Help! I'm using WebTV!"
You can have my cynical agnosticism when you pry it from my cold, dead logic.
This was a very, very, very dumb thing to do on his part. I could see the courts giving him some leniency if he was 12, but at 43 years of age I think he will get what he deserves. Does anyone know if the worm caused any delays in getting through to the 911 system that caused serious injury or death?
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
"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.
None. He's just a dick. This isn't a cool hack or anything meaningful in computer science. It's taking an exploit of some type and messing with people's lives. Those operators on the other end and the police who are dispatched shouldn't be wasting their time with this nonsense.
Why do these people think that causing damage through an exploit is anything but stupid? It's not clever since they don't even find the exploits, they just use them.
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.
wow, can you say get out of your parents basement and get a girlfri....
Sorry wait, this is slashdot.
I like muppets.
..to see if he could.
That's what virus writing used to be all about. Darn kids and their spam n' such. Why in MY day we wrote virii for the pure joy of destruction and chaos!
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.
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.
Hey, it was one way of getting his name on Slashdot. Come on, how many of us lowly cretins here in the comments section have ever been referred to by our full names in a Slashdot post? Yeah, I can count all two of you out there. The guy's a douchebag, but, by jove, he's a famous douchebag!
One extremely egotistical type generated a great deal of dislike, if not outright hate. Jeansonne was part of this individual's clique. The actual "exploit" is very simple to do and well known. Jeansonne was just the first person to combine the requisite amount of vindictiveness and stupidity to actually do this. Almost all WebTv users have html signitures that rival web pages in their complexity. A simple
was all that was necessary.
Having the police arrived unexpectedly at their door was very unsettling for the mostly female recipients of the email. Some were accused of making the calls on their own and threatened with arrest for missusing the 911 system.
This was not a virus, but a direct personal attack against the victims of the email.