German Youth Convicted for Sasser Worm

dan dan the dna man writes "The BBC is reporting that Sven Jaschan, author of the Sasser Worm, has been found guilty of computer sabotage and illegally altering data. He received a 21 month suspended sentence, as he was tried as a minor. He was 17 years old when he wrote the worm." From the article: "Sven Jaschan avoided a jail sentence by the skin of his teeth because he was arrested within days of his 18th birthday...However, in the grand scheme of the virus world, it's the organised crime gangs, which are increasingly emerging to make stacks of money through targeted attacks, that should be dealt the harsh sentences - over and above the dumb teenagers."

Comments

more appropriate punishment

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't lock him up, don't curtail his computer usage.

Just force him to use AOL for the next 5 years.

Re:more appropriate punishment

[TripMaster Monkey]

You call that 'appropriate'???

I call that 'cruel and unusual'.

Re:more appropriate punishment

[mog007]

He's a German citizen, they don't have an Eighth Amendmentment.

Re:more appropriate punishment

[eosp]

Hopefully he'll virus it for us :)

Re:more appropriate punishment

[Bananenrepublik]

No, but we have a far-wider reaching first paragraph in our constitution: "Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar." -- A faithful translation is out of reach for me, it's something like "Human dignity can't be taken away." (I wouldn't have responded if your post had received the more appropriate "Funny" moderation, I couldn't resist smiling at what I took for your parody of American ignorance.)

Re:more appropriate punishment

[part_of_you]

Ouch man, come on, think about that for a while. Aftrer all, he is human.

No really, I've always said this about people who get busted hacking or sending spam illegally. They should have to serve some sort of community service, like sitting down at a desk for 8 hours a day, fixing, and removing virus' and spyware for free. Wouldn't that be cool? You could bring your AOL box that is ripe with spyware and virus' on it to this fregin 1337 h4xor, and he would have to fix it and make your world easier.

Re:more appropriate punishment

[Doctor O]

It's not "human dignity can't be taken away", it's

The dignity of men is unimpeachable.

Makes quite a difference to me as a German.

Re:more appropriate punishment

[dtfinch]

What about women?

Re:more appropriate punishment

[falconfighter]

Yes, but I thought genitive was dying out :)

Dumb Kid, Sure

[DanielMarkham]

But his "prank" costs tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars. FTA,

...allegedly wrecked Delta Airlines' systems in Atlanta for seven hours, leading to the cancellation of 40 flights. Around the world, the Australian Railcorp trains stopped running because computer problems caused by Sasser made it impossible for drivers to talk to signalmen. In Taiwan, more than 400 branches of the post office were forced to use pen and paper because Sasser crashed desktop computers...

In the USA, we're already seeing a big push to try juveniles as adults in violent crime cases. The damage caused by this worm was serious business -- its not too hard to extrapolate people one day losing their lives because of worms like this.
Being a dumb teenager is one thing. Causing world disruption is something else entirely (Yes. I know. The victims bear some responsibility)
People take the computer too lightly, like it was a TV set or something. It's more like a small nuclear bomb in each home, great for powering the house, but not so much something you want the kids mucking around with unsupervised. If you are one of those who think gun control stops gun crime, wait 20 years or so until people start advocating "computer control" to stop cyber crime. You'll have a blast with that one.

WTF? How About CSS Implementation?

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[savagedome]

People take the computer too lightly, like it was a TV set or something. It's more like a small nuclear bomb in each home, great for powering the house, but not so much something you want the kids mucking around with unsupervised

You are opening a can of worms.


Sorry.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

The victims bear 100% responsibility as far as I'm concerned.

Think... if a scientist made a biological virus that spread through the air and your home didn't have air filters capable of scrubbing it, then clearly you are at fault. Not the scientist!

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[InfiniteWisdom]

people start advocating "computer control" to stop cyber crime
A better analogy would be when people start talking about kitchen knife control or baseball bat control. Do you see that happening?

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

A better analogy would be when people start talking about kitchen knife control or baseball bat control. Do you see that happening?

There have been several proposals in the UK to require registration of all knives, including kitchen knives. I also know someone who was arrested and convicted of the crime "carrying a concealed weapon" for having a baseball bat in the back seat of his car and he was wearing a softball uniform at the time of his arrest. You may think the concept is absurd, but it is just absurd enough to be true.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[dasunt]

We don't (usually) try kids as adults because we understand that children tend to have a more limited judgement than adults. Admittedly, there is a lot of problems with this.

However, arguing that the punishment should be increased due to the severity of the crime is somewhat faulty logic. If a child runs into the interstate and ends up causing an accident that kills 20 people, we don't charge the child with 20 cases of manslaughter.

That's the problem with having limited judgement: You don't really grasp the consequences of your actions.

(Now if you want to argue that the kid's understanding of the crime was about the same as an adult's understanding of the crime, and thus he should be tried as an adult, that could be a valid argument.)

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Ingolfke]

A better analogy would be when people start talking about kitchen knife control or baseball bat control. Do you see that happening

Knives and bats are inanimate objects. They are controlled by people who make choices with thier minds... therefore we need to get to the root of the problem and start talking about mind control.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[PHP Addict]

if(! parent.sarcasm ) // it's kinda hard to tell
{ It's not your fault if the air filters haven't been invented yet. I'm sorry if I don't have the Captain Trips plug-in for my heppa. }

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[phorm]

in the grand scheme of the virus world, it's the organised crime gangs ...that should be dealt the harsh sentences

This is, however, a very good point. Being a retard and letting something loose beyond your control is one thing, deliberately making a bid to own/disrupt as many machines online you can for purposes of blackmail/theft/etc is another.

We can't overlook the impact of these dumb kids, and certainly should such abuse become more prevalent they should be dealt with in increasing harshness to act as a deterrent...

However, the biggest problems I've seen are not dumb kids that let loose something bigger than they expect.

Dumb kids tend to take out unpatched, insecure, or non-fault-tolerant systems.

Those same systems are the target of focussed criminals who will bring them down to collect a ransom, take over them for illegal uses, or attempt to steal from them every last piece of your personal info.

In short, dumb teenagers like this create viruses which are definately an annoyance and a potentially huge disruption, but the organized crime gangs are the ones that are killing the internet by making it a dangerous businessplace.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[fdrake76]

If you are one of those who think gun control stops gun crime, wait 20 years or so until people start advocating "computer control" to stop cyber crime. You'll have a blast with that one.

Your analogy is insightful, but it's a heck of alot easier to protect myself from a cracker trying to wreck my computer than it is to protect myself from a guy firing a glock in my direction.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[SeekerDarksteel]

Until the organized crime gangs start hiring 14-16 year old kids under the table to front their illegal operations. The kiddies get to have fun and get a small cut of the profits with minimal risk and the gangs get most of the profits but with much fewer risks.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[rinkjustice]

For every dollar lost by the Sasser worm, another industry profited. In this case it was system administrators, the hotel and hospitality industry, internet security companies and the list goes on.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[ScentCone]

There have been several proposals in the UK to require registration of all knives, including kitchen knives

Actually, the UK proposals include the banning of "long" kitchen knives from ownership by "the public." Presumably chefs and household gourmands are not "the public." Of course, this is completely ridiculous. People should be locked up when they do bad things, not when they own equipment (like cars, or gasoline, or kitchen knives, or computers) with which they can do bad things.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Cromac]

A better analogy would be when people start talking about kitchen knife control or baseball bat control. Do you see that happening?

Yes, and it's just as stupid as gun control or computer control. Doctors' kitchen knives ban call

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Paul Jakma]

Being a dumb teenager is one thing. Causing world disruption is something else entirely (Yes. I know. The victims bear some responsibility)

How about, instead of blaming a dumb teenager for acting like a dumb teenager - taking the vendor to task who is responsible for this OS deployed so far and wide across the world and so insecure that a dumb teenager can cause such disruption with just some copying&pasting!

I find it strange that no one asks "How come a kid was able to do this?".

--paulj

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[YouCanCallMeAl]

...Moran Did you drift over here from Fark, or has that meme spread?

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[ScentCone]

Yeah, cause look at all the hand gun crimes in England...

The UK is chasing its tail on that one. No easily owned guns, so of course there's an epidemic of stabbings, instead. And of course now there are calls there to ban long kitchen knives because those are too dangerous for the public to own, too. All of this is politcally correct claptrap, designed to keep everyone looking busy doing something about problems while ignoring the real problem: poorly raised, intellectually stunted people with no sense of accountability. As long as people don't give a damn about the consequences of their actions, and as long as societies feel bad about holding the accountable, the only option is to pursue pointless little media-friendly exercises like taking tools away from people.

And, of course, people who don't care about the law anyway are going to ignore those laws, too, leaving only the criminals with guns, knives, and eventually anything heavy, pointy, or flammable. Australia took away everyone's guns, too, and have seen violent crime of all sorts skyrocket as a result.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[slavemowgli]

Unlike in the USA, minors *cannot* be tried as adults in Germany under any circumstances. In fact, the opposite is true: a young person can be tried as a minor instead of an adult if they're behind in their development, for example, even if they're over 18.

And that's the way it should be.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[kz45]

How about, instead of blaming a dumb teenager for acting like a dumb teenager - taking the vendor to task who is responsible for this OS deployed so far and wide across the world and so insecure that a dumb teenager can cause such disruption with just some copying&pasting!

I find it strange that no one asks "How come a kid was able to do this?".

you are quick to blame companies such as Microsoft for a worm that a kid created, but what happens when linux systems get hacked into? do we blame the programmers? or the hacker?

I think it's ridiculous to blame the victim. Sure, the systems need to get patched (or a patch needs to be created), but the blame should be 100% on the person that created the worm and decided to spread it around.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Cromac]

Yeah, cause look at all the hand gun crimes in England...

Moran.

-Rick

Gun crime is increasing (that's going up for the slower readers) in England since they banned them - morOn.

Gun crime in England and Wales is still rising according to Home Office figures released on Thursday.
Gun crime soars by 35%

The peacefulness England used to enjoy was not the result of strict gun laws. When it had no firearms restrictions England had little violent crime, while the present extraordinarily stringent gun controls have not stopped the increase in violence or even the increase in armed violence. By opting to deprive law-abiding citizens of the right to keep guns or to carry any article for defence, English government policy may actually be contributing to the lawlessness and violence afflicting its people.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,59866,00.html

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

All of this is politcally correct claptrap, designed to keep everyone looking busy doing something about problems while ignoring the real problem: poorly raised, intellectually stunted people with no sense of accountability. As long as people don't give a damn about the consequences of their actions, and as long as societies feel bad about holding the accountable, the only option is to pursue pointless little media-friendly exercises like taking tools away from people.

You my friend are soooo close to the real problem that infects so many societies today. We have a media that makes it seem cool to be poorly raised, intellectually stunted with no sense of accountability and socialistic governments that will take care of these people so
there will be alot of them around to vote come election time.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[suitepotato]

Knives and bats are inanimate objects. They are controlled by people who make choices with thier minds... therefore we need to get to the root of the problem and start talking about mind control.

We used to call that COMMON SENSE .

Just saying...

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Skye16]

Unless you're yoda, in which case "equals not" is probably completely valid.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[pete6677]

There's no way that a knife ban will do anything other than piss people off. How easy is it to take a blunt knife and sharpen it into a point? Hell, prisoners make knives by sharpening a toothbrush handle. Add toothbrushes to the list of dangerous items that England needs to ban. Oh well, this gives the rest of the world something to laugh at.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Draigon]

!= is modern english. =! is from the shakespeare++ language.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[lseltzer]

>>If a child runs into the interstate and ends up causing an accident that kills 20 people, we don't charge the child with 20 cases of manslaughter.

I think what we have here is a kid throwing nails on the interstate and causing an accident. Sure, he's responsible for all the damage and substantially for damage from worm variants that he didn't create.

And if he was smart enough to create such worms at age 17 he was smart enough to comprehend the damage they could cause. He did it for the notoriety, so he would want the biggest impact he could get.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[iminplaya]

...forced to use pen and paper...!!??

OMG! He definitely should've gotten the chair. Hey. I got an idea. How about not giving so much power to such fragile equipment?

People take the computer too lightly...

No, we are using computers where they don't belong. They're not ready for prime time yet. We're putting half baked systems on line. And letting them operate heavy machinery unsupervised is really asking for trouble. We don't allow unsafe cars on the highway. We shouldn't allow defective equipment to run our banks and hospitals and such. If someone was able to remotely control and crash your car, you can bet you would take in it to have it fixed. Why aren't we demanding the same for our computers?
No sir, This:"However, in the grand scheme of the virus world, it's the organised crime gangs, which are increasingly emerging to make stacks of money through targeted attacks, that should be dealt the harsh sentences - over and above the dumb teenagers." is definitely the more correct take on the situation...in addition to reliable, secure equipment. While computers should not be as "dumb" as a TV set, it should definitely be kept as harmless as one. Instead of complaining about people exploiting weaknesses in the infrastructure, we should be beefing up the infrastructure. Let's spend our time trying to make it impossible instead of merely illegal. If one person can disrupt the whole world so easily, then that just tells me that the world put too many eggs into one basket.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Uber Banker]

When it had no firearms restrictions England had little violent crime

That was 200 years ago, when girls of 11 were forced into marriage, boys of 5 were sent to the workhouse and murder was common occurance.

There have been strict gun control laws for decades, the recent change was to completely eliminate non-essential (shotguns for farmers) guns, impossible to legally own guns instead of making it very very hard.

Do you really think Fox News is a reputable unbiased source?

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Jugalator]

It's more like a small nuclear bomb in each home, great for powering the house, but not so much something you want the kids mucking around with unsupervised.

rofl...

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Lothsahn]

Uh yeah, it's called the TSA ...and they do it at all airports. That's why in-airport restaurants have to provide plastic utensils.

I see it happening every time I get strip searched... I mean fly.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Draigon]

Amazing how much a "dumb teenager" can do. It's also amazing how much a dumb user can not do. Such as not open untrusted e-mail attatchments or such as not getting the latest patches or not doing other such basic security measures. The last time I got a virus was in '89. It's been basic caution, firewalls, virus scan, and patch, patch, patch after that. Not a single problem.

There is nothing being done here that technology does not permit. If there is a problem, fix it. If you want to talk about responsibility then let's just extend this virus metaphor to sex: it's not our fault if you're an idiot and don't use protection. Maybe a coder.. er.. doctor will invent a cure for some of this stuff but ultimately you can never just throw caution to the wind and expect the rest of the world to start being responsible.

Computers are not dangerous. It's not "a small nuclear bomb in each home" and just because the business world treats the internet as if it were "serious business" doesn't mean the rest of the world should be punished for taking it lightly or having fun with it as a big toy for nerds. Smarter, and more fun, people would see virus activity as an opportunity to study and invent stronger systems to combat it while the foolish attempt to criminalize it into extinction so that weak systems are preserved.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[CrayzyJ]

" while ignoring the real problem: poorly raised, intellectually stunted people with no sense of accountability. As long as people don't give a damn about the consequences of their actions, and as long as societies feel bad about holding the accountable, the only option is to pursue pointless little media-friendly exercises like taking tools away from people. "

YES. YES. YES! Damn, I blew my mod points too early today. This is the single most intelligent thing I have ever read on slashdot. Respect for fellow humans is at an all time low. Until that is reversed, there is no accountability to people.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Kojiro Ganryu Sasaki]

"Those assclown companies should of secured their networks."

Should HAVE secured their networks.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Soporific]

I agree with you except for the part about fellow humans being at an all time low. Think about 60 years ago when whole countries were killing off their citizenry en masse. The dark ages are another good example of low human respect. I think right now it's at an all time high relatively.

~S

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[VHerring]

How did system administrators profit from this?

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[VHerring]

Did you read the article? It specifically said that Microsoft had a patch out for the security hole 2 weeks before Sasser appeared.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[DerekLyons]

There have been several proposals in the UK to require registration of all knives, including kitchen knives.

[nods] My sister is attending a culinary school attached to a community college in California, several culinary students have been booted from campus for carrying their knife kits to and from class.

In one incident my sister was part of - one of her class mates had opened her toolboox to loan my sister a melon baller. A campus rentacop was strolling by and saw the knifes in the toolbox - the knives were confiscated and the student suspended for thirty days. He thus lost nearly a thousand dollars worth of knives, and his tuition for the quarter, since he failed from being unable to attend the finals.

For the non chefs out there - having the school provide the knives and keep them in the kitchen is a nonstarter. Firstly, you typically you need the knives in several different classes a day. Secondly you really have to know your knives well to get maximum performance out of them - and to a chef, a knife is as basic a tool as a keyboard and monitor is to a programmer. My sister uses the same brand I do - and I could not get the same performance from hers as I do from my own. She sharpens differently than I do, and hence the balance is subtly different and optimized for her hand proportions and mechanics.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[gordo3000]

why should it go one way and not the other? if the retard can get off being tried as a child, why can't the prodigy be held to a higher standard? maybe its the same reason Germany's education system is in the pits.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[rinkjustice]

How did system administrators profit from this?

Overtime, hiring, job security.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[NicklessXed]

And if he was smart enough to create such worms at age 17 he was smart enough to comprehend the damage they could cause.

I'm surprised no one has pointed this out yet, but just because the boy is a skilled coder, he doesn't necessarily understand what he is causing. He may be smart enough to write a worm, but this doesn't say anything about his ability to see the consequences of his actions. There is difference between being intelligent and having common sense. Personally, I think the kid got what he deserved, nothing more or less.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[fantom2000]

It's more like a small nuclear bomb in each home, great for powering the house

um...

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[gordo3000]

yeah, but unfortunately, this virus, and most virii in general, are not things that make systems more secure. Usually the patch preceeds the virus(or is out at around the same time). People who make viruses are ass holes. People who find the holes are the ones driving security forward.

anyways, the rest of the world was not having fun with this. It was just a kid with mediocre skills(he didn't exactly find this exploit, it was already found and patched) trying to be an asshole for attention.

I'm all for criminalizing virus writers and throwing in Jail for absurd periods of time. I'm also all for preserving the rights of a person to find and publish an exploit to see that they get fixed quickly.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

We can't overlook the impact of these dumb kids, and certainly should such abuse become more prevalent they should be dealt with in increasing harshness to act as a deterrent...

There is not a lot of evidence to suggest that increasingly draconian punishments do much to deter crime and quite a bit of evidence to suggest that they increase it. Quite often people committing crimes (especially children or adolescents) simply don't consider the consequences of their crime or have any belief that they can be caught. Professional criminals, on the other hand, if dealt with harshly for nonviolent crimes can often turn to violence. If we punish worm authors with 2 years in jail and a worm author bragged to his ex-girlfriend that he wrote the worm and he knows there is a large reward for his capture, then the criminal will be understandably worried. If he thinks he will be imprisoned for the rest of his life, on the other hand, well then murdering his ex starts to seem like a pretty good idea. After all, if he is caught his life is over anyway, why not commit a much more serious crime in an attempt to avoid capture?

This has been demonstrated time and again with the prohibition on various recreational drugs (including alcohol). Victimless crimes of using or selling recreational drugs escalate into murder and organized crime activities causing more pain and suffering than the original offense ever would have.

Right now writing worms in Germany is being punished appropriately. No one was killed; no one made millions of dollars illegally. Escalating the punishment to act as a deterrent if it becomes more common will almost certainly lead to murders and funding organized crime activities. Let the punishment fit the crime. Justice should not be societal engineering.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Anonymous Coward]

The kid did something stupid, but he wasn't the only one. Everyone knows that there are systems that are prone and fragile, and ones that are well archetected, well made, and not affected by stupid pranks like this. Any IT manager (lets not ignore CIO's too) who advocated poor systems that were affected by this stupid kids prank, needs to be fired. They put their companies' profits and revenue generation in jeopardy. Any system that can fall down because of a stupid prank done by a kid 3000 miles away, is not a system I want to rely on. Managers who promoted or accepted the sales pitch of people selling this kind of junk, deserve (and need) to be fired! My system was unaffected by this virus. As a matter of fact, I haven't seen a virus in more than 10 years, and I've been on the internet for all that time (including running a web server 24/7 for over three years). No viruses, no crashes, no reboots, no problems. The systems that this virus was affected by, are affected by all the other punk crap floating out there. Grown-ups know better, they don't use systems that can be kicked over by a stupid punk from 3000 miles away. If they don't know any better or have been affected by stupid punks before, then they don't know any better (and seriously need to be fired for their own stupidity). No one with half a brain uses fragile, easily-broken systems for mission-critical tasks. If anyone were to die because the manager who picked the technology picked stupidly, the manager who picked the fragile technology deserves jail for wreckless endangerment, incompetence, and blatant stupidity.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Bananenrepublik]

Then think of it as "people under 21 are only tried as adults if they're ahead of others", exactly what you want.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[iminplaya]

I'm not advocating restrictions on the user. I'm advocating the manufacture of robust hardware. The restrictions I would like to see is something like a UL sticker on machines that are used in commercial applications. The x86 is not certifiable, especially with Windows. Those machines are play toys and should be kept away from any critical enviroment. If you want to use them for your local cash register or security cams, fine, but I don't like seeing Windows running at the bank or the hospital. They simply have no place there. Well, maybe in the lunch room...for playing Solitare. These institutions should be using specialized equipment restricted to the purposes intended. Using the x86 is the cheap, lazy way out, and these people have the money to use secure equipment. If he meant ""People take the computer too lightly..." to mean placing them in these situations, then he's right.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[InfiniteWisdom]

That's completely different, unless you live on an airplane

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[InfiniteWisdom]

Actions of an overzealous police officer don't mean anything... the case you mentioned was dropped and didn't even go to trial

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Kojiro Ganryu Sasaki]

No prob.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Fishstick]

The researchers said there was no reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available at all.

<devil's advocate>
I use kitchen knives all the time. I have yet found the need to stab my roast to death. Mostly I'm slicing or carving. Why indeed does it need to have a sharpened point? Would it not be just as effective for food preparation if the end were blunt?
</devil's advocate>

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Tim C]

of course there's an epidemic of stabbings

Not that I've noticed. Yes, there have been headlines about rising violent crime, but I don't recall any talking of "an epidemic of stabbings".

All of this is politcally correct claptrap, designed to keep everyone looking busy doing something about problems while ignoring the real problem: poorly raised, intellectually stunted people with no sense of accountability.

Now there I agree with you 100%. It's not just the fault of the politicians, though - most of the tabloids go on crusades on some subject or another (eg crime, immigration, etc) and whip up their readership to the point that the politicians almost *have* to be seen to be doing something, or face the wrath of the papers. (Not that they don't anyway...)

Australia took away everyone's guns, too, and have seen violent crime of all sorts skyrocket as a result.

"As a result"? Do you have any proof that violent crime has increased *because* of the ban on guns, rather that *despite* it?

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Draigon]

"yeah, but unfortunately, this virus, and most virii in general, are not things that make systems more secure. Usually the patch preceeds the virus(or is out at around the same time). People who make viruses are ass holes. People who find the holes are the ones driving security forward."

Yes, but without those "ass holes" nobody would understand the need for security in the first place. The intention behind the virus is mostly irrelevant. A world without sufficient motivation to stay up to date with security is just as bad as a world without security because they end up being the same thing. It's no good to make a patch if nobody uses it.

And if that kid truly does have only "mediocre skills", which I believe is true also, then this just re-iterates their importance. A security smart world would require someone of much more than mediocre skill to cause millions in damages. A security stupid world deserves what they get until the lessons are learned.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[orkysoft]

Erm, didn't they already ban toothbrushes in England ages ago? :: ducks ::

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Demand a refund of the tuition, striking the failures off the transcript (he didn't fail because of lack of knowledge, but because of being prevented from taking the final) - or at least have the grades coded as W (Withdrew during semester - UNLV does that - many other universities do - the Fs make it look like the person wasn't competant in their work - which is a misrepresentation and can be actionable) - and demand return of the knives or sue.

Pay tuition with a credit card - next time they pull that - do a chargeback.

Also, if the guard is unarmed, you can resist. In many cases guards are not allowed to use force, and you can't be convicted of resisting arrest or something similar (check your state laws to be sure). There is a risk of being hurt - but in that case you can often sue.

I know someone who was a guard in Nevada - and what they can and can't do was quite surprisingly limited.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[daedalus1]

Try cutting fruit with a blunt tip or serrated knife. Not so easy is it? I'm sure there are other examples.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Fishstick]

an 8+ inch blade for cutting fruit? Isn't that what paring knives are for?


They consulted 10 top chefs from around the UK, and found such knives have little practical value in the kitchen.

None of the chefs felt such knives were essential, since the point of a short blade was just as useful when a sharp end was needed.

The researchers said a short pointed knife may cause a substantial superficial wound if used in an assault - but is unlikely to penetrate to inner organs.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[the_weasel]

Yes yes. Evolution to the rescue again. If you aren't protected you are not fit to survive. You made yet another retarded social analogy used the theory of evolution. Congratulations.

Think of it this way, Mr. Anonymous Coward. If I were to take a bat and beat you to death with it, would that be okay, because if you don't survive then you clearly were not fit to survive?

Seems less appealing now, does'nt it. Darwinism is nothing more than one of the mechanisms by which the mystery of so called intelligent design is explained. It is not a guide to social well being.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[PHP Addict]

...just because the boy is a skilled coder, he doesn't necessarily understand what he is causing...

That's bullshit...

computer = findVulnerableComputer();
while(computer != null)
{
crashThisComputer();
computer = findVulnerableComputer();
}

How the HELL do you write that without knowing what could happen? Technical abilities aside, a 10 year old could see how much damage this could cause.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Sumocide]

It's been like that for 50+ yrs and just now the effects decide to show? Maybe your education is in the pits.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[skyman8081]

None.

It kills its host before it is able to propagate.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[colinrichardday]

Broken-window fallacy. Would those firms have spent money on something else had they not had to spend it dealing with Sasser?

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[pegasustonans]

What about when they own nuclear missiles?

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[pegasustonans]

Being a retard and letting something loose beyond your control

We can't overlook the impact of these dumb kids

Actually, I'd say the information available points towards the particular kid in question being something of a genius with some apparent familial/personal problems. Perhaps we should focus on this aspect of things as well.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[DerekLyons]

Demand a refund of the tuition, striking the failures off the transcript (he didn't fail because of lack of knowledge, but because of being prevented from taking the final)

Um - pherhaps you didn't read my message. The student was kicked off campus for violating school policy - I somehow doubt the school will be sympathetic.

- or at least have the grades coded as W (Withdrew during semester - UNLV does that - many other universities do - the Fs make it look like the person wasn't competant in their work - which is a misrepresentation and can be actionable)

Given that the student didn't withdraw there is no basis for a W. Given that the didn't complete the work (I.E. the finals), there is no misrepresentation.

and demand return of the knives or sue.

Right - tens of thousands of dollars for a suit over a couple of thousand dollars worth of knives.

Pay tuition with a credit card - next time they pull that - do a chargeback.

Those of us who live in the real world know that chargebacks are not automatic. We also equally know that the vendor gets a chance to tell his/her side of the case.

Also, if the guard is unarmed, you can resist. In many cases guards are not allowed to use force, and you can't be convicted of resisting arrest or something similar (check your state laws to be sure). There is a risk of being hurt - but in that case you can often sue.

You do live on another planet don't you?

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[singleantler]

I thought the UK law was more about where the knives are.

i.e. you own a large kitchen knife and it's in the kitchen, no problem. You own a large kitchen knife and it's hidden up your jacket sleeve while you walk through town, big problem.

According to a Policeman I heard interviewed when the law was proposed, people who are transporting knives from place to place and have good reason to have them, e.g. chefs, halal butchers, will be OK as long as they have them in safe storage - i.e. wrapped in cloth or in a case at the bottom of their bag, not unwrapped at the top of the bag in easy reach.

This leaves grey areas, but then again it's going to cause a lot of problems for legitimate knife users if there aren't some grey areas if the bring the law in.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[phorm]

Actually, I know quite a few people that, although smart intellectually, were extremely messed up in terms of productiveness in society. You might think of felons as losers with no intelligence, but successful felons can actually be very smart - just very immoral.

In fact, some of history's most homicidal individuals have been very intelligent.


In summary: Not all smart people are good people, not all bad people are dumb crooks.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[pegasustonans]

That's part of what I was getting at. But also, a lot of the familial problems that can lead to criminal behavior or some of the problems people experience as children should be addressed more often. The fact of the matter is that, in many cases, the criminal at one point had the potential to choose to be productive and brilliant in a way other than conducting crime. If there were more resources for troubled children and troubled families, we'd have more productive people who are brilliant at what they do and less criminals filling up the jails. In any event, that's my perspective.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[ScentCone]

What about when they own nuclear missiles?

The classic bit of sophistry.

Just physically having one without the resources of the military's nuke-weapons support, monitoring, handling, storage, and safety operations and trained personnel represents such an inherent bit of unstable risk that your question is meaningless. In other words, seeking to have one, personally, is by itself such a reckless act that it deserves the immediate ramifications that we'd reasonably apply to the situation.

Next (non-trolling, rational) question?

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[idonthack]

computer = findVulnerableComputer();
while(computer != null)
{
crashThisComputer();
computer = findVulnerableComputer(); // <-- you never get here
}

It doesn't cause any damage, actually. But don't worry, your point is taken.
---
Recent studies indicate that you are a moron.
Generated by SlashdotRndSig via GreaseMonkey

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[idonthack]

I hope you mean
!= != =!
---
What subliminal message?
Generated by SlashdotRndSig via GreaseMonkey

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[pegasustonans]

Next (non-trolling, rational) question?

Sure, how about this one (and I'm 100% serious this time):

Do you have a sense of humor?

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[gordo3000]

no, the effects have been showing for quite some time with the german education system. its why there are several movements to get rid of the 3 tiered foolery. I would find it interesting that germany once led the world in scientific research and for the last 50 years has had only menial contributions(especially compared to what they used to do)

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[ScentCone]

I thought the UK law was more about where the knives are.

It's really more of a call from certain public and legislative circles, so far, not an actual law (thank goodness). None the less, here's a BBC bit about it. You'll notice that the entire focus is on actually banning them from sale.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[ScentCone]

That's actually very funny. Um, from this side of the Atlantic. And, with all due respect to the recent unpleasantness in London. You know, speaking of that famous British Stiff Upper Lip in the face of trouble... I wonder if that's just because of painful gums? I jest! Nothing but respect for the Brits. Er, when thet're not trying to ban kitchen knives, anyway.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[ScentCone]

But, what's wrong with parents just turning off the TV? And, if you make the government decide which show is "crap" and which show isn't, then you're eventually going to have some bureaucrat deciding that science shows about evolution are two racy, or some similar nonsense. Adults can decide what to watch, and children have their own adults to do it for them. More government isn't the answer (let alone the more taxes and ceded power that it represents).

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[ScentCone]

Do you have a sense of humor?

No, you insensitive clod. I was born without one, and I can't believe you'd bring that up in a public forum like this. I'm going to write you a long, long comment when I recover from this moral anguish.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[pegasustonans]

I had the same problem up until about six months ago. Then I got a girlfriend. And I realized what true anguish really is.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[RingDev]

No easily owned guns, so of course there's an epidemic of stabbings, instead.

Check the fatality rates of gun shot victims against the fatality rate of stabbing victims. And, of course, people who don't care about the law anyway are going to ignore those laws, too, leaving only the criminals with guns, knives, and eventually anything heavy, pointy, or flammable. So by that same logic we should just forget about nuclear weapon bans because hey, if some terrorist cell wants it bad enough, they'll get it?? -Rick

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[RingDev]

Never said it did. Less guns = Less crime related deaths.

-Rick

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[RingDev]

Woowho! Statistics out of context! Isn't it beautiful! Let me show ya something, it's called "Spin Removal". You see, all broadcast groups (BBC, Fox, CNN, etc) spin news to make it interesting, or to push a political agenda. This is no exception.

You would think by those huge number (35% raise!!) that the English are buying illegal guns in droves and shooting the crap out of eachother.

When in fact, there were 10,000 related gun crimes in 2k1-2k2. Now, of those 10k gun crimes, only 2500 actually had shots fired. Infact, a large portion of them were actually people with REPLICAS that threadened someone.

So, take a country with a population of about 60 million, factor 10k gun crimes, and that's 1 crime per 6000 people, factor that only 2500 actual dealt with shots fired (not necesarily with victims) and you are looking at 1 crime per 24000 citizens.

Now, put that up against the good 'ol gun toting US of A! 300 million members strong, and we had what, about 1/2 a million violent gun crime victims last year. That works out to be 1 Violent crime with a victim per 600 people.

This is called critical thinking and research. You can claim the Brits are ass backwords, but they have a significantly better gun crime rate per capita the us US boys. And befor someone calls me a pansy ass grass eating hippy child, I put in my 4 years in the Marine Corps. I qualed high expert with the M-16 and I will put a hole dead center in a man sized target at 500 meters with out breaking a sweat. Doesn't mean I want my wack job, inbread coked up, crack pot of a neighboor to be armed to the teeth.

-Rick

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Xabraxas]

Darwinism is nothing more than one of the mechanisms by which the mystery of so called intelligent design is explained.

No, it's not. In fact intelligent design is the opposite of evolution. Intelligent design is the fake science that Christians use to reinforce their religious beliefs. Evolution is an actual theory that has been tested and has survived for over a hundred years.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Violating school policy when as you stated the knives were needed for class does not make sense.

It would be like if a CS dept prohibited all computer usage.

Small claims court is very cheap.

Chargebacks are trouble for a vendor - they often don't want to fight. I believe Visa has some stiff penalities for vendors who even have a 1% chargeback rate.

Resisting a guard is not illegal, and guards don't have many rights here in my state (Nevada, which does have some screwy laws and can't decide whether to be a nanny state or the Wild Wild West - but doesn't quite rise to the level of being another planet - that is our neighbor to the west - which is becoming like another country now).

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

More info on security guards:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_Guard

In most cases, all they can make are citizen's arrests. Big limits on that - big liability if misused.

I've talked to people who have done security in this state. "Observe and report" is usually all they can or are expected to do.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[crucini]

Next (non-trolling, rational) question?

OK, I can't resist. What happens when some nation, such as Iran, develops a suitcase nuke for use by ignorant terrorists. It is designed to be super-stable and maintenance free until deliberately detonated. A civilian collector gets his hand on one. Should it be illegal to possess?

Remember, some civilian collectors have 50 cal machine guns, which are devestating weapons, but they are rarely or never used in crime.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[Cally]

>A better analogy would be when people start talking about kitchen knife
>control or baseball bat control. Do you see that happening

>Knives and bats are inanimate objects. They are controlled by people
>who make choices with thier minds...

Actually, here in the UK carrying a kitchen knife in public certainly IS illegal in certain circumstances. It's 'posession of an offensive weapon' (class 1 or class 2 OW) with varients to do with 'intention to cause greivous bodily harm' or suchlike.) The difference between the classes is that Class 1 are *designed* to be weapons; class 2 are improvised weapons. Clearly a kitchen knife is not designed to be a weapon, but if you're caught trying to smuggle one into a football ground or onto a plane clearly you're not planning to carve the sunday roast with it. The same logic of 'improvised weapons' makes everytday objects like milk bottles, bricks, 2x4 with added rusty nails offensive weapons in certain circs and you can get pretty severe penalties for carrying one in those circs.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[singleantler]

Damn, some of us really are trying to make a marshmellow-cornered world where we don't need any personal responsibility.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[line.at.infinity]

If everyone got free guns, then homicide rates will go up. If the government loosens restrictions and lowers taxes on alcohol, then alcohol-related suicide rates will go up, as well as the overall suicide rate. Similarly, if you increase the availability of deadly weapons, crime rate goes up as well.

According to the knife article, it seems like the idea isn't to ban long knives in general but to ban long and pointed knives. Chefs agree that the point of a short blade is equally useful, and there is no reason for long and pointed knives to be available at all. Thus banning these knives seem to me something that doesn't inconvenience innocent people while reducing occurances of serious injuries.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[ScentCone]

Remember, some civilian collectors have 50 cal machine guns, which are devestating weapons, but they are rarely or never used in crime.

And, those collectors are subject to surprise Federal inspections, and have to regularly show where and how they're storing that item to prove that they're keeping it out of easy reach of bad guys. Certainly there's always the risk that the owner of the 50-cal will flip out, but his right to own it is something that's regularly reviewed by police and BATF people, and his mental health status and other legal postures have to be regularly reviewed. Plenty of people who show no obvious (to us) problems are turned down for Class 3 licenses, or lose ones they already have.

The issue here is that the feds have a sense of how likely they think it is for that guy's collection to be looted by bad guys. The risks go up tremendously when we're talking about The Perfect Backpack Nuke(tm), and so the standards would have to be commensurately higher. To wit, the collector would have to have military-grade protection. So much so, that only the military could provide it. That's a standard that would prevent anyone from legally keeping on the shelf, and passes even my generally libertarian view of such things. Sort of like someone who wants to keep a 50,000 gallon tank of propane out back, next to his charcoal grill, and next to an adjoining row of townhouses. There's an innate risk in the existance of something like that which is not present in any flavor of firearm. Let alone kitchen knives, no matter how long or pointy.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[ultranova]

None.

It kills its host before it is able to propagate.

There's a logical conflict between your two statements: if the worm kills its host, it has obviously caused damage - the crash of that single computer.

Then again, if causing a computer to crash was grounds for receiving compensation, Microsoft would have been bankrupt long ago...

Anyway, here's the corrected and improved algorithm:

do {
computer = findVulnerableComputer();
while (computer != NULL) {
infect(computer)
computer = FindVulnerableComputer();
}
keepongoing = canWeFindMoreHostsBeforeBeingCaught();
if (keepongoing == TRUE) {
waitForAWhile()
}
} while (keepongoing == TRUE) ;
crashThisComputer()

I just realized... I helped to bugfix an algorithm for a worm. Hope the three-letter organizations aren't reading this...

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[ultranova]

no, the effects have been showing for quite some time with the german education system. its why there are several movements to get rid of the 3 tiered foolery. I would find it interesting that germany once led the world in scientific research and for the last 50 years has had only menial contributions(especially compared to what they used to do)

That might have something to do with smart people leaving Germany when certain genocidal maniac came to power and started World War II.

Furthermore, I must point out that your critique of Germany's school system might be more convincing if you would use proper capitalization, especially in the word "Germany" ;).

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[DerekLyons]

Violating school policy when as you stated the knives were needed for class does not make sense.

I *know* it doesn't make sense - that's my point.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[monkeydo]

Your assertions sound plausible on the surface, but they aren't borne out in reality. There is no correlation to suicide and availability of weapons or drugs. In fact the country with the highest suicide rate by far bans all civilian ownership of firearms. The availabilty of firearms also does not increase rates of violent crime, since criminals will always get guns. However, decreasing the availability of legal firearms increases the rate of violent crime, since criminals are more likely to find an easy victim.

But it's clear that you are willing to sacrifice liberty for illusory safety, so I'm sure you don't care about facts. As they say, there's a reason God put you on an island.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[the_weasel]

Naturally. You misunderstood me. In retrospect I could have said "by which the mystery of so called intelligent design is refuted." That would have made my point a bit clearer.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[line.at.infinity]

Eastern Russia and Iceland has loosened their laws on alcohol and suicide rates have risen. I think Estonia recently had one of the highest suicide rates. Availability of alcohol does increase suicide rates. This is both true statistically and logically as well.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[line.at.infinity]

Murder weapons for the purpose of murder weapons have very few legitimate uses. Sure, some people say killing people is a liberty we should all cherish and love and what not. The impression being given by a post I was replying to was that kitchen knife, a tool with a non-murderous functionality, was going to be banned for simply being too long. This was not true, as the BBC article which the poster based his post on explains. My point was that there were no plans to curtail the liberties of non-professionals to cook, but merely to curtail the availability of deadly weapons. If posession of deadly weapons is the great liberty that you think everyone should cherish, then I'm sorry to inform you that we simply disagree on that point.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure

[NicklessXed]

Well, would you really have expected the worm to spread this fast, and infect so many PCs? Sure, he must have known that he would cause damage, but if he didn't think this through, he may have well expected his creation to be far, far less "successful".

No editors at the BBC anymore..?

[rsd1s1g]

From the article: The two individuals who helped identify the Sasser creator will share the reward no Jaschan has been convicted, said Microsoft.

Pretty sure they meant "once Jaschan has been convicted..."

Parent is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The virus was released ON his 18th birthday (April 29, 2004). He was tried as a minor because the german courts determined that he created the virus before he was 18. He wasn't arrested days before his 18th birthday as the parent says.

Re:Parent is wrong

[TripMaster Monkey]

Interesting...especially since the german courts seem to think that it's the creation of the virus that is the crime, not the release of it into the wild.

Do you have any references for this?

Re:Parent is wrong

[Tante]

From the Parent:

The virus was released ON his 18th birthday (April 29, 2004). He was tried as a minor because the german courts determined that he created the virus before he was 18. He wasn't arrested days before his 18th birthday as the parent says.

From the Article:

"Sven Jaschan avoided a jail sentence by the skin of his teeth because he was arrested within days of his 18th birthday,"

So he was arrested before he released the virus? When did Germany get their pre-crime division up and running?

Re:Parent is wrong

[whitehatlurker]

he was arrested within days of his 18th birthday

Please note that the article doesn't say which direction those days were from said birthday. It could as easily been after his birthday as before. As well, this is a quote from a Sophos spokesdroid and I'd say he's not entirely objective in this.

Re:Parent is wrong

[jarich]

The virus was released ON his 18th birthday (April 29, 2004). He was tried as a minor because the german courts determined that he created the virus before he was 18. He wasn't arrested days before his 18th birthday as the parent says.

So, if you plan the bank robbery before you turn 18, but only execute the plan after your birthday, is that okay?

Re:Parent is wrong

[sameyeam]

I heard he actually *released* it a few hours before his birthday, if that was the case then what you're saying wouldn't really matter...but it's certainly an interesting point. I wouldn't consider writing it a crime, to me it's the act of releasing it that crosses the line.

Sounds like he made out on the deal...

[cavtroop]

Ok, so he causes untold millions in damages (yes, real damages) worldwide, get a 21 month probation slap on the wrist, which clears off his record after 3 years if he keeps his nose clean. AND he gets a job in the antivirus industry. Sounds more like a reward than a punishment. If I ran a multinational company that was hit bad by this, I'd be in civil court suing the hell out of him right now. He deserves to be in jail, not reaping rewards for his behavior.

Re:Sounds like he made out on the deal...

[Ihlosi]

If I ran a multinational company that was hit bad by this, I'd be in civil court suing the hell out of him right now. He deserves to be in jail, not reaping rewards for his behavior.

Sorry, but that's most likely the dumbass way to handle things.

1. Sue him. That puts the name of your company out in the open. Hello, we're the ones who give a shit about network security ... your data's absolutely safe with us.

2. Sue him. Pay your lawyers big bucks. Win the case (maybe). Be awarded millions in damages. Will you ever see one cent ? Nope. Can't get water from a rock.

The least damaging way to handle things for the company is: Keep a low profile and do some major reorganization in your IT department.

Re:Sounds like he made out on the deal...

[Paul Slocum]

I think it depends heavily on his intent and what he thought would happen (which I don't know). If a kid throws a rock through a window and the whole building comes crashing down because it's poorly built, it seems unfair to charge him with destroying the entire building.

Re:Sounds like he made out on the deal...

[patio11]

Whats the point of suing him as a multinational corporation? You'll never collect from him and will end up being portrayed in the media as a bully persecuting a teenager for a youthful indiscretion. He'll say he's very, very sorry and why are you tryring to ruin his life for just one little mistake, etc. And people will buy it because people are, on average, dumb.

Re:Sounds like he made out on the deal...

[prefec2]

His record will not be cleared after 3 years. The fact will still be in his records. during these 3 years he should try to do any illegal thing. Second, if companies start suing him, he can claim that he is poor enough so he has not to pay anything. Well he is 19 Years old. Don't forget that. And as far as I know from different sources, he is not rewarded with a job. (No german source is reporting this, but I could be wrong in this point).

Re:Sounds like he made out on the deal...

[dknj]

And as far as I know from different sources, he is not rewarded with a job.

Have you ever heard of someone named Kevin Mitnick?

Re:Sounds like he made out on the deal...

[GweeDo]

Seems to be working for the RIAA okay...

Re:Sounds like he made out on the deal...

[prefec2]

Yes. I know, but this Sven is more or less not such a brain bug, like Kevin Mitnick.

Re:Sounds like he made out on the deal...

[dknj]

kevin mitnick is a brain bug? he socially engineered passwords/access out of a few people. how is that any different than this guy who wrote a worm?

Re:Sounds like he made out on the deal...

[BlueCodeWarrior]

The evolution of a combination of memes: 1) Only teenagers write worms in Germany 2) In Germany, worms write teenagers! 3) I, for one, welcome our teenager writing worms in Germany Sad, isn't it?

Re:Sounds like he made out on the deal...

[prefec2]

Well then, maybe Kevins reputation is better than Svens. But you could be right.

Re:Sounds like he made out on the deal...

[ultranova]

Ok, so he causes untold millions in damages (yes, real damages) worldwide, get a 21 month probation slap on the wrist, which clears off his record after 3 years if he keeps his nose clean.

So, if he stops doing crimes, he will eventually have suffered his punishment completely and has a chance to make a honest living without criminal record hindering his chances of enployment ? How utterly shocking.

If I ran a multinational company that was hit bad by this, I'd be in civil court suing the hell out of him right now.

If I ran a multinational company that had been hit bad by this, I'd be too busy firing my computer admins for

1. Running Windows and
2. Running unpatched Windows

to bother with anyone else.

He deserves to be in jail, not reaping rewards for his behavior.

No. People who do violent crimes need to go to jail for the safety of everyone else. People who only cause money to be lost don't need or deserve to go to jail.

Throwing a non-violent offender into jail increases the chances that he will continue doing crimes, possibly becoming a violent offender. That is counter-productive and therefore doing it would be irrational.

Skin of his teeth

[Hank Chinaski]

It wasnt even this close, because in Germany the youth criminal law is applicable to persons up to the age of 21, depending on how "adult" they behave and live. E.g. Living in your own apartement and having a job will probably get you treated as an adult. For his case the social projections are quite good, because he now lives a stable life with a regular job and a girlfriend.

Re:Skin of his teeth

[Asic Eng]

WTF? A Girlfriend? Since when does a geek like him have time for a girlfriend?

Well let's face it, programming a virus doesn't take much skill these days, so I guess he's just not a real geek. ;-)

Justice

[Malicious]

Create a Worm, cripple thousands of businesses, get convicted, no monitary fine, get a 2 year Jail sentence and 30 Hours of Community service, do not pass go. Do not collect $200.
Steal a Movie, get fined Thousands of dollars, go to Jail for dozens of years, never expect to use a computer or have any rights or freedoms again.

Amazing.

Re:Justice

[KD5YPT]

You're right, it is ironic. But its reality, Movie industry got CRAP LOAD of lobbyist for their precious copyrighted stuffs. The public sector/computer industries? Jack nothing.

Re:Justice

[nogginthenog]

2 year suspended jail sentence, meaning if he's a good boy for the next couple of years he won't see the inside of a jail.

Re:Justice

[imsabbel]

Isnt that the whole point of a justice system? Making bad boys become good boys?

Re:Justice

[Jedi Alec]

I think you may have forgotten to specify the actual countries these 2 examples apply to. Just because the US (and some other countries') goverment goes apeshit doesn't mean the entire world has to act the same.

Re:Justice

[prefec2]

> Create a Worm, cripple thousands of businesses,
> get convicted, no monitary fine, get a 2 year Jail
> sentence and 30 Hours of Community service, do not
> pass go.

German law

> Steal a Movie, get fined Thousands of dollars, go
> to Jail for dozens of years, never expect to use a
> computer or have any rights or freedoms again

US law

sorry couldn't resist :-) but the punishments here are not so tough than in the US.

A punishment should make clear to the convicted, that he/she made something wrong. Also the person should be reintegratable after that. And I think doing 30 hours of Community Service is much more usefull then sending him intao a prison for 21 month.

Re:Justice

[Anonymous Coward]

Steal a Movie

Learn the difference between theft and copyright infringement. Stealing a movie won't get you the punishment you describe, copyright infringement will.

Re:Justice

[rbarreira]

It's funny that you should be talking shit about creating worms when you have a compressed one in your sig... Or is it a movie? I'll check it out later :P

Re:Justice

[RosenSama]

What US minors have been sent to jail for dozens of years for stealing a movie?

Re:Justice

[Twanfox]

That's what it should be about. Fixing social problems. Unfortunately, some people see it as a tool to get what they want, regardless of the social impact.

Re:Justice

[Anonymous Cowpat]

er, the second example isn't an example of justice, it's an exacmple of excessive retribution required by corruptly introduced laws.
So thousands of businesses had to do without computers for a few days - they'd have had to if there was a major power outage too. His intent (afaik) wasn't to take down delta airlines. Would you be calling for large fines and jail sentences against utility company employees if businesses were crippled by their ineptness?
Fining people, particularly those with little ability to pay, is an entirely pointless exercise.
21 months suspended sentence and 30 hours community service is entirely appropriate to the crime and it looks like the judge thinks so too.

Re:Justice

[Tim C]

go to Jail for dozens of years, never expect to use a computer or have any rights or freedoms again.

Do you have any sources for those claims?

Besides which, as others have pointed out, your (doubtful) copyright example is for US law, while this is German law. Different legal systems have different punishments...

Re:Example?

[TripMaster Monkey]

But he was a child when he committed the offense...and he was a child when he was arrested...doesn't matter how old he is now.

Re:Example?

[delta_avi_delta]

The fact that he's over 18 now should be irrelevant - he was a minor when the crime was commited, he should be tried as a minor.

*ducks*

[jZnat]

I guess he wasn't able to worm his way out of this one.

Dumb teenagers/ organized crime

[g0bshiTe]

They all start somewhere. I think in this case his intent was malicious, more than a slap on the wrist is merited I mean the clean message sent to all those kiddies is now as long as you are under 18 you are free from jail time. I didn't RTFA (too lazy and I'm not interested) I wonder if he even got community service? I think his punishment should fit the crime, but then again I wouldn't want this kid anywhere near my systems unsupervised. So what would a suitable punishment be, not only is it for his crime, but also as a detterent to others.

Re:Dumb teenagers/ organized crime

[thomasweber]

> I think his punishment should fit the crime, but then again I wouldn't want this kid anywhere near my systems unsupervised. So what would a suitable punishment be, not only is it for his crime, but also as a detterent to others.

The basic idea of German law with regards to youth is education, not punishment.
The importance of deterent can be seen quite clearly in the United States, where the death penalty exists in most states and still there are much more murders than in Germany.

That's dangerously close to common sense

[Weaselmancer]

However, in the grand scheme of the virus world, it's the organised crime gangs, which are increasingly emerging to make stacks of money through targeted attacks, that should be dealt the harsh sentences - over and above the dumb teenagers.

Hold on a sec, there. That smacks of logic. And we all know that isn't allowed when the accused is a hacker. You know, the guys that cause kazillions of dollars of damage by fiddling with your email. Somehow.

Keep that line of reasoning up, and pretty soon the entertainment industry will stop suing grandmothers for thousands of dollars worth of lost revenue. You know, 'cause granny is such a huge Linkin Park fan.

Ok, sarcasm mode off.

Honestly, even though this kid is a jerk and what he did was wrong I'm happy the courts decided not to crucify him. He's not a part of organized crime, nor is he selling G3N3R!C V!aGrA.

It's a good trend to see crime and punishment in the tech sector finally starting to get in sync.

Re:That's dangerously close to common sense

[megarich]

Yea man I don't agree with the headline at all. If and when organized crimes get caught and punished, you know its going to be more than a 3 year sentence.

Plus ignorance should be punished anyways :). "In America you reward knowledge, here we punish ignorance!" Seriously just because you are "dumb" does not excuse you from violating the law. The same def. applies true too in the business world. If I did rm -rf * thinking i was in /home/user but i was really in /, you think playing dumb will save my job?

Re:That's dangerously close to common sense

[ScentCone]

Honestly, even though this kid is a jerk and what he did was wrong

That would be "wrong" as in, "lost lots of people millions of dollars in revenue and productivity." If he decided to physically vandalize several storefronts to the tune of maybe only $10,000 he'd be a lot more locked up than he is for adding several more zeros to the amount. Just because he did it from a keyboard instead of with a brick.

Re:That's dangerously close to common sense

[ScentCone]

He did so through an agent that he created, most likely unaware of the impact it will have.

Just like "dumb kids" that throw hunks of cement off of bridges onto highways at night. They have no way of know exactly what's going to happen... so they really shouldn't be scolded too harshly, right?

At any point during the storefront vandalizing spree you have a chance to stop and go home. You cannot stop a worn once it's released. That's what places him in the "dumb kid" rather than the malicious criminal category

Sort of like if you were to set fire to the first store in a row of stores, or to the first tree in a forest. I mean, after a little while, it's completely beyond your control what happens, so, no malice, right?

Come on. The only reason that teenage punks fiddle with malware like worms is because they know exactly what worms are and that they are self propogating. The dangerous, "cool" and reputation-making allure is exactly what these idiots find so compelling. The only "dumb" involved here was the dumbness of not expecting to get caught, and the dumbness of not connecting the damage done to large networks and businesses with the impact it has on individual people that depend on them, invest in them, are paid by them, and expect to be able to communicate with them. The thing that's being punished here is the lack of a decent, accountability-minded world view inside this kid's head. If he can't, after 17 years, understand that damage to networks and hugely inconveniencing milions of people is bad, then he's exactly the sort of person that should be intercepted by law enforcement (since he doesn't have the willingness to restrain his own destructive urges). The only real problem here was that they considered him a minor. If that's true, then his parents should also have been arrested for not keeping his destructive hobby in check. There's plenty of malice and criminality in his actions, and he knows it. That's why he's being so contrite, and that's why spending less than a week doing community service is like hitting the freakin' lottery. He should be ashamed, but the court and his parents should be more so.

i'm not going to ask about the previous response..

[aude_sapere]

all i can say is that the kid was damn lucky. if you're going to write a worm, at least don't get caught. the problem with people writing viruses is that it will come back to them. it may take some time, but it will be traced, the source will be found. now he has this on his record, and emplyment, especially in the tech field, is now going to be extremly difficult. teenagers writing up worms and viruses need to realize that though it does take skill, there are consequences. "with great power comes great responsibility"

Re:Example?

[grub]

I think that as he is now over 18, he shouldn't be tried as if he's a child.

People do all sorts of dumb things when they're

I think I speech for the Slashdot community...

[Krankheit]

I think I speech for the Slashdot community when I say that I am going to miss these interesting programs. With Jaschan being convicted, and Claria being bought out by Microsoft, how am I going to have an excuse to go out to an extended lunch, or take the rest of the day off? My company only gives me one hour to eat lunch, which is not nearly enough to go to Wal-Mart and get my four litres of Mountain Dew, my two coffees at Dunkin' Donuts, with my two dozen donuts, and then make my way over to Burger King. I hope someone replaces Jaschan soon in the name of giving me extended lunches and days off to code. Does anyone else feel this way?

I wouldn't worry

[Moth7]

Most "leet hackers" under 18 couldn't hack their way out of a wet paper bag. If they start young enough to have a good level of programming ability by 17, then they've generally matured enough to handle that responsibility by then. This guy is the exception, not the rule.

Re:I wouldn't worry

[spiffcow]

Technical ability does not directly imply an understanding of ethics or responsibility. To say that it does would be comparable to saying that technical ability directly implies knowledge of grammar, chemistry, and Victorian-era poetry. There is no reason to suppose that a programmer should have priviledged knowledge of ethics merely on the basis that he is a programmer. I learned C when I was 11, but I'd say I didn't really grasp the concept of "ethics" until around the age of 19, making me a bit immature compared to the set standard of 18.

Others should face liability also

[ravenspear]

What about Microsoft?

Shouldn't they face some consequence for writing such shitty code as the security nightmare that is Windows?

It's kind of funny really. In almost any company if a single coder could be found responsible for coding mistakes that cost the company millions of dollars, he would be fired and quite possibly sued. But when thousands of coders in a company collectively do the same thing, they get off without any responsibility for the effects of unleashing their horribly buggy code on the entire world.

Re:Others should face liability also

[TripMaster Monkey]

I was waiting for this argument...

From TFA:

Although Microsoft had released a patch for this loophole on 13 and 28 April 2004, many companies had not applied this protection before Sasser struck.

It looks like M$ is not the one to blame here (although we do so love to blame them).

Re:Others should face liability also

[aardvarkjoe]

It looks like M$ is not the one to blame here (although we do so love to blame them).

It's not? Well, in that case, I guess the RIAA must have done it.

Re:Others should face liability also

[rinkjustice]

Why was a patch needed in the first place? Bad coding. And we got 17 yr old punks exploiting these loopholes.

You would think a legion of Microsoft coders, testers and quality controllers would have caught it first.

Re:Others should face liability also

[kibbylow]

Actually, you're wrong. Microsoft has no liability when it comes to writing shitty code. See the EULA:


17. exclusion of incidental, consequential and certain other damages. to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event shall microsoft or its suppliers be liable for any special, incidental, punitive, indirect, or consequential damages whatsoever (including, but not limited to, damages for loss of profits or confidential or other information, for business interruption, for personal injury, for loss of privacy, for failure to meet any duty including of good faith or of reasonable care, for negligence, and for any other pecuniary or other loss whatsoever) arising out of or in any way related to the use of or inability to use the software, the provision of or failure to provide support or other services, informaton, software, and related content through the software or otherwise arising out of the use of the software, or otherwise under or in connection with any provision of this eula, even in the event of the fault, tort (including negligence), misrepresentation, strict liability, breach of contract or breach of warranty of microsoft or any supplier, and even if microsoft or any supplier has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Re:Others should face liability also

[dknj]

Are you serious? Do you think everyone writes perfect nonexploitable code? By your argument we should blame Intel because they never pushed NX until recently even though its been around on other platforms for YEARS. Get over it, the people to blame here are the sysadmins that did not apply the patch or take precaution of their unpatched computers.

Re:Others should face liability also

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

It looks like M$ is not the one to blame here (although we do so love to blame them).

Don't worry. We can still blame them. They only released the patch a month before Sasser started hitting machines in the wild. That is hardly enough time to test and apply a patch across a large enterprise, especially given MS's terrible track record for patches. Like many other patches, this one conflicted with a variety of other software packages that customers had to stop using if they wanted to be protected. The worm runs on and propagates to other machines on Windows 98, 98SE, and ME operating systems (although it's other functions fail). MS has still released no patch for any of these systems and has no plan to.

Aside from the above concerns, many versions of Windows are just not easy to update, especially across a great many machines and updates often break functionality or need to be applied in a specific order. Updates are often dependent upon other updates, which may also break something important. MS is the one who wrote an OS without concern for security and we are all still paying for it. Writing the worm was like intentionally tossing a match in an open window. Designing Windows was like deciding to sell all buildings with floors made of extremely flammable material. There is plenty of blame to go around.

Re:Others should face liability also

[LoraxLorax]

Clearly it was terrists or the government (if they are in fact different)

Re:Others should face liability also

[Andrewkov]

Everytime someone talks about MS Windows at airports, I think of this pic.

Re:Others should face liability also

[bani]

Blaming the victim is so 1980s. It didnt work do blame rape victims and it wont work to blame end users.

Re:Example?

[grub]

[retarded /. truncated at my 'less than' sign]
People do all sorts of dumb things when they're [less than] 18. It's unwise to run him in an adult court because of scheduling and birthday issues. (yeah, adults do stupid things, too but as a minor it's though that they don't know better)

Robbery

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of punishment would he have gotten if he had been convicted of shoplifting on several occasions? He wrote several worms, each causing some degree of economic damage, and he should have known after the first one got press coverage that it shouldn't be done.

What if he did damage to someone's car so they couldn't use it (like slashing the tires)? What would the penalty be then?

I see it as he got off too lightly. Just because someone is 17, doesn't mean they don't know something is wrong and shouldn't be punished for it. Maybe some people should get him drunk and get him into a fight so he violates his probation, and doesn't have his record cleared.

He essentially got what he wanted - fame and no penalty.

Re:Robbery

[prefec2]

If he steals in a shop, as kid, he might got way with even less. If he wrecked a car, it would be just the same. At least he or his parent would have to pay to the damage. Well this applies only if he gets cought for the first time. German penalties are not that hard compared to the US versions. And we have really low crime rates over here.

Re:Robbery

[Cigarra]

Just because someone is 17, doesn't mean they don't know something is wrong and shouldn't be punished for it.

Erm... excuse me, but that's actually what it means to be under aged to the eyes of the justice.
I mean, he can tell good from bad and deserves to be punished (as he was). BUT it is asumed that at that age he doesn't really know the scope, extent and/or full consequences of his actions.
Justice, you know, is not meant to be the same as revenge or retaliation.

propose this penalty!

[pikine]

Thou shalt clean up worms, spyware, adware, and public toilets for the rest of your life!

Re:propose this penalty!

[g0bshiTe]

LMFAO, he should.
Though he will probably go on to write his first bio at 21, on his ordeal with the authorities after he released the code.
It will be picked up and made into a mini series where he will be portrayed as fighting for some type of political change.
At 25 he will go on to create his own Security firm.
One year after he starts his firm it makes the Fortune 500 top 5.

The Guido Proposition

[1967mustangman]

My brother in-law has what he calls the Guido proposition. That is that everyone in the country should pitch in 1 or two dollars a year to a fund which hires big guys named Guido and Luigi to fly around the world find these virus writers and spammers and well..............I think you get the picture. That would be so much better than jail time.

Re:The Guido Proposition

[Reverend528]

now I have an image stuck in my head of Guido van Rossum breaking someone's legs with a baseball bat.

Re:The Guido Proposition

[bwalling]

Screw Guido and Luigi, if you send me spam, I get to punch you in the nose. Seems like it would be a pretty good deterrent as well. Send 1 million emails and risk one million people punching you in the nose.

Another option would be the scarlett letter. Just make them tattoo the word spammer on their forehead.

Re:The Guido Proposition

[hyfe]

That is that everyone in the country should pitch in 1 or two dollars a year to a fund which hires big guys named Guido and Luigi to fly around the world find these virus writers and spammers and well..............I think you get the picture. That would be so much better than jail time.

And teach them Python?

Re:The Guido Proposition

[alfrin]

sure beats the hell out of putting our taxes towards prisons anyway, could goto something usefull, like free porn

Re:seriously!

[KD5YPT]

I miss Asian society, where it's okay for parents to beat kids as punishment. As long as there's no permanent damage (some country in Asia) or the kids don't end up dead (all country).

Re:Inevitable...

[TripMaster Monkey]

That's OK...your previous post applies to just about any discusion on Slashdot... ^_^

3 day trial?

[mindaktiviti]

That was a quick trial. Took only 3 days. It was just a confession and the fact that he was a minor was probably a no brainer for the judge and lawyers.

Kids do screw up, even ones as old as him, so I think the jail term is okay. However his employment makes it seem only that much more sensational to be a virus writer, as opposed to something that should be completely frowned upon and not rewarded in any shape or form.

Re:3 day trial?

[ShoobieRat]

I'm not sure you can really classify this thing as a "kids do screw up" thing. I mean, kids doing stupid stuff is like backing up over the mailbox or not wearing a helmet and stuff like that. Spending time developing a virus and working with the collected data, is less of an "opps, didn't know that would happen" and more of a "where were his parents and doesn't this kid know right from wrong?" thing.

It's too bad they didn't decide to do something more, like put it on his permanent record or something.

Re:Organized Crime Gangs.

[KD5YPT]

What they meant were the group of organized crime gangs that bascially ask protection fees from web oriented company by threatening them with DDoS attacks by zombie machines.

Creating vs. releasing

[quentin_quayle]

I second the question - is it illegal in Germany to write a worm or virus? Or only to release it?

Same questions regarding the USA ... ?

In all the news reports and discussion of these cases, references to "writing" or "creating", and to releasing or spreading, are used interchangeably. It seems to me there is a big ethical difference and there ought to be a legal difference as well.

Consider the following series - at what point does the actor go wrong (a) ethically (b) legally?

1. Plan a worm, virus or other exploit
2. Write code
3. Compile and test it locally
4. Explain to others how to write one
5. Share source with friends or colleagues (a) for research/ POC? (b) for them to use any way they want? (c) with malicious intent?
6. Make binary available passively, others have to request it, as on a web page, with notice (not forced on anyone)
7. Someone other than the creator spreads it "in the wild"
8. Creator knowingly infects others

Re:Creating vs. releasing

[dknj]

simple, just release your virus with an EULA. if you use it, the creator assumes no responsibility. if the creator goes to jail, it means EULA's fail and thus hell will freeze over, the earth will start spinning backwards, and mass anarchy will take over the world.

Re:Creating vs. releasing

[prefec2]

If I am not completely mistaken, it is illegal to release it(8) or give it to someone else who does that and you know about that. If you don't know it is grossly negligent(7). The ethically aspect would be 7 and 8 but 6 is close enough so 6 is not ok too. 1,2,3,4,5a are definitly ok.

Re:Creating vs. releasing

[BlogPope]

just release your virus with an EULA

That would make it a Trojan Horse, which is different from a virus, which is different from a worm. Only a Trojan requires human interaction to spread.

EULA click licenses only protect you if the terms are reasonable and expected. While installing spyware can be seen as reasonable (Nothing is free), quite a bit else isn't, such as agreeing to donate your kidneys to the author.

Re:Creating vs. releasing

[dknj]

good point!

Re:Creating vs. releasing

[Splab]

If its illegal to spread it you have to arrest every halfbrained windows user, just because you are ignorant of a crime being committet doesnt excempt you.

Re:Creating vs. releasing

[majest!k]

Everything up to and including 5a is legal.

(research "white hat security" for more info)

Re:Creating vs. releasing

[crashelite]

now then who is going to go after Microsoft for having the security hole there in the 1st place? last time i checked people get paid a lotta money to check and test windows. when a 17 year old can find ways to easily cripple a system then some one really isn't doing their job... heck hire the kid pay him $250,000 a year to find the damn security risks... or even better $10,000 for every one he finds (and there are a lot!)

Re:Creating vs. releasing

[mconeone]

Anyone could have found that way to cripple the system... Microsoft had just told the world about it a few weeks before! All it really took was reading up on the problem they fixed as re-creating it.

Re:Creating vs. releasing

[HeliumHigh]

"simple, just release your virus with an EULA. if you use it, the creator assumes no responsibility. if the creator goes to jail, it means EULA's fail and thus hell will freeze over, the earth will start spinning backwards, and mass anarchy will take over the world." I thought that Microsoft would then... ohh, nevermind. I just read the part about hell freezing over.

Re:Skin of hisTESTICLES

[lbmouse]

That is the sysadmins around here would like to string him up by.

Re:Example?

[PHP Addict]

Most hackers/crackers/ass-clowns-like-this posess a maturity level (though in this case not the moral sense) well beyond their age in years. He knew what he was doing, well knew the consequences, and should have been tried as an adult.

Re:seriously!

[imsabbel]

>>Of course kids that does violent crimes should be tried as adult (maybe not sent to an adult prison).

Please explain!
I mean, you say everybody who does a "bad" crime is automatically adult?

Re:i'm not going to ask about the previous respons

[RAMMS EIN]

Man, that was full of shit.

``if you're going to write a worm, at least don't get caught.''

Yeah. If you're going to roll dice, at least don't roll an even number.

``the problem with people writing viruses is that it will come back to them. it may take some time, but it will be traced, the source will be found.''

What? Are you saying now you can't avoid rolling an even number?

``now he has this on his record, and emplyment, especially in the tech field, is now going to be extremly difficult.''

That must be why he got offered a job for his efforts.

``teenagers writing up worms and viruses need to realize that though it does take skill, there are consequences.''

Take skill? Well, yeah. But it's not like they have to go and figure out an exploit themselves. You can just go to Bugtraq, find a vulnerability that is currently unpatched and has an exploit available, tack on some goodies of your own, and you're all set.

"with great power comes great responsibility"

Which is a message that organizations should heed. With the reports of several organizations' systems getting taken down because of the worm, and the previous worm, and the one before that, and the one after it, and all the others...it all screams to me: "Why can't they hire competent computer staff that keep the computers secure?" If you have to run Windows, at least firewall it - I've seen people run unpatched XP boxen (as in, none of the service packs applied) without any problems, just because they weren't reachable from the net and didn't download any weird stuff. It's not like it's rocket science.

dumb?

[iamaustin]

"over and above the dumb teenagers." I didn't realize creating a virus which brought a good portion of the world to its knees classified one as dumb. He's a jackass, but a lot smarter than you, the reporter, are.

Re:Example?

[Trigun]

Most hackers/crackers/ass-clowns-like-this posess a maturity level (though in this case not the moral sense) well beyond their age in years.

As noted by the pr3v4l3nc3 0f 1337 sp34k, 4w3s0m3 k0d1ng style, and liberal use of the word fag. They are only outmatched in their maturity by the aimbotting n00bs that keep appearing on Enemy Territory and Counterstrike.

I say try them as two adults, they're that mature!

Before you're 18

[Hachey]

I don't know about you guys, but I did some dumb things before I was 18. There are different punishments for minors for a reason, and saying "it was only a few days before he was 18" doesn't change the fact that he wasn't 18 when he wrote it. Bluring lines in the law makes a weak system.


(I'm an ESTJ, if you didn't already know)
--
Check out the Uncyclopedia.org :
The only wiki source for politically incorrect non-information about things like Kitten Huffing and Pong! the Movie !

Re:Before you're 18

[Bambi Dee]

As an INFP, I agree ;) (Granted, I've also not had virus issues for at least 15 years so I can't say I'm boiling over with rage here)

Re:Before you're 18

[Hachey]

If you've got a better way to make laws, I'd like to hear it. Will there be a money cap instead, where minors are tried as adults if it breaks XXXX amount of dollars? Then i'm sure you or your ilk will say the same thing about an amount just under the waterline. We both know turning 18 doesn't mean a maturity switch gets flipped, but justice is blind to these things. Heck, I know people who didn't get switched until their 30s, some who got in trouble all the same *after* their 18th.


--
Check out the Uncyclopedia.org :
The only wiki source for politically incorrect non-information about things like Kitten Huffing and Pong! the Movie !

Re:If I ran......

[botzi]

...a multinational company that was hit bad by this...

...I'd have cleaned up the whole fucking IT departement for being vulnerable to an exploit released 3 weeks before the actual worm made it to the net.

Re:Inevitable...

[Foolomon]

But you neglected to mention this.

Dumb or not ...

[bizitch]

I still say we string this little piggy up by his balls! - That little douchebag gave me headaches for
fucking weeks ...

Re:Dumb or not ...

[bizitch]

Yeah Yeah I know - it was my fault some little German fucker wrote this ...

Re:Dumb or not ...

[Paul Jakma]

I'd say that's your tough luck for:

a) running windows
b) not applying the patches which your vendor had already made available

Re:Dumb or not ...

[rbarreira]

I know it's hard, but that doesn't exempt people from patching their machines on time. Everyone has a bit of responsability...

Re:Dumb or not ...

[bizitch]

Anonymous COWARD ... nuff said

I'll agree when...

[absurdist]

... we also correspondingly lower the age of consent to, say, 12 or so. I think it's interesting that most of the people who scream about wanting to impose harsh penalties up to and including the death penalty on juveniles are also the first in line to want to murder pedophiles because "they're just kids, they can't give informed consent."

You can't have it both ways. Either they're considered responsible and mature at a younger age and granted all the rights, responsibilities, and privileges of adults, or they're immature kids and are treated accordingly.

Re:I'll agree when...

[chrisnewbie]

Yes you can have both! People should stop thinking in black and white.
Why give rights to a kid that you know is not good for him.
If i understand what your writing is that to try kids as adults we should also give them the same rights, like driving at 12, drinking, smoking and all that shit? That's rigid thinking!
There is place for shades of grey in the law.

Please mod down racist parent

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it funny that he uses traditional Italian names to perpetuate the sterotype that all organized crime "goons" are Italian?

Would it be funny if he talked about "Leroy" and "Tyrone" playing basketball? Or "Shlomo" and "Mordecai" working in a bank? Or "Sanjay" and "Srini" taking my IT job?

Re:Please mod down racist parent

[suitepotato]

Is it funny that he uses traditional Italian names to perpetuate the sterotype that all organized crime "goons" are Italian?

To those of us with Italian family members who try to live up to the stereotype, it is farking hilarious.

Lighten up. Humans have a peculiarity for going out of their way to live up to the stereotypes of their groups in that self-fulfilling prophecy way. And stereotypes come about because of small goofy differences that others notice about our group and we then often in subconscious spite end up redoubling our efforts to be exactly that.

My ethnicity is all over the map and I got some really embarassing fellow countrymen as it were. I laugh it all off because I don't knee-jerk assume that everyone is dumb enough to confuse stereotypes with the reality of individual people.

Civil Court

[Tante]

For an american company to pursue civil action, they would have to file a civil case in their local courts. The defendant must be served by the plaintiff's counsel who send the documents, along with a USM-94 form (from a US Marshal), to the designated central autohrity in the foreign country. Here is the procedue for the state of New York. All in all it is a process that must go throught the proper foreign diplomatic channels.

Any lawsuit would be a headache, because the crime was technically comitted in Germany (virus released), but the damamge was done here in the United States. Since he is still fairly young, his future wages could be garnished to repay the plantiff.

his fingers finged alright.

[Anonymous Coward]

sooo let me get this straight. a BORED teenager writes a DESTRUCTIVE piece of software, causes MILLIONS and MILLIONS in damage, and simply because of the semantics of AGE he gets a suspended sentence.
Moral of the story: we should all have written a terrible bit of code that caused damage when we were 17 because we would have been offered an excellent security/programming job after the dust settled. Meanwhile, scores of under-appreciated, hardworking, ETHICAL programmers go with no work or very low pay. Justice system? give me 5 minutes alone with "Sven Jaschan". grrrrrrrrr.

letting """kids""" off for this.
ridiculous.
remove his fingers.

Punishment Does Not Fit The Crime

[Evil W1zard]

The simple fact here is that the punishment he is receiving does not fit the crime in scale and it sends out a really bad message to others in his community that they have a Get Out of Jail Free Card if they are under 18... I'm sorry but teenagers today are in many cases much smarter than adults. If the excuse is whether they are mature enough to distinguish between right and wrong then I question that argument because I think people learn that at around age 10... and if they can't comprehend the difference by age 14 then I would guess there is an issue psychologically. This kid caused millions in damages and should face not only time in prison but also some hefty monetary fines as well.

Re:Punishment Does Not Fit The Crime

[DoofusOfDeath]

We don't have time for this conversation, but I feel obligated to make this point...

What do you mean by "right" and "wrong"?

Tons hinges on that, including whether or not its a good basis for partially determining punishment levels.

Re:Punishment Does Not Fit The Crime

[Evil W1zard]

I use right and wrong generically. At an early age you learn that it is wrong to kick your little sister in the head (although she may have deserved it!) As age progresses you start to associate right and wrong with legal and illegal (as well as with moral and immoral but I wont go that road for this discussion.) So if I am 15 years old and I don't know that it is wrong/illegal to take a gun and shoot someone then there is something wrong with me psychologically. That is basically what I mean by right and wrong (and to your credit the question asked is an extremely good one and unfortunately I am giving a short generic answer)

Re:Punishment Does Not Fit The Crime

[doombob]

sorry but teenagers today are in many cases much smarter than adults

Intelligence is not the same things as mental maturity. Many people in this world never reach a mature thought process. This involves taking personal responsibility for your actions as well as the ability to think about the world outside of the (approximately) 12 inch x 8 inch block people call a head. Knowing the difference between right and wrong is not the same thing as thinking about how the consequences of your actions affect others. This kid has obviously not matured in his thought process.

Re:Punishment Does Not Fit The Crime

[Shawndeisi]

I have to respectfully disagree.

When you make it a habit to place a great permanent burden upon an individual in the form of punishment, bad things will happen. If you ruin someone's life and they feel trapped and unable to make an honest living, they will make a dishonest living.

If this kid got smacked with $5mil in fines or something similarly ridiculous that he couldn't get out of because of a judgement slip as a minor, he would likely turn to crime for life. This is why I hate how we treat felons in the states. Let's make it to where they can't get a real job, can't vote, and in general are sub-citizens for stupid shit. -That- won't make them commit more crime to survive... Work minimum wage forever, or sling drugs. Program for 60 hours a week to pay off a huge fine, or write malicious viruses and commit computer fraud and disappear. I wonder which pays better and offers more hope.

I know that I've made some really dumb mistakes as a minor, and if they still haunted me now in the form that you are advocating, I really doubt that I would be a productive member of society. I would be willing to wager that most of us could say the same.

Re:Punishment Does Not Fit The Crime

[Evil W1zard]

I'm sorry but Do the Crime Face the Time... I'm not saying the monetary penalty needs to be so large that they are basically put into indentured servitude for the rest of their life but I am not going to agree that our penalty system is all wrong because instead of punishing criminals we should do what... reward them? That sends out a great message to the rest of the criminals out there. How about not feeling sorry for a young adult who knowingly committed a crime that cost millions of dollars in losses... Punishment is there as a form of control that needs to be respected. Without punishment there are no consequences and if there are no consequences then you will have anarchy and as much as some people say Anarchy Rules.... it doesn't. Sorry the human species has not matured enough yet as a whole to even contemplate living in a Utopian society.

Re:Punishment Does Not Fit The Crime

[Shawndeisi]

You are absolutely correct. You do have to do your time if you do the crime. This is part of society. Without punishment, we would have no rules. But as such, we need to make sure that the punishment fits the crime.

I think that we as a society have a responsibility to our criminals. Not a responsibility to give them a pat on the back and a free ride, but a responsibility to make sure that as well as recieving their punishment they recieve a fair chance to honest life after their punishment.

If this kid screws up again, he will recieve harsher penalties. If he lives the honest life, he'll be able to provide for himself.

Re:Example?

[lucabrasi999]

[retarded /. truncated at my 'less than' sign] People do all sorts of dumb things when they're [less than] 18.
You know, if it wasn't for those HTML rules, the internet would be so cool....

Unfortunately

[thisisauniqueid]

Unfortunately it's the "organised crime gangs, which are increasingly emerging to make stacks of money through targeted attacks," that ARE the "dumb teenagers"...

Responsibility?

[jondt]

We're pleased that the author of the Sasser worm has admitted responsibility for the damage he caused and is being held accountable - Nancy Anderson, Microsoft

That's nice, but how about taking some responsibility yourself? Sure, virus writers are guilty, but the users and the vendors should also take some responsibility- that means Microsoft, Oracle, Redhat and anyone else that distributes software.

Re:Responsibility?

[SloJohn]

Responsibility is a multi-edged sword. No one really lives up to all their responsibilities, and if you find one, I show you a person with a lot to hide. Crazy drivers, virus creators, burglers, and government officials have to be taken into account as you go through your daily routine. thay aren't all trying to get you, but, they sure as hell don't care if you live or die, or your computer aquires malicious software.

shoplifting

[syrinx]

If a shop owner leaves the back door to his shop open all night, and a teenager breaks in and steals something... yes, the teenager is ultimately responsible, and should suffer some punishment, but the shop owner is a dumb shit too, and shouldn't get all bent out of shape about getting robbed.

Now replace "leaves the back door open" with "runs Windows on a server", etc.

I have no sympathy for people whining about eleventy billion dollars in damages. Especially since even if you feel you have to run Windows on your server, there was a damn patch for the vulnerability long before the worm came out.

Re:shoplifting

[xlr8ed]

Wow, that is a total bunch of BS..

Lets say that your mother/sister/aunt gets raped, should we just say that it was her fault due tot he fact that she didn't wear a chasity belt, they make them, and they prevent a penis from being inserted..and everyone knows that there are rapist out there...

She had warning and knew one way to prevent that type of attack...

German law

[phorm]

This is the German courts though. In the US they may have hung the kid out to dry for this as well (many US bsinesses were severely disrupted), and in Germany the penalties for stealing (or copying as the current publicity tends to center around) a DVD may be different.

Re:Example?

[Alex P Keaton in da]

TMM- I understand your point- however, the sasser is still out there. One must wonder, if you planted a bunch of mines a week before you turned 18, and they went off and injured people after your 18th birthday, was the crime commited as a youth?
This cost a lot of people a lot of money- and it seems that if you commit a crime that has worldwide effect, there should maybe be a larger penalty than a suspended sentence, whether as punishment or deterent.
I know that the laws can't keep up with the tech- on a mostly related note- there was an article in the Free Cleveland independent paper about a mafios guy who was commiting some type of fraud with airline baggage, i.e. insuring a bag for the max, never putting the bag on the plane, and then collecting the lost luggage ins. money. The gist of this, was the guy and his crew made hundreds of thousands of $$ (this was before 911 when airlines were looser) and he said that it was funny that you get caught with 75K$ worth of drugs and you get 25-life, but steal millions through fraud and you get maybe 6 mos max... (this obviously doesn't apply to high profile corporate crimes.)
Anyway, if this kid had done some kind of vandalism to physical structures causes the same monetary damage as his worm, he would be up s*&t creek with no paddle...

But his "prank"...

[oliverthered]

But his "prank" costs tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars.

and not one life.

The empire state building cost $40,948,900
and between 5 and hundreds of lives.

A bit of perspective always helps.

Re:But his "prank"...

[VHerring]

Yeah the Empire State Building was a great prank! /sarcasm

Really, what's the point of your link? Perspective is nice, but it's just a bit absurd to compare the construction of an office building to the destruction of thousands of personal and business computer files and the resulting loss of thousands of man-hours of productivity and millions of dollars.

These "dumb teenagers" are a resource

[suitepotato]

However, in the grand scheme of the virus world, it's the organised crime gangs, which are increasingly emerging to make stacks of money through targeted attacks, that should be dealt the harsh sentences - over and above the dumb teenagers.

If anything, intelligence and security agencies should be recruiting the "dumb teenagers" to act as a fifth column against the organized criminals and terrorists. These bastards will bomb, shoot, behead and otherwise kill people to further their aims, put themselves outside the law and outside of human civilized behavior and since politicians around the world show no inclination to think clearly (when do they ever?) I think we need covert ops against them in the electronic world as much as the external physical world.

As time goes by, and encryption gets better, more and better hackers are going to be needed to crack the systems of these outlaws, compromise their security any way they can, and subvert the situation to force these bastards into the light where non-covert law enforcement can catch them with enough evidence to put them away. Either that or we're going to have to rely on covert assassination to permanently remove them. The third way is to water down our civil liberties and human rights so overt law enforcement can have a better chance at catching them, ala the Patriot Act.

I know which one I prefer.

Re:These "dumb teenagers" are a resource

[Kamel Jockey]

If anything, intelligence and security agencies should be recruiting the "dumb teenagers" to act as a fifth column against the organized criminals and terrorists.

Aside from the fact that most teenagers lack the type of skills needed to stop terrorism and organized crime, this approach presents a bigger problem. If all these teenagers found out that there was a nice paycheck that went along with writing viruses and worms, then that demand alone will result in even more worms being written and/or script kiddied. You will for sure end up with a lot of "dumb teenagers," but you won't get anyone who can help you fight crime or terrorism.

Re:Dumb Kid, Sure (But Delta Sucks)

[Ranger]

...allegedly wrecked Delta Airlines' systems in Atlanta for seven hours, leading to the cancellation of 40 flights. Around the world,

How is this any different than a normal day on Delta Airlines? They probably figured they could blame their low industry rankings on Sasser.

Re:seriously!

[KamaDragon]

Are you suggesting more privileges for these kids, too? Is there a magic switch at 21 (or 18 or whatever age limit country X is imposing) that makes drinking alcohol suddenly okay? Is there a switch at 18 that makes choosing to smoke okay? How about driving? Does the brain turn on the "safe driver" option at 16?

The problem is that not everyone is going to mature at the same rate. We need to have some sort of standard to use as a baseline. Some people are responsible enough to smoke or drink or drive before others. Some will be before the legal limit, some not until after. But it is a good place to start. Ambiguity in law is not, in my opinion, overly healthy. If a child is of a responsible enough mindframe to be tried as a result, then prove it in the courts and try him as an adult. Simple as that.

The above was just an "in general" statement in regard to your post. As far as this particular kid goes, I think he was intelligent enough to know what he was doing. I don't think he deserves to get lynched for it, though. Intelligence and wisdom are not the same thing. Do you remember what it was like to be a kid? He shouldn't get sent to a federal pound me in the ass prison, but he should have gotten worse.

You Forget...

[gillbates]

That quite a few businesses cannot patch their systems because:

1. Testing the patches takes time, and:
2. Downtime is expensive, consequently, they may have to wait a month or more for a "downtime window" to install the patch, and
3. Sometimes patches break key software - in which case the business can't install them at all until they find a workaround.

I'm sick of this "blame the users" attitude - yes, it may be appropriate for a home user, but to a business which depends on its computers for day to day operations, patching is a big deal, and it can't always be done at the pace we'd like. It isn't the fault of the business that Microsoft didn't do it right the first time.

Re:You Forget...

[Gulthek]

So businesses should know not to use Microsoft in a server capacity. Especially when there are free alternatives!

Re:You Forget...

[karnal]

Spoken like someone who hasn't dealt with big-business politics before.

Re:You Forget...

[pete6677]

Patching vulnerable servers is part of the cost of doing business. Neglecting this important task will certainly have negative and preventable consequences, regardless of how good of a reason someone had to not patch them. To look at it another way, there are businesses in high-crime areas that may not be able to afford alarm systems, window bars, etc. What happens when they don't install these things? They get robbed. People simply MUST secure important computer systems rather than make excuses as to why they can't.

Re:You Forget...

[colinrichardday]

So they don't have redundant servers that can be taken down and patched/tested?

If a business cannot afford this, then it should take that into consideration when selecting an operating system.

Re:seriously!

[prefec2]

Well those switches are quite different in Gemrany. You are allowed to drink (beere and wine) with 16. And drive with 18. And the adult switch is off under 18 and on over 21 but in-between it is in super position. So it depends on your way of living. People who live at home, will still be treaten as a teenager.

Re:Example?

[pete6677]

In the United States, we take law and order seriously, and this kid would have been tried as an adult. Seriously, why do some people think someone should be able to do whatever they want without consequences just because they did it a few months before their 18th birthday? Suspended sentence, yea, that'll show him!

Re:Example?

[Winkhorst]

Good point. This is exactly why there is no statute of limitations on counterfeiting in the US. It's a crime that keeps on giving....

What Can I do?

[LinuXo]

Now, how can I get this kid to pay all the damage and wasted time I spent fixing my computers?

Re:What Can I do?

[proton]

Civil lawsuit? Altho you would actually have to prove hours spent recovering was due to the worm otherwise you would have to foot the bills for his legal costs (europe is sane in this regard).

if a few million people did this (and won) im sure he would have to declare personal bankrupcy and spend at least a few years on cost of living minimums no matter who hired him for his brainwork.

a crime is still a crime

[DirtyFly]

Im getting tired of listening to all that 'you dont patch is your fault' , 'you use microsoft is your fault the system is attacked'.
c'mon, if i leave my mobile in the car and it gets stolen, that is my fault ? NO IT IS NOT, i was dumb to leave it there because of the lack of security in the streets but I AM NOT the criminal neither is the car company that makes glasses that can be broken, either way you put it the burgler is the criminal here.
the kid is a criminal and should be dealt with acordingly, it is true that microsoft has bugs and flaws but the attack was mallicious, lets put it other therms, an old man walks with a cane and can not run , a juvenile kicks his ass and steals his wallet , is the old mans fault that he got burglered ? This is the same situation in many companies, they have a deficiency (unsecure OS) but they must live with it and must be left alone living with it.
Make no mistake the kid is no robin wood he did the worm just for spite , people should be hold accountable for what they do no matter what

Jorge Canelhas

http://www.retroreview.com/ - Retro Computing for all

Re:a crime is still a crime

[bani]

However the latest oh-so-fashionable fad is to blame the victim, at least for computer viruses. It's hip, it's trendy.

It's like in the 1980s it was fashionable to blame rape victims because they "were just asking for it". Eventually people realized how silly it was, but it took a couple years.

Re:a crime is still a crime

[arose]

When someone has been acting irresponsible, victim or not, blame-games often does little to prevent similar events in the future.

Re:a crime is still a crime

[Penguin Programmer]

Those with insecure operating systems aren't leaving their mobiles in their cars; what they're doing is leaving their mobiles in their cars with the car doors wide open and a billboard on top that says "MY DOORS ARE OPEN." If you had something stolen out of your car because you left the doors wide open and put up an inviting sign, it'd still be theft, but you sure wouldn't report it because you'd feel stupid.

This completely ignores the fact that writing a worm that attacks insecure computers isn't even like robbing an open car. It's more like climbing into the car and performing some petty vandalism (writing graffiti on the inside of the windshield, etc).

Re:a crime is still a crime

[fred fleenblat]

There is a legal theory that fits the situation: computer viruses could be declared a public nuisance (which is essentially what they are at this point) and then it IS the responsibility of the victim to protect himself.

Re:a crime is still a crime

[CherniyVolk]

Im getting tired of listening to all that 'you dont patch is your fault', 'you use microsoft is your fault the system is attacked'.

It is your fault. The whole reason ignorance is bliss is becuase ignorance is unawares of it's actions and consequences.

While, I'll agree that a car thief is indeed a car thief and should be punished... but, the moron who left his Porsche 911 running and door wide open for an hour in a parking lot should be punished equally for provoking a crime by presenting grand opportunity.

There is a reasonable expectation on your part to protect your own interests and property. Failure to do so defaults your intentions and makes way for free game for any who wishes to take advantage.

You know Microsoft is not secure. You know you live in the ghetto with gunshots ringing every night.

You still use Microsoft, aware that it's not secure. You still leave your front door wide open during the day.

You come home to find a unusually clean house. And, you KNEW it was going to happen and you want to point the finger at the criminals? Maybe, whoever lost a fight with Mike Tyson, in the ring, can bring charges against Mike Tyson for assault and battery. Despite all the awareness and expectation of the conscience decision the fighters had when entering the ring... according to your world, it makes sense as a criminal is a criminal and a victim, no matter how dumb, is still a victim.

Re:To sum up:

[MatD]

MS released a patch for this vulnerability a month or two before the worm was released. Don't blame MS for sys admins not patching their servers.

Re:Example?

[grub]

hehe, well I'd assume that the parser is smart enough to know "this isn't an allowed tag, ergo it's a &lt" but noooo..

Re:i'm not going to ask about the previous respons

[Dun Malg]

"Why can't they hire competent computer staff that keep the computers secure?"

To quote the director of the department where my girlfriend works, when notified that their competent and intelligent, one-and-only IT guy was leaving:

"Why do we even need to hire another IT guy? We don't have any computer problems."

Really good IT staff look like a bunch of slackers to middle management boneheads.

Not the point

[ravenspear]

So they released a patch.

I'm talking about taking responsibility for writing an OS that teenage hackers finds 5 new exploits in every week (without even having access to the source).

I'm talking about taking responsibility for writing an OS that lasts 12 minutes when plugged into the public internet before being owned.

Obviously writing bug free software is not possible. But at least attempting to do so, or better yet at least attempting to care about security at all definitely is.

Re:Not the point

[Kyosuke77]

I'm talking about taking responsibility for writing an OS that lasts 12 minutes when plugged into the public internet before being owned.

Plug anything old enough into the internet and it will be owned. If you were running Linux 2.0.29 or earlier you would be vulnerable to syn floods (just as a quick and well-known example).

The key to not having this happen is to do clean installs with only versions of Windows that have service pack 2 slipstreamed in. In fact if you buy a new copy of windows at a store, that is all you can get is ones with service pack 2 preinstalled.

The fact that a virgin install of Windows XP is borked in 12 minutes owes more to the fact that legions of virus writers and hackers have been working for three years to find ways to do it, and machines scanning for other exploitable machines are everpresent on the internet.

Re:Not the point

[KDR_11k]

12 minutes? You're very optimistic, last time I saw a Windows machine connect to the net unprotected it took five seconds at most.

Re:Not the point

[ravenspear]

That was the time quoted in a recent /. story, I didn't make it up.

Re:seriously!

[KamaDragon]

I guess that's kind of my point. There is no point at which someone suddenly matures. It is a gradual process, and it doesn't have anything to do with a government imposed age restriction. But that doesn't mean we don't need those restrictions. I don't agree with some of them, but I still think they are useful.

The best idea is just to evaluate situations like this on a case by case basis. People are arguing that he either is responsible enough because he was 17, or he wasn't responsible enough because he was 17, or whatever. It isn't about age, really.

I have a hard time believing that you're all too old to remember what it was like to be this young...

Why Bother

[Nom du Keyboard]

He received a 21 month suspended sentence, as he was tried as a minor.

Why did they even bother with this farce?

Not his fault at all.

[linzeal]

Why the fuck were any of these critical systems not behind a firewall AND why were they running windows?

Re:Not his fault at all.

[Andrewkov]

Probably they're not exposed to the Internet, most likely an employee plugged an infected laptop to their LAN.. Although you do have a point that critical servers should be firewalled from the general user population (with the exception of file and print servers, which shouldn't be mission critical)

Re:Not his fault at all.

[Jackmn]

If I break into a house without a lock, I am still guilty.

It is entirely his fault.

Re:Not his fault at all.

[Aroma 7herapy]

In most countries there is a difference between breaking and entering, and entering (for instance) through an open window.

Re:Not his fault at all.

[linzeal]

All businesses should have a DMZ for non-technical users and a seperate DMZ for research and development, imho. IDS in place on anything that can run it and tripwire on archived file servers. The problem is that they deploy this systems of out of box without any security knowledge and minimal technical knowledge. Airplane network security was laughable before 9/11 my friend went up to an open terminal at a gate one time and displayed his flight details in real time so he would not have to walk to the departure/arrival video wall. Nowadays he might get caught but the same security problems are there as always. It would be easy to hook up a black box to one of those airplane kiosks and obtain god knows what sort of access.

Re: Deterrent

[Soulfarmer]

I don't think at all, that one person should be punished harder just to teach OTHERS not to break the law.

It's like I would get one slap on the face for stealing apples, and since all the neighbourhood was watching the slapping, I get another slap to teach others a lesson... Punishment should NOT get bigger because of any other person MIGHT do the same.

Deterrent-punishments sucks.

Please get your terms straight.

[gosand]

Steal a Movie, get fined Thousands of dollars, go to Jail for dozens of years, never expect to use a computer or have any rights or freedoms again.

Actually, if you steal a movie, you'll probably get a slap on the wrist. (shoplifting)

Now if you are guilty of copyright infringement, then your head shall roll.

Re:seriously!

[chrisnewbie]

When i say not an adult prison but maybe a kid prison with same rules except kids! that's easy to figure out!
But not one of those detention centers, something that'll scare the shit out of them! and not just that slap on the wrist "oh mommy didnt love you enough so you killed someone, it's forgivable because your only seventeen but if you were 18 you would have been responsable"

The hole was fixed 4 months before

[rsilvergun]

and people just didn't patch. What everyone hates about this kid so much is that he caught the IT world with it's pants down. And BTW, why the heck was an _airline_ running non-mission critical software connected to a public network anyway. Boy, that makes me feal real safe.

There's intent in criminal law you know, it's not like this kid is a terrorist. You're just bitter because he made a fool of the IT industry, of which you are probably part.

Re:my experience with slash-dot

[aklix]

You must be dating guys who have numbers above a million. Any self respecting slashdotter would first focus on Open Office.

Re:Organized Crime Gangs.

[graphicsguy]

Does it really require a gang to do this in cyberspace?

Re:Example?

[colinrichardday]

Shouldn't that be

Let's not forget...

[Pac]

He was tried in a country where paranoia and "revenge justice" is quite out of the law books. Also, a country (an continent) where the media companies do not own half of the Legislative body. By the same vein, in China he would have probably get life in jail or death.

Nice way to keep the lawyers happy

[Pac]

Also, you'd be "in civil court suing the hell out of him right now" just to see your case fall apart the minute your CIO is called to testify that, yes, you have 3000 people working in your IT department and yes, none of them read the warnings or installed the patches Microsoft issued weeks early. "'Cos ya know, mein Judge, we don't deserve to be infected just because we're dumb".

Modern justice

[kencurry]

Means that blame is apportioned according to ability to pay.

The kid has nothing, therefore his portion of blame is trivial.

M$ has the cash, therefore they bear the burden of blame.

C'mon, this is law 101. WTF do you think that the lawyers and judges studied in law school? Follow the money.

Right....

[shmlco]

I totally agree. I'm positive the designers of Windows 3.1 and NT should have had the foresight to create in-depth security features and firewalls, just in case some teenager tried to crack their system with a stack-overflow virus off that DARPA internet thing...

i'll get shot for this

[St. Arbirix]

But who actually thinks the vulnerabilities that virus exploited would have been patched if he hadn't written Sasser? Microsoft even had a patch available and look what happened. Sasser caught most of the IT security industry with their pants down.

Re:i'll get shot for this

[sameyeam]

From what I've heard - this kid wasn't actually that good with code. The way I've heard the story told was that he picked up the exploit somewhere online and modified it into sasser - so, it was already out there...if he hadn't had done it, someone else probably would've sooner or later.

No, it's the government we can blame

[EvilStein]

Have you seen the mountains of paperwork that Sarbanes-Oxley has caused?
You have to test & validate & fully document (and prove your tests & results) in many cases.

Can't simply "apply the patch ASAP" these days.. even an emergency patch will take *hours* to install, test, and document BEFORE applying it to live financial systems.

Ugh. Piss on legislation.

child ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how many 17-year old "children" you have seen, but at that age, these "children" are capable of physically overpowering quite a few adults.

Letting punishment fit the crime

[Ungrounded Lightning]

This doofus caused damage whether he meant to profit monetarily from it. Many of these folks do expect to profit in name recognition alone, but again damages, not profit is what the courts should be worried about.

I can't agree.

When someone is writing viruses for the fun of it or the notoriety, running them through the legal mill and giving them a small punishment (the first time) is quite likely to convince them that repeating is a bad idea. (If it doesn't, hit them harder the SECOND time.)

This is the electronic equivalent of non-gang graffiti. Yes it's costly to clean it up and causes problems meanwhile. But you don't throw a kid in jail for fifty years and fine him ever cent he'll ever make the first time he's caught defacing something (even something very big - or caused a traffic accident by confusing a driver).

When someone is writing viruses as part of a lucrative business plan there are two factors arguing for harsher punishment:

1) He's got a financial incentive to continue, so it takes a large punishment to tilt the balance and convince him to find another line of work.

2) He's planned this in detail and taken into account the harm his business model will cause to the people whose resources he appropriates - and chosen to go ahead and line his own pockets at severe cost to others.

Premeditation, conversion, continuing criminal enterprise. That IS organized crime. And it's exactly the pernicious, industrial-scale, large-net-loss-for-citizens activity that the draconian penalties were intended to stop.

/. post police alert!

[coolGuyZak]

Yeah, cause look at all the hand gun crimes in England...
Moran.

-Rick

Gun crime is increasing (that's going up for the slower readers) in England since they banned them - morOn.

I think you may have inappropriately capitalized the letter O in moron. :)

Re:Example?

[PHP Addict]

The number of years since your birth is what should be irrelevant. What matters is your maturity level and how well you grasp the crux of what you did. If a child genius who's more mature than a 25 year old murders his parents to collect life insurance, should he be tried as an adult or a minor?

A Minor?

[tirefire]

He was tried as a MINOR? Christ, even 15-year-olds aren't tried as minors in Texas. Don't these crazy krauts know that you're supposed to hold the suspect until they're 18, then try them as an adult?

Re:Example?

[MysteriousPreacher]

Thing is, there were consequences. He was convicted and a sentence passed. Hopefully he won't be silly enough to re-offend.

What other consequences would you suggest?

Sasser ? I would not have noticed except for news

[mexibeetle]

I agree that we as network managers bare some of the responsibility, I find many networks don't keep up with patches, virus signatures or even prevent loading of software by the users. I think my network is pretty relaxed when it comes to letting users do there own thing but I never was affected by Sasser, my server are patched religiously and virus definition files watched carefully.

Bad analogy, mod down

[geekee]

" If a shop owner leaves the back door to his shop open all night, and a teenager breaks in and steals something... yes, the teenager is ultimately responsible, and should suffer some punishment, but the shop owner is a dumb shit too, and shouldn't get all bent out of shape about getting robbed.

Now replace "leaves the back door open" with "runs Windows on a server", etc.'

When your so-called secure linux server gets ransacked, you'll wake up and realize that Linux isn't secure either. No code written in c is secure. You can't prove Linux is secure, and I can show plenty of counter-examples which show it isn't at any given point in time.

Your analogy sucks because Windows does include security measures. A better analogy would be saying the person breaking in to the shop licked the lock. Certainly effort was used to bypass security measures in Windows, so your analogy of simply walking into an open door is misleading.

Teenagers

[Cronos1388]

Atleast his parents don't have to worry about the normal teenage nonsense like pre-marital sex.

Re:Example?

[Major Lame Brain]

There have been recent studies (my Google search isn't refined enough to turn one up though) that indicate that brain developement of long-term consequence recognition isn't complete until around age twenty-five.

I guess that's why we (U.S. centric comment) allow minors to drive, and eighteen-year-olds into the military and allow them to vote!

dumb kid??

[furtivefelon]

if he can write a virus overcoming multiple firewall, he is anything but dumb.. they should cultivate his intelligence and put it to good use :D

Mod down uninformed

[geekee]

"Steal a Movie, get fined Thousands of dollars, go to Jail for dozens of years, never expect to use a computer or have any rights or freedoms again.
"

Jail time only applies to releasing a not-yet-released movie onto the internet. This can result in a loss of millions in revenue for a major film. It doesn't apply to the average p2p sharer. If anything the sentence on the Sasar worm creator was extremely light, not what you're trying to argue, badly.

Aliens gonna be pissed

[Tablizer]

because that saucer worm ruined half their fleet. They are flush green with anger. (BTW, you mispelled "saucer". It does not have 2 esses.)

Re:Another example of the lax German judicial syst

[chawly]

I'm with you, stardust. A quick, fair, public trial and hang the fellow immediately afterwards. Forward chaps, against the common enemy - and a very common lot they are too. BUT COULD WE PLEASE STOP BEING SILLY ???

Jailtime is bad

[phorm]

Yes, jailtime is bad... but IMHO the time to nab these kids is before they become criminals, not by handing them deals as security advisors etc afterwards as it glorifies the crime itself. Punishments must be given, they should just be in line with the crime committed.

If you're worried about individuals with potential being swayed to the "dark side," then perhaps we should have more places for them to prove themselves or give them more opportunities beforehand... last time I checked ofr scholarships I would have done a whole lot better as a sports-team player or if I had parents in rotary than based on my intellectual merits.