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MySpace Worm Creator Sentenced
Aidan Steele writes "Remember Samy? The creator of the infamous worm was unfortunate enough to be the the target in MySpace's latest litigation. As was said in the earlier story, the script was "written for fun" and caused no damage. The source and technical explanation for the "attack" was not even released until after MySpace had patched the vulnerability. Apparently this was enough to get the 20 year old (19 at the time of writing the worm) three years of probation, three months of community service, pay restitution to MySpace and is also banned from the Internet. Clearly, disclosing security vulnerabilities doesn't pay."
"The creator of the infamous worm was unfortunate enough to be the the target in MySpace's latest litigation."
AFAIK, a civil court (which is where MySpace would have to sue Samy) doesn't ban people from the internets or sentance them to community service. And TFA says he pleaded guilty in LA Superior Court... you don't plead guilty in civil court.
Here's a better article
Samy Kamkar (aka 'Samy is my Hero') plead guilty yesterday in Los Angeles Superior Court to a violation of Penal Code section 502(c)(8) as a felony and was placed on three years of formal probation, ordered to perform 90 days of community service, pay restitution to MySpace, and had computer restrictions placed on the manner and means he could use a computer - he can only use a computer and access the internet for work related reasons.
Undoubtedly, the prosecutor had MySpace's cooperation, but MySpace certainly didn't "target him" in court.
P.S. of the 3 articles on Google News submitter picked the least informative one.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
He now has a probation officer.
If Samy violates the terms of his probation, he can go to jail.
This is how they enforce the internets banhammer.
If Samy leaves the country, much less leaves the state, he has violated the terms of his probation and probably goes to jail. If Samy downloads movies on his cellphone, for non-work related reasons, he has violated the terms of his probation and could go to jail.
Being banned from the internet is no different than being banned from driving, or from going into [place of business] or going near schools, or from possessing [item X], etc.
Judges have this type of power and use it frequently.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
On one hand I feel really sorry for the guy. He didn't exactly get the whole book thrown at him, but being that young and knowing that something bad is going to happen to you for months and not being able to do anything except wait and see what the Judge says has got to be pure torture. On the other hand, using a flaw in somebody else's code to do something that benefits you (however hilarious and non physically damaging it is) is just ludicrous. If he stopped to think about it for just one minute he would have realized that he could never get away with it. A company that big would never sit back and let it slide when they got their butts handed to them by one guy working alone. That said, I hope he can appeal the Internet usage ban after his community service and restitution payback is finished. That's just inhumane punishment for a computer nerd like most of the people reading /. If he has no other recorded history of doing anything similar that the police can dig up, he should hopefully have a good chance at an appeal. One strike and you're out when the damage was not physical, trade secrets, or military secrets does not seem fair.
Best of luck to him!
It's insane that he is getting in this much trouble, myspace should instead be thanking him for making their site more secure.
His explanation of how he overcame a series of lame myspace.com attempts at security (http://fast.info/myspace/) should be mandatory reading for anyone writing a web application.
Yes he could have fought this further in court but when my $fighting > $settlement there's only one move to take. Plus if he went to jail then who would I go to Chipotles with?
-- botsex is {grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount}
Mitnick went through a lot of shit before he got to where he is now...
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Isn't a script kiddie someone who launches other peoples' exploits that are discoverable against targets?
I don't like what this guy did, but it was clever and certainly not someone a script kiddie can do. Here's his explanation of his worm and how it worked. Clearly it took a lot of original effort and thought to do it.
D