Teenager sent to jail for releasing Blaster worm variant
January 29th, 2005 Leave a comment Visited 118 times, 2 so far today
Teenager sent to jail for releasing Blaster worm variant
In what can be considered as a strong signal to the computer programmers who might get tempted into releasing a worm or a virus in the future, a federal judge sentenced a teenager to 18 months of prison. He was accused of releasing a variant of the atrocious Blaster worm that affected thousands of computers worldwide. The kid in question is 19 years old Jeffrey Lee Parson who appeared in a U.S. District Court in Seattle.
He was also told to perform community service and pay restitution to the victims. He would also be monitored for a couple of years by the state after he completes his sentence. The chief of the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s office in Seattle Jeff Sullivan told the media about this judgment: “If you use the Internet to harm people, it will be investigated and you will be punished”. A statement directed at virus code developers and crackers around the world.
The kid is however lucky to escape with the minimum punishment for the offence (the maximum is around 37 months imprisonment) considering the judge blamed his parents for neglectful upbringing and supervision. Jeffrey had already pleaded guilty of the offence, which led to mass scale computer infections in mid-2003. The worm utilized a flaw in Microsoft’s Operating Systems and caused considerable damage.
However, this might not be it as the courts have yet to decide on the amount of restitution, which Microsoft’s lawyer claims can run into millions of US dollars. The hearing would take place next month.
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January 29th, 2005 at 5:40 pm
I thought it was well written. Just looking for the facts. Why are folks so critical these days?
January 29th, 2005 at 5:49 pm
Don’t blame people; hold them accountable – in the most draconion of means possible. Hit violators where it hurts the most, not in jailtime but in community service time. Let’s start at a minimum 7 years or 14,000 hours for internet havoc, ID theft and other electronic crimes; in essence, make the penalty the same as armed robbery. Press your congressperson for accountability and support.
January 29th, 2005 at 7:43 pm
Mirososoft should have delivered a properly written operating systems in the first place. It has not. Shouldn’t it responsible for negligence?
Shouldn’t Microsoft compensate buyers for providing a defective product?
There is no justice when the law is written by legisrature depending Microsoft’s political monetary contribution for campaigning fund so to stay in office.
At the end MONEY talk louder than anything else.
SB
April 10th, 2005 at 4:44 pm
It ought to be Microsoft that is put on trial, and it’s products put under review. They have done little to patch the holes in Windows, and less to insure future holes are not left open. There policy is to write fancy, gimmicky, whirly-gig software that looks pretty but works poorly underneath. There is more to programming then glitz’n'glamour, namely SECURITY.
May 10th, 2006 at 4:08 am
All programs and OS’s have holes and problems, if you made a program that downloaded and opened pictures, and someone was stupid and downloaded a virus instead of a picture, who’s fault would it be? Not the person who made the program, who would be stupid for making a picture opening program in the first place :)