Teen Arrested for Blaster.B Virus

[eyelikeart]

wow...

story here (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030829/ap_on_hi_te/internet_attack&cid=562&ncid=716)

[Mr. Anderson]

You have to wonder about that. If you were careful, getting caught wouldn't happen. Its more likely this kid *had* to show it to someone that he blew it.

And at 18 he's going to be screwed.....

D

[eyelikeart]

yeah...it'll depend on whether the judge got any the night before and if the kid has any prior record...

but still...this is serious stuff...

it seems internet crimes are becoming as heavily dealt with as any other...

[mactastic]

He's gonna wish he was still 17.

[idea_hamster]

Originally posted by eyelikeart
it seems internet crimes are becoming as heavily dealt with as any other...
I agree and this is going to be a watershed case that sets the tone for how this stuff is dealt with. True, other hackers have gotten prison time, but I think that this instance was more widely "felt" than any other.

I'm not sure how much of the FBI's impending arrest of this guy is attributable to luck and how much to good detective work. If it's mostly luck, which is to say, if in general we are highly unlikely to catch any specific worm writer, then his punishment might have to be pretty severe if it's going to act as an effective specific deterent.

[Ambrose Chapel]

i expect a harsh sentence if he's convicted. they might even try to classify it as some kind of terrorist act. and i'm sure they'll try him in a tough sentence-friendly court...texas, maybe? :D

[patrick0brien]

-All

What worries me is the terrorist or cybersoldier doing something like this - he won't brag.

[wdlove]

I find it amazing that an 18 year old would have 7 computers! He's going to have along time to think about his deed. His second lesson is that bragging never pays!

[mactastic]

I agree, this kid may face terror-related charges under the new Patriot Act. He's about as dumb as can be for bragging about it in an online chatroom.

[iJon]

im giving this a guy a hand. i love the virus he unleashed. it made many computers mess up and people never kept their computer up to date. then they brought it into the our store to have it fixed, thanks parson ;). ok with that aside, pretty cool how he made it, its just terrible all that knowledge had to go to something illegal, especially something illegal he couldnt profit from. he wont be touching a computer for a long time. personally i think microsoft should do him a favor and hire him and let him help them patch stuff, but im sure microsoft already knows most of the holes in their system.

iJon

[MrMacMan]

Guys... he made blaster 'b' he wasn't even the creator of it...

And he will probably still be charged with a million years in prison.

:(

[Sun Baked]

Jeffrey Lee Parson, 18, of Hopkins, Minnesota, a middle-class suburb west of Minneapolis, was arrested on one count of intentionally causing or attempting to cause damage to a computer, according to a St. Paul district court clerk.

Parson, who was described in the complaint as being 6-feet-4-inches tall and weighing 320 pounds, is scheduled to appear before a magistrate judge in St. Paul later on Friday. Ain't no "little kid."

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/art3/sobigboy.jpg

This is the face of a BIG boy.

[themadchemist]

not to worry! If it's not so serious that he is banned from operating a computer, then he's just guaranteed himself a job.

He just does his time, uses it to learn a few more languages and keep up with the new flaws of new version of Windows, and he'll be hired by the govt. or some private security firm when he gets out!

This could be his big break. ;)

[themadchemist]

Originally posted by Ambrose Chapel
i expect a harsh sentence if he's convicted. they might even try to classify it as some kind of terrorist act. and i'm sure they'll try him in a tough sentence-friendly court...texas, maybe? :D

they are trying him in seattle...I don't know much about Washington, but if it's socially similar to Oregon (my friend lives in Portland), then they should go easy on him--A tough sentence there would probably be considered a violation of civil liberties. :D

[Thom_Edwards]

it said in the article that the attack on windowsupdate.com was "easily blunted". i may be wrong, but iirc, microsoft had to shut down that site or relocate or something....

[rainman::|:|]

Parson apparently took few steps to disguise his identity. As a byproduct of each infection, every victim's computer sent signals back to the ``t33kid.com'' Web site that Parson had registered in his own name, listing his home address in Minnesota. The computer bug blamed on Parson also included an infecting file called ``teekids.exe'' that experts quickly associated with Parson's Web site: Hackers routinely substitute ``3'' for the letter ``e'' in their online aliases.

Do they now? that's fascinating, I'll alert the media!

pnw

[themadchemist]

Originally posted by paulwhannel
Do they now? that's fascinating, I'll alert the media!

pnw

Yeah, I think those "experts" should be given a big bonus for working through that clever conundrum all by themselves, don't you paul?

[rainman::|:|]

Originally posted by themadchemist
Yeah, I think those "experts" should be given a big bonus for working through that clever conundrum all by themselves, don't you paul?

lol i'm just wondering, if hackers routinely substitute 3 for E in their usernames, how does one identify a hacker with no E's in his name?

:)

if it took them this long to catch this little idiot, they'll never catch the ones that actually know how to hide their identity. Apparently a virus has to have a little "made with care by ..." tag to help these "experts" along.

There's no E in "paul", does that mean I would be successful?

pnw

[Kyle?]

Nope. You'd spell your name p4ul or something like that so those clever experts would get you anyhow.:D

[themadchemist]

Originally posted by paulwhannel
lol i'm just wondering, if hackers routinely substitute 3 for E in their usernames, how does one identify a hacker with no E's in his name?

:)

if it took them this long to catch this little idiot, they'll never catch the ones that actually know how to hide their identity. Apparently a virus has to have a little "made with care by ..." tag to help these "experts" along.

There's no E in "paul", does that mean I would be successful?

pnw

"Hackers also routinely substitute 1 for L in their usernames, as in the 1337, or leet, the name for this sort of letter substitution."

I guess you're out of luck...

edit: But what if your handle were in Sanskrit. Hackers also routinely substitute 0% for Om (written as it should be, in Sanskrit) in their handles?!!!

[XnavxeMiyyep]

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,60241,00.html

An 18 year old has been arrested for the Blaster.B Virus, a modification of the Blaster Virus, released 2 days later.

[Doctor Q]

Jeffrey Lee Parson, 18, of Hopkins, Minnesota. Author of the Blaster.B version. Shame shame. I'm glad he's not a minor, so he won't get off "free". Assuming he's guilty as charged.

[idea_hamster]

Oooo...I like my hacker name! I feel so diiiirty!
[/Stewie Griffin]

[MrMacMan]

Meh, it was that guys fault, if he atleast didn't have him *name* or his site's name within the code or file name, he is really not smart.

[Waluigi]

I know this kid is going to a long sentense, and you know what, it wont solve anything. Seriously, nothing good will come out of giving him doing jail time, nothing.

First off, this kid didn't really do anything but type a few lines of code into a program on a computer, and click the mouse a few times. The only reason he will go to jail is because he doesn't have the dream lawyors of OJ simpson, or Kenneth Lay. He is just an average kid.

Also, if the anti-trust lawsuit against microsoft had actually worked, far less people would have been affected, and thus this wouldn't have been such a national crisis. But unfortunately in this society the eliete protect the eliete, and microsoft still monoplosizes the market because the elected officials have been paid off NOT to flex their muscle and level the playing field in the computer market.

I got the virus on 2 of my PC's, and there was NO harm done, this virus was not intended to do any damage to the users. When I got it, I wasn't mad at the creator of the virus, but I was mad at Microsoft. Heck, I get more angry with spam then I did with this virus.

They should think of a creative sentense that lets the kid live a normal life, but he has to go to high schools and tell about the dangers of hacking and illegal internet stuff. Or better yet, why doesn't the government hire the most eliete hackers, and get them on our side, and utilize them, not fight them?

Hackers should be glorfied soldiers in the new battle taking place on the internet, because that is where the next terror attacks are coming from. Imagine a blackout coast to coast? Who would prevent it, the poliece, the fireman, microsoft, the government? Nope, only skilled hackers like this kid. This kid is a hero, not a villian. Forget Colombus day, there should be a Hacker's Appreciation day!

--Waluigi

[cyberddot]

Originally posted by Sun Baked
Ain't no "little kid."

This is the face of a BIG boy.

I don't think he'll be serving as anybody's toy during his stay in the big house.

Funny how such a "smart" kid didn't have the intelligence to keep his mouth shut. He should've stuck with the "stoic giant" profile.

dot

[MrMacMan]

...

He should have told the underground linux people, not just regular people...

I mean they would love him!

But They still haven't got the guy who *created* it.

This guy modifiys some little code and then gets slapped with the full penalty...

[Sun Baked]

I have not bothered to read the Smoking Gun -- Jeffrey Lee Parson's scanned complaint (http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/sobig1.html)

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by Sun Baked
I have not bothered to read the Smoking Gun -- Jeffrey Lee Parson's scanned complaint (http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/sobig1.html)

Nice, thanks for that!

Mostly says what a DoS and DDoS are and what 'drones' are and such.