Authorities Arrest Minnesota Teen In Internet Attack

thekansascitychannel.com ^

[chance33_98]

Authorities Arrest Minnesota Teen In Internet Attack

18-Year-Old Hacker Allegedly Behind Computer Mayhem

UPDATED: 11:49 a.m. EDT August 29, 2003

WASHINGTON -- A Minnesota teenager known online as "teekid" has been arrested for unleashing the "Blaster" infection on the Internet weeks ago.

A Minnesota court official has identified the 18-year-old as Jeffrey Parson, who is to make a court appearance Friday in St. Paul.

More details are expected to be disclosed later by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle, which has been leading the investigation.

A witness reportedly saw the teen testing the infection and called authorities.

Collectively, different versions of the worm, also called "LovSan," snarled corporate computer networks worldwide. It forced Maryland's motor vehicle agency to close for a day, and it frustrated home computer users.

A leading antivirus vendor -- Symantec -- says the worm and its variants are estimated to have infected more than 500,000 computers worldwide. Experts consider it one of the worst outbreaks this year.

[chance33_98]

Earlier stories said he was to be arrested, did not see this one posted stating he had been. If duplicate please delete.

[thegreatbeast]

I'm glad he's 18 so there is no moaning about sending him away for a long, long time.

[Graybeard58]

Yep, lets hope that he is a very old man if and when he gets out of prison. I suggest that he be charged with vandalism and receives a 30 day sentence....on each of 500,000 charges. If my math is right that would give him a little over 41,000 years to think about his crime and if my math is wrong someone for sure will correct me.

[elbucko]

I'm glad he's 18 so there is no moaning about sending him away for a long, long time.

Me too. If found guilty, he should get at least 10 to 15 years and no computer access in prison.

[afraidfortherepublic]

When are they going to get SobigF?

[Rabid Dog]

I think these viruses should be considered a terrorism attack - it costs business's millions dollar, affects our daily lives, etc.

[mad puppy]

Rather than waste a bunch of tax $$$'s keeping this punk in some posh 'jail' while he gets intouch with his anger, he should be made to work for those companies most damaged by his virus. He is probably a fairly bright kid, make him work off his tab, heavily supervised. Jail would just make him worse.

[CO_dreamer]

I agee with you.

Kids, and even young adults, do extremely stupid things sometimes. The kid was right. If some stupid 18 year old kid can outcode Microsoft, Microsoft is a significant part of the problem.

[Smoke6]

Beg to disagree respectfully. This kid should never see the inside of a jail. His sentence should be commuted to "government service" and he should be utilized in a hacker war against our enemies. I'm sure smarter people than I can see the wisdom of this. After all, doesn't the PRC and the PLA have hacker units trying to crack our codes and systems?

I'll bet the NSA is already moving to sequester this young man.

My $.02

smoke6

[ex-snook]

The should first arrest whoever is in charge of security at Microsoft. There will be more teenagers [or worse] looking for loopholes.

[Graybeard58]

"young adults, do extremely stupid things sometimes".

Yeah, I guess you are right. Kids will be kids.Let's just ground him for a month and be done with it.

I doubt that the kid is stupid, he may even be brilliant but what he has done (if he is guilty) is criminal and not just "stupid". if he did it, he should become very aware that, if one does the crime, one should be prepared to do the time.

[GovernmentShrinker]

I think there should be a special prison for high-end hackers and virus propagators. Let them build meaningful and productive lives -- under permanent supervision -- working to root out and destroy these modern plagues. If they misbehave, then dump them in a really nasty high security prison, with no computer access EVER. Having that lone alternative should be a pretty good motivator.

[John123]

His sentence should be commuted to "government service" and he should be utilized in a hacker war against our enemies. I'm sure smarter people than I can see the wisdom of this. After all, doesn't the PRC and the PLA have hacker units trying to crack our codes and systems?

The kid may not necessarily be smart. Just someone who took the time to write an code. It takes more of a diabolical mind rather than intelligence to create and spread viruses. He got caught because he "tested" the virus in front of a witness. Deserves to be in the Stupid Criminal Hall of Fame.

BTW, what is PRC and PLA?

[Brookhaven]

Rather than waste a bunch of tax $$$'s keeping this punk in some posh 'jail' while he gets intouch with his anger, he should be made to work for those companies most damaged by his virus. He is probably a fairly bright kid, make him work off his tab, heavily supervised. Jail would just make him worse.

That would probably be a reward for this kid.

You know the old kid's fantasy about catching a foul ball at the ball park and having the manager yell "sign that kid up." Same thing going on here. Virus creators want to demonstrate to the world what geniuses they are. "Signing him up" would just play out his fantasy, and encourage others to do the same thing.

[HAL9000]

According to the Google cache, it appears that teekid had his own web site and domain name (t33kid.com).

The cache shows a link to the "p2p.teekid.c" source code with the description "my little p2p worm spreads via kazaa and imesh, downloads a file from web. No biggie." It says his source code has been downloaded 254 times.

When the criminal openly touts his wares on a website - registered in his real name and address - the FBI can probably apprehend him.

[Brookhaven]

Beg to disagree respectfully. This kid should never see the inside of a jail. His sentence should be commuted to "government service" and he should be utilized in a hacker war against our enemies. I'm sure smarter people than I can see the wisdom of this. After all, doesn't the PRC and the PLA have hacker units trying to crack our codes and systems?

Hate to burst your bubble, but computer viruses are really not that complicated to create. In this case he didn't even create it, he just modified someone else's virus. This kid probably isn't part of the "best and the brightests", but instead one of the "foolish and self-centered".

[Brookhaven]

Virus writers are almost always let off with a slap on the wrist. They almost never do time. Until they start doing real time (at least 1 year), computer geeks will contiue to see it as a pretty low risk activity.

Jail time probably won't do this guy any good, but it will have a positive influence on the kids that are thinking of putting out a virus.

[Brookhaven]

Microsoft coders and security experts should have done a better job. What happened is their fault.

I think that falls into the category of blaming the victim. I'm no Microsoft fan, but the fault still lies with the person that commited the crime.

If you accidently left your backdoor unlocked when you went to work, would it be your fault the neighbor's kid went in your backdoor and robbed your house? No. The neighbor's kid should know to stay out of your house, locked door or not.

[CO_dreamer]

No, I'm not saying he shouldn't be punished legally somehow. What I'm saying is that he really didn't probably have any clue of the possible consequences of his actions.

IMO, more than anything, peoples write these viruses just to see if they can do it - a test of their abilities versus the all-powerful world at large. 99% of them probably fail and 99% of the kids probably EXPECT to fail.

You have to look at intent, IMO. Was this an Islamic terrorist attempting to bring the US computer network to it's knees, or just a kid seeing if he could make his friends computer send an email to everyone on their list?

How would you feel if it was your 18 year old kid? Does the kid really deserve 40 years in the big house?

I honestly don't know what an appropriate punishment would be, but I don't think jail is the answer. Jail costs citizens like $30K/year. Let this kid work and have his entire salary for 3 years go to a worthy cause. Or force him to fix peoples computers for free.