Jeffrey Lee Parsons, the teenager who unleased the MS Blaster worm variant “MS Blaster B” on the world, has plea bargained his way down to a relatively light eighteen months in jail, and ten months of community service.
Parsons was facing up to 3-10 years in prison (reports vary) for his hacking and re-releasing of the original MS Blaster worm, which impacted as many as 50,000 personal and business computers around the world.
Using the Internet monicker “teekids” , Parsons had downloaded the original MS Blaster code, reworked it, and then aimed it, ultimately, at the 50,000 computers. He also made it available for download on his website.
The judge in the case, Federal District Judge Marsha Pechman, said that one of the reasons that she let Parsons off so relatively lightly was due to a history of “parental neglect” – boo hoo hoo, cry Aunty a river. Do we have a generally accepeted definition of “parental neglect”? Aunty is certainly unaware of a legally-sanctioned definition of which a court could take judicial notice – anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Does this mean that if a parent leaves a teenager at home, playing on the computer, that whatever that teenager does during that time is excusable by “parental neglect”?
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Granted, Judge Pechman also cited “psychological problems”.
Uh…duh.
Parsons is also facing the possibility of having to pay as much as $600,000 in restitution to Microsoft, who spent approximately one million dollars both investigating Parsons’ activities, and helping customers whose computer systems were infected by MS-Blaster B. (Sounds like a rap group, doesn’t it?)
Anyone want to place bets on how he’ll raise that money?
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