Microsoft Gives Blaster Author a Break

[scuzzman]

Convicted teen will do community service, skip restitution.

Joris Evers, IDG News Service

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

The teen convicted of creating a variant of the Blaster worm won't have to pay Microsoft $497,546.55 in restitution. He can instead work it off by doing community service.

 

Microsoft has agreed to forgo the cash and convert the punishment into 225 hours of community service, according to a court document filed late yesterday. Jeffrey Lee Parson, a 19-year-old from Hopkins, Minnesota, will have to work 75 hours per year over a three-year period with less fortunate members of his community. The work cannot involve computers or the Internet, according to the document.

Parson last year pleaded guilty to creating the W32.Blaster-B worm, which infected tens of thousands of computers in 2003. In January, the teenager was sentenced to 18 months in prison followed by a three-year supervised release and 100 hours of community service. The parties later stipulated that Parson owed Microsoft nearly half a million dollars in restitution.

Original story here.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Reading this article made me wonder: why to Microsoft? Some googeling revealed that the Blaster-B worm he created launched an attack on Microsoft's website.

Full details here (caution: the article also contains a picture of the "kid").

[-pops-]

He could raise a few $ selling some of that fat to the soap works.

[scuzzman]

Yes, the Blaster-B worm performed a DDoS on the WindowsUpdate servers.

[andsome]

Don't I recognise that face??

[-pops-]

Don't I recognise that face??

There is a tendency with increasing obesity that bodily characteristics, especially facial features, become less and less pronounced. The ultimate, I suppose, is obesity of such a degree that the body is a sphere or amorphous mass with no features whatever. Of course, morbidity would have intervened before that stage could be reached.

[Besty]

He obviously didnt have a girlfriend. They should chase him up a hill poking his fat arse with a sharp stick see how fast he can run

[andsome]

He obviously didnt have a girlfriend.  They should chase him up a hill poking his fat arse with a sharp stick see how fast he can run

I'm willing to help with that.

[-pops-]

He obviously didnt have a girlfriend.  They should chase him up a hill poking his fat arse with a sharp stick see how fast he can run

Careful. He'd go off with a bang and you'd be in danger of either drowning in the fat rolling down the hill or slipping in it and breaking your leg.

[scuzzman]

What's with all the fat person bashing?

[CurlyWhirly]

I think that he got off very lightly as his only punishment was Community Service!

I wonder why Microsoft let him off so lightly?

It was a very generous thing to do but was there a hidden agenda?

[Andy-2004]

They're looking for sympathy...they will need all the help they can get to sell longhorn...

[CurlyWhirly]

They're looking for sympathy...they will need all the help they can get to sell longhorn...

Why is that then?

I am quite looking forward to it, and when it's finally released I will be upgrading to 64 bit computing along with PCI Express, SATA, etc.

[scuzzman]

The reason they're going to have a hell of a time selling it is this:

Windows XP is still relatively new... the technology is still working for a lot of people. Not to mention, most businesses are still running 2K and 2K3, and will be for probably the next 5 years. That knocks out the business market. Now, lets look at home users. The major PC manufacturers such as Dell and HP have been using XP since about 2001, and from the way they're talking, have no intention of changing that. This knocks out a majority of "Aunt Tilly" types, who go buy a Dell. Now, this leaves one more market, and a niche market at that -- the Technically Adept Windows user, and this is why they won't really be able to sell to this type:

Microsoft is completely redoing everything in this new OS. I don't know how long you've been using computers Curly, but you might remember the launch of Windows95 -- when they did the exact same thing. Windows95 introduced people to the GUI, and for that it was good. Apart from that though, it was the biggest piece of trash ever compiled. The program was horribly written, and about as stable as a mudpit. The technical users are going to see this complete rewrite, and be reminded of Win95, and thus are not going to buy this program until it's a couple of years old, just so it can mature into a decent OS -- like Win98.

[CurlyWhirly]

I don't know how long you've been using computers Curly, but you might remember the launch of Windows95 -- when they did the exact same thing. Windows95 introduced people to the GUI, and for that it was good. Apart from that though, it was the biggest piece of trash ever compiled. The program was horribly written, and about as stable as a mudpit.

I am quite new to computers having only had one for around 3 years, so I am pretty inexperienced really.

I haven't used Windows 95 or Windows 98, and the only other operating system I have used apart from the (excellent) Windows XP is Windows ME.

This I found to be a load of cr@p as it was continually 'freezing' and when you pressed the reboot button on your PC, every time you had a Scandisk screen which you had to sit through until ME had finished scanning the hard drive for errors :blink:

Going back to the main section of your post, I agree with you that Microsoft may well have a job getting people or businesses to buy Longhorn when it's finally released.

Only time will tell :unsure:

[scuzzman]

Windows Me was the bas***d child of Microsoft, which even they said was crap.

[-pops-]

I've been involved with computing right back to the 1960's with analogue machines (imagine that!).

You're dead right, scuzzman, with your views about Windows and its history but it has to be remembered as well that the Personal Computer was developed by IBM. Bill Gates was something of a latecomer on the scene taking the kudos for IBM's development work.

I always feel it was a pity that Steve Jobs was so narrow minded that he didn't allow any sort of opening up of his Apple (Mac) operating systems. That is in a differnet league altogether (it's stable for one thing) and if he had been a little more open minded, Steve Jobs could now be the world's richest man instead of the one we now have :)

[scuzzman]

I've been involved with computing right back to the 1960's with analogue machines (imagine that!).

You're dead right, scuzzman, with your views about Windows and its history but it has to be remembered as well that the Personal Computer was developed by IBM. Bill Gates was something of a latecomer on the scene taking the kudos for IBM's development work.

I always feel it was a pity that Steve Jobs was so narrow minded that he didn't allow any sort of opening up of his Apple (Mac) operating systems. That is in a differnet league altogether (it's stable for one thing) and if he had been a little more open minded, Steve Jobs could now be the world's richest man instead of the one we now have :)

Agreed in every aspect. I will say though, that Jobs has made great strides with OSX in terms of opening up -- considering almost the entire OS is open source under a BSD license. The only thing proprietary now is the hardware, and for that he must be commended.

[andsome]

I will be sticking with XP for as long as possible.

[-pops-]

What's with all the fat person bashing?

No one has responded to your question, scuzzman so, here goes:

pwillener gave a link to an article about this and offered a warning to those looking that it contained a picture of the offender. This warning, I assumed, was to give awareness to the gross obesity of the convicted person. Hence my comment.

My partner, before she retired, was a paediatrician and worked specifically with childhood obesity. She suggests that Jeffrey Lee Parsons is, in medical terms, morbidly obese. This means that his weight is such that it is most likely to be the cause of a severely curtailed lifespan. He is prone (even if he doesn't have them already) to diabetes, circulatory problems, skeletal disfigurement, heart disease, joint disease, skin disease, failure of joints (arthritis) and more. Some of this damage could be minimised by weight reduction but much of the damage has already been done and is irreversible with our present state of knowledge.

Obesity is caused by excessive food intake together with insufficient exercise - couch potato syndrome or, in the jargon of my partner's consultancy, McDonaldism or McDonald disease.

[scuzzman]

LOL - I was more referring to these:

He could raise a few $ selling some of that fat to the soap works.

He obviously didnt have a girlfriend. They should chase him up a hill poking his fat arse with a sharp stick see how fast he can run

And it was more a rhetorical question than anything -- thanks though :D *cheers*

[-pops-]

:)