More on the SoBig arrest

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2003 21:25:41 -0500
> From: Gene Spafford <spaf () cerias purdue edu>
> Subject: More on the SoBig arrest
> X-Sender: spaf () dorsai cerias purdue edu (Unverified)
> To: dave () farber net
>
> As I noted in my previous post, these people are hard to catch. Generally, 
> it requires someone being careless or bragging about it to identify 
> them.   It appears that Mr. Parson was careless, bragged on-line about 
> what he had done, and was actually quite dumb about what he did -- he had 
> material in the code that pointed directly to his own domain and WWW site!
>
> It is important to note that he is not alleged to have written the 
> original Blaster code.  Instead, he captured a copy and put in some of his 
> own modifications (including references to his own site).   We can 
> speculate as to why he did this....I think it not unreasonable to 
> speculate that he didn't realize that what he was doing was as wrong as it was.
>
> There is a real question about appropriate punishment.   He didn't write 
> the original exploit, nor did he cause the majority of the damage.  Yes, 
> he is guilty of "piling on" but any big penalty may simply be punishing 
> him for being clueless rather than for being destructive, and it isn't 
> clear that that is an appropriate reason for an increased sentence.
>
> The authorities have hinted that they have leads on the original 
> author.   Let us hope that is the case.  If they identify and catch that 
> author (or authors) then that is the time when we think about hard labor, 
> tar, and feathers. :-)
>
> In my previous note, I mentioned an essay on punishment of virus authors 
> that I couldn't find.  Well, I found it  -- http://www.rbs2.com/cvirus.htm.
>
> Cheers,
> --spaf

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