Sasser creator arrested

[Giaguara]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3695857.stm :

An 18-year-old German high school student has admitted creating the Sasser internet worm, police say.

The worm hit hundreds of thousands of computers last week, continually shutting down and rebooting them.

The teenager was arrested on Friday near the town of Rotenburg in northern Germany with the help of the FBI and Microsoft. He has now been released. [...]

"He made a confession and the experts at Microsoft have now confirmed that he was the cause of this worm," said police spokesman Frank Federau.

So, a few months of communal service, and then a work for M$ or the government?

 

[Zammy-Sam]

hehe, Rotenburg... so close. Now, this I call a grazing shot
Isn't it funny how such a "child" finds leaky parts in an os made by thousands of smart pipsqueaks?

 

[Giaguara]

Zammy you know where that area is? La Repubblica had one more bastard article, they even show the house he lives in .. I think that is a bit not fair - at least to his parents.

 

[cigar]

eeeeeeh.. the news is dated already cause he's been set free already by the Court today!

 

[Zammy-Sam]

Yeah, I know that place. As a matter of the fact I have been there few years ago. And I agree to you, Gia, showing the house ain't that fair. There are no parents that know what their hightech kids are doing and I think noone can expect from them to learn everything about comps and hacking just to be able to control their kids. And I don't think that guy was aware of the consequences. It was probably just fun for him..

 

[michaelsanford]

I'm going to merge Giaguara and Zammy-Sam's comments and say that that 18 year old is the pipsqueak writing Windows in the first place...

 

[Satcomer]

note: I am not defending a virus writer.

However, with all this media's coverage of him (showing his house, etc.) what ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? I know something like this must appear in out respective democracies? The media is starting to step on that notion and it burns me.

 

[Giaguara]

La Repubblica is the biggest newspaper in Italy, but it does things like that. They made a law a few years back protecting the minors though - you can't show a picture of a person under 18 in newspapers, if they do htey must blur the face.

But obviouslly, when a kid makes a crime and they put the picture of the house is not ok. Like the parents had no privacy.

 

[mdnky]

However, with all this media's coverage of him (showing his house, etc.) what ever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

He does live in Germany...

Not real sure, but the innocent until proven guilty thing is basically an American thing. I'm sure other countries have something similar, but I'm not sure to what extent.

Of course the media has NEVER understood the idea of that...<G>. And the kid did confess, so that's basically proved his guilt in their eyes.

 

[Satcomer]

La Repubblica is the biggest newspaper in Italy, but it does things like that. They made a law a few years back protecting the minors though - you can't show a picture of a person under 18 in newspapers, if they do htey must blur the face.

But obviouslly, when a kid makes a crime and they put the picture of the house is not ok. Like the parents had no privacy.

It makes me a little nervous to think what would happen in an apartment or condo complex and a hacker sneaks into someone's wireless and releases a virus. Then the cops would trace the IP down to the apartment/condo and naturally takes in the computer to look. Now the police take a week to look over the computer and find nothing and determine what the hacker did. The media in that time though rake the innocent over all the news. The media rarely clear the innocent and now those innocent people have a hard time for years with credit, jobs, schools, etc. To me that is not right.