Judge takes pity on defendant in Internet worm case, blames parents

A federal judge took pity on a Minnesota teen Friday, sentencing him to just a year and a half in prison for unleashing a variant of the Blaster Internet worm that crippled nearly 50,000 computers.

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman said Jeffrey Lee Parson’s neglectful parents were to blame for the psychological troubles that led to his actions in the summer of 2003.

The Internet “has created a dark hole, a dungeon if you will, for people who have mental illnesses or people who are lonely,” Pechman said. “I didn’t see any parent standing there saying, ‘It’s not a healthy thing to lock yourself in a room and create your own reality.’”

Parson, 19, of Hopkins, Minn., pleaded guilty in August to one count of intentionally causing or attempting to cause damage to a protected computer. He admitted modifying the Blaster Internet worm and using it to launch a distributed denial-of-service attack against a Microsoft Windows update Web site as well as personal computers.

Versions of the Blaster worm, also known as the LovSan virus, crippled computer networks worldwide. The government estimates Parson’s version inundated more than 48,000 computers.
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Why do people bother making viruses? Its kind of funny how one can get arrested for doing somthing on a computer, in a sense – being clever!