The teen mastermind behind a particularly damaging version of the Blaster Internet worm is going behind bars for 18 months. Jeffrey Lee Parson created and launched the bug that infected almost 50,000 computers and wreaked over $1 million in damage, most of it against Microsoft.
"I know I've made a huge mistake,” Parson told U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman at his January 28 sentencing, “and I hurt a lot of people and I feel terrible."
Prosecutors sought a stiffer penalty, 37 months, the maximum under a plea bargain they struck with the teen, but Pechman said she sentenced Parson at the low end of the 1.5-3 year sentence range in the deal because his maturity level was much younger than his age at the time he launched his Blaster.
Prosecutor Paul Luehr disagreed. "It's not uncommon for the public to say that the government should be lenient on someone so young," said Luehr, a former assistant U.S. Attorney who now manages the Minneapolis office of a private law firm.
"Obviously, the Blaster case itself was a very big deal, with computers going down all over the country,” he continued. “But in computer cases, often time the harm that is caused is not easily translated to financial terms. What was the value of the home user's photo album that was destroyed? What about the person waiting for an e-mail because their loved on was in the hospital? What is the financial value of that?"
Parson pleaded guilty last August to writing and releasing a version of Blaster whose biggest hit was over $622,000 worth of damage to Microsoft, even though Parson said he took aim at other large entities like the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America.
A sentencing memorandum written by prosecutors John McKay and Annette L. Hayes said Parson’s Blaster was no aberration but “just the latest in a string of escalating efforts by Parson to take over other people's computers, destroy their Web sites, and otherwise use his computer skills for his own selfish amusement, personal gain and/or to harm others."
The original Blaster hit millions of computers at home and on the job and cost victims their e-mail access as well as jamming government agencies, large banks, and large transportation systems, among other victims.
