Sasser author gets suspended term

[Gman]

VERDEN, Germany (AP) -- The teenager who created the Sasser worm that snarled tens of thousands of computers last year was convicted on charges including computer sabotage and given a suspended sentence, a court official said.

Sven Jaschan, 19, was found guilty Friday of computer sabotage and illegally altering data, said Katharina Kruetzfeld, a spokeswoman for the court in the northwestern town of Verden. He was given a suspended sentence of one year and nine months.

Jaschan also must perform 30 hours of community service at a hospital or home for the elderly, but will not have to pay court costs.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/07/08/sasser.suspended.ap/index.html?section=cnn_topstories

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This is one instance where I favor the death penalty by staking the kid down on a fire ant bed in South Texas this afternoon.

Not really, but it feels good to say that! The kid got off light.

[Deja Q]

1. When will Ken Lay get the death penalty?

His actions were far worse. (which is NOT to say the sasser scoundrel was in any way a nice person...)

When the whole system is out of balance, one side cannot be treated as above the law with the other being locked down in a police state.

[Kellanved]

2. well you have to see it in the perspective

The security hole was well documented; no un patched system had any business being on the internet.

The Sasser worm had no payload and did not spy on target systems; it showed the whole world the problem.


One might even argue that thanks to Sasser, the worm Agobot did not find any victims. Agobot came into the wild a few days after Sasser and was used the same vulnerability.
And, unlike Sasser, Agobot had been written to spy on its victims.

So: letting Sasser out into the wild was wrong and a crime. But personally I don't think the crime warrants stopping his education and thus turning him into a social case for life.

http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/default5.asp?VName=WORM_AGOBOT.GEN

[Gman]

4. When the threat and patch were first announced

I patched 4 of our 5 laptops and computers. The 5th one, my wife's laptop was with her. By the time she got back from her trip I forgot about it, or thought I'll get to it later. Then Sasser hit a few weeks later, she got on the Internet from another hotel room and zap. She gets home, and I spent about an hour cleaning it. I hate cleaning systems especially because of my stupidity.

[Sparkman]

3. I got the royal shaft in the '70's for possession, MF'ers got no priorteez