Blaster Internet worm defendant, 19, pleads guilty

Please, please, give this biatch the maximum penalty that is allowed.

 

Cry me a river, nerdlinger.

 

He's a kid. I don't know about you, but I have a hard time condemning someone so young. Something like this could very well ruin the rest of his life all ready; a heavier sentence might mess him even more. I'm not saying he shouldn't be punished, but it's not like he killed someone. Hell, people who commit stock fraud (don't know the technical term) get off on house arrest (Mrs. Martha “It’s a good thing” Stewart), why shouldn't he?

He's under house arrest right now I guess. I think the judge should extend that period for 5-8 years. Prison is the one place a kid should never be.

 

Well I believe people who committ stock fraud should have the book thrown at them too. He was at least 18 when this happened. If he's intelligent enough to create a virus then he is intelligent enough to know the consequences. I'm only 2 years older than him, so I don't mind condemning him at his age.

I will feel a lot better knowing that this guy is in prison and that he has to face another kind of worm and a different kind of blast.

 

Like Oski said, if he is intelligent enough to create something like that, then he should be intelligent enough to know that his actions would not only cause harm and money to fix the damages, but that he would have to pay the piper. He was 18 (at least the article said that) when he created that worm. Maybe I am mistaken, but 18 is the minimum age that is considered to be an adult in this country. And I feel that once you become an adult, you have to be accountable for your actions. Using the excuse of youth does not fly when you become legally responsible for your actions. Sorry - but I have no sympathy for vermin like this, no matter what their age is.

 

That and, quite honestly, he's caused IT professionals to enhance their security strategies, which isn't a bad thing. If you're all for competition in the corporate environment, this runs right along that theory.

 

I need a good junior programmer, maybe I can get him in a work release deal.

DD

 

I still don't think jail is the answer. It won't help him or rehabilitate him. Most of the "monsters" in prison didn't go in that way; they came in as naive kids and left as monsters. If anything, I think a fine + house arrest are the way to go.

Yeah I know people think that stock fraud should be treated more severely, but until it does, I think we should treat this case in the same way. He did no worse/better than what these types of people did. The only difference is they got money out of what they did... he didn't.

I mean, have we learned nothing from the movie Hackers? Fight the Power!

 

He did less harm to more people than
an simple murdered

I think it is time we not only look at the
Extent of harm to a person
but
to the Extent of harm to the Extent of people

An Armed Robber holds up a liquor store
is
nowhere near as impactful on society
as a
Corp Exec who raids his companies retirement fund

Rocket River

 

Once this kid gets out of jail, some major corporation will hire him to be a security consultant and make him a very rich man. Hell, the government will probably try to recruit him.

 

The government probably has dibs.

 

This is what I can't stand. This kid causes people to waste millions of dollars and loads of time and in the end, you want him to only get a fine that he'll be able to pay off easily once he gets a lucrative job. Hell no, if he's gonna make out like a bandit, he needs to be treated like one first.



Prison isn't going to turn this guy into a monster, it's not like he's gonna go to some max security prison and learn from murderers. He's a nerd from suburbia who's life is so damn easy, he has to get his jollies screwing other people over. They'll send him to the white collar place, which will be too good for him.

 

Here's a nice artical about federal prisons. No way this kid goes to a nice "white collar prison," maybe if he stole a bunch of money, sure. It even says he's going to a state federal.

http://www.spr.org/en/sprnews/2004/0514.html

At the age of 17, Parsell was convicted of robbing a Photomat with a toy gun. His first day in prison, he was invited to a gathering of several inmates. There, they gave him a drink that was spiked with Thorazine (a strong depressant used in severe psychiatric cases) stolen from a mentally ill inmate. Once he was in a “grey out,” three of the men gang raped him.

I guess that's why they call them "Pound me in the !@# prisons."

Damn sounds like fun. This kid probably deserves more than a little house sitting and a small fine, but no one deserves this punishment. You say he's lucky to be a nerdy little kid going to prison; I always thought that was the last thing you would want to be...

Edit: Actually I think it's best if I just post the artical.
Cyd Zeigler Jr., Life Behind Bars: Peter Bacanovic’s Sentence Put the Spotlight on Gay Prisoners, New York Blade News, May 14, 2004.

We all have heard the remarks about sex between boys at private boarding schools: “I’m not gay, I just went to Exeter.”

While Martha Stewart’s stock broker and co-defendant had a more modest upbringing than that, Peter Bacanovic may soon witness another place where “situational homosexuality” runs rampant: the penal system.

Bacanovic was convicted on March 5 on four counts of obstructing justice and lying to investigators. While his sentencing is not until June 17, Bacanovic faces up to 20 years in Federal prison.

The life he faces in prison is a far cry from the Upper East Side. Prison life in this country is dominated by the denial of individual rights and unreported abuse. All too often, that abuse is sexual in nature.

“If you’re gay and you go in there, you have to hook up or lock up,” said T.J. Parsell, a former inmate who spent his late teens in a Michigan state prison.

He should know.

At the age of 17, Parsell was convicted of robbing a Photomat with a toy gun. His first day in prison, he was invited to a gathering of several inmates. There, they gave him a drink that was spiked with Thorazine (a strong depressant used in severe psychiatric cases) stolen from a mentally ill inmate. Once he was in a “grey out,” three of the men gang raped him.

The three men, and a fourth man who stopped the rape, then flipped a coin to see who got to take Parsell permanently.

Parsell said that the rape branded him, from his first day, as a “b****” in the entire jail system (word travels fast) and that, no matter what jail he ended up in, he was forced to quickly find a “man” to take care of him.

Survival of the fittest
“If your manhood is taken, it’s irrevocable,” he said.

Now living in New York and writing a book about his experiences, Parsell said he has spent a small fortune on therapists trying to deal with his imprisoned past 20 years ago.

Parsell’s story is all too common to Stanley Richards, deputy executive director of Fortune Society, an organization that has been working to improve prison conditions and protect the rights of prisoners in New York City since 1967.

Richards, who served four-and-a-half years in prison for robbery until 1991, agreed with Parsell that “sex in prison is a very real issue. Any time you put a bunch of men in an environment away from society, they’re going to do it.”

He said that the prison system, as presently designed, is a game of survival of the fittest.

“There’s a reality that folks have to face that prison is a cold place, it’s a hard place, it’s a pretty dangerous place. Prisons are places where people can get hurt,” Richards said.

Parsell said that he was helpless to defend himself against the forced sex in prison as he fit almost the entire checklist inmates use to decide if they’re going to turn a new prisoner into a “b****.”

“I was young and attractive, and they were going to turn me out one way or another,” he said. “Turning out” is the term that describes forcing a new inmate to take a submissive role in his relationship with another inmate.

According to Parsell, inmates target men who are young and attractive, who are not particularly street-smart and who are non-violent offenders. These are the men who are the least likely to put up a successful fight for dominance. (That doesn't sound like this kid at all...)

Men are also treated differently depending on their race.

“If a young black male goes in there, they’re often looked after, unless they’re gay. But a younger white guy is in trouble if he doesn’t make some friends quickly,” Parsell said. “Gays of any race are attacked almost immediately.”

That immediate attack forces gay men in prison to, as Parsell said, hook up or lock up: either find a man to have a sexual relationship with who will take care of you, or request solitary confinement. If you’re gay and you don’t do one of those two things, prison will likely be a long road of rapes and fights.

Some men are able to avoid this dilemma. They are mostly black, very masculine and have friends on the inside already.


Moves to stop prison rape
Peter Bacanovic is white, handsome, probably has no connections to a gang, and is convicted of a non-violent crime. And he is a well-known out-gay man.

Stephen Donaldson was incarcerated in Washington D.C. He was well known for being a gay advocate.

He had been the founder of the world’s first gay student organization (at Columbia University) and was the first sailor to fight discharge from the U.S. Navy for “homosexual behavior.” He had been arrested for trespassing at the White House during a peaceful Quaker protest against the bombing of Cambodia in 1973.

While in a cellblock with violent offenders, Donaldson was gang-raped approximately 60 times in a two-day period. Upon his release, he underwent rectal surgery at a Veteran’s Administration hospital.

Donaldson was the first person to speak out about rape in prison. His story sparked a national outcry from prisoner-rights advocates.

Donaldson’s experience led him to join Stop Prisoner Rape, an advocacy group that seeks to end sexual violence committed against men, women, and youth in all forms of detention. The group’s greatest victory in recent years was the passing of the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which President George Bush signed into law last year.

According to Stop Prisoner Rape, one in five inmates is sexually assaulted during his incarceration. That percentage more than doubles for gay inmates, 41 percent of whom report being sexually assaulted; that number, of course, is just the number that were willing to report an attack.

“Leaving a gay man in general population is a pretty dangerous thing to do,” said Lara Stemple, executive director at Stop Prisoner Rape.

She said that gay men are immediately forced into female roles, often taking on a woman’s name. For the “straight” perpetrators, their heterosexuality is intact, in the eyes of other inmates, if he can feminize another man.

Stemple said that some prisons — like the Los Angeles Men’s Central Jail — have separate wings for gay men because of how they are targeted for sexual abuse. At the Los Angeles jail, that wing is so desirable over the general population that many straight men claim to be gay so they can live in that wing.

While most of the stories that come into Stop Prisoner Rape are from state prisons, Stemple said that this is definitely happening in Federal prisons as well.

Then there is another issue — perhaps the most serious of all. As the Blade reported last week, prison officials put inmates in a lose-lose situation.

Because they don’t want to admit that prison rape occurs, they refuse to provide condoms. The rate of HIV infection among inmates is much higher than the general population (many are intravenous drug users). So, along with the humiliation, anyone who is incarcerated may also contract HIV. I remember a South Park episode where Cartman and the gang are playing some sorta board game. Kyle makes Cartman move back a few spaces and lose a turn. Cartman gets back at him by giving him the AID's card where he has to lose 100 turns and spend all his money on hospital bills. How is this any different?

 

I think the death penalty should be imposed. But I think that lethal injection is too good for nerd bastards like him. Hang him in public or let the people who lost vital files on their computer stone him in the town square. This guy cost people millions and he should pay the ultimate price.

 

He such a good boy.

 

I agree with that. Without people like him who are creating viruses, companies wouldn't make money selling anti virus softwares and it also keep the anti virus programmers on their toe.

 

Are you $eriou$???

 

That was kinda my first thought. I mean sure, it's a horrible thing he did, but he just singlehandedly created a lot more demand for my job. I can't complain too much.

 

This reminds me of an audio book I listened to, while passing by the drudgery that is work. It was called "A Prison Diary" and it was written by Jeffrey Archer, bestselling author and member of the British House of Lords. He was convicted of perjury and spent 28 days in a maximum security prision as he was waiting for transfer to a "white collar prison".

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312321864/102-3665912-5764144?v=glance

He was never in danger or anything, but the stories he heard from some of the inmates was pretty frightening. One gruesome thing that he heard was that it was well known that pedofiles and rapists will often target jobs in youth correctional facilities and that they will protect each other from discovery. One prisoner detailed, by far, the most horrific story of abuse I've ever heard about his experiences as a boy in the foster care and correctional programs.

I'm really ambivalent about our prison system. If it wasn't for the incidents of prison rape and abuse, I wouldn't have any problem with locking guys up and throwing away the key. But as is, I find it really hard to accept what goes on behind bars.