Supposedly (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=569&ncid=738&e=1&u=/nm/20040508/tc_nm/tech_internet_worm_microsoft_dc). What do you think should be the punishment for a dirty deed like that? Should we blame Microsoft for all the security holes, or lay the blame squarely down on worm creators?

I suppose he will get a low prison sentence and that will be the end of it. Imagine the human rights movements' reaction to putting him behind bars for a good part of his life. For "just" a virus.

A good idea might be to make him pay for the losses he's caused. Get hired for his superior skills and work hard. Or write a book. His problem.

And a life-time prohibition from installing anti-virus software :D

As for M$, someone should get them for selling unfinished crap. Disclaimers & non-liability clauses in license agreements don't fix anything.

To answer your question, Tal, when it all boils down, it's on Microsoft's head, IMO. I mean, million, maybe even billions of people and companies depend on bll Gates and his software and for him to not make it safe enough from such devastating viruses like Sassar is his fault.

But, then, that's the point of anarchy. Whenever someone builds something, there's some dumb anarchist trying to tear it down. And I know that in the States, there's some very stiff penalties for creating viruses and whatnot.

Ultimately, if that's the person that really did it and got caught, it's his fault for creating said virus and getting caught. But, if he didn't make the virus, someone else would've made it and we'd still be having the same discussion. I think that Microsoft should shoulder some of the responibility.

1) They have to prove how and why 'he is the one who did it' in laymans terms, unless the jury is made of IT-specialists. Of course, if they found the source-code, no problemo.

2) They also have to prove that there has been damage done. How many companies would want to stand out and sue him?

3) If it is really him, he did not only write a bad virus (...or so I heard...), but also failed to cover his tracks. Pretty louzy job. :shake:

I think, by any common sense, that he will make out of it either completely, or with a small fee + a while in jail.

Well, I think that he should pay for any goverment destruction he have made, but for the companies that lost money, they should sue M$.

Why should they sue M$ when the responsibility of security is in their own hands? :hmm: Like said: only a firewall would had been enough to stop it. Change to a better OS would had been enough to stop it. Recent bugs and virus-warnings have made it clear that change to a different OS a good option, so if companies still stay on the riskiest OS on the market, it's their own fault -not anyone elses. It's them, in the end, who decide where they spend their money. ;)

Microsoft will probably offer him a job after his punishment. Face it, the kid IS a genius. If you can't beat them, join them.

I have to disagree on staying with Windows being people's own fault. While it's the most risky system on the market, it's also the predominant one. People have to run software on something. Also, it costs quite a bit to buy another system instead of upgrading the existent one. Though sure, it would be a good spending.

Linux does not cost a penny, beside the regular maintenance costs. For example, the brand new, this year published Xandros Desktop v2.0 is almost the same as Windows, when it comes to interface. Updating/upgrading Windows is more cost-efficient in the long run? You wish; do you know how expensive it is to pay a yearly fee of over a 1000 machines, plus -once Longhorn comes out- upgrade costs? For a single university this can mean a cost spike of (1000 x 200€) 200.000€, plus servers (ATM, "Microsoft Windows 2003 Server Enterprise" costs 4701€ per server, update probably ~1000€ per server). Count in the regular Office package, and you have huge money-sucker in your hands.

That is why I, at least, will give a shot to Linux , OpenOffice, Mozilla, and WineX -combo once I get a bit bigger hard-disk. :spin:

Microsoft should not be held accountable for possible exploits in their operating system any more than a car manufacturer should be held responsible when one of the vehicles it produced is used to deliberately harm other motorists. They never said the operating system wouldn’t have holes, and it’s only through deliberate misuse / abuse that a problem is caused (by the virus / worm writers). These virus writers are placing the operating system in a position that it was never meant to handle.

To those of you claiming Linux is more secure... it depends how you measure it. If you want to grade security simply by the number of reported problems per year, yes, Microsoft is amongst, if not, the worst. However, that’s a poor way to measure security, because it doesn’t tell you anything about how long machines are vulnerable for. For this reason, security experts use a “days of vulnerability” measurement to rate the security of various operating systems. Basically, for every day that a critical vulnerability exists for which there is no patch, a “day of vulnerability” is recorded. Check out the stats for some of the flavours of Linux.

Copies of Linux don’t cost a penny, but migrating a large number of systems to Linux and retraining staff costs a fortune. While companies only have to make that change once (and probably enjoy better long-term ROI), lots of big companies are too concerned about the immediate cost of such a conversion, and so stick with Windows.

This is nuts. If the little puke is found guilty, punish him to the full extent of the law. To blame Microsoft is to say that YOU are to blame for not having a better burglar alarm on your house when you get robbed.

Liberalistic crap. We are all responsible for what we do...no one "made" the creep maliciously disrupt corporate computers for a few days.

Spank him...spank him hard...and the next lifeless geek living in his parents basement will think twice before they put their programming skills toward evil intent.

But then again, I want to castrate repeat offender rapists ;) .

And those of you who think that Linux is the answer...just wait until a measurable portion of computer users are on that format...right now it's too small to attack. If ever a large enough population moves to Linux, you will see just how vulnerable to a worm they are! You wanna doubt a guy called "Hacken" :D

I agree with Judas.

The main problem with the whole "we should just make everyone use Linux or Macs" is too many people are already using Windows, and it would be too much hassle and money to retrain staff to use different systems.

Ah well, if Windows never crashed, there would be a lot of people out of jobs at the computer Helpdesk and Troubleshooting. :)

Punish the dweeb who made the worm. If someone wants to hire him for his 'skills' then maybe no prison sentence but he has to pay off the damages cuased.

You can't expect Microsoft to find every single loophole in their own system, it's impossible since a loophole is something that the designers couldn't find!

Use just Linux or Mac's??!! I've been using Windows forever and have had zero OS problems except for the occasional Blaster or Sasser. Nothing's perfect.

Bwahahaha, Deutsche Wertarbeit! Both, for Police and that silly nerd. But then, not so uch for that silly nerd, as he's been caught.

I think that he will face some criminal sanctions, that may well include a little jail and socially useful work. But what'll really hurt him most will be the claims from companies suffering losses as a result of his creation.

He has acted irresponsible and has to face the consequences.

BUT, as Tal hinted on, he isn't the only one guilty, Microsoft's products have legendary security flaws.

@ Judas

In some parts, yes; nothing is perfect, but if it is MS that made the bad product, it's the buyer who suffers from it, thus he should consider others systems as a better option.

Copies of Linux don’t cost a penny, but migrating a large number of systems to Linux and retraining staff costs a fortune. Hopefully you read my last reply carefully? ;) Like I said; that new Linux OS could pass as a Windows, and that is all what a casual office worker needs. Also, that migration to another OS isn't as hard as you let to understand; most organisations use ghosting, and several Linux applications can open Windows formatted files. By choosing a correct time, when there aren't very many projects going on, these costs can be minimized to a further degree.

Check out the stats for some of the flavours of Linux. Good idea; where did you find those stats you used to support your statement? ;)

@Hacken Slash
Liberalistic crap.What the hell are you talking about? Did you get lost and find yourself in the wrong thread?

In microsofts defence, a cracker only have to find one security hole, microsoft has to find them all to stop them. Almost everyone use windows therefore more crackers is trying to spread their trojans etc using microsoft bound softare. they are certain maybe 80% of the computer users use or have these bound softwares installed.

Well, people who write viruses are using the operating systems for somethiing other than it was intended. It seems impossible to expect MS to predict every conceivable way for someone to misuse their product.

True, so diversity is the magic-word here. ;)