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CNN Live Today

Suspect in Blaster Virus Identified

Aired August 29, 2003 - 11:36   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Federal agents arrested a teenager in Minnesota today and they plan to charge him with unleashing the Blaster computer worm. This 18-year-old is scheduled to appear before a federal magistrate this afternoon. Now this infection has been called one of the most damaging and widespread this year.
Our technological correspondent Daniel Sieberg joins is now to explain what this is all about and to give us the name. You have the name of this 18-year-old.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Leon, we have confirmed that his name is Jeffrey Lee Parsons. He's apparently from a suburb outside of Minneapolis called Hopkins. And these charges are going to be brought against him today, these federal officials say. He is responsible for a variant of the Blaster worm. We should point that out. They have not caught the original writer of this particular worm, but a writer of a variant, trying to make it worse and more destructive essentially.

HARRIS: How high-tech was this whole operation?

SIEBERG: That's a good question. That's part of any difficulty when you are tracking someone down on the Internet. A lot of these suspects go to great lengths to cover up their tracks. They either destroy evidence, they use a computer that can't be traced. They go to great lengths to try to cover up and use the Internet as an anonymous way to be online. So this is sort of part of the difficulties that investigators face. The reports that I have read say he was -- it was a witness who watched him write part of it that turned him in. So it's just like a lot of crimes, where somebody either rats somebody out or they make a mistake along the line, not necessarily a high-tech means, because that can be very difficult. And there are really a lot of worms out there, and very few writers of these worms have actually been caught, by comparison to the number of worms that are out there.

HARRIS: How can you watch somebody -- how do you know that somebody is writing a worm? That's a question from a non-techie here.

SIEBERG: That's a very good question, and potentially this person may have known this person, what they were up to, they may have had information, they may have been watching it. We really don't know at this point. We can't confirm how they would have known. Computer code could be tough to read, even at the best of times.

HARRIS: Well, what about the laws right now? it took them a while to track this guy down. But now that they do have him, do the laws adequately address this kind of problem?

SIEBERG: That's a very good question, and the laws have improved over time. That's the simple answer. There are laws that will apply in this case. I don't know what exactly they will be or what the charges will be. We haven't learned that yet. But because the Internet is worldwide, it's difficult to sort of pin it down to one particular area. This worm spread around the world. It effected many difficult businesses. He will likely face jail time. Potentially, he could face a civil lawsuit from some of the businesses that went off line or had trouble because of this particular work, and you know, he's going to will have a tough situation coming out of this. He's not getting off necessarily very easy.

A few years ago you might remember the writer of the Melissa virus. He has actually served some jail time. But even before that, "I Love You" virus, in the Philippines, there weren't laws in place to cover that. So there are a lot of gray area.

HARRIS: This could have been a lot worse, too. This is not a malicious worm.

SIEBERG: Exactly.

HARRIS: Daniel Sieberg, always, good to see you. Appreciate that.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired August 29, 2003 - 11:36   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Federal agents arrested a teenager in Minnesota today and they plan to charge him with unleashing the Blaster computer worm. This 18-year-old is scheduled to appear before a federal magistrate this afternoon. Now this infection has been called one of the most damaging and widespread this year.
Our technological correspondent Daniel Sieberg joins is now to explain what this is all about and to give us the name. You have the name of this 18-year-old.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Leon, we have confirmed that his name is Jeffrey Lee Parsons. He's apparently from a suburb outside of Minneapolis called Hopkins. And these charges are going to be brought against him today, these federal officials say. He is responsible for a variant of the Blaster worm. We should point that out. They have not caught the original writer of this particular worm, but a writer of a variant, trying to make it worse and more destructive essentially.

HARRIS: How high-tech was this whole operation?

SIEBERG: That's a good question. That's part of any difficulty when you are tracking someone down on the Internet. A lot of these suspects go to great lengths to cover up their tracks. They either destroy evidence, they use a computer that can't be traced. They go to great lengths to try to cover up and use the Internet as an anonymous way to be online. So this is sort of part of the difficulties that investigators face. The reports that I have read say he was -- it was a witness who watched him write part of it that turned him in. So it's just like a lot of crimes, where somebody either rats somebody out or they make a mistake along the line, not necessarily a high-tech means, because that can be very difficult. And there are really a lot of worms out there, and very few writers of these worms have actually been caught, by comparison to the number of worms that are out there.

HARRIS: How can you watch somebody -- how do you know that somebody is writing a worm? That's a question from a non-techie here.

SIEBERG: That's a very good question, and potentially this person may have known this person, what they were up to, they may have had information, they may have been watching it. We really don't know at this point. We can't confirm how they would have known. Computer code could be tough to read, even at the best of times.

HARRIS: Well, what about the laws right now? it took them a while to track this guy down. But now that they do have him, do the laws adequately address this kind of problem?

SIEBERG: That's a very good question, and the laws have improved over time. That's the simple answer. There are laws that will apply in this case. I don't know what exactly they will be or what the charges will be. We haven't learned that yet. But because the Internet is worldwide, it's difficult to sort of pin it down to one particular area. This worm spread around the world. It effected many difficult businesses. He will likely face jail time. Potentially, he could face a civil lawsuit from some of the businesses that went off line or had trouble because of this particular work, and you know, he's going to will have a tough situation coming out of this. He's not getting off necessarily very easy.

A few years ago you might remember the writer of the Melissa virus. He has actually served some jail time. But even before that, "I Love You" virus, in the Philippines, there weren't laws in place to cover that. So there are a lot of gray area.

HARRIS: This could have been a lot worse, too. This is not a malicious worm.

SIEBERG: Exactly.

HARRIS: Daniel Sieberg, always, good to see you. Appreciate that.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com