A nerd is nabbed:
A teenager has been questioned about altering the MSBlast worm to make it more devasting, and an arrest is expected.A teenager suspected of making the devastating MSBlast Internet worm even more potent is expected to be arrested, the Seattle Times has reported, citing two US Justice Department sources.
Shy bookworms can be prevented from pupating into antisocial computer terrorists. Every single one of us knows or knows of someone lost to the easy domination of coded thuggery. This, ladies and gentlemen, this is why high schools hold Sadie Hawkins dances.
UPDATE: Wired published an article in 1999 on the work of Canadian psychologist Marc Rogers, underscoring the perceived hacker bell curve: "The most visible breed of computer cracker is an obsessive middle-class white male, between 12 and 28 years old, with few social skills and a possible history of physical and sexual abuse." Security systems expert Peter Shipley disagreed but, far from a psychologist, offered only a few anecdotes of hackers he's known. A body builder? Drop-dead gorgeous woman? It sounds like Shipley's jonesing for a hacker-infested, utterly bleak, futuristic, plutarchical police state. An interesting debate, in any case.
