Our modern virus epidemic is thus born of a symbiotic relationship between the people smart enough to write a virus and the people dumb enough -- or malicious enough -- to spread it. Without these two groups of people, many viruses would never see the light of day. Script kiddies, for example, were responsible for some of the damage the Blaster worm caused. The original version of Blaster, which struck on Aug. 11, was clearly written by a skilled programmer (who is still unknown and at large). Three days later, a second version of Blaster circulated online, infecting an estimated 7,000 computers. This time the F.B.I. tracked the release to Jeffrey Lee Parson, an 18-year-old in Minnesota who had found, slightly altered and re-released the Blaster code, prosecutors claim. Parson may have been seeking notoriety, or he may have had no clue how much damage the worm could cause: he did nothing to hide his identity and even included a reference to his personal Web site in the code. (He was arrested and charged with intentionally causing damage to computers; when his trial begins, probably this spring, he faces up to 10 years in jail.) A few weeks later, a similar scene unfolded: another variant of Blaster was found in the wild. This time it was traced to a college student in Romania who had also left obvious clues to his identity in the code.
This development worries security experts, because it means that virus-writing is no longer exclusively a high-skill profession. By so freely sharing their work, the elite virus writers have made it easy for almost anyone to wreak havoc online. When the damage occurs, as it inevitably does, the original authors just shrug. We may have created the monster , they'll say, but we didn't set it loose . This dodge infuriates security professionals and the police, who say it is legally precise but morally corrupt. ''When they publish a virus online, they know someone's going to release it,'' says Eugene Spafford, a computer-science professor and security expert at Purdue University. Like a collection of young Dr. Frankensteins, the virus writers are increasingly creating forces they cannot control -- and for which they explicitly refuse to take responsibility.
"Where's the beer?'' Philetoaster wondered.
