Update:

Teenage Blaster Worm Suspect Arrested (TechNews.com): Jeffrey Lee Parson, 18, of Hopkins, Minnesota, a middle- class suburb west of Minneapolis, was arrested on one count of intentionally causing or attempting to cause damage to a computer, according to a St. Paul district court clerk. Parson, who was described in the complaint as being 6-feet-4-inches tall and weighing 320 pounds, is scheduled to appear before a magistrate judge in St. Paul later on Friday. ... Parson appears to have links to the hacker alias "Teekid," which was the name of a file in a variant of Blaster, according to anti-virus vendor Symantec Corp. The Web site t33kid.com is registered to Parson at an address in Hopkins, Minnesota. A woman who answered the telephone at that house declined to comment and immediately hung up the telephone.

My remarks: First, the MS Blaster worm was not really damaging. It took less than a day before a cleanup program was available, and infection was avoidable through the MS security patch. And most importantly, it didn't do anything permanent to the systems it infected. It was really a minor nuisance. American businesses are claiming over $3 billion in damages. How the hell do they come up with those numbers? Absurd. Second, this kid is plainly a half-ass goof, not a major threat to society. He registered a web site identifying his less-than-legal hacker alias, publicly linking it to his real name and home address. These are the acts of a child. Third, his poor mom. How'd you like to be the parent of that kid? With the phone ringing off the hook with newspaper reporters asking questions about your demon-child who tried to destroy capitalism and the rule of law. I'd be pretty pissed off right now. Perhaps his mother is Australian, in which case she might say "That bloody kid just shits me to tears."