Arrest Made in Attacks on Computers:
By SARAH KERSHAW and LAURIE J. FLYNN - New York Times
Minnesota teenager who the authorities said created a virulent version of the Blaster computer worm was arrested yesterday morning by federal investigators who were tracking the origin of the worm that wreaked havoc on users of Microsoft Windows.
Federal law enforcement officials said that the teenager, Jeffrey Lee Parson, 18, of Hopkins, Minn., was acting alone when he copied the Blaster virus and wrote a variant known as Blaster.B. Mr. Parsons, who used the Internet name 'teekid,' was able to develop the B version by modifying codes of the original virus.
Federal authorities in Seattle have taken the lead in the investigation because Microsoft's headquarters are in nearby Redmond. They said Mr. Parson had no connection to those responsible for unleashing the original Blaster worm. It and its variants have affected more than 500,000 computers worldwide and cost North American companies $1.3 billion, according to computer security experts."
