Blaster writer won't have to pay restitution

Instead, 19-year-old Jeffrey Lee Parsons will now have to do an extra 225 hours of community service in addition to the 100 hours he received when he was sentenced (as reported in SC Magazine here).

The agreement was disclosed in court papers filed yesterday. U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman is still to sign the agreement. Parsons will perform 75 hours of community service for the next three years and it will not involve the internet or computers according to the agreement.

Parsons's Blaster variant infected more than 48,000 computers. It also unleashed a denial-of-service attack against Microsoft's web site. At the time, the judge who sentenced the teen reportedly said she was lenient on him because he was immature for his age when he released the worm.

But a poll a week after sentencing showed that many business PC users thought the sentence was too lenient (as reported in SC Magazine here).