Parents, talk to your kids about responsible Internet use. Find out what nicknames they use on the Internet. Use Google or Dogpile to search on them occasionally. If they have a website, take time to pay it a visit and see what sort of code they might be hosting there. Parson didn’t even attempt to hide the IRCbots and Trojans he kept on his personal website. In fact, he blatantly advertised them. Had his parents known their son's online nickname was Teekid, or that he had a website named t33kid.com, a quick search on either search engine would have revealed not only that his website was dedicated to hosting malicious files, but that he peddled them on the TrojanForge forums.
The sad thing is, in his offline world, Jeffrey Lee Parson seems like a very normal kid. And mistakes can and do happen to very normal kids. Perhaps he was just 'playing around' with the code and it's release was completely accidental. But even so, it infected thousands of victims. Or perhaps he made the edits and gave it to a friend who released it accidentally or otherwise. Still, it's a moot point. His creation was released and (it bears repeating) impacted thousands of users, causing loss and damage.
Jeffrey is now concerned that the government is trying to make an example of him. Whether that's true or just the claim of a scared kid trying to shirk responsibility for his actions remains to be seen. But you should make an example out of him. Make an example out of him to explain to your kids why playing, storing, or writing malicious code is just a plain bad idea. Make an example out of him so that you never have to endure what Jeffrey Lee Parson's parents are now enduring. As parents, it's a nightmare we never want to have to endure.
Besides talking to your kids about safe hex, prevent it from happening by installing password-protected antivirus software, configured to perform scheduled scans. Set the password so that the program cannot be accessed or modified by anyone but you. In other words, make sure your child does not have the password. Have it send email notifications of any viruses found to your email address so you're always aware of what's going on. Make sure it's configured to update the virus defintion files daily. Panda antivirus software provides all of these features.
Make sure your child understands what ethical computing is all about and what the consequences are for them and for others. Above all, teach them that there are real people on the other sides of those keyboards. And just as they should be concerned for their own safety, so should they be concerned for the safety of others. And no matter what they might say, playing with viruses isn’t kewl, nor is it educational, and it can lead to jail. Just ask David Smith.
