Blaster suspect: ‘I’m not the only one’

The Minnesota teenager charged last week with releasing a variant of the Blaster worm has expressed surprise at his arrest and feels the US government is making an example of him, according to published reports.

Jeffrey Lee Parson, an 18-year-old high-school senior from Hopkins, Minnesota, was arrested early Friday on charges that he modified the original worm and re-released W32.Blaster.B, the first variation of several that have appeared since Blaster stormed the Internet 11 August.

In an off-camera interview with a producer of NBC's 'Today Show,' Parson said he still doesn't understand the charges against him. A full transcript of the interview is available on the MSNBC Web site.

'It came completely out of the blue that I was going to be arrested and charged with this offense,' said Parson in the interview. 'I was very surprised!'

Parson revealed that he had been questioned at least four times by authorities in the week leading up to his arrest and said he had been cooperating with their investigation. He also alleged that he wasn't read his rights until after those interviews with investigators.

Although he declined to go into details on whether he was innocent of the charges, or his part in writing and releasing the worm--he twice cited the fact that he doesn't yet have a lawyer--he denied that he was the only one responsible for the Blaster worm. The government has not accused him of creating the original Blaster.

'I am extremely concerned that the government is trying to make an example of me,' Parson said, according to the MSNBC transcript. 'I'm not the only one they need to get!'

W32.Blaster.B was first spotted on 13 August, two days after the original Blaster worm was detected. In court papers filed last week, the US government accused him of infecting at least 7,000 PCs worldwide with Blaster.B and causing 'significant damage, without authorisation, to Microsoft and other victim computers'.

Parson was released Friday and placed under house arrest; he is being monitored electronically. The FBI also seized all the computers in his home as part of the investigation and to prevent him from accessing the Internet.

On Friday, US Attorney John McKay said that Parson would be transferred to Seattle, where the investigation was organised, on or about 19 September.