The mentality of hackers

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Eighteen-year-old Jeffrey Parson begins this week confined to his parents' home in Hopkins, prevented from any contact with computers. Parson was arrested Friday on charges he modified and spread a computer worm that slowed Internet traffic around the globe this summer. If Parson indeed did what is alleged, his work is unlikely to win him much respect inside or outside the computer hacker community. Far from a mastermind, experts say Parson is just an especially unlucky example that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Minnesota Public Radio's Jeff Horwich reports.

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Digitization made possible by the State of Minnesota Legacy Amendment’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, approved by voters in 2008.

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