Chinese Worm Creator Gets High-Paying Job Offer In Prison

martinsslaves writes "The recently imprisoned creator of China's worst computer virus ever (worm.whboy) has now been offered a job paying millions of yuan from his prison cell. He's actually been offered several, and one of the companies that has offered him the position of Technology Director was actually affected by his virus. The General Manager there now believes the virus writer may have just been 'led astray'. The media is reporting that author Li Jun originally wrote the virus due to frustrations over being jobless. 'So far, about 10 network companies across the country have offered jobs to Li, whom they regarded was a "precious genius," the report said citing Li's lawyer Wang Wanxiong. Li's cyber bug, which earned him about 145,000 yuan after selling it to other hackers from December 2006 to February this year, can prevent infected computers from operating anti-virus software and all programs using the "exe" suffix.'"

Oh god... I predict "resume spam" soon

[erroneus]

The more people like this get tremendous job offers, the worse I see things getting since they are ultimately being rewarded for their behavior.

To that end, instead of "stocks" in images and PDFs, I predict the next round will be resumes flying around!

Maybe not so new

[east coast]

From the blurb: Li's cyber bug, which earned him about 145,000 yuan after selling it to other hackers from December 2006 to February this year, can prevent infected computers from operating anti-virus software and all programs using the "exe" suffix.'

Navidad [symantec.com] did kind of the same thing but it seems to be a coding mistake more then the intended purpose of the virus.

Just for the record: I didn't read the article.

Re:This used to happen in the US

[Opportunist]

Not only in the US. There've been others who were found and offered the choice of jailtime or working for the company.

I wonder how many look back and wish they'd have taken jail...

The familiar meme evolves

[Dystopian Rebel]

1. Lose job.
2. In despair, write a Windows worm.
3. PROFIT.
4. Get caught, go to jail.
5. ???
6. PROFIT.

Re:Maybe not so new

[Anonymous Coward]

One guy wrote a virus that tricked users to think the virus was update to their windoze boxes.. After users installed the virus it wrote annoying messages to them all the time.

He was hired later as a WGA expert-developer.

Re:Pfft

[dcollins]

Dammit. Screwed again.
- Eugene Xavier Edwards

Re:Oh god... I predict "resume spam" soon

[jollyreaper]

The more people like this get tremendous job offers, the worse I see things getting since they are ultimately being rewarded for their behavior.

CEO's get rewarded for ruining companies, isn't it time the same courtesy is extended to the IT set?