2000-06-29 04:05:00
Philippine investigators filed charges
Thursday against a computer programming
student suspected of releasing the
“ILOVEYOU” computer virus which
crippled email systems worldwide.
The charges against Onel de Guzman, 23,
had been delayed, officials said, while
lawyers for the National Bureau of
Investigation studied evidence and
applicable laws.
Until last week, when President Joseph
Estrada signed a new law pertaining to
electronic commerce and computer hacking,
the Philippines had no laws prohibiting
computer crimes.
However, the new law cannot be applied to
Guzman, officials said. Rather,
investigators with the National Bureau of
Investigation charged him with
“traditional” crimes such as
theft and violation of a law that
normally covers credit card fraud, NBI
Director Federico Opinion said.
Those charges carry a maximum of 20 years
in prison.
De Guzman, a student at the Philippines'
AMA Computer College, has acknowledged
that he may have released the virus by
accident. He has not said whether he was
the one who wrote the virus program.
He failed to graduate earlier this year
after AMA professors rejected his thesis
proposal for a program that steals
Internet passwords, a feature of the Love
Bug virus.
Unleashed on May 4, the virus rapidly
replicated itself in millions of email
accounts worldwide, crippling corporate
accounts in many countries. The damage
has been estimated at $10 billion.
“We are just trying to show
everybody that if you commit a crime in
this country, you have to be penalized,
you have to be prosecuted,” Opinion
said of the charges against de Guzman.
“In spite of the absence of laws
that would squarely fall on the subject
matter, we have existing traditional laws
that we can fall back on. |
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