http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9904/30/virus.computer.reut/index.html Taiwan virus suspect free on lack of victims April 30, 1999 Web posted at: 11:59 a.m. EDT (1559 GMT) TAIPEI, Taiwan (Reuters) -- Investigators said on Friday a Taiwan hacker admitted creating the Chernobyl virus that ravaged computers worldwide but said a lack of any local plaintiffs made it difficult to charge him. Police said Chen Ing-hau, a 24-year-old information engineer now serving mandatory military service, was questioned but not charged and the probe hinged on finding victims. "He's not a criminal here as long as no one registers a complaint," a Taipei police spokeswoman said. "All we know about problems with the virus is what we've seen in foreign news reports." Chen's rogue program hit hardest in countries with weak anti-virus defenses, gumming up hundreds of thousands of computers in South Korea, Turkey and China and thousands in India, Bangladesh, the Mideast and elsewhere. Police said no infections had been reported in Taiwan. Chen was questioned on suspicion of intentionally spreading a computer virus, a crime that carries a possible three-year prison term, and could be charged if victims come forth. A bashful Chen, in brief comments after he was released, expressed remorse and offered to help victims remove the virus from their computers. Authorities said Chen created the virus while studying at Tatung Institute of Technology, which had disciplined him a year ago after learning about the computer program, and did not pursue the matter further with authorities. Dubbed Chernobyl because it strikes on anniversaries of the April 26, 1986, Soviet nuclear disaster, the virus is known to experts as CIH -- which Chen acknowledged were his initials. Chernobyl and other CIH variants are among the most damaging viruses of recent years, less widespread than the e-mail replicator virus "Melissa" that swamped Internet servers around the world in April but far more vicious. Chernobyl/CIH employs a "spacefilling" technique that clogs up a computer's hard-disk storage system, crashing most systems and in many cases making restart impossible. Western virus experts first traced Chernobyl/CIH to Taiwan in June 1998 and said it had spread worldwide via the Internet and other networks within a week. Chernobyl's virulence and Taiwan's seemingly lenient handling of its author have kindled a debate about how the world should combat viruses. In the United States, where the Melissa virus's spewing of duplicate e-mail messages forced many firms to shut down their overtaxed computer networks, alleged author David Smith faces the possibility of 40 years in prison if convicted. ZDNet writer Robert Lemos, in an Internet dispatch, said Taiwan's Chen "was not prosecuted, but merely reprimanded and given a demerit" by his school. "The immense differences in punishment illustrate a large rift in perceptions over the seriousness of computer viruses," Lemos wrote, adding that while "Melissa was essentially benign, CIH was deadly to some computers." -o- Subscribe: mail majordomoat_private with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: Hacker News Network [www.hackernews.com]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Apr 13 2001 - 13:22:56 PDT