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 majordomo@repsec.com with "subscribe isn".
Today's ISN Sponsor: Hacker News Network [www.hackernews.com]
Received on Sat May 1 20:02:16 1999