Did Cops Tab Wrong Suspects?

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,36203,00.html

by Lynn Burke
1:00 p.m. May. 8, 2000 PDT

By now, much of the world believes that a young couple in Manila is
responsible creating and distributing the Love Bug worm.

But at least two computer virus experts say the police grabbed the
wrong couple.

"I think they got the wrong folks," said Fredrik Bjorck, a computer
virus expert at the University of Stockholm.

Bjorck is standing by his Friday assertion that the true author of the
worm, which wiped out systems worldwide since its introduction
sometime Wednesday, is a 23-year-old German student named Michael who
may be living in Australia.

Another computer virus expert, James Atkinson of Granite Island Group
in Gloucester, Massachusetts, said he thinks there is a 23-year-old
Michael involved, too. But he believes Michael actually lives in a
Manila suburb near that of Reomel Ramones, the 27-year-old
opthamologist whose apartment was raided earlier Monday by local
police.

Ramones and his live-in, 23-year-old girlfriend, Irene de Guzman, are
the main suspects right now according to the Philippine National
Bureau of Investigation. De Guzman, a photographer, was expected to
turn herself in late Tuesday.

Atkinson said nothing about de Guzman suggests she could be
responsible. "The coding on her website, behavior, profile, graphics,
etc. simply doesn't fit the creator of the (ILOVEYOU) virus," he said.
Indeed, a home page allegedly operated by de Guzman calls into
question whether this is the profile of a woman who launched 1,000
computer crashes.

"It's really a nightmare for her and her boyfriend because they didn't
do anything," he said.

According to his research -- which took place over a four-hour period
late Sunday night -- there are several people who use the nickname
"Spyder."

"They just took the first Spyder on the list," he said.

The real Spyder and his girlfriend, he believes, are associated with a
hacking group called the Acolytes.

He said the FBI has not followed up on his leads. And in its rush to
grab somebody while there was still somebody to catch, he said they
grabbed the wrong people.

"The U.S. State Department and Department of Justice have been pushing
since Friday morning to nail somebody in the Manila area," he said.
"They want a warm body."

The true culprits, Atkinson says, are a 23-year-old named Michael and
his girlfriend Ajnabi, who is believed to be between 15-17 years old.
Anjabi, he said, is probably the person who actually wrote the virus.


*-------------------------------------------------*
"Communications without intelligence is noise;
Intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
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