05/26/95

Leaked from Crypt Newsletter 32


BRITISH MAN PLEADS GUILTY AS VIRUS WRITER


Finally, after months of delay and postponement, a 26 year old 
unemployed computer programmer, Chris Pile, pleaded guilty Friday
to eleven charges related to computer virus writing. The case at 
Plymouth Crown Court was the first of its kind in British legal 
history since passage of the Computer Misuse Act in 1990.

Pile, known as the Black Baron, pleaded guilty to hacking into 
business computers and planting the computer viruses known as 
SMEG/Pathogen and SMEG/Queeg. The case followed an investigation by 
fraud squad officers and experts from Scotland Yard. The eleven 
charges stemmed from a period between October 1993 and April 1994 
when the Black Baron obtained unauthorized access to computer programs 
and seeded them with viruses he'd written. He also pleaded guilty to 
one charge of inciting others to plant his viruses. Authorities state
that tracing the viruses and repairing damage caused by them cost "well 
in excess of half a million pounds." Pile was released on bail and the
trial adjourned for two months to allow the defence to prepare a 
pre-sentencing report.

Pile, a Devon man, wrote the SMEG viruses which quickly gained the 
attention of anti-virus developers worldwide in mid-1994. Due to 
publicity on the nets and in the computer underground, they were rapidly 
distributed around the Internet at approximated the same time Pile was 
arrested in connection with the charges on which he was tried. 

In 1993, another English virus writer, Stephen Kapps, was arrested
in connection with telephone fraud charges.  Kapps was known as the
"President of ARCV," or ARCV virus writing group which stood for
Association of Really Cruel Viruses. 

It is worth noting that in 1992 at the height of the Michelangelo
virus scare, few virus writers were easily identified.  This is no
longer the case. Due to the growth in computer networks and an 
increasing desire for underground network
celebrity, many of the most prominent virus writers in the world live 
in plain sight.

Australia's Clinton Haines, a student at the University 
of Queensland, is responsible for writing and putting the Dudley and 
NoFrills computer viruses into the wild in his country.  At various times 
since 1992, these viruses have infected SunCorp, a large Australian 
insurance firm; Australian Telecom and the Australian Taxation Office, 
which is similar to the IRS.  Haines has been interviewed at length by 
the Australian newsmedia.

In America, James Gentile, a teenager living in San Diego, has written
a number of viruses, all of which have emerged in the wild.  His Satan
Bug crashed US Secret Service networks in 1993.  Since then another of
his creations, known as Natas - Satan spelled backwards - has become
one of the most common computer viruses in North America. It has been 
reported as far south in the hemisphere as Argentina.

George
"The Virus Creation Labs" 
On the World Wide Web:
URL: http://www.soci.niu.edu:80/~crypt




  


