Love Bug finds legal loophole

Onel and Irene de Guzman: Under investigation

The creators of the Love Bug may not be charged with any serious offence because of a gap in Philippine law, the justice department has revealed.

Investigators had wanted to charge the suspects with breaking into telecommunications systems, for which they could have received 20 year jail sentences.

But the justice department's top lawyer, Elmer Bautista, said the law only covers cases where fraud, and not destruction, was the object of the exercise.

He said the suspects could be charged only with "malicious mischief," which carries a maximum penalty of six years in prison.

Mr Buen has flatly denied any involvement in the virus

Mr Bautista said neither hacking nor the destruction of computer files were covered by the closest existing legislation, the 1998 Access Devices act, which deals with computer fraud.

"Nowhere in the law is computer hacking... and the effects thereof dealt with, either expressly or implicitly," Mr Bautista said in a document seen by the Associated Press news agency.

The law had already been used by investigators to obtain a search warrant which led to the recovery of a computer disk carrying a virus programme similar to the Love Bug.

It was found at the home of suspect Onel de Guzman, who has admitted that he may have accidentally released the virus.

The bug caused up to $10bn damage

Investigators have also established that the virus was uploaded onto the internet from a phone in the same flat.

Another suspect, Michael Buen, who has been accused of writing the virus, has denied any involvement.

Mr Buen graduated from college on 5 May - a day after the virus was released - unlike Mr de Guzman, who did not graduate because his thesis on a program to steal passwords was rejected by the college.

Law changes

GRAMMERSoft - an underground group of computer students to which Mr de Guzman belonged - is also under investigation.

Earlier this month, politicians said they would speed up the passage of a law penalising anyone who inflicts damage or hacks into electronic documents.

The virus was released 4 May and spread quickly around the world through e-mail addresses stored in the infected computers.

Keeping pace with the pace of change in computer technology has proved difficult for law-makers in many countries. Libel laws and hacking, as well as virus creating, are among the areas where problems have existed.