Posted on 11-5-2004

Sasser Boy Was Helping Mum
by Ben Aris, May 10, 2004, The Guardian

To those who knew him in the sleepy German village, he was a nice, shy
young fellow who spent too long on his computer in his bedroom at home.

For 18 million computer users, though, Sven Jaschan was not your average
introverted teenager, but the author of an internet virus called Sasser
that caused havoc from Britain to Australia and untold financial harm to
businesses in between.

Yesterday details began to emerge about the 18-year-old, who has been
arrested and released after police raided a house in Waffensen, between
Bremen and Hamburg, in Lower Saxony where he lives with his parents. Sven,
it seems, had not intended to cause misery for personal computer users.
According to reports, he may have been trying to help his mother,
Veronica, who owns a struggling computer business called PC Help.

Sven, so the story goes, claimed he was trying to write an anti-virus
programme that would automatically delete viruses such as Netsky from
computers. But he succumbed to peer pressure after his schoolmates
badgered him into writing a more malicious programme, said the Süddeutsche
Zeitung.

As soon as officers marched into his home Sven confessed he was the author
of the virus and was taken in for questioning. He told prosecutors that he
simply didn't think about the consequence of releasing his virus. This
from a student who was not even the brightest in class.

The German daily Bild quoted his computer teacher saying: "This nice,
introverted young man has done this? I can't believe it. Sven was a good
student. In informatics he finished the course with a 2 [a B grade] from
me."

He was seized after a tip-off from Microsoft last week.

With only 800 inhabitants in Waffensen, his home was easy for
investigators to find, ending a week-long hunt involving the FBI and
police forces around the world. Sven released the virus on to the internet
over the bank holiday weekend. It slipped into tens of thousands of
computers around the world, exploiting a loophole in Microsoft's operating
system. Unlike most viruses it doesn't rely on email attachments, but
installs itself on a computer's hard drive before sending itself on over
the internet.

It targets Microsoft Windows, especially Windows 2000, and household
computers are especially vulnerable. Experts say that the unfortunate can
be infected within 30 seconds of logging on to the internet.

Sven has just finished school and was intending to take his abitur
[A-levels] this summer before going to college where he hoped to study
informatics.

Under German law Sven would normally face up to five years in prison for
computer crimes. But as he celebrated his 18th birthday on April 29, it is
likely he will be tried as a juvenile and receive a much lighter
punishment.

Microsoft offered a bounty for information leading to the arrest of the
author of the Sasser virus. A Microsoft spokesman said: "There was
excellent cooperation between national and international police to find
the author of the virus that allowed him to be tracked down so quickly."

ED Note: If Sven could do this to Microsoft machines and he didn't even
intend to, what in heavens name could someone do to Microsoft software
operated computers who intended real harm? Answer... use Microsoft's
operating systems lack of security to bring down the Internet and the
`Global Economy' with it.

Good old Microsoft, thos soft headed, soft target, bottom line feeders.