Sharpei-writer arrested

Gigabyte, the Belgian girl (19) who wrote the first-ever C# virus, was arrested by Belgian authorities.

The Sharp virus (aka W32/Sharp-A and W32/Sharpei@mm) is a proof of concept virus, written in 2002 by Gigabyte aka MetaPhase. She always claimed she wrote the virus to "break the stereotype that virus-writers are always male".

Sophos info on Sharp

On Saturday, GigaByte was arrested. She claims she only wrote the virii and never spread them. In that case, Belgian authorities don't have a case, since writing virii is, as in the US, not illegal in Belgium. If found guilty, she faces 3 years in jail and a 100,000 Euro fine.

Source (in Dutch)

Her website (http://www.coderz.net/gigabyte/index.html) has been taken down, too.

Only about a year ago, she hooked up (irl) with Nostalg1c, who is a former member of the hacking group that defaced the White House website.

GigaByte was heard saying back then that "Belgian police could care less that two of the country's most notorious computer malcontents are romantically entwined. If they care at all, they'll see it as a positive thing. Because, after all, while we're busy with each other, we're usually away from the computer".

Heh.

Yeah, I had read it too in the newspaper, I've always wondered what geeky girls made thik :)

I knew it was just a matter of time before she was arrested for her virus writing. I wonder how Nostalg1c feels about this and what he is doing to help her.

Yep, read it in the newspaper too. It realy took the computer crime unit of our federal police a long time to find her, since she got lot's of publicity on the net and in the regional media...
lol, I remember a thread here at ao linking neg and me to gigabyte...

A virus in C#... interesting. Whatever happened to the assembler virii of yesteryear?

/me cries

Thanks for the article Neg. It was a good read.

Post removed. Accidentaly overlooked information in a previous post.

But still even though she didn't release the Virrii as she "claims". She should still got locked away and the key should get melted down and thrown into the Black Hole.
She deserves to get locked up, infact any person that writes virrii should be locked up or shot, they are menaces to the world and there only intent is to "DESTROY".

well that's my 2 cents.

cheers
..::front2back::..

I don't agree with you .:front2back:.

I met her in IRC a couple of times and she struck me as an intelligent person.

The reasons (as far as I know) for her writing stuff like that are:
1) Becouse she could
2) Educational interrest
3) Prove her worth as a female in a male dominated IT world

so front2back, you also think lockheed-martin, smith&wesson etc.. should be locked up for making products where the only intent is to destroy ???

Quote:

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But still even though she didn't release the Virrii as she "claims". She should still got locked away and the key should get melted down and thrown into the Black Hole.
She deserves to get locked up, infact any person that writes virrii should be locked up or shot, they are menaces to the world and there only intent is to "DESTROY".

---

We all have our own favorite hobby. I for example love computers, security is what turns me on the most. And I for one don't blame the virus writters for anything at all (others might disagree with this) however I blame the average user, who blindly belives s/he knows what their doing and then cries and screams blaming the virus writters for messing up their computer.
I'm not going to continue or else I'll be here all day telling you how I can't stand these computer illiterate people, who cry about every little thing that happens. They all complain but don't actually know what they complain about.

I read once (sometime ago already) that people capable of hacking are above average in inteligence and virus writters are included there.
If you think about it though viruses aren't that bad if you know how to handle them and where to go for tutorials on how to get rid of them.

there is nothing wrong with writing a proof of concept virus, as that helps to show how a software item needs to be patched. DELIBERATELY writing them and releasing them to make a name for yourself or to otherwise disrupt the operations of computers...thats a different animal ALL together.