Generally, the word "computer virus" sends shivers down the spine of any computer user. These small, but deadly programs, obviously designed with the most malicious intentions, have done a lot of damage over the past few years. However, it seems that every now and then, viruses become…vigilantes.
The story reported by the Reuters agency seems taken out of a bad comedy. A German child porn offender has turned himself in to the Police, after receiving an e-mail, that that listed the sender as Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), allegedly warning him that he is under investigation for visiting some illegal websites. However, no official authority had sent that e-mail. The author was none other than our “friendly” neighborhood friend, the Sober worm.
"It just goes to show that computer worms aren't always destructive," said a spokesman for police in the western city of Paderborn. "Here it helped us to uncover a crime which would otherwise probably have gone undetected."
Police charged the 20-year-old man after finding pornographic images of children on his home computer.
I think that this story proves that old proverb saying that "Every cloud has a silver lining", even if, in the case of worms and viruses, these silver linings are harder to find than a needle in a haystack...
The story reported by the Reuters agency seems taken out of a bad comedy. A German child porn offender has turned himself in to the Police, after receiving an e-mail, that that listed the sender as Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), allegedly warning him that he is under investigation for visiting some illegal websites. However, no official authority had sent that e-mail. The author was none other than our “friendly” neighborhood friend, the Sober worm.
"It just goes to show that computer worms aren't always destructive," said a spokesman for police in the western city of Paderborn. "Here it helped us to uncover a crime which would otherwise probably have gone undetected."
Police charged the 20-year-old man after finding pornographic images of children on his home computer.
I think that this story proves that old proverb saying that "Every cloud has a silver lining", even if, in the case of worms and viruses, these silver linings are harder to find than a needle in a haystack...
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