Thursday, December 29, 2005

Unintended results

The police in Pandeborn, Germany, report that a 20-year old man there turned himself in for child pornography charges to the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA - this is the German Federal Bureau of Criminal Investigations).

Was it a belated sense of what he was doing was wrong?

Was it a result of an impassioned plea by a victim?

Was it an epiphany caused by a minister's sermon?

No, it was a computer virus "made him do it."

One of the constellation of viruses currently circulating is an e-mail virus called "Sober Y."

One of the German-language variants of this is an e-mail that states that "an initial investigation has been started" and that evidence on his hard drive was found, and that the e-mail was from the BKA.

Of course, this is patent nonsense, but it appears that this user is not very PC-savvy.

The e-mail so unnerved him that he turned himself in to police, who investigated, and found child porn on his PC, and also found evidence that he has sent some of the porn to others via e-mail.

An *actual* criminal proceeding has been opened.

{The path that led me to the blog entry that led me to the report itself is too convoluted to bother recounting.}

(in German) - POL-PB: ++ Schädlicher Computerwurm hilfreich - Sexualtäter stellte sich der Polizei -- http://www.presseportal.de/polizeipresse/p_story.htx?nr=764168&firmaid=55625&keygroup

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