MANILA, May 6 (Reuters) - Philippine police said on Saturday they were awaiting a judge's warrant to arrest the hacker suspected of creating the "Love Bug" virus which has crippled computers worldwide. "They informed me that there was no judge available,although we are trying our best to contact one," National Bureau of Investigation Director Federico Opinion told
Reuters by telephone."Nothing will happen until tomorrow (Sunday) morning," Nelson Bartoleme, the head of the Bureau's anti-fraud and computer crimes division, told reporters. But he indicated Bureau agents had placed the suspect,believed to be a 23-year-old man living in a crowded Manila suburb, under watch. "Our operatives are out in the field for surveillance," he said. Police and Internet service providers (ISPs) earlier confirmed the suspect lived in the Manila suburb of Pandacan, but Bureau officials said they had not yet confronted him and would not say why.Some Bureau officials privately said the man had been identified, but would give no further details. Only one man is at the focus of their investigations, they said.
SWEDISH EXPERT POINTS TO GERMAN In Sweden, however, a computer expert said on Saturday he believed an 18-year-old German exchange student in Australia was responsible for the virus. The originator went under the name of "Michael" and had left traces on Internet user groups, according to Fredrik Bjorck, a Stockholm University researcher in data systems. "I have good reasons for saying I have probably found the originator of the Love Letter virus," Bjorck told the Swedish news agency TT.
The Washington Post newspaper said in its Saturday editions that the FBI had traced the virus to the Philippines through a fairly obvious electronic trail and was ready to seize computers used in the attack once it got court permission.
PRIOR HACKING BID SKY Internet said on Friday the virus was brought into its network by someone who had previously attempted to hack into its system. The virus was routed through a fake account at Impact, another ISP. SKY said it had given its audit trails of the virus to the NBI, the FBI and Interpol. Both Access Net and SKY said the information would be enough to track down the originator of the virus.
Experts said the virus was likely to engender more variants in the coming weeks. Some copycat variants already detected took the form of Mother's Day gift notices, jokes, and anti-virus warnings.
[This message has been edited by Rollingthunder (edited 06 May 2000).]