A Dutch appeals court has upheld the conviction and sentence of the
22-year-old man who created and unleashed the Anna Kournikova
e-mail worm last year.
Last year, Jan de Wit was sentenced to 150 hours of community
service for creating and sending out the e-mail worm. The appeals
court confirmed the sentence.
"I had hoped he would be found not guilty," said Theo Jansen, De
Wit's lawyer. "My client never intended to do any damage and no
damage was ever proven."
No damage claims were filed with the prosecutor's office, but the
US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) named 55 victims of the
Kournikova worm who suffered total damage of $166,827 (£107,340).
De Wit used a worm-making toolkit to create a worm that, under the
guise of an e-mail image of Russian tennis star Anna Kournikova,
spread like wildfire for two days in February 2001.
At his initial trial, De Wit stated that he did not know what he
was doing or what the consequences of posting the virus in an
Internet newsgroup could be. The judges did not believe him because
De Wit had a collection of about 7,200 computer viruses and worked
in a computer store.
De Wit was charged with spreading data via a computer network with
the intent to cause damage, a crime punishable by four years in
prison and a maximum fine of about €45,000 (£29,000). The
prosecutor, however, only asked the court for a sentence of 240
hours of community service.