Worm Suspect Arrested 
Wired News Report 

6:00 a.m. May. 8, 2000 PDT 
MANILA -- The ground-floor flat in a lower middle-class Manila neighborhood
where the "Love Bug" was said
to originate is an unlikely setting for the birth of the most virulent virus
ever to hit the world's computers. 

More than two dozen plainclothes officers from the Philippine National
Bureau of Investigation thoroughly
searched the dilapidated two-room flat Monday after receiving search
warrants, and arrested Reomel
Ramones, a 27-year-old man living there. 

They were also seeking his live-in 23-year-old girlfriend, Irene de Guzman,
who was at work at the time. The
couple were named in two separate search warrants for the same address. 

The woman being sought by Philippine authorities is expected to surrender on
Monday, officials said. 

"She will be coming," NBI chief Federico Opinion told reporters. He said she
had sent a message through legal
counsel that she would turn herself in either later Monday or on Tuesday. 

Scores of cameramen and reporters descended on the 40-year-old Bagong
Barangay housing project as news
spread that NBI officers were on the way there. After a 3-1/2 hour search,
NBI officers left with Ramones in
handcuffs. 

Gil Alnas, chairman of the local residents council, said the NBI officers
took away 17 items including a
telephone, telephone wiring, and computer magazines -- but no computer. 

"There was no computer in the house," Alnas told reporters. 

The search warrants, issued by a Manila judge, said there was reason to
believe that equipment in the house
-- including possibly computers and peripheral equipment, telephones, and
other hardware -- had been used
in violation of the Access Devices Regulation Act. 

Opinion said agents obtained the search warrants after three days of
fruitless efforts to seize evidence that
might point to the source of the virus which penetrated computers last week,
including those of the
Pentagon. 

It was quickly traced back to the Philippines and on Saturday the NBI began
surveillance of the premises from
where the virus was suspected to have been spread. 

But authorities were unable to obtain a search warrant until Monday because
under Filipino law, hacking is
not a crime. 

The Access Devices Act governs the use of codes, account numbers, and
passwords giving access to
different types of devices. The law provides for a maximum punishment of 20
years in jail for violators. 

Opinion said investigators had taken away some computer diskettes, but would
not comment further. He said
the seized material was being analyzed. 

Neighbors said the suspect couple was quiet, unassuming, and kept pretty
much to themselves. 

"She was nice," said one woman. "She would smile at me when passing, but I
hardly ever talked to her. I
didn't know the man either. But I don't think they were married." 

Another neighbor said de Guzman could often be seen in the area going down
to buy bread from a bakery on
the crowded main street. "She is a quiet, pretty woman," he said. 

Alnar, from the residents' council, said the flat was owned by de Guzman's
father, but that he had left Manila
some years ago. "Since then Irene has been living here with this man," he
said. 

The search and the arrest provided several hours of entertainment in the
neighborhood. Residents left their
homes to peer at the camera crews and the NBI officers, one of whom had an
ill-concealed revolver thrust
into his waistband. 

A group of teenage boys hurriedly abandoned their impromptu basketball game
to jeer at the officers. 


Related Wired Links: 

Worm Writer Identified? 
May. 5, 2000 

Mother's Day Worm Worse? 
May. 5, 2000 

Hey Spyder: Love You, Too 
May. 5, 2000 

Now That Was a Nasty Worm 
May. 4, 2000 



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