According to media reports the author of the infamous Anna Kournikova worm has lost an appeal against his sentence for writing and distributing the virus in February 2001. The appeal took place at a court in Leeuwarden at the beginning of this week.
Jan de Wit, aka OnTheFly, launched his appeal after being sentenced to 150 hours of community service by a Dutch district court last September. It is reported that he contested the verdict due to fears that the conviction would damage his career.
The virus author admitted to writing the worm days after it first appeared, but has always maintained that he did not intend to cause any harm and had posted the virus to a newsgroup "without thinking".
Theo Jansen, de Wit's lawyer, expressed disappointment that the orginial decision is to be upheld. "I hoped that he would be acquitted. My client never had the intention to cause damage," Jansen is reported to have said.
The Anna Kournikova worm was first released in February 2001 and spread across the globe within a matter of hours. Anti-virus vendors have received hundreds of thousands of reports of the virus which is still causing problems today.
At the initial trial however the FBI were only able to present 55 cases of infection to the prosecution - amounting to just 166,827 dollars worth of damage. Had more victims come forward to admit infection, the likelihood is that de Wit's sentence would have been far more severe.
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