Belgium police arrest female virus-writer

Belgian police arrested a 19-year-old female technology student who gained international notoriety for creating computer viruses, local news media reported Saturday. The woman, identified only by her nickname "Gigabyte," was charged with computer data sabotage under legislation introduced in 2000 to deal with cyber-crime, the daily La Libre Belgique reported. If convicted, she faces up to three years in prison and fines of up to euro100,000 (US$127,000).

Her youth and gender helped gain Gigabyte notoriety in the male-dominated world of computer hackers. In a 2002 interview carried on the Web site www.techtv.com, Gigabyte defended her work, saying she herself never spread the viruses she created and published on her Web site. "When people make guns, can you blame them when somebody else kills with them?" she was quoted asking. "I only write them. I don't release them." According to TechTV, Gigabyte began writing programs when she was just 6-years-old, created her first computer worm at 14 and before turning 18 became only the second person to write a virus in C-sharp, the language of Microsoft's .Net platform.