Melissa virus creator gets reduced prison sentence
Aberdeen man will
serve 20 months
in federal prison
FREEHOLD — An Aberdeen man who released the "Melissa" computer virus, wreaking havoc on communication systems worldwide, was sentenced to time in federal prison last week.
The virus in question, which reached computer networks as far away as China and Japan over a five-day period in spring 1999, was reportedly named after a topless dancer.
David L. Smith, 34, was sentenced to serve 20 months in federal prison by U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Greenaway in Newark Thursday. According to court officials, Smith must also pay a $5,000 fine, perform 100 hours of community service, and undergo three years of supervised release.
Smith appeared before state Superior Court Judge Lawrence M. Lawson, sitting in Freehold, on related charges Friday. Although Smith was sentenced to 10 years in state prison, Lawson ordered that Smith not serve any time after he completes his federal sentence as per a plea agreement Smith reached with authorities.
Smith pleaded guilty to the federal charge of spreading a computer virus with the intent to cause damage and a state charge of computer theft. State charges of theft of computer service and wrongful access to computer systems were dropped.
According to authorities, Smith has cooperated with investigations into other cyber-criminals, reducing his possible prison sentence by approximately three years. On the federal charge, he faced a maximum of 57 months in prison.
In a letter to Greenaway which was made public, Smith acknowledged his culpability in the release of the virus, and said that he has tried to make up for his crime by assisting investigators of computer crime.
"I made a mistake, a very big mistake, and I am here to take responsibility for my actions," he wrote.
"When the FBI showed up at my brother’s apartment with guns drawn asking me, ‘Who are you working with?,’ I suddenly realized how serious it was," Smith wrote in reference to his April 1999 arrest.
"It took me a very long time to convince authorities that there was no master plan, no ‘conspiracy,’ no ‘terrorist organization’ — that it was possible to write something like this in less than an hour by yourself with very limited programming ability," he wrote.
Smith cited simple curiosity about the way a computer virus works after his own computer became infected by one as the initial reason for writing Melissa.
According to statements made to the court in December 1999, when Smith pleaded guilty in state court, Melissa was unleashed from Smith’s apartment in the Ken Gardens complex, 400 Matawan Ave., in late March 1999, using his own account with a local Internet service provider and an America Online account and password hijacked from another user to conceal his identity.
Smith used the pirated account to post an infected message on an Internet newsgroup alt.sex, which suggested that the document contained passwords which would provide access to sexually explicit Web sites.
One of the first examples of a mass mailer type of virus, Melissa sent itself to the first 50 entries in a computer user’s e-mail address book if the recipient opened the documents attached to the tainted e-mail message.
Once Melissa was out onto the Internet, the virus sped around the world with astonishing pace over a five-day period, crippling corporate computer networks across the country and around the world.
Although Melissa was not designed to cause damage to a computer’s hard drive, it caused many major computer networks to crash and disabled information access worldwide.
Smith was arrested at his brother’s Eatontown apartment in April 1999, after authorities discovered his computer equipment in a Ken Gardens garbage bin after a search of the premises.
The computer hacker, who was employed as a computer consultant at the time of his arrest, grew up in Matawan, graduating from Matawan High School in 1986.
Smith could not be reached for comment. His Princeton attorney, Edward F. Borden Jr. also could not be reached for comment.