David Smith, who stands accused of writing the Melissa virus, will apparently plead guilty to federal and state charges in the US District Court in Newark, New Jersey today, December 9 1999. Smith was arrested in April and charged with interrupting public communications, conspiracy and theft of computer services. These are second- and third-degree felonies and carry a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison and a $480,000 fine. Melissa spreads itself through Microsoft’s Outlook email client. It is said to have infected tens of thousands of commercial, military and government workstations. Microsoft and Intel had to shut down their mail servers, and Lucent, Motorola and Compaq were also said to be victims. But the damage may be far less than initial estimates projected. Rumor has it that Smith’s prosecutors came to a standstill when they found that companies hit by the virus were unwilling to testify that they had suffered any lasting harm.
