Virus Update: Love Bug suspect set free

The investigation into the 'Love Bug' virus which crippled systems across the globe last week continues today as the prime suspect, 28-year-old bank employee, Reonel Ramones was released due to lack of evidence.

The Philippine authorities, with the help of the FBI, are presently sifting through computer diskettes seized in a raid on Ramones' home yesterday, according to newswire reports.

Elsewhere in the Philippines, officials from a computer college which Ramones' relatives attended have admitted to a student submitting a program similar to the Love Bug virus in an academic thesis.

The thesis, which was rejected as unacceptable on the grounds that it included the ability to download other users' passwords, is written in Visual Basic. The College declined to name the author.

In all, the Philippine National Bureau of Investigations is interested in contacting up to ten people over the affair, as the FBI has produced ten pseudonyms found within the virus.

Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuno has given the investigators until 19 May to go through the contents of Ramones' diskettes and match it with the programs discovered at the college.