Windows Virus Writer Lucky to Escape Unpunished

Masato Nakatsuji, a 24-year-old student at Osaka Electro-Communication University, received a sentence of two years behind bars but he won't go there due to the fact that the sentence is suspended for three years, security company Sophos reports. In case you missed the news, Masato Nakatsuji wrote the notorious virus distributed on the Winny file sharing application which removed music and movie files from the infected computers. The student was arrested in January; he is the first virus writer ever confined in the country, the same source adds.

However, Nakatsuji managed to avoid going to prison, mostly thanks to the fact that he sustained the sample of malware was actually supposed to remove songs and movies which had been illegally downloaded from the Internet. "If movies and animated films are illegally downloaded, TV networks will stop showing these programs in the future. My hobby is to watch recorded TV programs, so I was trying to stop that," he said according to Sophos.

But such a lenient sentence wasn't too well digested by security companies around the world which actually fight to stop viruses and other types of infections. "Masato Nakatsuji has been found guilty of copyright infringement rather than for the damage his movie and music-munching malware caused. One has to wonder whether he had been apprehended in another country then he would have been charged with a more conventional cybercrime and might have got a more serious sentence," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.

Moreover, users who want to fight against copyright infringement shouldn't go alone in the battle, the Sophos expert explained. "If someone sees the law being broken on the net - go to the authorities[sic]. Don't write malware. This man is frankly lucky to have got away without a more serious punishment."