An alleged child porn offender in Germany turned himself in to the police after mistaking an e-mail he received from a computer worm for an official warning that he was under investigation, authorities said on Tuesday.
"It just goes to show that computer worms aren't always destructive," said a spokesman for police in the western city of Paderborn. "Here it helped us to uncover a crime which would otherwise probably have gone undetected."
The 20-year-old was duped by a version of the "Sober" worm, a prolific Internet virus that can invade computers and then send out messages from a host of fabricated addresses.
The trap was set when the man got an e-mail saying "an investigation is underway" and that listed the sender as Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). Police charged him after finding pornographic images of children on his home computer.
I knew child porn people were stupid idjuts, this is proof!
"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."Friedrich Nietzsche