May 4, 2000 – six years ago yesterday – email servers crashed when a flood of emails clogged them. And the Philippines was again on the center of the map of notoriety – the Love Bug (Trend Micro: VBS_LOVELETTER, Symantec: VBS.LoveLetter) was traced to a certain student named Onel de Guzman.

De Guzman was not convicted of any crime, since no relevant law that covers his crime exist at that time. An effect of his mischievousness is the passage of the E-Commerce Act. He remains free. I wonder where he is now.

This worm started the rise of social engineering as a means to spread malware. And now, this era is ending, with cybercrime, identity theft, and spyware fast becoming a problem.