Over the past decade the Internet has become very common throughout the world. As the Net has grown so have the number of attacks on it. Hackers are the people responsible for these attacks. They use computer viruses to cause havoc over the Net. A virus is a computer program or script used to make a computer function abnormally. Lately many viruses such as the Melissa virus and the ILoveYou virus have wreaked havoc over the Internet causing $80 million and $6.7 billion in damages respectively (Popular Science, February 2001, Pg. 57). These crimes must be acted upon immediately to try to minimize damages. There are many non-profit as well as many government agencies who's job it is to catch these criminals. Some of the agencies responsible for catching these hackers are CERT, and Phar Lap.
             CERT, which stands for Computer Emergency Response Team, was founded in 1988 at Carnegie Melon University. They are the unofficial clearinghouse for reporting security holes and fixes (Popular Science, February 2001, Pg. 57). They are responsible for
             finding an antidote for the virus as well as tracking its creator. To do this they work with many other non-profit organizations as well as government agencies. CERT, who caught David L. Smith, the creator of the Melissa virus, worked with Richard Smith to achieve this.
             Richard Smith is the founder of the software company Phar Lap. His interest in Internet privacy has put him on the trail of several cyber-criminals. To track the hackers, Smith studies the code the hacker wrote looking for GUID's (Global Unique ID) that identify the author's computer (Popular Science, February 2001, Pg. 58). Once a GUID is discovered Smith then searches the Net looking for other files containing that ID which could have clues as the who the programmer who wrote the virus is. Once the hacker is identified, it is the FBI's job to prosecute him. Most hackers face many years i
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