HAPPY HOLIDAY NEWS FROM THE HOLY LAND _________________________________________________ NEW YORK TIMES December 10, 2001 << 'GONER' SUSPECTS UNDER HOUSE ARREST IN ISRAEL By REUTERS Filed at 12:19 p.m. ET JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Four Israeli teenagers were placed under house arrest on Monday after admitting they wrote and spread the "Goner'' worm that wreaked havoc on computers worldwide, police said. Tel Aviv's juvenile court accepted a police request to confine the 15- and 16-year-olds to their houses pending five days of investigation, said Meir Zohar, head of the Israeli police computer crimes squad. Under Israeli law, they would face up to 2-1/2 years in prison for a virus that deleted files and clogged e-mail inboxes around the world, causing millions of dollars in damage. "Goner,'' the latest of a series of costly computer viruses to have an international impact, appeared as an e-mail with the subject line "Hi'' and a screensaver attachment. Officials said North America, Australia and western Europe were hardest hit. The youths, from the same school in the northern city of Nahariya, had never been arrested before, Zohar said. One admitted to writing the worm, and the other three confessed to spreading it, with the author's encouragement, he said. The teens' lawyers were unavailable for immediate comment..... Early predictions put Goner in a league with last year's infamous "Love Bug,'' which experts say caused $8.75 billion of damage worldwide. But by late last week Goner was expected to inflict about $5 million in damages. Zohar said the suspects told investigators the worm was supposed to be an update of the fast-spreading 1999 ``Melissa'' e-mail virus, which caused about $1.2 billion in damage..... >> _________________________________________________