Edward Wilding
Virus Bulletin, January 1992, pp.2-3
ISSN 0956-9979
January 1992
Dr. Joseph Lewis Popp, the alleged author of the notorious AIDS Information Diskette (VB, January 90, pp.2-10; VB, March 90, p.2) has been set free by a UK court. Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC at Southwark Crown Court dismissed the case against Popp, who faced charges on eleven counts of blackmail, after testimony from London psychiatrist Paul Bowden to the effect that Popp, 41, was psychologically unfit to plead. New Scotland Yard’s Computer Crime Unit initially had high hopes that Popp would stand trial; the CCU, in conjunction with the FBI with assistance from computer analyst Jim Bates had, over the course of a two year investigation, assembled a veritable barrage of forensic evidence to link Popp with the development and distribution in December 1989 of some 20,000 Trojanised diskettes.