TOKYO, March 5- The e-mail account used by a person who claims to be the “real culprit” in a series of online threat cases involving a virus to remotely control others’ personal computers has not been checked since Yusuke Katayama, a Tokyo man, was first arrested on Feb 10 over a mass murder threat, Japan’s Jiji Press learned Monday.
Police have found that until Katayama’s first arrest, the e-mail account had been accessed repeatedly to check for new messages by someone using a concealed online identity. A joint investigation team, including members of Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department, suspects that Katayama had used the e-mail account, informed sources said.
Katayama, a 30-year-old employee of an information technology firm, was arrested on Feb 10 on suspicion of remotely controlling a PC infected with the virus at a company in Nagoya, central Japan, and posting a mass murder threat on
an Internet bulletin board from the computer on Aug 9 last year. On Sunday, Katayama was served with fresh arrest warrants for allegedly putting an indiscriminate murder threat on the Web site of the Osaka municipal government on July 29 last year by remotely controlling a virus-infected PC of a man in Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, and sending an e-mail message to Japan Airlines on Aug 1 threatening to blow up a JAL flight using the same PC of the Osaka man.
According to the sources, a message containing a quiz was sent to the media from the e-mail address in question on Jan 5 this year by a person who claimed to be the “real culprit” in the string of online threat cases. When deciphered, a file attached to the e-mail indicated that a data storage device was put to the collar of a cat on Enoshima island in Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo.
Since a password is required to send and receive messages from the e-mail account, it is almost impossible for anyone other than the self-claimed culprit to use it. As Katayama has been in custody, the police believe that nobody is now able to access the account, the sources said.
Last year, four people, including the Osaka man, were arrested for posting online threats, but the arrests turned out to be wrong later because their PCs had been infected with a remote control virus while they were unaware of the infections.
BERNAMA
