According to reports in an Israeli newspaper, five teenagers have been charged in connection with the W32/Goner-A virus which spread worldwide late last year. The Ha'aretz newspaper reports that the five were charged at Haifa District Court with wilfully causing damage to computers belonging to companies and private individuals around the world, including the American space agency NASA, by deliberately writing and spreading a computer virus across the internet. One of the minors has been charged with writing the Goner virus (which was nicknamed 'Pentagone'), whilst the others have been charged with disseminating it. The virus infected thousands around the world. The indictment also claims that one of the group had previously written a virus targeting users of internet chat rooms - but this failed to cause the intended damage.