The thrust of Mr Onel de Guzman's thesis, submitted for consideration by the authorities in AMA Computer College in February, evoked instant outrage from the dean of the college computer science department.
"This is illegal," Mr Russell Diona scrawled, circling a paragraph in the final-year submission of the lanky 23-year-old Manila student.
It proposed a computer programme to help Internet surfers "to get Windows passwords such as Internet Accounts to spend more time on Internet without paying." Worse was to follow. The importance of the study, Mr de Guzman blandly submitted, was that it could be used "to steal and retrieve Internet accounts of the victim's computer."
"We do not produce `burglars'," scribbled the dean, whose final written comment on the thesis, a copy of which was made available yesterday by the college, was the single word: "Disapproved".
Mr de Guzman is now the chief suspect in the investigation into the computer "Love Bug" which was unleashed last Thursday, crippling e-mail systems throughout the world.
The virus, which contained an attachment with the words, "I LOVE YOU", stole and retrieved passwords, just as was proposed in the thesis, which was titled, "Email Password Sender Trojan", referring to "a small Trojan horse" which retrieved passwords.
Mr de Guzman has gone missing but a visit to the college in central Manila yesterday elicited information about the type of person behind the world's worst virus, which so far has caused up to $10 billion worth of damage.
He was not a star student at the Makati City branch of the college where he had enrolled, a grim four-storey concrete building overshadowed by a busy, raised motorway, with the atmosphere of an institution rather than a hall of learning. But he excelled in one subject, computer assembly language, for which he received a rare first place.
This made him a valuable member of the shadowy set he hung around with, an underground group called GRAMMARsoft, which makes programmes for a fee. College officials acknowledged that 10 unidentified members of this group are suspected co-authors of the programme, which not only stole passwords but deleted PEG photographic files and music files.
Mr de Guzman's professor, Ms Jessica Torregrosa, said: "He is not the sociable type - he just sits in his chair and does not talk to anybody."
On the street door, beneath a banner proclaiming the success of the "table tennis varsity team" a notice said in big letters: "On the Love Bug virus issue please read". This was a lengthy disclaimer of responsibility. The AMA Computer College (AMACC) "does not tolerate acts similar to this hacking incident," it said. "It does not and never will encourage students to be destroyers of society."
The privately owned enterprise seemed at pains to finger Mr de Guzman in order to let the world know that it had rejected his thesis, even though nothing has yet been proved.
Mr Manuel Abad, executive vice-president of AMACC, told reporters yesterday they wished to summon Mr de Guzman to a student disciplinary tribunal, for having "committed acts inimical to the interest of the college and putting the name of the school in a bad light."
The alleged hacker is the brother of Ms Irene de Guzman, live-in partner of a bank employee, Mr Reommel Ramones, who was detained briefly on Tuesday on suspicion that the virus emanated from a computer in their flat. Ms de Guzman is also in hiding.
Some of the students milling around outside yesterday were less willing to condemn their colleague. "It's kinda cool," said 19-year-old Alfred. "It's so hard to create a virus and a Filipino did it and we feel so proud, though it should be made illegal," he said.
"We're not into computer hacking but I think it is good for our reputation because it proves AMACC is one of the best schools in the Philippines," said John Paul, also aged 19. "If ever I am proud," said the executive vice-president of AMACC, which boasts 250,000 students and graduates at 150 branches in the Philippines and more abroad, "it is that only two of the 250,000 became hackers. I know some people think we should be proud but I don't think that way."
Mr Karim Bangcola, the senior vice-president for education at AMACC, told reporters: "A few years ago people split the atom. That led to good things as well as destruction." He acknowledged that the college encouraged students to tinker with systems. "They are trained to know viruses like a doctor knows an illness - to cure it."
The fact that Mr de Guzman emphasised in his thesis the desirability of "free" browsing time led the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to speculate that it may not have been deliberately designed to cripple the world's e-mail systems.
"They did not know it was criminal, perhaps it was just a prank," said the NBI's top investigator in the case, Mr Nelson Bartolome, whose agency is examining 10 encoded names in the virus programme which pointed to people with links to AMACC in Manila. "But it was deliberate on their part. What they did not expect is the damage it would cause."