A 28-year-old computer expert is under investigation for computer fraud, having allegedly diverted 2,585 U S West computers to assist him in his effort to solve a 350-year-old math problem &£45;- the search for a new prime number. The man, who has not been charged, is a contract computer consultant working for a vendor for U S West. "I've worked on this (math) problem for a long time," he told investigators. "When I started working at U S West, all that computational power was just too tempting for me." Investigators estimate that during a very short period he used 10.63 years worth of computer processing time &£45;- while the computers should have been hard at work retrieving telephone numbers for U S West customers.

((c) AP)