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The Virus Did It

Posted by michael on from the dangers-of-running-insecure-operating-systems dept.

scubacuda writes "The Inquirer and Get Reading report that a UK man accused of having pornographic pictures of kids on his computer was acquitted after a court heard that his machine was infected with a Trojan on his PC which probably auto-downloaded the images. (In light of moves like Operation Ore, we'll probably hear more defenses like this.)"

3 of 373 comments (clear)

  1. UK Law... by MrBandersnatch · · Score: 5, Insightful
    In the run up to the case, according to the Reading Evening Post, Mr Schofield suffered vigilante attacks and had to first hide in his home then move away to avoid continued attacks

    Yet another example of why the decision to allow defendants in criminal trials to be named was a bad decision *sigh*.

    As to the story - sounds strange that a trojan would do that unless someone was using his machine as a proxy and in that case why would the images be cached on his system?

  2. Acquitted - but... by Chocaholic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem this guy is going to face is that, despite his conviction, the prevailing mood in the UK is such that he will still find himself stigmatised for a very long time.

    As he found out from the vigilante attacks before his trial, the maxim "innocent until proven guilty" doesn't seem to apply for some people any more - the witch hunts led by certain newspapers mean that any slight suggestion of paedophilia turns the accused into an immediate fugitive.

    Therefore, though it's very kind of the Crown Prosecution Service to accept this explanation at trial, why did they wait before it was up before a judge with all the attendant publicity before letting him off the hook?

    In the minds of some people as well, there's going to be an attitude of "that's right, blame it on the computer - he would say that, wouldn't he?". Technology-based defences simply don't hold water for a lot of non-technical people - which with the increasing number of technological offences being put to juries is quite a worry.

    So, this guy will still be stigmatised as a paedophile, all for the price of some virus checking software...

  3. Re:What's the Point... by mindaktiviti · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "...of making a virus that downloads child pr0n onto a remote computer? I thought virii were created to wreak havoc, not frame random computer users... or am I wrong? And furthermore, if a jury can believe this defense, what's to keep all the imminent RIAA and MPAA suits from being defused by the same argument? FIRST POST! WOO!! "

    Didn't wreak havoc? The guy lost his 500 pounds a day job, didn't work for two years, got his named associated with child pornography...this trojan already made him lose out on two years of his own life. I'd say that constitutes as wreaking havoc.