Kiddie Porn - The Virus Did It

The New York Times reports on a British man who was accused of downloading child pornography, and who successfully convinced the court that a virus did it. This is at least the second time this has happened. These cases are extremely interesting since they bring together all sorts of issues of computerized agents - who is actually responsible when your computer does something?

Comments

Virus?

[Renraku]

"It wasn't my fault, Officer. Honest, the video said it was Terminator 3 when I downloaded it!"

"The evil hacker even took the time to arrange and sort those pictures by series!"

Head cold?

[danormsby]

So the tissues by the keyboard were because you had a virus?

Where I come from...

[Phekko]

the law in Finland (IANAL, but still) says "if you know or SHOULD know..." I believe this one falls under the "should know" category.

Now that we're on this topic, though, does anyone know where to get a virus that downloads high quality images of nubile women with scant clothing who are of legal age?

It has to be a conspiracy

[__aadhrk6380]

Did anyone check the name of the company that located the virus? Vogon International, LTD.

I suspect the Prostetnic Vogon Geltz.

heh

[ed.han]

sorry, i just couldn't help thinking that the phrase "harvest porn" is not unlike "furniture porn" so couldn't help imagining combines in painfully silly poses.

OK, move along, nothing to see here...

ed

GOOD GOD, WE MUST CONTROL THE SPORKS!!!!!

[feed_me_cereal]

A basic computer competency test should be *compulsory* before anyone is allowed to purchase a computer.

Heck, sporks can be pretty dangerous too! A spork competency test should be compulsory before using such a potentialy dangerous tool. Said test should include the following areas:

• Basic form of spork (stops the old "is this a fork or is it a spork" question in the lunchline)
• Basic application of spork to lunch (by basic I mean VERY basic. "This is a porkchop. You insert the pointy parts into it first.")
• Basic spork skills (Don't insert the spork into your eye. Remove the food from the spork using your teeth, not your hand)
• Basic spork security (in fact, don't even include the word "security". Include this in the basic application section. Cover topics such as "don't share your spork, you might get cooties")
• How to report a problem (if there is a school chef or cafeteria supervisor available)

Hmm... actually, we could solve all of this and have a slashdot moderating competency test. Basically, whenever some short-sighted elitist suggests an insane reduction of basic freedoms for absolutely no reason, a mod of "insightful" will result in instant failure. Yeah, I think that would do it.