Slashdot Mirror
Teacher Found Guilty of Endangering Kids Due to Spyware
nursegirl writes "Norwich, Conn seventh grade teacher, Julie Amero has been convicted of four counts of risk of injury to a minor after her classroom PC displayed pornographic pop-ups in class. While an expert for the defendant said he had discovered spyware on her PC that had been downloaded from a hairstyling site, the local police investigator claimed that the spyware had been downloaded from actively visiting porn sites. Amero testified that she had told four other teachers and the assistant principal about the popups, but received no assistance. The school's internet filtration software was not working because it's license had expired. Amero faces up to forty years in prison."
The other sad thing (That is, other than a jacked up jury, and the defendant not having a tech-savvy lawyer...) is that this could probably have been easily prevented.
When I service customers' computers, I like to install Spybot, configure it to auto-update, auto-scan, and set its scan priority to "Idle", so it doesn't interfere with the user's activities.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Who's up for some good old-fashioned internet activism? It'll be like Mumia, but we're 100% sure she didn't do anything wrong.
Amero testified that she had told four other teachers and the assistant principal about the popups, but received no assistance ... Amero faces up to forty years in prison.
If only we had some... amendment... a "bill of rights" if you will... that ruled out "cruel and unusal" punishments like this.
Nah, that's crazy talk.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
how that is teachers fault? Unless the teacher installed the spy-ware intentionaly, which is probably not the case.
Eclipse PDE and Me
They wouldn't bother with this one unless they really did have a case against the teacher. There have been cases before of teachers browsing to whitehouse.com during a grade-school civics case. Those end up with alot of embarassed faces and future policy changes, not teacher prosecution.
The prosecutor is fighting an uphill battle, given peoples' collective frustration with spyware, do he probably wouldn't be chasing this if it didn't have some real merit we aren't hearing about.
Risk of injury? Are the popups jumping out of the screen and choking them?
Seventh grade. I'm sure some of the kids have seen their fair share of porno popups already...
40 years is ridiculous. No kid will be "damaged" in any real way, there's no need for a moral panic here just fire the teacher and you're done.
There we go, slash the budget for Personal Health and Development classes. The kids have already gotten all their ill-advised Sex Ed from the friendly people at Backdoorsluts9.com.
Ninjas use italics.
I don't see this is the teacher fault, it is well known that spyware can install it self with viruses and other nasty things. It is also interesting to note that the software that is meant to keep this out was not working, becose it's license was expired. That can only be the schools fault. But I don't expect conviction greedy Prosecutor to understand that. Since, based on the news I am reading here. He is a total idiot, and rightly so. Who the hell sues over spyware, even if these kids did see some porn on the computer screen, I would think that the Tv is twice as worse then that.
I guess few people in the US needs to be connected back to reality.
40 years?! Gangbangers on the street get less than this! This is completely fucked up. Besides , if the software did come from porno sites, how do we know it wasn't one of the kids, or another teacher
that went there? And the fact that she asked *4 times* and no one helped her seems to indicate that the responsibility belongs to those who are in charge of this system.
Amero faces up to forty years in prison.
With laws like that... why don't you let the terrorists win?
Here in scandinavia you would not even get such a hard punishment even if she had murdered the entire schoolclass.
I know she will not get that much, but even to consider it is laughable.
The most frightening aspect of this for me isn't so much that she is facing fourty YEARS in prison (do murderers face that much time, typically??!?)
..
It's that this verdict was based on SIX jurors. How is that possible? I thought a jury _had_ to be twelve members (or more)? Something I shall have to research
Hits to freedom come faster and faster these days, and police state USA, fullblown, is just around the corner.
*shudder*
The sea changes color, but the sea does not change.
40 years prison for not installing Firefox... duh!
I'm wondering if they are not telling us something in this article, I find it hard to believe that a court room full of "profesionals" would come to this conclusion.
If that is not the case perhaps the profesional "computer crimes investigator/janitor" might want to take some basic computer classes.
I hope she gets the maximum sentence- not because I think she's guilty, but because I think the charges are absurd and the sentence even more so. This obviously needs to go up a notch in the judicial system and bring attention to the idiocy below.
1. how long was the porn on? did she just leave it on for hours while continuing with class? was it several times over several classes? 2. why didn't she just turn off the monitor or unplug the machine? 3. if she did ask the principal and others for help, why did they refuse? what is their story? and shouldnt they be on trial as well?
Why didn't she just turn the computer off ?
Would that have saved her from this whole ordeal ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
It is trivial to write a piece of software that, when installed on a person's computer, will visit web sites of the attacker's choosing. The software could be programmed to do this covertly and with the specific intent of incriminating the victim, e.g., by only visiting illegal/immoral sites at such times when the person was using the computer to browse the Internet. The offending sites would be in the victim's browser history, having been visited at times when he/she was using the computer. The software could be programmed to destroy itself after a duration, with the attacker then providing information to authorities with regard to the victim's illicit surfing habit. Getting the software onto the victim's computer is also trivial, given the number of exploits available, open wireless networks, etc.
I'm expecting this to happen soon, if it has not already. Perhaps even as targetted attacks rather than simply random misanthropy.
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
Removing the technology issues from discussion, this case isn't unlike a teacher who carries with him or her polaroids of a personal nature, and has one of them fall out of a jacket while in front of a classroom. In that sense, the teacher should be held accountable.
On the other hand, given that most everyone has at one time been inadvertently exposed to unwanted pornography while browsing the internet, I'm surprised at the narrow view taken. Protecting kids is one thing, but destroying a person's life is quite another. The teacher will undoubtedly be required to register as a sex offender and can kiss the career and just about everything else goodbye.
It's worth pointing out that with respect to adults, a sex offender can be convicted for peeing in public, mooning, fondling or groping, and rape. With respect to minors (a term that includes everyone from 0 years to 17 years), a sex offender is one who has been found guilty of looking at pictures or cartoons, sharing or downloading pictures or cartoons, fooling around with classmates (if still schoolage), fondling or groping, and rape. With this court ruling, we can now add inadvertent computer popups to the list.
My guess is that the average public isn't about to worry their heads over distinctions, so let's just conclude that child sex offenders should burn in hell.
it's already been established that spyware is what popped up the porn, so reguardless of HOW it got on there that should be enough to drop the child abuse charges right there. at worst she is guilty of violating school computer policys by viewing porn.besides, last i checked it was up to them to prove how she got the spyware on there in the first place, not just accuse her of viewing porn when she gives a perfectly good excuse for how it got there.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Its license. Its.
Seriously...
OJ Simpson kills 2 people; gets off scott free.
Teacher, through spyware computer, exposes children to porn; up to 40 years in prison.
American justice system, still the best in the world.
Why did she allow a child to use a computer that randomly displayed porn?
She deserves to be punished a little for being an idiot, jail time is a little extreme though.
I totally disagree with this judgement.
The teacher is NOT responsible for spyware on the computer.
thats my $0.02.
I get so fed up with the duality of American society where, on the one hand you are so exceptionally uptight when it comes to nudity, tolerance of other peoples sexuality etc - and on the other hand you are the worlds largest producer & market for pornography.
This leads to sad, sad examples like this where Prosecutors need to find a guilty party or person at any cost to pin the blame on for having some kids unintentionally see some porn pop-ups. I feel really, really sorry for the poor teacher for getting caught in this mess.
Its tragicomic for us living outside your country watching this - I sincerely hope you are able to fix these issues in a fundamental way.
--
It's high time conservative Americans got over their problem with sex. It's clear these hypocrites have sex, otherwise they wouldn't be breeding the children that need to be "protected" from these images. No-one can be harmed by viewing pornographic images, certainly not grade seven students.
There is nothing wrong with sex. There is nothing wrong with nudity. There is certainly nothing wrong with naked female breasts - those of us in the rest of the world were left laughing our heads of at the utter ridiculousness of the outcry over the Janet Jackson "wardrobe misfunction". In fact, women should be free to walk around topless, as men can, if they so desire. The double-standard is simply mind-boggling.
I wouldn't mind betting that the same children that saw the images on this poor woman's computer also saw a number of acts of mindless violence on television that same evening, and not a soul complained. How's that for stupidity?
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
You have got to me kidding me. What is this? What age are we living in today? Why is it anything technology related makes people go back 2000 years in thinking?
GG Justice System, now step aside and let someone who knows what they are doing handle it kk
Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
that prosecutors are allowed to get away with this sort of abuse in the first place. If for every case that is overturned the prosecutor is required to pay a hefty fine to the defendant for wasting their time and messing with their reputation, we might not have to deal with these kinds of cases in the first place. The D.A. in the Duke rape case needs to be strung up by the balls and give those boys everything he owns in restitution.
We all agree that the prosecution has wronged the teacher in this case, so the question is--what do slashdotters think should be done about it?
It was a classroom computer. It was, presumably, accessible by many people. Even if there was evidence that the computer had visited pornographic sites, that doesn't prove that was done by any particular person.
Usually, part of a criminal conviction is that someone intends to break the law. I'm sure this teacher didn't intend that the kids saw the popups. For something like criminal negligence, you have to show that someone knew better than to do or not do what they did that led to harm to someone else. If this was the first time the teacher had experienced such popups then it is hard to say that she should have known better.
The story didn't say that the prosecution refuted the defense expert's testiomony that the popups came from a hairstyling site.
I see two possibilities: the reporter was clueless and left out important details or this was a kangaroo court. Anyway, even if they give her no jail time, this is the end of this teacher's career. Even if she wins an appeal, she may never work as a teacher again. Nice going American Justice System.
She "faces forty years"? I'm sure that is purely theoretical. I can't see her getting any serious jail time. America is crazy but not that crazy.
However, I do imagine that she will be punished, and if the punishment is something more serious than a scolding for being a computer-retard, it will be excessive.
... who do not live in the US, what is "seventh grade"? Not everywhere uses the same terminology. How old are we talking about here?
Hopefully all the folks involved in making this guilty verdict will find themselves targets of spyware every day for the next five years, landing them in "I didn't visit that site" arguments with their spouses that suddenly find the family computer spewing these popups.
I am disgusted with our society of litigious bastards that is the new millenium America. If I was a teacher, this event would guarantee that I won't even allow a single computer in my classroom... it's no longer safe to have one there, unless teachers can start shielding themselves with malpractice insurance the way doctors do.
ACLU, please eat this prosecutor alive.
Let me introduce you to my very own DMCA-protected encryption key: BC 1B 64 4A 8D DE 49 E8 C3 7D CC EE 1A AD EE
how can this injustice, and this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6258291.stm
be happening in the same country... America really needs to get a grip if they want to be taken seriously.
ror allowing Windows computers in the classroom in the first place.
t .html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print
Botnets are huge and well known to anyone who ever glances into their spam box.
Some collection of security experts claim that they are tracking 400,000 infected machines
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/07/technology/07ne
These machines are sending out spam, and a fair amount of it is porn spam. The obvious conclusion
is that most every Windows-using school in America has porn on the disks of its classroom computers.
Actually the percentage of infected machines in schools is probably higher than the general percentage,
because schools typically don't have much budget for IT staff, and they often have older computers.
What, it is trivial to get that kind of result. Honestly, hair styling websites could probably easily be hijacked by bot/hacking crawlers which hack websites and change the .htaccess file or any number of other fun things. Then redirect to websites which download and install spyware through flaws in IE.
Honestly, there is no way in hell she should have been convicted. Yes, she probably should have turned the system off. But, honestly, running in unsecure OS, with an unsecured internet browser, with an whole series of pretty crappy stuff floating around the internet.
We should really spin this case properly, observe!
Woman sentenced to 40 years in prison for not using Firefox!
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
Do you believe the D.A. in the Duke case needs to be disbarred? If so, how does that help the boys whose character and reputation he destroyed, not to mention their suspension from Duke University because of his actions.
so i could go buy a car, and get put away for 'risk of injury to a minor' or to anybody for that factor, who knows who is going to step out on to the road, or even if something is going to go wrong.
i definitely blame the support engineer (damn techies, giving techies like me a bad name)
just like if i was lied to when my car had apparently past it's mot, but hadn't, and malfunctioned.
that computer should not have been allowed on the network, the suort should have been there, as should the protection.
just for the record, i don't drive (can't) perhaps it was a bad choice of analogy.
for anybody who's seem monkey dust, driving a car = murder
however i do like norwich, i think there might suddenly be a job opening or two.. woo!
Last time I traveled it did... things may have changed, I suppose, but that seems unlikely. If it doesn't, I'm sure other countries have similar internet search engines, right? At any rate, a 15-second google search turned up a table matching grades to age ranges in the US and British school systems. HTH.
.sig: file not found
Why didn't she just turn the computer off ?
Would that have saved her from this whole ordeal ?
No, just one pop-up is enough to destroy a pupils life forever. Then consider the whole class was there. *shudder*
This is really irresponsible of the teacher. Bad teachers like that should be hanged by a rope, on TV, and we should all do this on a regular basis. We can call it "The Games", and introduce lions and swords and fishing-nets, and these Bad Teachers, will have to battle until the certain death. Im sure most here have had experience with atleast one Bad Teacher, and will gladly revel in fear and bloodlust while watching it on prime TV and screaming out our hate and fear, and fear. This will ensure only Good Teachers, or at least severely cut the powers of the Bad Teachers. Yeah, we will be safer then..
God blissfully will smile down upon our Great and fully functional Civilization, and our Glorious Way of Life will remain forever!
And, this isn't the only case where this has happened before (2003)
An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.
- Mahatma Gandhi
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Wiseguy, the point of the person's question was not only to find out the age group involved, but also to point out that non-USAians (the vast majority of people) should not be forced to do research in order to understand things that should have been said in plain English ("12-13 years old") in the first place.
happened if the computer would have run linux (edubuntu comes to mind)...
Frome TFA:
The Prosecutor's "computer expert" points out that some of the websites that had been accessed from the computer had to have been clicked on. Well, that is true, but not to view porn. A link can be disguised as almost anything, including the "x" button at the top-right corner of a window. If the adware pops up a window showing a porno website, and disguises a link as an "x" button to trick the user into clicking on it, that would constitute "intentionally clicking on a link". However the legal system does not have proof as to how that link was displayed. In this case, a link saying "Free PORN!!!!!" and a link disguised as a close button would leave the same trail.Well, I believe they should weigh her, and if she weighs the same as a duck, she's guilty...
We all make the supposition that pornography is "bad for kids." But where are the studies showing it's harmful? Physically, we don't need to go far to demonstrate that fire and razor blades are potentially harmful to children. But when it comes to emotional or mental damage, I think we're going to need some proof because all the variations involved there. A good defense lawyer would be able to bring those ideas out in demanding that proof of damage be presented.
I'm sure counter claims could be presented such as pulling in case examples, etc, but I get the feeling that there's invariably a lot more going on with the "troubled" kids and that generally healthy kids, while being embarassed at seeing such material, aren't going to launch any rape or 'Columbine' campaigns as a result of pornographic pop-ups.
Now that said, the schools should be suing the HELL out of the companies profiting from this form of advertising and in many respects there are plenty of grounds for other legal action against parties outside of the school. I say they should direct their anger and outrage against the REAL parties responsible.
I don't think much needs to be said about "prevention" though. But I will say this: teaching in school is a presentation. And as such, presentations should be fully prepared in such a way that "unpredictables" are kept to a minimum. Live internet in a classroom at a grade school level is just a bad idea.
Kids don't need spyware, and neither does Al Gore.
This is my sig. There are thousands more, but this one is mine.
So no injury occured? Someone list some comedy accidents from looking at porn.
This should probably give her a warning if it was a first time offense, or maybe get it fired if she had been warned before, or there had been discussions on school about the danger and inappropriateness of using the school computers for that.
No this could not easily have been prevented. There is no anti-spyware or anti-virus software that will stop all possible infections on a Windows box. As to the morons in court convinced that the teacher "had to physically click" on the porn links to make them show up in some way in Windows... give me a break please. That is so not right. It sounds like this teacher may be railroaded to the jail house over computer issues that the persons running the court are clueless about. Just one more reason to toss Windows and learn to use a real OS.
Only in America will you see loonies who raise children and think its good parenting to first inquire if "Rusty chainsaw massacre bloodbattle II" contains any nudity because they can't have their 10 year olds watching that garbage. Noo, they'll make sure no harm comes to them.
Reminds me of that time when a Dutch ship set port in one of the harbours and a school class was on a field trip to watch it. gasp, shock, horror! , it turned out that the bow of the ship had a statue of a nude lady! Fortunatly for the schoolclass they were under the guidance of a brave and courageous young female teacher who immediatly managed to divert the attention of the entire class and led them to the afterbow where they enjoyed the rest of the field trip.
2 individual stories about the same subject happening in the same country. Now please pardon me while I go laugh it up.
I see this as fairly huge. If I was a schoolteacher, as soon as I heard about this, I would immediately stop teaching anything to do with computers or the internet in my classroom. Setting aside the question of whether or not the images in this case resulted from the teacher's actions or from spyware, the case sets a precedent that if students are exposed to pornographic images in your class, you become responsibly, criminally. And, just for gravy, you get to be a sex offender. The cost of this is way too high to make it worth the risk of an accident (say, if a malicious student installed something nasty to set me up), so I would just treat my class as if computers and the internet didn't exist. And so my students wouldn't gain the benefits of these tools, nor any education in their use.
One would think the possibility that the images were the result of spyware would create reasonable doubt, but since it doesn't...
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
She is most likely not allowed to use work computers for private purpose (although everybody does), and using it for porn is worse as the risk of malware is higher. This is something that would in a sane society be a cause of a "serious talk" at the boss office. So how did this get this far?
1) Someone, either the school principal or a parent, must have decided that watching porn pop-ups constitute injury to the pupils.
2) The prosecutor must have agreed.
3) The jury has agreed.
This point to a society whose norms are seriously sick, not just a few twisted individuals.
That this happens is absolutely insane... I expected it. American detective/police shows with ostensically decent crime scene often go on a witch hunt in my eyes. They seem to focus on proving some guy did it, rather then keeping their eyes open to other posibilities. Too often i see them digging up enough evidence to convict someone at the end of the programme, while i have in my mind: what if this and this actually happened. If this is how people think research after what actually happened should be done, how can reality be any better? Also in the series, the people procecuted are right enough to get proper advocates. I probably that in reality the battle in the courts is often between the carreer guy and the get-to-my-retirement guy.
If the teacher knew her PC was infected with porn, why did she allow the children to use it? If the school would not assist her in removing it, she could have wiped the hard drive. Now someone has to repair the PC. She had options, she chose not to invoke them. Perhaps she is not guilty of the charges, but she guilty of stupidity for not taking proactive action. Just my take on the subject.
I'm not suffering from Insanity. I'm enjoying every moment of it!
*** Topic in #doghouse is 'Our hearts are extended to the 17 victims of the recent internet fraud'
* Anubis has joined #doghouse
<Anubis> what fraud?
<Kadmium> You haven't heard about it?
<Anubis> no?
<Kadmium> You can read the full story at http://www.tubgirl.com/
<Anubis> omg wtf!
*** Kadmium changes topic to 'Our hearts are extended to the 18 victims of the recent internet fraud'
from bash.
If noone rtfa, then what's the slashdot effect?
It looks like this person is being scapegoated. Lets concentrate on the fact that it was the school that was negligent in having the license expire on there content filtering software. Even if she was viewing porn and got spyware installed on her computer it looks like she already asked for help in getting it removed and was denied. The school was negligent in letting its content filtering expire and in preventing popups on a teachers workstation causing students to see the dirty. Why is the school not on trial? Answer: Because she is. Why not be as harsh as possible and burn her at the stake along with all the rest of our teachers and all the books in the library?
why should one have to install a spybot program or any other malware or virus program for that matter. Why not have the os secure out of the box. If anything the school and parents should seek monetary damages from microsoft for not have a secure enough operating system.
The gouverning elite has a very high incentive to keep the status quo, or even widen the separation between the 'classes'. If the poor underclass is big, that means more options for the upper class to exploit that. The method to produce more poor is to make prevent less children from middleclass families to establish themselves as such, and to keep the children from poor families from rising the social ladder. (Talking about groups and averages here, not induviduals). Good teachers that teach to these classes of kids actually stand in the way of these objectives, as their aim is to have their pupils to achieve the best they can and get the best follow-up education, essentially raising their social status. So what needs to be done is to frustrate those teachers so much that they give up.
Cynical? yes.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
So let's assume two reasonable worst case scenarios about this case.
...and laughter/ridiculing of the teacher ensues, the story is told behind the teacher's back for a few weeks and then everyone forgets about it.
1. The teacher was viewing porn on her computer, but she intended it for her own eyes only, messed up and the kids has seen that she viewed porn. She lied to the kids covering up the situation...
reasonable reaction:
2. The teacher was viewing porn on her computer and was showing it to kids because of pedophile intent or as an inappropriate sex-ed.
reasonable reaction: teacher fired, putting her on a list that she can't work with kids anymore. I find the sexual offenders list an overkill though. Disclosing the location of people like this teacher, not letting her go near schools or some such restrictions are an overkill, she is just not fit to be a teacher. She's 40 years old, must have been teaching for a long while now, so you just have to dig in her past to check whether something associated with paedophilia turns up. If yeah, hell sentence her criminally, but if not then there isn't a cause for stronger measures than firing her and not allowing her to work as a teacher anymore.
Criminal prosecution should only come if there is actual harm to children, and viewing a couple of porn pictures is not harm, it's just bad conduct on the part of the teacher, so it should mean loss of job.
Personally I think that criminal prosecution in this case is a joke, even more so the 40 year sentence. What's next, execution for giving "the finger"? When I was 12 I was looking for serial keys on astalavista if my memory serves me correct when a porn popup popped up and it displayed a monster cock. The IT teacher walked up behind me and just told me to turn that off and walked away again. Other kids were directly looking at porn when the teacher wasn't looking and noone made a big deal about it. If the teacher's screen would have flooded with porn popups we would have been laughing at it. I'm not from the USA so I don't get the whole obsession with trying to hide sex. I also received proper sexual education from the school, so I can't complain.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Comment removed based on user account deletion
A classroom full of 7th graders and you suspect the female teacher to be the one surfing porn?
Why didn't she call the school board's IT department or help desk? You don't say you mention it to 4 other teachers and a VP. It's not their job to fix it. The first time she saw that the software wasn't working she should have shut the pc's down and not allowed any log ons. I caught my teenage son on a WoW forum while in school. They use aim and everything else.
How was it determined she was visiting porn sites?? Just because it was in her history? The advertisements come off of THE porn site, so of course the "computer" visited the porn sites. And what, they went to the index? Sure, popup comes up right as you are about to click, and you just accidentally visited a porn site. The school should be held accountable for not having a good solution for keeping that stuff off, and for not keeping it's software up to date. If I was a parent there, I'd be extremely pissed at the school (and selling them some hardware to make sure it doesn't happen again).
Kernel Krunch - Part of a Complete OS
By 2012, children in the US will be fully protected from sex. At birth, their genitals will be removed and stored on ice. The genitals will be reattached once the children have grown up and married. This will ensure that they learn about sex when they really need to. Any parents refusing to allow this process shall be brought before the elders who shall smite them sorely with stones until they be dead.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
is that people are thrown into jail for 40 years just for accidentally displaying "pornography" to
kids. I suppose it isn't really a "proper" thing to do but what I wonder would she get for
flashing her tits to the class?
10 years of solitary confinement on death row, breast amputation and then being flogged with rubber hoses to a
bleeding pulp and hung from a construction crane??
I honestly thought that it was Feminazis... They've got similar goals, "being damaged by porn", etc. I'm sure you could get confused, but if you look at all the REST of the insanity that passes for laws in this country, they're misandrist as hell.
Feminists. If it were religious zealots, none of that would be there.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
MS knows that Windows is volnerable to this crap, they even sell a suit of tools to prevent/reverse it...the Redmond gang, maybe even Bill himself should get in contact with the prosecutor and the judge...even if she gets no prison, this poor teacher is not ever going to be able to hold a good job again; convicted felons work at drive-throughs; and the top notch ones become shift lead...her life is ruined and for what? shitty MS security design and an inept IT dept.
Why the fuck are they going after the teacher when they SHOULD be going after the Spyware writer/vendor??? Even if the teacher did get the spyware on the computer by visiting a porn site, that doesn't ruduce the culpability of the spyware company/individual in exposing the kids to porn. I'm assuming the teacher didn't visit porn sites WITH the kids (or in front of the kids) of course.
So, fire the teacher for visiting porn in her off hours, and put the spyware guy in jail.
MadCow
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
I don't think it's so much a problem of the legal system being behind the times technologically as it is a 'problem' with our legal system's greatest strength also being its greatest weakness. Trial by a jury of your peers means that you will often have lay people deciding highly technical cases. This is a situation where a better voir dire would have resulted in a better informed jury. The problem is that you have to explain highly technical language to people that may have no clue. I'm not sure how this case will turn, but you also have to remember that the judge (who supposedly is a highly educated person) is the final arbiter in the case. The judge may decide to toss out the verdict in the end. Also, there is the possibility of appeal in this case. Unfortunately good expert testimony (the kind that is more likely to convince a jury) is often expensive - and it is this caveat that often leads to these sorts of verdicts.
Police get rewarded for arresting people and prosecutors get rewarded for convictions. Because of that, they'll tailor thier processes to that end. The fact that computers and the interenet are not secure, and unfathomable to most people is irrelevant. They can't arrest the interent or convict your computer. But they can arrest and convict some poor sap who has no idea what a root-kit is or how his computer can be made into a zombie. So they will.
Police and prosecutors don't care what really happened because their job is to arrest and convict - that's what we reward them for. We'd be silly to expect anything different.
mod parent up!
Ive never once had a single problem with uncontrolled popups spyware, viruses trojans or a single case of "malware" in my 6 years of running linux online. And Ive never once had to use one of these "cleanup" utilities (adaware, spybot norton internet, mcaffee or whatever is the flavor of the week.) My data is secure thanks to linux and I feel good knowing that. To all of you Windows users out there who have not yet actually tried a linux distro, give Debian, Fedora, Mandrake or Ubuntu a try (and i mean a serious look) you have no idea what your missing!
and knows nothing about computers. She doesn't use the internet at work, so she's safe. One of her fellow teachers' computer is riddled with spyware, simply because she knows nothing about how to use it or how to block unwanted spyware from being installed on her computer. Should her fellow teacher be put in prison for not knowing the ins and outs of spyware????
Anybody with a little knowledge of the internet knows that, especially with IE, you don't have to click a link to get spyware on your machine. The police "expert" probably has been living under a rock the last few years!
Injury? I bet the kids started to laugh their asses out when the first tit appeared on screen. I can see what happened here.
*DINNER TIME*
LOL LOL MOM IT WAS SO FUNNAY AT SCHOOL THE TEACH0R'S COMPUTER SHOWED P0RNS
OH DEAR GOD NO MY CHILD!!!!!!! SOMEONE HAS TO PAY!!! (I need a new car too)
Repeat in three more houses and you're done.
Bah, kids nowadays know what porn is from seven years old onwards, not like they are going to get a life-lasting trauma or become terrible perverts for that.
The years where kids used to play ninjas vs cowboys vs pirates are over. (pirates won, obviously, specially if piratebay gets its own country yarrr)
There's your problem. The person going to jail for 40 years should be the one who decided to let Windows into a classroom. Won't somebody think of the children!
The road to hell is paved with Cat 5 cable.
This gives me an idea for a new Mac vs PC ad...
... Mac smiles smugly 'I'll visit you in jail'"
"PC gets cuffed, led away protesting innocence
-- "It's not stalking if you're married!" My Wife.
I've read through most of the posts, and nobody's really suggested this outright, but... Hasn't anybody considered it could have been one of the kids who visited the porn site(s)? I remember when I was younger (and that was in the EARLY days) there was some kid in class who would point all the library computers to some pseudo-porn site. Nobody really knew what was going on, and nobody ever found him. Nor did anybody in the class really care (because come on, at age 8 we were all sending e-mails to hotmail users from God@hotmail.com, and by age 10 we all knew where to see porn if we wanted to), but I think the odds of one of the male students dastardly pointing the class computer to some naughty website, then giggling away when the girls said "ewwwww" and ran to hide is much higher than of an actual female school teacher browsing pornographic material. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking "anybody/everybody can do it" but statistically speaking, much fewer females than males actively browse porn. Especially elementary school teachers... at school. If it was a single male teacher... maybe... no wait... probably. But honestly now. Statistics have to be of some worth.
This is yet another example of the Police powers being abused a user at the school the I work at was accused of a very similar crime the authorities assured the Administration that the could PROVE who had or had not been accessing the purported material. Th specialist in internet crimes went to the local machine and pulled a hard drive and scanned it for information using very good software. However this agent was completely clueless. and the search was ridicules because. 1. Our network uses profiles all user data was on the server not on the local machine 2. Even so he did not pull the correct drive there were three hard drives on this particular machine since it was used to do system backups. 3. Just 1 week prior we had discovered that students had gotten hold of staff passwords and were signing on as staff although this had been corrected any data that might have been discovered could not have been proven only a very careful screening of access times and pc's could have shown a probability not a certainty of association. We live in a new age of the Salem Witch Trials. An accusation is enough to establish guilt.
"You have to physically click on it to get to those sites"
O rly? And even if true, how do they know that it was the teacher doing so and not one of the students?
The only real nail in the coffin of her case is why did she not turn off the computer? That sounds like the logical first step, to me.. the computer is "broken" and therefore needs to be sent to the computer administrator to be fixed..
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Counter-point to that.. I'm a part of the OKC2600 crew, and we have monthly meetings that are open to the public. At one such meeting, there was a really creepy guy who kept asking questions about how people could push files onto a computer and such. Being wary of this guy, I did some research. Turns out, he was facing charges for having kiddie porn on a university computer. He was a professor at a community college. He MAY have been able to build up a good BS defense.. were it not for the fact that he had backed up large stacks of disks full of kiddie porn.
A victim of spyware is prosecuted and the real scumbag goes on to wreak havoc. Something is terribly wrong.
While I think the accusation is horribly out of proportion, this just goes to show that Americas series of tubes is clogged with this filth. Is it the teachers fault that one of those tubes had porn in? I don't think so.
In many international organizations, it tends to be US + Islam on one side, versus Europe on the other side, when in comes to "moral" issues.
more homework from that teacher!
Underage kid walks in on parents having sex. kid turns of age and sues parents.
Parents claim they were making a little brother or sister for the youngster.
Court upholds Kids side, claiming parents should lie to underage kids about how
little brothers and sisters are made.
So if you want to get a teacher busted and sent to jail, you now know how to do it.
And only a fool would think kids today don't know about computers.
Remember, santa and the easter bunny exist until you are old enough to be told the
truth. What better way to prepair the next generation for believing the political,
war monging and religious BS.
I was maybe 11 when Jaws came out. That scarred me, man, I couldn't go in swimming pools without hearing duh-dund... duh-dund, duh-dund, duh-dund! About maybe when I was 13 I found some pornos hidden away in a local cubby hole in a gully. I absconded with my find, and had them for a week or two until my gramps found them. When he found them, that scarred me.
I don't think adults understand what scars kids very well, man.
C//
Personally, I have been to hairstyling sites that have tried to DL spyware. I beleive this is truie from the teacher. I also believe that the spyware went to the porn sites -not the teacher herself per se. I feel the school is at fault for letting the filtering software expire. It also states the teacher had told others about it, but received no assistance. All teachers are not tech savvy.. thats why they rely on the schools filtering system to help out with blocking. I feel the injustice starts with the school letting the filtering system expire. Filtering systems can also be acquired free for schools.. I do not see any excuse by the school to have let this have happened. Also, the school computers schould have been cleaned regulary to check for new programs - spyware - installed on them. Many workplaces have software that will check all computers on the network to see if new programs have been added.
Don't forget kids - sex is used to create more kids!
Guns are used for keeping down the population...
And in seventh grade kids are beginning to take interest in the opposite gender.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
This is one reason why 'malware did it' defenses should be taken seriously by the courts. Most pedophiles are collector types. For example, the FBI profiling guidelines for law enforcement officers who have discovered child porn, whether on or off a PC, just assume the perp is sn obsessive collector, likely to have dozens of CD photo collections burned, whole cabinets of VHS tapes, or similar sized caches in whatever forms they collect. Pedophiles almost invariably want tens of thousands of photos and hundreds of films, perhaps to validate their orientation ("See, lots of people do it, so I'm not a lone weirdo!"), or perhaps from a fear that the supply will dry up and whatever they have managed to collect will be all they see for the rest of their lives. That really creepy guy you mentioned is very typical.
If all the material is on the PC, and good searches of the suspect's home or workplace don't find back ups and additional material, it's time to look at the alternatives before rushing to convict. Conversely, local law enforcement ought to be trained that finding a back up cache or other off device child porn is one of the best ways to ensure solid convictions.
Who is John Cabal?
I read this story earlier on el reg, and since then I really feel sick for this teacher. Facing 40 years in jail for what appears to the most casual internet user as bad luck is so way out of reality touch it's totaly unbelievable.
Her case desserves the world's attention and help ; I'm wondering wether it couldn't be brought to some NGO attention such as Amnesty international, for it looks like a violation of her human rights. This could help her finding a competent lawyer.
I'm really upset a person's life can be shred to pieces that way, just to fulfill some obvious political ambitions.
The Americans people are just frustrated at the failure of their school system. So they have come up w/ such an ingenious plan to get back to the system.
Who are lawyers and what are they good for:
They are those who know the law, break the law, and need not be punished for breaking the law.
I've been an information security expert for 10 years. Here's what the defense should do in this case and any other case where child porn, etc., is found on the hard-drive of a computer:
1) Setup a clean PC runing an OS of choice (Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD) that's free of porn - ask the prosecuter to have it inspected by his/her experts & certified to be free of porn.
2) Bring the PC into the courtroom and ask a judge to visit a "trial lawyer" site. The judge can use a browser of their choosing.
3) Here's the key, send the judge to a "trial lawyer" site you control - on the home page display a nice porn free article of choice.
4) Now here's the trick - have any moderatly skilled HTML monkey place a bunch of pornographic images in 1x1 jpegs in the article so they won't be visible scattered throughout the page, make sure these images are from very nasty porn sites - stuff that would be illegal in the city/state the judge lives in. Also have the HTML money place some hidden frames on the page that load on certain actions like onmouseovers of links and words.
5) Ask the judge to run the mouse down the page to trigger the onmouseovers.
6) Hand the machine over to the prosecuter and ask to have it inspected by his/her experts.
7) The experts will find that the judge visited and viewed pornographic images while in the courtroom. The browser cache doesn't lie, right?
Done and done - for added effect, make sure there are some kids in the courtroom. The only way to prosecute an individual for computer sex crimes is to get a confession or have a video of their actions (i.e., a sting op). It's just that easy folks!
My father's advice (possibly misremembered) was to opt for a trial by judge if you were innocent and a trial by jury if you were guilty. Now, he actually was a lawyer, but he was definitely not a trial lawyer, so take that with a very large grain of salt.
if the schools internet protection software didn't work, and she had tried to get that changed then the school should be responsible and not the individual.
there is a shortage of people willing to be teachers in many parts of the US!
Here's the checklist of benefits of becoming a teacher:
-Relatively low wages
-Dealing with spoiled kids
-Dealing with the parents of spoiled kids
-Facing 40 years in prison because your school has an IT department consisting mostly of monkeys
Where do I sign up?!
...///...
Police and prosecutors don't care what really happened because their job is to arrest and convict - that's what we reward them for. We'd be silly to expect anything different.
It's not a one-sided system. If the defense attorney wasn't utterly incompetent, the defendant wouldn't have lost the case.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
How was it determined that there was no way the pages would have loaded without actually clicking on something or typing it in? When I did computer repair, I wrote a script for testing web browsing (lots of customers would say "my browser crashes randomly) that would open a new web page every second until 10 windows were open, wait for all of them to finish loading, then close them and open 10 more. All of these web pages showed up in the history, as if someone had navigated to them, but all it was was a separate program telling the browser what to do. If I could do that with the limited programming experience I had at the time, I'm sure an experienced spyware programmer could easily write a program that could load web pages without a user typing them in or clicking on a link. It's also very easy to make a popup refresh to the actual porn site after x seconds, or load it when the window is closed. Again, without actually having to click on anything.
I remember seeing a video on "america's funniest home videos." A mom was filming her baby playing with their family dog. The dog rolled over on its back and the baby grabbed its penis for a second. The mom SCREAMED when this happened.
Time to get rid of the crutches.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
The Georgia Supreme Court has turned down an appeal from Genarlow Wilson who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for having _consensual_ oral sex with a 15-year-old.
_ channel_id=32&url_article_id=22700&url_subchannel_ id=&change_well_id=2&weak
He was sentenced for aggravated child molestation.
http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/index.php?s=&url
So I suppose showing pics to kids = 40 years. Actual _consensual oral sex = 20 years. Murder = ?
Silly hackers looking for UFO info or other silliness end up in jail, but spammers and spyware installers get away. Similarly hackers like Sony get away with installing rootkits - no one was jailed for the crime (even though they broke various Computer Crime laws around the world), USD 1+ million "fine" = win for Sony.
What next? A death penalty for file sharing?
if you have a lawyer on your side, thats probably true.
otherwise my experience is opposite (for traffic tickets anyway.) A judge has little incentive to listen to you, a jury is more naturally curious enough to listen no matter how often that same sentance/excuse has been spoken in a court room. Also the DA will actually do research before taking on the cost of a jury, so if you want to have him listen to a plea, or drop the case before trial you need him to take a interest. Good luck getting the attention of a DA in any big city over a traffic ticket outside a courtroom, without the risk of them pay a actually jury, on a innocent verdict.
Although my court experience is just because I think it would be worth higher cost of a lost verdict, than paying the fine, to learn something of the legal system first hand.
This is clearly a grave miscarriage of justice.
This case is so wrong on so many levels. Julie Amero is looking at 40 YEARS in prison. For a spyware infestation.
Every available piece of evidence known to the public indicates that that Ms. Amero is innocent of the charges.
The defense contends this was a case of spyware on the school machine -- a barrage of popups. And from what we know of the case, it certainly looks like it was (if you want to see what a porn spyware infestation actually looks like, Ben Edelman shows it here: http://www.benedelman.org/news/062206-1.html -- it's quite a real problem).
According to one article, "Computer expert W. Herbert Horner, who performed a forensic examination of the computer for the defense, said Amero may have been redirected to the sexually-oriented sites through a hairstyling site accessed from the computer. He said the site allowed spyware to be downloaded onto the computer which allowed the pop-ups."
The detective in the investigation "admitted there was no search made for adware, which can generate pop-up advertisements". It's incredible that they never even _checked_ for spyware.
The court actions of the case were flawed as well. For example, one source reports that the Trial Judge, Hillary Strackbein, "was seen falling asleep during proceedings and made comments to the jury that she wanted the case over by the end of the week. It was also reported that Judge Strackbein attempted to pressure the defense into an unwanted plea deal, in place of a trial. The defense attorney for Amero, moved for a mistrial shortly before closing arguments Friday, based on reports that jurors had discussed the case at a local restaurant."
Finally, note that the school didn't even have active content filtering in place (not that it would have probably made a difference).
The fact that there were pornographic images on the computer means nothing, because whenever a popup launches, the images in the popup are stored on the computer. The fact that the logs indicated that she "visited" the sites also means nothing, since when the porn popups come through, they get logged as well.
The fact that the machine was never scanned for spyware by the investigating authorities is outrageous. In fact, this alone should have resulted in the case being dismissed, as the defense found a major spyware infection by their expert forensic evidence.
Was justice done here? A bad spyware infestation can splatter a machine full of porn popups and it's more than a bit unnerving to think that a teacher could get hard prison time for something that was innocent.
Where I used to work someone was fired for viewing porn. The interesting thing is that he was given a warning at first and afterwards started using other peoples machines to view his porn.
In my experience you generally don't get these sorts of popups unless you've been visiting porn sites. In this case it doesn't look like anyone considered the possibility that it might have been the janitor or some other teacher who was responsible for the machines having these popups.
Come to think of it, couldn't a forensic investigation have pinpointed when they were installed?
I know a guy who had sex with an underage girl for over 4 years (she was 13 when it started). He took pictures and showed her pictures including those of kids having sex. What sentence did he get? Let's say 59 months in a *COUNTY* lockup (vs STATE or FEDERAL). He's due for parole in two months after server less than 2 1/2 years in jail.
When he was arrested, his computer was loaded with lots of kiddie porn (which he admitted downloading). They had those pictures and the ones he took. He was theoretically facing 40+ years in jail. Somehow, all the kiddie porn charges disappeared - including the intent to distribute. He plead guilty to lesser charges. But, money talks (he had plenty of that) and he walks after less than 2 1/2 years in jail. Special.
And, this woman is facing 40 years because spyware downloaded the crap and her lawyer is inept. I hope she has filed an appeal or someone comes to her aid. Let's put and keep the real criminals behind bars, shall we?
My mother is a teacher at an elementary school that recently got a computer lab upgrade, and being the family tech, I was asked to go in and help do some of manual labor involved. I was shocked to find out that the 'computer specialist' for the school was a regular teacher, with no professional IT experience, and was picked because she 'knew the most about computers' (computers - read "Macs"). Here this poor teacher is responsible for an entire school's network, computers, and other IT deployments with no professional experience. What's worse, is that IT positions are the first ones to be cut in most school districts in my home state of Florida (I've misplaced the link where I read that from; will find it later).
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if that Connecticut school district had also cut its IT positions in order to lower education costs, hence why the license on it's software had expired.
Okay, maybe thats a bit of a generalization, but a couple of years ago now, when I was a wee little kiddie, we were in the IT room. (Yes there was only one). Anyway, the teacher was doing something on the Internet, which we were watching, then a pop-up appeared. (It was the type where it says: "What is your favorite colour?")
Teacher: Hmm... Well what's everyones favorite colour?
The Class: Blue! No, red! Yellow! (They weren't amazingly old at the time.... must have been about 10 - 11)
Me: Don't bother clicking on any of them, just close it, it'll just open load more pop-ups.
Needless to say, she clicked on one of the colours and had to spend the next few minutes trying to close all the windows which opened.
But anyway, my point is, how can she be held responsible when she may well not know how to deal with spyware, and indeed
also testified she had told at least four teachers and the assistant principal at the school about the problem, but received no help. Surely, someone smart with these new-fangled computer-thingamajigs should have sorted it out. But then again, you have to ask yourself whether she should have been using the web when these pop-ups kept appearing.I'm still a school, in year 10 (14 - 15 year olds for those not in the UK), and frequently in our Religious Education and Physical Social Health Education lessons you can't hear for the rude, explicit, and sexually orientated jokes which fly around the classroom, and the teachers (being fun and entertaining) don't mind and join in. None of our class care. None of us jump out of the window. We don't find it offensive in anyway. People should give us kids a break. Too much cotton wool nowadays.... or maybe it's just you strange people in the USA....
Peace Dude,
Dave
Seriously, what information are we not getting here? Was she really convicted? I feel like I need to throw up.
All your base are belong to Google.
A few years ago, the running gag at college was to e-mail a harmless sounding link to a teacher. When they opened it, they got one of those porn sites. When they closed it, you got 10 more windows, and so on.
...
I didn't hear about the gag being actually used to often, but all the IT trained people knew about it. Given this story, you could really kill a person's career with this gag
It seems to me that there is a need for a new pressure group or NGO to take up the rights of people who are convicted of trivial offenses online and receive disproportionate senstences as a result. Legal systems around the world are trying to adapt to the new world of the net, and overreacting to minor infringements with wildly unfair judicial sentences. But AFAIK the world of NGOs and pressure groups hasn't yet responded. (Correct me if I'm wrong...)
Who will take up this woman's case? Amnesty? No, she's not a prisoner of conscience. The EFF? AFAIK, they're too busy fighting the RIAA. So there's a need for someone to take up the cause of "proportionality in internet-related sentencing".
In this case, obviously a proportional sentence would be nothing.
But take the example of the UK hacker sentenced to 3 and a half years for writing some bad things on a memorial website a couple of months ago; there IMHO it would have been fair enough for the guy to get a week or a month in jail, but 3 1/2 years is absurd.
Viewers of porno sites is another example; I don't have a problem with stopping kiddie porn; but the jail time people are getting for looking at (and paying for) some pictures is IMHO clearly disproportionate.
People sacked for sending suggestive emails...
etc -- I'm sure we can all think of examples. It's clearly unjust -- but no-one stands up for these people. So the media continues their anti-internet hysteria, and the political/judicial system follow up with this sort of brutal sentence.
Time for the slashdot foundation to step in ; )
Missing: the Quran, nuclear weapons, and TX cheerleaders. The cheerleaders may have been on a pop-up.
When is the TV movie!
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
the case of Pamela Rogers Turner. "During an 8-year suspended sentence, she must also serve a term of 7 years and 3 months of probation, register as a sex offender, and surrender her teaching certificate for life. The sentence not only prohibits her from profiting from the case (including books and movies), but also bars her from granting interviews for 8 years." Accidentally exposing a child to bad pictures is worse than having an affair with him?
This scares me not because I'm a teacher, but because I'm an IT guy. I see everyone saying "lock up the IT people", and while letting filtering software run out and not using Firefox is a little ignorant, this is an unreasonable burden to say "you must block all possibly pornographic materials." Even with the best of filters, you're never going to catch all of it, that's just the way it is. If you do whitelist-only, the closest thing to a foolproof filter, you've just ruined the decentralized nature of the Internet. It seems like there's no way I can win here, short of getting a lawyer and having everyone sign something that waives me of liability for random junk on the Internet (a logical waiver, I'd say) that gets past my reasonable effort.
Jeepers...
I recognize people by their sigs. Is that a bad thing?
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
I wouldn't mind seeing some statistics of wrongful convictions by both. I'd imagine, though, that juries are wrong far more often than a trained judge, and I for one would far rather risk my innocent ass in the hands of a judge than a group of John Q. Idiots.
Prosecutors, police and lawmakers all seem to be making the assumption that computer owners should be responsible for everything that is sent to and from the Internet. Yet, we have average people with little knowledge of computer security who are using hard to secure Windows computers. A large percentage of all Windows computer have been infected by spyware or browser hijackers or have had back doors placed in them my hackers or the malware itself. A recent New York Times article was titled the Attack of the Zombie Computers Is Growing Threat. It says that "botnet programs are present on about 11 percent of the more than 650 million computers attached to the Internet". Most of those zombie computers are probably spewing out spam for porn, pump-and-dump stock schemes, or illegal activities such as phishing schemes that steal peoples charge card numbers or passwords. Should those 70 million Windows computer owners around the world also be arrested and sentenced to years or decades in prison?
Last night on ABC, on TV, I saw a 20/20 segment about "Prison Time For Viewing Porn". In that case a teenage boy was facing the possibility of 90 years in prison because several child porn files that were found on the family computer. Police pounded on the door of their Phoenix home at 6:00 a.m. and seized the family computer. The sixteen-year-old boy offered to take a lie detector test and passed the test, but prosecutors continued to press charges. A computer expert later looked at the hard drive and found more than 200 infected files and back doors that allowed hackers to access the family computer from remote locations. Most likely someone else used the insecure Bandy family computer as a place to store the files which they did not dare store it on their own computer.
I have heard that many computer repair people spend much of their time removing spyware from computers belonging to people who complain that computers are running slowly. Prosecutors and police should take into account that these people were not using a more secure operating system such as MAC OS X, Linux or BSD. However, security problems or other misleading circumstances can occur when using Mac, Linux, or BSD. For instance, I use Linux and when I find an interesting website with various interesting Linux, ham radio, solar energy or nutrition related files, I occasionally use the wget command to download most of what is on that web page. I latter frequently am surprised to discover that the wget command also downloaded hundreds of pictures of New England covered bridges or family photos too. I most would most likely not notice if child porn photos had also automatically been downloaded into an obscure subdirectory.
How can law makers, police, prosecutors and child protection supporters seriously suggest holding people accountable for what is found computers without outlawing the use of Windows first? Furthermore, where I live the local cable companies provide their customers with broadband routers which are wide open to being used by nighbors by default. The telephone company where I live provides wireless routers which by default use insecure WEP encryption method. About half of all wireless networks do not have any security enabled and many of the others just use WEP or are still using the defalt SSID and password. Many people also do not use antivirus software, spyware removal software, properly secured firewalls or the latest security updates. Even with Windows security patches installed there are frequently unpatched zero-day exploits out there such as the one for Word documents that Microsoft failed to patch earlier this week on "patch Tuesday." How can police and lawmakers seriously suggest holding people accountable for what is on people computers in these circumstances.
Excellent point, as you say, everyone is simply a pod person or zombie. Why would any human possibly have or show intellectual initiative. And what society did you grow up in??? True, certain societies today (chief among them the USA) are becoming completely pod-like, but still.......
mod parent up !
When I worked at Microsoft's technical support division, on at least one occasion I answered a call from someone whose computer had been compromised and was being used as a distribution point for child porn. At the time, I told her it was better that she go to the FBI and seek their assistance, but sometimes I wonder if that was really the best advice.
I don't know what ever became of it.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I've been fired many times for taking the time to check my computer for spyware... Since when is protecting your client a terminable offense? I don't even charge for the time usually unless I am working onsite. I've always told companies I would be liable if I didn't, and I wouldn't endanger the company and that I'd rather be fired then ruin the reputation of the company or myself. *FIRED* Funny how almost none of those companies are around in a few years...and the court system agrees with me. Also how nearly all employees could all give a frack if anyone they are working for goes under the next day.
I have on several occasions tried to give several security tips to average computer users about using WiFi host spots. In two instances, I barely got started before they complained that I was talking way over their head and had used unfamiliar jargon such as browsers, IE, cookies, packet sniffing, encryption and phishing. It was clear that they did not not even want to try to understand what to understand what I was trying to warn them about. They just wanted to access their email and do their on-line banking. It would be scary having some people like that in a jury in a case like that. They could easily understand the idea of someone illegally downloading child porn but not the alternative explanations of how the files got there.
That reminds me of some scenes in the movie "Idiocracy". In that movie, for the last 500 years, the dumb people in the world have been having more children than the smart people. The smart people would postpone marriage and children until they complete college and establish their careers and can afford children. By then in many cases they are less fertile. By contrast the dumb people supposedly don't worry about when they can afford to have children and frequently forget to use birth control methods so they out breeded the smarter people. After 500 years, the average IQ has fallen to an amazingly low level.
In a forgotten suspended animation experiment conducted by they Army, a soldier and a civilian hooker were test subjects who accidentally end up in suspended animation for about 500 years. After waking up, he went to a hospital but was not able to pay the hospital bill because he did not have a bar code on his forearm. He was arrested and put on trail for being un-scannable and for not paying his hospital bill. In court, he said that he was not guilty and tried to explain the Army suspended animation experiment that that he had been part of. They did not even understand much of anything that he was talking about. The prosecutor used a more effective simplistic emotionally charged strategy with little consistent logic. The jury found him guilty but he soon managed to escape from the poorly run jail.
After being recaptured and booked in jail again they discovered that he was the smartest guy in the world, so he was released and sent to the White House to become secretary of the Interior and was asked to figure out why the crops weren't growing. With the help of the hooker, they came up with the outlandish idea of watering the plants. One week after trying that, the plants had not yet grown noticeably. For reasons that I won't bother explaining, watering plants with water resulted in millions of employees of the Brondo sports drink corporation being laid off. Mobs of angry unemployed people soon appeared and he was placed on trial. He used his best logic to try to explain everything in the televised court trial. He was sentenced to death by being crushed by monster trucks on live TV, but fortunately the plants finally started to grow just in time. He soon learned to to talk dumb and properly connect with average voters and was elected president of the United States. Rita the hooker became first lady.
It was a good movie with many that in many ways reminds me of how advertising, politicians and perhaps even the courts sometimes act in real life.
And she would be facing the same punishment if she had bought or sold one of the students for money. The teacher was convicted under subdivision (1), while subdivison (3) covers the sale of children.
Chapter 939 Section 53-21 (2005 Statutes)
In addition, (IANAL) a state court seems to have made a ruling concerning using this statute for cases of sexual misconduct (taken from the 2006 supplement):
i live in the hartford area and the local newspaper here is the hartford courant. this newspaper is sold in the norwich area and i subscribe to it. just a couple of weeks ago, the front paged showed a picture with a number of dead children from a bombing in iraq. parents were grieving and blood was on the street. it ws very graphic. i would like the lawmakers of this state to explain how images like these cause less "harm" to children than sexual images.
you freakin ass, nobody in the 'liberated' countries thinks kids should be watching porno, which is a lot more than 'naked breasts' (and if you disagree then i guess you havent seen much porno)
Teacher should have used HeatSeek http://www.heatseek.com/ :)
So ... 'Nobody ever gets fired for using Windows !'.
.. (and can you spare me some free time to pop around after Ive had my dinner and 'fixup' the family computer .. its broken again)
.. and start again with a fresh slate.
Well, it looks like that still holds true. So you now run a risk of a 40 year jail sentence from using Windows, but for job security - its still the best bet ?
I will happily wager a bet that even if this poor teacher gets handed the DEATH sentence by the courts - there will still be NO REPERCUSSIONS WHATSOEVER on the school IT policy.
For anyone working in IT over the past decades, the mere existence of Microsoft has been a serious drain on one's quality of life. And all the while, the unwashed masses have turned a blind eye to our suffering. It never affected them in any meaningful ways, Bill Gates is an American hero, Microsoft is a proud icon, and all these IT nerds are just whingers who are jealous of Microsoft's success
In fact, Microsoft is SUCH a good example of how to do things right, that its a real good idea to put computers in classrooms and teach kids from a young age that 'Computers == Windows'. yeah - lets fill our schools up with Windows machines and raise a whole generation of people that can dedicate all their spare time to fixing up MY family's computer.
Now, years down the tack, the poison that issues forth from Redmond has spread to the extent that those same unwashed masses are now in the firing line as well, even facing extensive jail terms. The proliferation of windows now reaches out to wreck 'ordinary' lives as well.
Do I sound sympathetic ? No ? Its probably too late now to turn back the clock and address the real underlying problem. The poison has now spread to the bloodstream, and there is little that can be done to save them. Better start building jails now - build em by the thousands, and get ready to lock em up by the millions.
Its time to round up ALL the windows users, lock em away for looooong periods of time
The school systems administrator for not doing their job?
The school for not having there filtration software up to date?
The school administration for not doing their due diligence when choosing there hardware and operating systems?
The children's parents for not teaching their children to turn away from that sort of stuff?
The children's teacher (after all she was a substitute) for not teaching the students to turn away from that sort of stuff?
The church for making the all church types such prudes.
Her lawyer because (s)he seems like an clueless idiot and has no idea what spy ware is and what it can do?
The judge for not providing a "FAIR" trial.
The government for cutting education funding so much that the school can't renew there filtration license.
Do I need to go on?!?!?!?!??!?! Who else could we blame?
Cheers,Xyst....
---
This comment is not meant to be taken seriously.
Interesting that a corporeal person can face 40 years in jail for accidentally installing spyware on one computer while a corporation gets off scott free for deliberately infecting millions. Perhaps each of Sony's employees should be sent to jail 500 years (2M offences / 160K employees). Perhaps they can split the punishment with the shareholders who also stood to profit from the crime.
How happy I was to find the name of my name of my home town - Norwich, Connectictut - listed in the news items on Slashdot.org, a website I visit nearly every day. Since graduating from NFA, and moving on to technical schools WPI and MIT, I have heard so little about Norwich, yet told so many people stories of my hometown, its friendly people, its enthusiasm for the arts. As an adult, I have come to realize, speaking with students from around the country and around the world, that our schools' teachers are certainly in the top 5%. Thus, it was a strong disappointment to read the news item further, and to discover that Norwich was highlighted nationally because you are prosecuting a teacher.
The crime is one of ignorance and so, too, are the prosecutors ignorant. Ms. Amero is charged for injuring minors with a machine that was out of her control. As a veteran computer user (I first learned to program computers in 4th grade at Samuel Huntington 23 years ago), and a professional software developer, I can inform you that computer security is a very important and very poorly understood topic. Computers, especially those running the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems, are extremely vulnerable to virus, spyware and adware attacks. This is widely known - not only among computer professionals like myself, and there are many siding with Ms. Amero on the internet - but in fact among many more casual users of computers. Adware attacks are sometimes mischievous, but much more often commercial in nature, forcing many millions of computers to go to websites without the user's consent, in order to generate fake advertising revenue for the website owners.
There is a declared online war between the adware attackers and the defenders, with geniuses on both sides. Home computer users' computers serve as the battlefield for the cat and mouse game. The entire scene is out of the users' control. Embarrassing incidents like Ms. Amero's occur daily, even at professional lectures. It is no surprise to me that many are upset when children were subjected to material that is out of place in the classroom. Steps should be taken, such as school-wide firewalls, to prevent this from happening again. However, it is false to assert, as Mark Lounsbury has stated, that users have 100% responsibility for what appears in the history of peoples' browsers. Once a virus or piece of spyware has control of a computer, all bets are off. These "rootkits" do anything they want to the computer in service to their own goals, acting increasingly sneaky to get around defenses. Reprimand Ms. Amero for not canceling the lesson due to faulty equipment, but do not punish her for it. She is a Norwich teacher.
Sincerely,
Noah Vawter
It has nothing to do with prosecutors being tech-ignorant.
It has to do with prosecutors seeking to make a name for themselves by jumping on the "child porn" bandwagon - a guaranteed way to get re-election.
It's a career move, nothing more.
It's what you get when "law creates crime".
Look at the "Drug War" sometime. It's a way for the Feds to get money and power while suppressing minorities - nothing more. The Feds regularly arrest people for things that shouldn't be crimes in the first place, threaten them with massive jail time in exchange for ratting out all their relatives and friends with lies, then arresting everybody else and repeating the procedure ad nauseum. This is how they get their 98% conviction rate - and their budget money and career path in the DoJ.
This is why the US has the most incarcerated population in the world.
The entire system has utterly NOTHING to do with the vague abstract term "justice".
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Talk about an effective marketing campain - sue the users for an incredibly inept operating system.
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
Not being flippant here, this is deadly serious. If I was doing IT support for a school and could end up as part of a criminal action for this I would switch to an OS that was safe and a browser that was safe. Could go Mac could go Linux, being a school with existing x86 boxen then Linux would be it. If the school didn't want to do that then I'd just tell them I am not going to go to jail because of their decisions and quit.
I guess just about everyone on /. would regard this whole thing as an injustice and a tragedy. Actually, reading about this makes me almost physically sick ... maybe for an encore they should take the teacher out and stone her.
Bitter and proud of it.
What was wrong with your dad, that he defecates on computers? ...
Is there a video on YouTube?
This is crazy. Just the other day a woman got a slap on the wrist(misdemeanor) for HAVING sex with a minor IN THE SCHOOL. Now this one is probably going to prison for 40 years because those same said students that were "harmed" were probably the ones looking at the porn while she was gone photocopying their assignments.
These prosecutors are out of touch. We need term limits on all of these politicians. That's what a prosecutor is. We need to get rid of lobbyists all together. We need a flat tax. No pet projects. I can go on. These bastards are just cock-suckers, proving they are "part of the team".
"Police and prosecutors don't care what really happened because their job is to arrest and convict - that's what we reward them for. We'd be silly to expect anything different."
I bet these people do realise that it is lives what they are playing with. With that in mind it seems that your saying is about equivalent to saying that these people would kill people for some amount of money as reward. Also, we dont reward them, the system does. They damn well know that this is not what they should be doing. You still think it silly to expect something different? That low opinion of people? Or maybe the worst people are attracted to those jobs.
This is insightful, not funny!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'm confused. How does this particular case imply that the courts are behind the times?
I thought the way the american legal system works is the court would call an expert witness to the stand and his opinion would be admitted as fact. So the defense asks computer expert 'in your expert opinion, do you believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the illegal content on so and so's computer placed there by so and so?"
It's what you get when "law creates crime".
Prison-industrial complex Soon to be, if not already, second only to weapons and contraband.
What?
In Year 8 of my school, we caught our female teacher looking at porn. My friend went over to her, and she put her hand on the screen and was all "could you please wait a little while, I need to fix this computer".
Of course, the principal just laughed at the idea (We hated the teacher, but she was apparently on good terms with the principal - That, or there wasn't an available replacement)
"Women are just like ninjas; They lie even when it is more convenient to tell the truth." ~ Unknown
it's everybodys fault, the spyware writers, the school, microsoft, the children, the authorities, the parents it's one big loop- if she had a more secure computer no prob, if they listen to her, if people weren't so god damn senstive, if the children werent born, if computers never existed, if law didn't exists.. you know what , i think other teachers should strike, i personally think this is an innocent mistake.. being harrassed numurous times by authorized i wouldnt be surprised. lets see the after affects-- oversensitive parents sue the school, the women is setenced to 40 years without parole, lawyers get paid a big sum, the computer remains infected, and the spyware writers continue to serve porn to children. disgusting.
I was thinking this person was the regular teacher.
This was a sub.
As if the sub would has access t o what they want.
-- A computer without Windoze is like a choclate cake without mustard
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
First, an anti-sexuality that is deeply embedded in Western society that has made it difficult until perhaps the past 50 years to openly discuss such matters. (It was there in the past, but unspoken.)
Second, Freud's idea that trauma --particularly sexual trauma-- during childhood is the source of adult neurosis. The most basic example of a primal trauma is that of a toddler in his crib watching his parents have sex. This notion, modified somewhat, underwrites the theraputic notion of the harmfulness of sex in relation to kids.
ohw
Why do we even have internet-connected computers in our schools? What is so different today that children can't possibly learn anything without the aid of the internet? I seemed to have gotten by just fine during my school years without the internet being there at the time!
If it's really so vital to keep our students wired, then why not just pre-download all of the content needed for the curriculum and host it locally on a local intranet instead? That way you know for sure exactly what data is on the system at any given moment. There is nothing technology wise that couldn't be hosted locally, while still giving the students the experience needed to interact with those technologies.
The sheer stupidity of relying on cheesy little "filters" to protect you from every possible threat the internet might throw at you is simply blinding!
8==8 Bones 8==8
I am going to rant for a bit. I know many schools who try to implement technology on their own. If they have someone dedicated to learning and administering the computers,then good for them. But many just take a teacher who knows a little about computers and ask them to take care of it. If we expect to see computers in the schools we should also expect to have professional, knowledgeable support in place. The teacher told the administration about the popups. They did NOTHING. Hindsight suggests that the computer should have been immediately taken away. By whomever, the teacher, the administration, or the help desk tech. Someone should have fixed it. How the spyware got there should not be of immediate concern. I can type in playhousedisney wrong and get spyware if I use IE. (if it is a reoccurring problem THEN use the resources to find out why). Once it is there the computer should not be used by the students and it should be removed. I think the Administration should get the same penalty as the teacher, then we might see them really care about the technology (or remove it entirely).
40Years
thats 3times more than murder!
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
I'm a highly technical and certified computer network geek. My own server was compromised twice last year. My laptop was compromised. My eBay account was compromised. My main home PC was infected twice and I had AVG on it. Now if I as a highly technical security nut can have that many problems in a single year imagine how many problem the average Internet user has. Besides that person having way more problem than I because of their inherent insecure practices, I actually noticed when I had a problem. I have to wonder how many problems I missed.
America defending the rights of all individuals in the world. Yay!
if she where a man.
Preview is my friend
There was a time where if a programmer had software "expire" for "non-payment", it was considered to be an illegal "time bomb". Now they call it licensing and deem it a "feature".
You would do this - to a teacher?
You would sit back and accept your government - allow them to do this in your name - to a teacher? To use the criminal power of the state to put a woman in prison over something like this? What is wrong with you?
Your forefathers dressed up like Indians and threw tea into Boston Harbour over an afront of less significance than this. Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine are spinning in their grave.
This isn't somebody else's fault - this is YOUR fault.
.Robert
I was using firefox on a slackware system, and I google'd for 'attrs'.
.mil security certificate.
On the google results page, I got a pop-up asking about a
Apperently, firefox (or an extension thereof) automatically pre-loads some pages linked to the page you are viewing, triggering security certificates at the least.
So, no, you don't have to click on a link for your browser to open it.
I went to mail.com at work at a couple of porn popups came through (ie, natch). Thankfully no one has come down to demand that I explain it - it would be an instant firing offense - and I've been more careful. I can't use firefox due to them scanning the PC for 'rogue applications' - another firing offence (running 'unknown' software').
Twenty years ago, I would have agreed. But things have changed. I don't trust judges. They seem to be pro-cop, pro-prosecution, anti-criminal/defendant. Some might be honest, but unless you really know what you're doing, I'd stick with a jury. There's less chance of twelve idiots in one place than one.
How 'bout this phrase? "A good lawyer is worth every Franklin."
* A couple of ideas:
1) Install free antivirus, many out there (free.grisoft.com : AVG antivirus free version, AVG Antispyware free edition).
2) Install either service pack 2 (and use its firewall) for windows XP, or install a firewall, a free one can be gotten from (www.zonelabs.com : zonealarm free).
3) Install OpenOffice or Star Office (www.openoffice.org) instead of microshaft's office.
4) Start using and updating them religiously (forget the autopatcher, make a habit of updating manually and verifying the update at LEAST once per week).
5) All other tools are optional, and there are many, but you need to do number 6 for sure.
6) Get to know what it is you are doing. Spending less time watching pointless TV brainwashing and playing endless hours of videogames. Read a tech manual, learn a bit about your tools, there are tons of entry level books and top level books, pick one at your level. Become a master of your environment, which includes your tools, get rid of your pride, and ask questions, learn (there was an old teacher of mine, who said "the greatest masters were those who never stopped being good students", and "mastery, is simply the basics perfected").
7) Use Linux or BSD... dump Windows and Apple. They don't have your interest in mind, they have the interests of their STOCK HOLDER SPECULATORS in mind. Those people are gambling that they can keep selling you stuff, which means they can't make a good product that is stable. If it were, they couldn't sell you more.
NOTE: The list above is a SUGGESTION, also if you do 7, 1 and 2 can be disregarded. But no matter what tool you use, you should (up to you) get to know your tools intimately. Stop demanding that "experts" save you. Most experts are simply amateurs who took a test. I once went through that before I quit doing IT.
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
You still think it silly to expect something different? That low opinion of people? Or maybe the worst people are attracted to those jobs.
We SHOULD expect something different. The silliness is in rewarding one behavior while expecting another.
Gov. Jodi Rell must immediately pardon this teacher and expunge the conviction. The teacher in this case is a victim as much if not more than the minors damaged by whatever happened in that classroom. The actual perpetrators were: the pornographers the generated the porn, the web site purveyors who posted it, the programmers who facilitated the web site operation, the school administration for failing to provide a safe workplace and school environment and for failing to properly train teachers before putting them in classrooms with devices as dangerous as a computer running Windows and connected to the Internet, the school board who failed to fund filtering software, and finally but not least, Microsoft for producing and marketing an operating system so weak that children can break it. Now there are many others to blame for the insanity of this conviction. The prosecutor who is making a name for himself from this case,the judge for failing to dismiss the case, the defense attorney for botching the defense all share responsibility. It is time for Connecticut Governor Rell to show take control of this train wreck and provide leadership. If that doesn't happen, the teacher's local union, the Connecticut state teacher's union and the national union need to rally in support. Step one is to turn off every computer in every classroom and school library across the state and the nation. If the teachers and librarians are to be held criminally responsible for what comes up on those machines, they have no choice but to turn them off to protect the children and themselves. The second step must be a walk out. Close down the schools if the public, the courts, and the state administration are so ignorant of the underlying technology and foolish in assigning blame as to allow this conviction to stand, then the schools need to be closed until wake up and make the educational computing safe and productive for children.
If public prosecutors only do exactly what they are rewarded for, they should be fired. They, after all are part of the consiousness of the legal system. Humans cant make a legal system based on only rules, or rewarding systems. You have to use the integerity and respectability of persons themselves. You cant expect a system that is based solely on selfishness to create much "justice".
Human beings that only respond on the behaviures that are rewarded are often called sociopaths. In principle, a person that only responds to what it is rewarded to isnt a person at all, but deserves less respect then many animals. (indeed i dont think all animals behave only because of rewarded behaviure, yes, i believe in evolution, but there is lots of noise in it)
That the US legal system is (often) based on competition between lawyers may be the cause of the idea that it should all be based on reward systems. (and sometimes used as an excuse) However public prosecutors should damn well prosecute only when they are convinced themselves. Do research on incidents first.. Especially if they know the suspect isnt going to run away. (or it is plain obvious that things arent simple)
Another source of the idea that you can do anything with reward systems could be capitalism, but isnt that more a solution to logistics.(which is hardly perfect, but perfect inobtainable) They also should be worrying more about their costumers and workers, not about their shareholders/profit margins.
PS with "justice" I mean appropriate actions taken after something went wrong, which result in both significantly lower chances of it happening again, and satisfaction for people around it. The amount of effort in the latter should be minimized. (hate/revenge is irrelevant, but the feelings of people must be dealed with)
... when all the teachers get sent to jail. I like to remember it this way: the apostrophe in this case stands in for _some_ letter. Therefore, it must be the "i" in "is," since "its" has no missing letter.
... How in the world do you let this happen?
I run Windows XP with no firewall, no realtime antivirus protection, and no spyware protection. My computer is connected directly to the Internet and runs pretty much 24/7.
Every month or so I run a full check to see if anything has popped up. I've never had any accounts compromised, on my PC or on the web. I've never had a virus or spyware. And nobody has ever tried to hack me.
What in the world am I doing right that you're doing wrong? Avoiding porn sites and shady P2P services?
I am scientifically inaccurate.
Per the article, she told 4 other teachers & the principle it was happening & nothing was done to correct the problem. So let's be a bit realistic here & say "hmm, the schoolboard didn't do it's job. The principle didn't do theirs. IT may or may not have done theirs - given the assinine constraints some of them work under" perhaps this wasn't the teachers fault. - But it's easier to blame 1 person than look at a system collapse & say "we have to fix this".
are public enemy #1. The FBI said so to quote: Radical, Militant, Librarians
The site is for buttons supporting the American Librarian Association. The quote is from an FBI report on the NJ incident where a librarian refused to break state law for the police. [As an asside the librarian in question was suspended by the board --- for 'questionable judgment' when the law explicitly states that the following the police request would have been a felony.]
It's called Common Sense. You don't click on that .exe in the mail or downloaded from that crack website. You have a properly configured NAT router, and you don't have all ports forwarded to your computer to make MSN videochat work. You use Firefox or Opera, you open email as text.
;)
All common sense, really... The only things Spybot would find for me were tracking cookies (which I don't mind so much, FF is set to delete unwanted cookies on close.) That was before switching to Linux, now I have no idea how to find spyware anymore
I also use a webmail inbox with a big-name email provider rather than through feed my email through Outlook. This free email provider automatically scans attachments for virii (which does help! :)). When I scanned both anti-virus and anti-spyware on my machine, nothing came up.
Wake up, most IT is outsourced now and has been for a long time. Most hospitals have million dollar medical equipment connected to outdated and abused PC's that you wouldn't use to operate a toaster much less an MRI imaging program.
If you want to see penny pinching at it's best, go work in a hospital for awhile.
I have been a working in the computer field for a number of years...specifically the consumer portion of repair. I spend my work days managing a repair facility where spyware and malware are removed from countless numbers of computer on a daily basis. Before that I worked as an independent contractor to manager large scale computer networks in office complexes as well as schools. As for this teacher...in my opinion...this could go either way as to weather or not she should be held responsible. First thing I want to mention...this could have been very easily prevented if the school had an anywhere remotely adequate security system in place on the school LAN/WAN. So partially in my opinion the school is at fault. I spent a good number of years setting up security systems and firewalls designed for schools and such places specifically for that purpose. Now as I said before it could go either way. In order for something like that to be provoked on a unit sites along the lines of the content displayed had to be visited at some point in order for that malware/spyware to be on there.
and yet another slashdot article wonders why IT folks consider users stupid. The very first scumware i ever cleared off a users pc was rapidblaster, which did this exact thing. One hopes and expects that the appeals court will reverse it, but this shows exactly how crappy is the interface between IT and regular users and the professional environ and the legal system.
Giving you a troll rating definitely has merit. You have no value as a human being, and you don't add value to this site.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Sorry no mod points.
What about the President, politicians, citizens and anyone else that relies on technology, anyone can be victums of unknown and exposed to expected viri on the Internet unknowingly. Whom is the law going after? What about the accussed perpretator who is an innoccent person with viri/spyware that initated this. What about computer sharing at home? What about the network access, kids, spouce, neighbors, or a company computer? I thought the law was clear that pass through pipe agreements regarding he the internet were exempt. It is was the Internet is all about. Or maybe the the operative word is agreement and that the government is persuing/attacking the wrong entity or maybe this philosophy needs to be further refined, or maybe I wrong and that was lost a long time ago. It wouldn't be the first time the government has gone after attacked a person for the wrong reasons. But there does exsist many serious problems that need to be addressed and it encompasses more than just the Fed, I would also include the MPAA and RIAA and their ties to the government and abilities to manipulate politicians and law enforcement to their becon.
I realize this is a technical forum, so excuse the OT-ness of this rant. But does anybody else think the law has gone totally insane? Most likely the brief exposure to those naked pics will not do those kids even a tiny shred of harm. (And yes, I AM a parent, a good tolerance-and-diversity-teaching liberal dad.) Even if you granted that the teacher _had_ been grossly negligent, I don't think it should be more than a misdemeanor, 30 days in the county jail at most. We live in one of the most sex-saturated societies on earth which is simultaneously one of the most hypocritical. The line between something that is totally legal and a 10-year felony is razor thin - whether, say, the naked girl in the photo is one minute shy of her 18th birthday - and who could possibly tell? We have a bunch of fundamentalist neanderthals who would like to do that with all pornography, no doubt, but the courts have not yet been totally corrupted. So these Bible-thumpers satisfy their lust for punishing people by slowly ratcheting up the concept of "harm to minors" to include anything and everything sexually related. Therefore we have a situation that's almost worse than living in Saudi Arabia, because there, you probably don't have much chance of getting into this kind of nonsense. But, absent the corrupting factor of religion, any healthy male will have a hankering to look at naked females - or naked males, I'm no homophobe - and this activity harms no one. (And a lot of women share this vice - or so we only can hope.) Even those of us that are in a monogamous relationship - let's say, for example, your partner has a headache on a particular night. :-) You can do your best to avoid what you think is illegal material, yet you can still access it accidentally, without realizing it. The police seem powerless to cleanse the Net of that sort of thing. Worse yet, I've heard rumors that police actually traffic in child porn as a method of entrapment. Our society has to grow up and accept that fact that occasionally, minors will access sexually explicit material, and even (gasp) engage in the activity themselves, and that this is NOT A PROBLEM. Human nature does not change. There were teenage girls who got "in trouble" even in my grandparents' day. We can turn into a bunch of head-chopping Muslim-type fanatics or we can become civilized, enlightened humanists. The choice is ours.
I assume you're behind at least a router doing NAT, which provides plenty of protection for external intrusions. Otherwise, you probably would be hacked pretty quick given the usual lag between network based vulnerabilities popping up and MS fixing them.
Judges are used to figuring out the difference between a bamboozle and real evidence. A jury can sometimes get caught up in the glam of a lawyer (either prosecution or defense). At a guess I'm going to say that, in either case, the probability of a 'wrong' answer is relatively small but if you're going for that 'faint hope' clause, you are usually going to be better off with a jury.
An example is the comment of one law enforcement type who noted that while all the CSI courses have increased interest in the forensic sciences (a good thing because more forensic scientists are needed), it has also raised the expectations of the jury (believing that a DNA sequencing can be done at the drop of a hat and can (and should) be done in just about every case. In other words, if the crown doesn't have DNA evidence (e.g. "only" your fingerprints all over the weapon and the victim), then you should go with a jury if you're hoping for a spurious innocent verdict.
In this case, the jury got caught up in "oooooh you nasty teacher! How dare you mess with our children and didn't bother to look too closely at the question of whether or not the teacher really was being careless. Someone needed to get blamed, and she was a very convenient target.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Parent is more Informative than Insightful, if any mods are inclined to notice.
Bring back Sirius Punk!
On a projected image of the list of Web sites visited while Amero was working, Lounsbury pointed out several highlighted links. "You have to physically click on it to get to those sites," Smith said. "I think the evidence is overwhelming that she did intend to access those Web sites."
It sounds like these links were just showing up as 'visited', which does not mean they'd actually been clicked on. If this case has been based on poor tech advice like this, it's a travesty. As experts, do we have a duty to petition the judge? Would it hold any weight if it came from Slashdot.org??
The Norwich Police Department has had some problems itself with improper nudity not too long ago.
& q=%22Mark+Lounsbury%22+%22James+Daigle%22&ie=UTF-8 &oe=UTF-8
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en