wehooper
join:2004-04-25
Spring City, TN
| Teacher could get 40 years because of spyware porn pop-ups This is really disgusting. A Connecticut teacher has been convicted of exposing middle school students to pornography because the spyware infested classroom computer she used started spewing porn pop-ups. The prosecutor claimed the teacher "must" have clicked on the porn sites. Obviously, the prosecutor hasn't experienced a browser hijacking before. What happened to the teacher would have happened to anyone who used the infected machine. Now, the 40 year old teacher's reputation is shot and she could face up to 40 years in jail. Let's hope this conviction gets overturned. Maybe the anti-spyware community could lend a hand.
»sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2007/01···ice.html | |
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Elite
join:2002-10-03
Orange, CT | Re: Teacher could get 40 years because of spyware porn pop-ups Prosecutor must use a Mac... | |
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Dustyn
Premium
join:2003-02-26
Ontario, CAN | Re: Teacher could get 40 years because of spyware porn pop-ups Or Linux... | |
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hpguru
Curb Your Dogma
Premium
join:2002-04-12 | Re: Teacher could get 40 years because of spyware porn pop-ups Or a porn popping spyware infected hardcore jpeg choked Win box.  | |
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justin
Australian
join:1999-05-28
Brooklyn, NY | sounds like more than enough grounds for a re-trial/appeal. | |
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Dustyn
Premium
join:2003-02-26
Ontario, CAN
1 edit |  Re: Teacher could get 40 years because of spyware porn pop-ups
said by justin  :sounds like more than enough grounds for a re-trial/appeal. Agreed.
A judge allegedly falling asleep during the proceedings and reports of the jurors discussing the case outside the courts at a local restaurant is compelling enough to call a mistrial.
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Temblor
@uu.net
| said by justin :sounds like more than enough grounds for a re-trial/appeal. More like enough grounds to hang the prosecutor from the nearest street lamp.
Prosecutors are granted immunity from 'the law,' not from extra-judicial executions carried out by the people.  | |
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KyeU
join:2003-12-31
Canada
4 edits | Who is liable in this case? I can think that the School Administration is liable for not renewing the content-filtering software, and/or for not spending the necessary resources to secure the school computers (and for not outlining it in guidelines that infected computers are NOT to be used).
quote:
Amero also testified she had told at least four teachers and the assistant principal at the school about the problem, but received no help.
Incompetent administration.
EDIT: And even if she happens to have a "thing" for pornography, the administration can be put to blame for having lax supply teacher entrance evaluations.
EDIT 2:
quote:
But Smith countered Horner's testimony with that of Norwich Police Detective Mark Lounsbury, a computer crimes investigator. 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."
OR you can have spyware load those pages, where IE marks them as visited even if you didn't physically click on them (tested this by making a simple HTML page with a link to Yahoo.com, then in a new window, I went to Yahoo.com. I then refreshed the simple HTML page and it shows up as being visited (purple instead of blue)).
The evidence is in fact overwhelming that she did NOT intend to access those Web sites. It's sad that an 18 year old (myself) can poke holes in a Police Detective's accusation. There's no mention of the Police Detective scanning the computer for malware/crapware/spyware.
By reading the articles and having the prosecutor insisting that she had HAD to click on the links is despicable. It seems like malware/crapware/spyware doesn't exist in Connecticut. | |
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Psicop
More human than human
Premium
join:2005-12-21
| Don't blame the teacher. It could have been a naughty student(s).
More responsible is the school, more specifically the IT stuff for not doing THEIR JOB, which is blocking the network from accessing pornographic pages.
The public prosecutor must be on drugs. 40 years??? Ridiculous.
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Psicop
More human than human
Premium
join:2005-12-21
| Re: Teacher could get 40 years because of spyware porn pop-ups Yeah, I should have read the link.
Well, I just finished reading it...and buff! The whole case stinks:
1. The school? (I guess the network) did have content filtering but the license was expired.
2. The Trial Judge, Hillary Strackbein, “was seen falling asleep during proceedings...
3. And made comments to the jury that she wanted the case over by the end of the week...
4. Judge Strackbein attempted to pressure the defense into an unwanted plea deal, in place of a trial...
5. Jurors had discussed the case at a local restaurant.
Bloody funny.
Problem is that the teacher's reputation is in tatters after this. 
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ff1324
Everybody Goes Home
Premium
join:2002-08-24
On Four Day
| Re: Teacher could get 40 years because of spyware porn pop-ups said by La Luna :Really, this isn't funny though, this poor woman could go to jail for this. This should be a wake up call to everyone who works in any place where questionable content could affect your employment status as well as criminal complaints. In any place but your own house (read: your workplace) a string of porn pop-ups could be construed as sexual harassment.
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The funny thing about firemen...night and day they're always firemen | |
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javaMan
Premium,MVM
join:2002-07-15
San Luis Obispo, CA
| said by Psicop :. . . Problem is that the teacher's reputation is in tatters after this. Nothing that a retrial and an acquittal wouldn't fix though. There are more than enough people around who understand how things like this can happen even though the judge, jury, prosecutor and "investigator" apparently don't. She might consider hiring a better attorney though.
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Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness. . . Isa. 5:20 | |
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Alcohol
Premium
join:2003-05-26
Somerset, NJ | 40 years in jail?
What's the charge for murder? Child Pornography?
Great justice system
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I would but.. Meh.. Effort | |
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Blue2
Premium
join:2004-04-14
France
1 edit | There are a few things about this story I still don't get.
The local Connecticut newspaper states, "Still, she was accused and convicted of intentionally accessing several pornographic sites -- not pop-up ads or windows, as she suggested. And she did not turn off the computer when the students saw the images."
- How did they prove "intention"?
- How did they prove she was the one who accessed these sites? (The computer was in a room under lock and key that only she had access to?)
- Did any student testify that they saw her click on a link or type in the URL to a pornographic site? Since the students were obviously watching at the time (according to this quote), what exactly did they see her do?
- And finally, not to be too sexist about this, but how many 40 year old women do you know who access porn sites, at school no less, unless there is a more significant underlying problem (e.g. a sexual predator hoping to get a reaction)?
This perhaps shows that a prosecutor wanting to set an example or make a name for himself, a computer-illiterate judge, and a bad defense lawyer can be dangerous to your health.
Just my two cents. | |
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javaMan
Premium,MVM
join:2002-07-15
San Luis Obispo, CA
| Re: Teacher could get 40 years because of spyware porn pop-ups said by Blue2 :. . . This perhaps shows that a prosecutor wanting to set an example or make a name for himself, a computer-illiterate judge, and a bad defense lawyer can be dangerous to your health. That sounds about right to me. 
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Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness. . . Isa. 5:20 | |
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thender2
Glamour Profession
Premium
join:2004-05-16
Staten Island, NY
1 edit | The only person liable is the person who made the spyware.
As for exposing "kids" to porn.. how many haven't seen porn in middle school? If anything the kids are probably getting a kick out of the fact that a big deal, or any deal is being made over this.. I didn't know a single person in middle school who hadn't seen porn before someplace. A good portion of my 7th grade classmates used the computer class to find ways around the stupid filters to look at porn anyway. | |
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Mike10021
@rr.com
| Re: Teacher could get 40 years because of spyware porn pop-ups I wouldn't count on any help from the students themselves. You have to remember how cruel kids at that age are. There's a possibility she may have been an unpopular substitute, so the kids blew the situation out of proportion to their parents to get her fired. All-in-all, this case is a disgusting display of a lack of justice in this system. In case you all haven't figured it out yet, our justice system is broken and needs to be fixed. | |
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KTW35
join:2003-01-12
Port Saint Lucie, FL | Unless aliens take over the proceedings: she will be found not guilty. "If" she has a good lawyer she will get "paid". All I have to say.  | |
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ElJay
join:2004-03-17
 ·Great Works Internet
| This is nuts... No search for adware? What sort of justice is this? Too bad the jury and the school's IT people can't be put on trial for being idiots.
My experience in school was that the "computer" people there were incompetent and could barely figure out how to plug an ethernet cable into a computer. I bet it is no different at this school, and it's really ridiculous with tools like group policy and on-access virus/malware scanners that they apparently allowed a computer to get owned by adware. | |
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Blue2
Premium
join:2004-04-14
France
| Innocent people do sometimes get faulted, ESPECIALLY when the people making these decisions have no clue as to how technology works. Someone has to be held responsible: the school/bank/institution (unlikely), the kids (not a chance), the user (bingo!).
Before making a ruling on a computer related case, every judge should be forced to (a) pass a basic computer literacy test and (b) spend a week behind an unprotected computer.
After that, there would be a lot less chance for misapplications of justice. | |
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nonus
@netvigator.com | this kind of ridiculous case can only happen in US, every minute thing can exaggerated to lawsuit in court. | |
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Blue2
Premium
join:2004-04-14
France
| Re: Teacher could get 40 years because of spyware porn pop-ups Voila: Garbage In, Garbage Out | |
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Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
USA
| said by Kurts3Kids :TEACHER HAS BEEN FOUND GUILTY I really feel sad for her and hope that she wins on appeal, but now that she has been found guilty, her career is likely over. Even if she's acquitted on appeal, she'll be known as the teacher that showed porn to her kids. No school district will want to hire her. | |
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TeMerc
join:2004-01-22
Phoenix, AZ
1 edit | Sunbelt Software blogged about some idiot who said that 'justice prevailed' in this case. Most seem to disagree. To that extent, upon offering some basic information about how malware works, which most all know about here, they have offered their computer experts for the appeals process.
Alex Eckelberry:
I also should note that in a conversation with the defense attorney today, he did tell me that his computer experts were not able to provide all the evidence in court. For the appeals process, we have made our own experts available to the defense on a pro-bono basis for any analysis of the infected machine.
»sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2007/01···lty.html
That's awesome!! There may be hope for this poor woman after all. Goodness knows she has been railroaded. | |
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| KyeU
join:2003-12-31
Canada
| Re: Teacher could get 40 years because of spyware porn pop-ups My response to an article posted by an individual who seems to be on the prosecutors' side ( »www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/4346 ):
quote:
Kye-U wrote:
"For once, justice prevails."
You have no idea how much this sentence agitates me.
"But it wasn't just pop-ups students saw. Web sites were visited, noted the prosecutor, and the teacher clicked on links to pornographic images."
They're children for God's sake. How can they tell if the teacher actually clicked on the links or if spyware loaded them up automatically? How far away were they from the computer? Maybe they just saw windows popping up and assumed the teacher was clicking when, in fact, they were being opened by spyware.
Did the prosecutors scan the computer for spyware? Do they even KNOW what spyware is?
Is it right for the prosecutors to AUTOMATICALLY assume that the supply teacher deliberately visited the sites WITHOUT performing a thorough analysis of the computer(s) in question?
If I had enough resources and time, I would be willing to help this poor woman from the incompetencies in the justice and education system. I thank Alex Eckelberry for his willingness to offer aid in the appeals process.
A question for all who see this as a case where justice has "prevailed": What if you were the supply teacher in question? How can you say that justice has prevailed with such abysmal knowledge and evidence?
Posted on Fri, 01/12/2007 - 5:32pm| reply
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| | Mele20
Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
2 edits | Re: Teacher could get 40 years because of spyware porn pop-ups Preston Gralla, the Computer World writer who sided with the prosecution, has just made a retraction after getting more than four dozen replies to his article that strongly criticized his conclusions.
"I can't say that I know the truth in this case, because I haven't personally seen the teacher's PC. But if in fact it was infested with spyware, as people say, and if the school system let the site filtering lapse, then what happened is a miscarriage of justice. And if that's the case, I clearly wrote my blog before knowing the facts, and was flat-out wrong."
»www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/4358
More from Alex Eckelberry tonight also:
"It takes a quite a man to make a statement like that. Preston: I salute you."
Alex goes on to recap the situation and mentioned some facts I was unaware of. The computer had multiple user accounts, porn had been on the computer for a long time, the school district had told the teacher that under NO circumstances was she to turn off the computer, she tried to block the kids view of the computer with her body.
This fiasco and travesty of justice just gets more shocking.
»sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/
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"If you want to do DRM on a PC then you need to treat the user as the enemy." Ross Anderson in "`Trusted Computing' Frequently Asked Questions"
»www.msfirefox.com/ | |
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MGD
Premium,MVM
join:2002-07-31
Fort Lauderdale, FL
| quote:
"But Smith countered Horner's testimony with that of Norwich Police Detective Mark Lounsbury, a computer crimes investigator. 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.""
Unbelievable !!!
If it did not involve the total devastation of an individuals life.. the sheer incompetence would be amusing.
Before being let loose in the field, "Malware 101" should be a pre requisite for any computer crimes investigator.
Kudos to Alex.
MGD | |
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dpt67011
@t-dialin.net
| Not that I really think she is guilty, but it does seem some here may be automatically assuming that just because she's female, that means she could never be surfing at a porn site. Like for some reason only guys do that, but a woman? Such a thing couldn't be possible.
Well maybe there are some women who surf those sites after all. Maybe she really did go to a porn site and the popups are due to her nasty habits. Just maybe some women do like porn after all.
But even if she is guilty, 40 years is a joke and with all the holes in this case I wouldn't doubt if she gets off clean. | |
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MrBradTX
join:2001-05-23
Carrollton, TX | Whole thing reminds me of a recent event in Texas where a teacher was dismissed because a parent complained that a student saw a depiction of a nekkid body part during a field trip to a museum. | |
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Blue2
Premium
join:2004-04-14
France
| Re: Teacher could get 40 years because of spyware porn pop-ups said by MrBradTX :Whole thing reminds me of a recent event in Texas where a teacher was dismissed because a parent complained that a student saw a depiction of a nekkid body part during a field trip to a museum. Yes, let's not forget, the irony in the Justice Department itself:
Curtains for semi-nude justice statue
No longer will US Attorney General John Ashcroft appear in public with a semi-nude statue towering above him.
The US Justice Department has spent $8,000 on curtains to hide the statue from the cameras....
The drapes are reported to have been hanging since Monday, drawing to a close the sport of photographers who infamously sprawled on the floor to snap the former Attorney General Edwin Meese holding aloft his report on pornography in front of the female statue.
»news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1788845.stm
The sculptor is probably working on a chain gang now. | |
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Re: Teacher could get 40 years because of spyware porn pop-ups