The Norwich Bulletin reports that a substitute teacher has been found guilty in Norwich porn case and with her sentencing looming in March she could face upwards of 40 years in jail but there is a twist to the story.
When the facts of the case are laid out it looks to be a blizzard of incompetence ranging from the school’s IT staff, shoddy forensic police work, questionable judicial proceedings, and a the ribbon that ties it all together is one of Redmond’s flagship products. SunbeltBLOG worries about the notion of doing actual hard time for a spyware infection. A frightening though indeed.
Reading the articles I find myself question the capabilities of the police investigators and their apparent lack of understanding of how spyware operates. From another Norwich Bulletin article:
Norwich Police Det. Mark Lounsbury, who investigates computer crimes, said there was evidence that someone had directly accessed several sexually-oriented sites by clicking on a link.
Ok. Prove that to me. Do you have photographic or video evidence? Because guess what Det. Lounsbury, popup generators are designed to act like a human click-through and this is not to mention that there are no means to differentiate between a bot click or a human click. Now you might say, “But she had to install the software, therefore she must have visited those sites!” Wrong again. Nearly all Microsoft OSes log in as root by default and one of the charming aspects of this is that it allows for the surreptitious installation of software. In other words using Internet Explorer as root will allow sites to install software without your knowledge or consent, wonderful technologies like ActiveX facilitate this activity. The defense’s examination of the facts pointed to a hairstyling website as the source of the infection.
All this begs the question of what the lazy ass Norwich school IT staff was up to before, during, and after this incident. If I were Amero I would be giving serious consideration to a civil suit against the town and possibly the state. It is their responsibility to secure the PCs and the network, not the teachers, and you can scream all you want that she should have unplugged the PC but the fact still remains that shitty IT staff plus a crap OS is a disaster waiting to happen. Should she do time for the incompetence of others?
My $0.02 in closing: Don’t trust the cops and get yourself a secure OS.
I’ve been reading about this case for an hour or so. What I’d really like to read is a transcript of the trial, but it doesn’t seem to be on the web. Is this so local to you, James, that you could get a transcript? Of course with the new baby (congrats again) I wouldn’t want to ask you to go traipsing all over CT, but if you know someone who might be willing to do some copying from the public record…
The sad thing is that as a substitute she doesn’t have the protection of the teacher’s union, so she’ll have to liquidate all her assets or do without an appeal–if I understand correctly (ianal).
I’m a reporter working on a story about the Amero case. I just got off the phone with her lawyer’s secretary. You can get the transcripts, but you have to order them through the court reporter’s office at the courthouse where the trial occurred. Amero was tried in Norwich Superior Court.
Thanks for the tip on that!
I personally would love to read them to at least get an understanding how six people in under 2 hours could find her guilty. To me it sounds like either her defense was asleep at the wheel or another case of a clueless public. Seeing as how prevalent security issues are for the home user on Windows and how little the majority do to address them I’ll go with the latter.