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.