Sunbeltblog comments
I'm so THERE its unbelievable.
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.
Thanks for the sanity, Alex and Co.
Thank you Alex!
Thank you for doing this. Having seen plenty of computers with spyware infestations, this case bothers me a lot.
How many years would someone face for rapping? Something is wrong...
Thanks Alex for offering your experts pro bono to help in the defense's appeal. This is a miscarriage of justice that needs correcting. I am astounded that computer illiterate attorneys, proscecutors and judges are allowed in our society to be involved in cases like this. How can that be?
Hopefully, the publicity that will come with the appeal, and your help, will educate and, in the future, help protect others in similar situations from being prosecuted by, defended by, and judged by computer illiterate lawyers who do not make enough effort to at least surround themselves with experts who are literate in the area of spyware infestations on computers.
Norwich is my former hometown. I am deeply saddened by their myopia. I have composed this letter:
January 13, 2007
Dear Norwich Residents,
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
I was going to refrain from commenting for now, but Noah, that's an excellent letter.
Thanks for sharing it. 
Thank you for writing this. Several years ago, I was a student worker in a university laboratory. I worked for some professors who were relatively inexperienced with networked PCs. Their understanding was limited to a few applications. A PC in the lab was on a public IP address, running Windows 2k + IE, had no firewall protection, and had AV that was never updated. One day a professor was using that computer and found pornographic material. She conversed with another professor about it, and they accused us students of intentionally putting the material there. They started pointing fingers, which was a harrowing experience. The female professor thought me to be the most likely culprit (maybe because I was the only male student working there), and the male professor thought the other, a less reliable student worker, was the culprit. None of these accusations were based on any sort of physical evidence.
No one knew what malware was at the time, and it was hard to provide them with an explanation of how the material may have gotten there. After using the computer and encountering pop-ups that wouldn't go away, it was clear that a trojan horse or a malicious web site was responsible.
They resolved to the idea that the material was probably placed there by a building custodian, never fully understanding how vulnerable the PC was to the public Internet. They "secured" the PC by setting a BIOS password.
I am surprised that ComputerWorld did not use their position as journalists familiar with the industry to present a more sophisticated viewpoint emphasizing the complexities of determining accountability with respect to computer security issues. Instead, the author of the article parroted the prosecutor's argument that was reported in the Norwich Bulletin, even buying into the straw man argument of "Why didn't you just unplug the computer?" Hindsight is 20/20 and everyone knows how vexing popups can be -- especially when you are scrambling to get rid of them.
Please forgive me for posting such a short comment on such a serious issue. I just finished writing a post to ComputerWorld and it is now 4:15 AM. I only intended to post a fairly short reply to an (excuse me) asshole who was quick to praise the prosecutor and the conviction and to pass it off with the statement that she will never get 40 years anyway. As if that somehow makes this incredible travisty of justice OK.
I am a 52 year old man and I am sitting here crying because of the incredible range of emotion that this situation evokes. A young woman who was a teacher, perhaps even a potentially great teacher, has now had her life, at the very least, devastated and possibly destroyed.
My two most powerful emotional responses right now are :
1.) I would so very much like to see the prosecutor in this case publicly fired and sent to jail himself.
2.) I want to echo the sentiments of others and thank you very, very much for offering your help in this insanity. Not only because it will, hopefully, get Julie Amero out of this ridiculous conviction but also on a personal level because there is nothing I can do personally and it just makes me feel better knowing that there is someone who can help and who is.
This all probably sounds kind of corny. I can't tell because I have been up for too long but to you I say, with all of my heart
Thank you!
In reading my post I stated that there is nothing on a personal level that I can do and I realized that isn't true.
I do not have the resources myself (as in the time, blog space/blog savy, etc.) to do it but if someone else out there does - if somehow it can be verified that they are legit/honest, etc., I pledge the first $50.00 to help Julie Amero and her family with the expenses they have had and will have to defend her.
I will also pledge $1,000.00 to anyone who can get State Prosecutor David Smith fired and put in Jail.
I am just kidding about the second pledge but I am absolutely serious about the $50.00 one.
Thanks Marty, it's all appreciated. I think a legal defense fund may be set up, when it does, I'll blog it.
Thanks again.
Hillary B. Strackbein
Superior Court, G.A. 10
112 Broad Street
New London , CT 06320
P (860) 443-8343
F (860) 437-1168
Anyone want to see what the police "expert" had to say?
http://
www.networkperformancedai..._julie_a_3.html
Detective Mark Lounsbury is the crime prevention officer with the Norwich Police Department. He has served with the Norwich PD for 18 years - eight of them as a detective, and for the past seven years he has been the sole proprietor of the Norwich computer crime and cybercrime units, which deals with online sexual crimes against children.
He has received training from the State of Connecticut Municipal Police Training Academy, and from the FBI in basic network intrusion and advanced network intrusion in Unix.
In an effort to dispel rumor and produce a more accurate understanding of the Amero case to the public, we have invited Detective Lounsbury to talk about his position and computer crime related investigation in general, although he cannot talk about the Amero case specifically until after Ms. Amero's sentencing. This article continues our coverage of the Amero case, with previous articles offering commentary from defense witness Mr. Herb Horner.
Generally speaking, if police receive a complaint from a victim or victims who report seeing an individual who is engaged in criminal activity, the police are responsible to the victim or victims and investigate accordingly. The police take into account all the available facts and circumstances, for example: who was the individual, what was the individual doing, when were they doing it, where were they doing it, and how long was the individual engaged in the observed activity? (A minute, twenty minutes, two hours?)
Including the account of the accused individual is important but, sometimes the individual refuses to speak to the police and retains legal representation.
Physical evidence and electronic evidence is collected. In the case of crimes involving computers, the evidence is collected with tools designed to find the evidence. This evidence includes internet history, content, and registry data, including "typed URLs". It's these "typed URLs," gleaned from the registry, which are identified - not pop ups.
(Continued...)
Additional tools which search for specific viruses, trojans, and worms by their unique hashes can be brought into play to search for the known bad code.
Once evidence is located, police take note of the date and time it was created, modified, and last accessed. When the evidence (malware, .jpg, web page) was created is the "when" in "who, what, when, where, how and why." So, if malware was created at the same time the web pages and images were created, was the malware spawned by the "typed URL", by its content (i.e. Web Attacker kit), or mouse napping (click-throughs)? If there's no malware created prior to a web page with questionable content how do you end up at said web page?
I ask this rhetorical question: Where does objectionable material come from - a site like Disney.com or the pornographic dot coms? Where do abusive JavaScript and Web Attacker kits reside? What about zero-day Internet Explorer Exploits such as the one discussed at this site on techfeed.net: "A security hole in IE was recently confirmed by Microsoft. Now exploits that install tons of adware have been spotted on Porn sites. This exploit is reportedly easy to duplicate, and experts expect the problem to spread quickly to other shady sites across the Internet."
What about a certain industry's favorite money making tools?
"The online pornography industry is highly competitive and adult marketers are continually developing new strategies to drive traffic to their sites.
Some of their tactics are:
'Click-throughs': Every time someone clicks through an adult site to another one, the site's advertising revenues go up. To increase the number of click-throughs, some sites use pop-up windows. Known as 'mouse napping,' this technique traps users in an endless loop of porn.
'Home page hi-jacking': This involves planting a Java script command on computers to change the user's default home page to a porn site. Changing the home page back to its original setting appears to solve the problem until the computer is rebooted, then the offensive site re-appears as the home page.
'Stealth' sites: These are porn sites that steer users their way through a variety of techniques, including buying up expired domain names, exploiting common misspellings, or using well-known names of companies or artists.
Using hidden key words that are picked up by search engines: Porn operators bury key words, including brand names of popular toys, in the code of their Web sites to attract children."
Maybe it's DNS Poisoning? I'm not an expert on this subject and never said I was. When it comes to investigations where evidence is located on a computer and other resources are not available I use a simple tool [ComputerCOP Professional v.3.16.3] to search for the evidence. The tool provides me with an audit trail, evidence log, the evidence, web content log, and visited sites log.
Technorati Tags: Julie+Amero Connecticut+Schoolteacher Spyware Connecticut+Justice+System Law Network+Security
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
39,000 lawyers graduate every year in the US and not one of them want to practice in Connecticut? I see that even there are no judges in Connecticut. Thankfully I'll never, and I mean never, go through that state.
Here's the solution, and it's so easy:
1. Indict the entire tech group in the school for gross incompetence.
2. Let Julie go
See? Simple.
What a bunch of Idiots!
szvano@163.com
Sarah_1212@msn.com
vanco@vco.com.cn
nancy@vco.com.cn
ybmaibo@163.net
I was still debating what people are like in Connecticut when they elected Joe Lieberman in Nov. 2006. Now that they convicted a substitue teacher for non-stop porn on a spyware infected school computer, it is clear that connecticans are nuts.
They are illiterate, ignorant, stupid, and should be punished for this gross injustice they imposed to the poor substitue teacher. The public prosecutor David Smith should be fired and send to Guant namo Bay. The school superintendent should also be fired for fail to properly maintaining the computers for protection of minors. The judge Hillary Strackbein should be send to attend 200 hours manatory computer lessons so she will be able to tell 1 from 0.
What a joke connecticans make themselves to be.
Bonjour,
Dans l'affaire de "Julie Amero", l'erreur semble avoir été d'accepter que l'accusation ne traite que du thème exclusif de la moralité. Cela a permis d'évacuer la responsabilité des États. Pourtant, ces derniers encaissent des millards de dollards grâce à l'internet et n'ont aucun intérêt à engager une réforme sévère sanctionnant les auteurs des sites pornographiques utilisant toutes sorte de méthodes pour s'imposer sur la toile. L'argent n'ayant pas d'odeur, les États n'ont pas envie de tuer la source essentielle de leurs revenus dans l'oeuf afin de répondre à une régulation nécessaire des pratiques sur le net.
Alors, ne serait-il pas normal de poursuivre plutôt les juges en justices dès lors que, sur de tels sujets, ils ne sanctionnent que les victimes des partiques délictueuses des sites pornographiques ?
En effet, en ne sanctionnant que l'institutrice, le juge ne commet-il pas les délis de complicité et d' apologie du crime, permettant ainsi à ces sites de poursuivre leurs activités par des méthodes portant atteinte à l'intégrité des personnes morales et physiques ?
Cordialement,
Bernard.
Where's the indictment of the tech staff for this gross negligence? The debate of whether or not a firewall was in place is moot, where was the content filter?
This has got to be the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. As an owner of a computer consulting business in Wichita, KS, we run into problems like this every day. In fact, resolving spyware/adware and virus issues are our bread and butter! We average 3 to 5 machines a day with these very problems. These computers belong to the very type of people who convicted this poor lady, doctors, lawyers, teachers, business owners, etc. You see this problem can all start over an incorrectly typed web address, or an unknowing click on an advertisement. A perfect example we once used was www.whitehouse.com and www.whitehouse.gov, seems innocent enough, however, whitehouse.com was once a porn website. I have seen more than one teacher make this mistake before. Programmers for these types of problems have even been using the familiar "close" button used to close a window on Microsoft operating systems to essentially install their bad programs when a user clicks this button to close the pop up. I feel like a broken record at times when telling clients to use the key combination Alt + F4 to close pop ups, or any unwanted window that opens.
I would be more than happy to write any and all elected officials in the twisted state of Conneticut regarding this matter. Better yet, if someone could provide me any of their IP addresses, I will show them just how easy it is to recreate these pop ups on their computers!
Bonjour,
Il ne suffit pas de rechercher les seuls motifs qui permettent d'écarter la technologie ou les institutions de la, ou de l'éventuelle, responsabilité qu'elles endossent dans de telles affaires.
Cela correspond à des enquêtes exclusivement à charge pour les victimes et correspond bien aux mentalités individualistes qui ne s'intéressent jamais aux victimes, sauf le jours ou elles sont directement concernées.
Lorsque l'on se connecte sur un site, ce site nous propose un certain nombre de publicités. Peu importe leur contenu, les sociétés qui utilisent cet espace publicitaire paye un droit au propriétaire du site. Cela, c'est normal !
Ce qui n'est pas normal, c'est qu'en se connectant sur un site internet, on soit envahi de fenêtres publicitaires parasites non désirées qu'il est très souvent difficile de fermer.
Souvent un flou monumental est introduit entre les fonction d'extinction de la fenêtre parasite et la validation d'un choix pas vraiement aléatoire. Ces fenêtres parasites vont jusqu'à gêner délibérément et considérablement la consultation des pages du site choisit.
C'est ainsi que de nombreuses personnes, non expérimentées comme les informaticiens professionnels ou amateurs éclairés, se font piéger.
Cela abouti, en fonction de contextes environnementaux, à des situations délictueuses qui peuvent faire basculer la vie des victimes.
Ignorer ces situations pour ne retenir que ce qui arrange, car autrement cela causerait des "problèmes économiques" et porterait "atteinte au libre commerce", c'est commettre délibérément les délis de complicité et d'apologie du crime en entretenant volontairement l'utilisations vicieuses et mesquines des technologies.
Et ce n'est pas parce qu'il existe des logiciels de protection de virus et autres parasites, logiciels qui sont loin d'être parfait et nécessitent une certaine maîtrise et compréhension de l'informatique, que la "responsabilité des victimes" est engagée !
Ce qui à déclenché ce "haro" contre l'institutrice se produit tous les jours avec les enfants dans les lieux confinés que sont les domiciles personnels ! Et cela ne semble pas émouvoir grand monde !
Cordialement,
Bernard GIRAUD
So is there a petition or something that we can sign to help this lady?
Brian, that's a great post/link, and tells me what I've suspected - that some local law enforcement "computer" cops are at best a "Keystone Kops" character.
I know a few of these folks, and they're so "sold" on several of the LE software packages that they ignore OS basics - and I can promise all that the software used by the prosecution is unable to differentiate between Win98 & XP/Pro/Home (and that DOES make a diff in how the registry is handled, for example).
This is really a case of a "board" (read group of self important fools) engaged in CYA...
J
Alex,
As a Norwich resident, and a software consultant who has given court testimony, I want to personally thank you for the offer to provide pro-bono expert services on this case. If a defense fund materializes, please let me know so that I can put a donation link on the front page of my newlondoncountyguide.com website. Also, if you need some legs on the ground or fingers on the keyboard in the Norwich area, please feel free to contact me. Mal-ware and computer security are out of my area of expertise, but I am a good analyst, here and willing to help, also pro-bono.
My experience is with class action lawsuits, and not criminal cases, but I question the degree to which the jury heard, understood and accepted the defense’s expert technical testimony. For example, did the prosecutor, through the jury selection process, attempt and succeed at minimizing the number of computer savvy jurors? If he did, then did the jury pay attention through the complete technical testimony, and did they understand it? On the other hand, was the testimony technical or detailed enough to convince the jurors; i.e. did it have sufficient weight?
One of my cases for the EEOC, involved a detailed explanation to the judge (no jury was involved) why a blank or space (ASCII 40) was actually a piece of data and not the absence of data as the defendant’s council claimed; i.e. someone put the data there either by default or by an overt act. This was an important point because it drastically changed the statistical values in our reports. To convince the judge, I had to give a detailed technical explanation to a non-technical person. Fortunately, the judge’s eyes did not glaze over in the process.
In Julie’s case, was the tech explanation over the jury’s heads? Alternatively, since some material was inadmissible, did it lack enough detail to be believable? In the EEOC case, the judge quickly understood the testimony because he was a highly educated person with good listening and analytical skills. However, in Julie’s case the jury was probably not as adept. The EEOC case required explanations of the inner workings of computer memory, hexadecimal numbers and the ASCII coding system in order to convince the judge. In other words, the technical details gave the testimony weight. I suspect that in Julie’s case the tech expert’s truncated testimony did not have enough weight to counter balance the testimony of a respected local officer, regardless of the software tools the officer did or did not use.
In another Norwich case, a man convicted of giving beer to his sister’s minor friend went to prison based on false testimony given by the sister’s vindictive friend and another girl. Someone overheard the sister’s friend bragging that she falsely put the man in prison, but the person was afraid to testify because the accuser was a gang member. I wonder if Julie was setup by some members of that class, and if other classmates were afraid to come forward.
Gloria Woerheide
X-Over-Y Systems
Norwich, CT
Bien que le jugement ne sera (serait) rendu que le 2 mars, l'institutrice américaine a été jugée coupable d'avoir présenté des images pornographique à ses jeunes élèves.
Sa faute, avoir utilisée le PC de la classe qui était infecté par plusieurs adwares.
Cette infection issue de popup parasites ne permet pas, pour de simples utilisateurs, d'en prendre le contrôle pour les fermer et éviter le chargement d'images indésirables.
Pourtant, rien n'y fait ! La justice américaine, expéditive, décide que Julie Amero est coupable et la menace de la séquestrer pendant quarante ans malgré les avis et réactions éclairées d'experts reconnus. Le juge refuse d'entendre raison et, manifestement, écarte les réalités technologiques. POURQUOI ?
Qui est donc responsable lorsqu'un PC d'une classe affiche des publicités pornographiques à l'écran ?
La justice américaine n'a pas souhaitée se compliquer la vie et décide que c'est le professeur ou l'instituteur(rice) qui utilise cet ordinateur au moment ou il(elle) donne ses cours. Elle est responsable du "stockage des images pornographiques" et, qui plus est selon l'accusation, aurait délibérément "accédé à des sites X".
Pour le juge, l'institutrice Julie Amero est coupable et risque désormais jusqu'à quarante ans de prison pour avoir montré à ses jeunes élèves des images pornographiques.
Dans la contre-expertise commandée par la défense, il ressort que le PC de la classe, propriété de l'école, n'avait plus aucune protection contre les spywares dès lors que l'anti-spyware qui y était installé n'était pas entretenu et donc, périmé. De plus, conséquence de la négligence du propriétaire du PC, l'analyse du disque dur révèle que les adwares à caractères pornographiques foisonnaient.
Une question se pose : « N'était-il pas de ressort de l'école d'entretenir l'anti-spyware ? »
C'est ainsi que le juge aurait procédé à une enquête exclusivement à charge puisque rien de tous les éléments de la contre expertise pouvant être utilisés à la décharge de l'accusée n'ont été portés dans le dossier !
Les enquêteurs n'auraient délibérément pas procédé à l'étude de l'infestation des spywares sur le système d'exploitation Microsoft, très sensible à ces anomalies. Ils n'auraient construit le dossier que pour démontrer « que l'ordinateur servait à stocker des images pornographique », excluant tout le reste. A cette fin, ils se seraient contentés de fouiller les caches du navigateur Microsoft qui se contentent de sauvegarder les images consultées, même quand les ordres d'affichages sont donnés par les adwares qui imposent, en créant une requête classique, l'accès aux pages de publicité des sites X.
De cette même contre-expertise, l'identification du site par lequel le système Microsoft aurait été infecté mettrait en avant un site de « coiffure » ; les enquêteurs auraient délibérément ignoré cette piste.
L'institutrice a pourtant signalé immédiatement cet incident aux autorités de l'école et a physiquement empêché les enfants d'accéder au PC. Rien de tout cela ne semble avoir alerté le jury sur la bonne foi de l'accusée !
Pour quelle raison était-il important que le système d'exploitation ne soit pas remis en cause ?
Pour quelle raison le juge et les jurés ont t-ils estimés que, de toutes les manières, l'accusé DEVAIT être coupable ?
Ce sont des milliers d'utilisateurs de systèmes d'exploitations Microsoft qui, chaque jour, sont confrontés à la faiblesse de la sécurité de ces O.S. ! Ils sont obligés d'adopter des solutions draconiennes pour éliminer virus et autres parasites car les logiciels anti-virus et anti-spywares sont non seulement vendu à des prix élevés, mais sont d'une utilisation difficilement abordable pour de simples utilisateurs. De plus, leur efficacité reste sujette à caution...
Cette décision de justice est bien évidemment totalement partiale et donc, contestable ! Contestable car elle écarte délibérément de sa réflexion les responsables de cette situation :
- le propriétaire du PC en charge de son entretien ;
- les Fournisseurs d'Accès à Internet qui supportent la génération intempestive de « popup parasites » ;
- les sites pornographiques qui utilisent des technologies et les modifient pour contraindre, involontairement, des utilisateurs à se rendre sur leurs sites et à afficher leurs images ;
- l'État, qui compterait sur « sa justice » pour ne surtout pas empêcher que des milliards de dollars de taxes diverses et variées continuent à entrer dans ses caisses ;
- Tous les professionnels de l'informatique pour qui cela représente des ressources financières non négligeables.
Les professionnels en charge de la gestion des réseaux connaissent l'essentiel des machines responsables de ces types d'infections par popup parasites. Ils disposent de moyens de les identifier puisque ce sont les mêmes qui nous inondent de courriels (e-mail) parasites (spam).
Pourquoi ne font-ils rien pour les isoler ? Parce que cela rapporte beaucoup d'argent !
C'est pourquoi un tel jugement fait la preuve d'une certaine complicité et d'apologie du crime sexuel.
En fait, le seul tord de Julie Amero ne serait-il pas à chercher ailleurs ?
Cordialement,
Bernard GIRAUD
Petitioning bad people to do good rarely works. You need to have the bad people investigated.
Sample letter:
Connecticut State Bar
30 Bank Street
PO Box 350
New Britain CT 06050-0350
Phone: (860) 223-4400
Fax: (860) 223-4488
Dear sir/madam,
I request you launch an immediate investigation into the actions of State's Attorney David Smith as per the case of Julie Amero. He has made numerous false statements to the press, the jury, and the judge in this case. Such misconduct is wrong and needs to be immediately investigated by your office.
In one such false statement, State's Attorney David Smith reportedly told the jury, "You have to physically click on it to get to those sites," when referring to the web sites that showed up on Ms. Amero's computer. Other times he went further, and suggested not only that Amero clicked on the web site links (URLs), but that she physically typed them in.
The CEO of the maker of the forensic software that Norwich Police Detective Mark Lounsbury used to examine Julie Amero's computer stated that, while the software can find all sorts of files and images, including deleted images or images in unallocated disk space, by keyword or by filetype, [it] does not determine the cause of those files being on the computer (whether caused by malware, intrusion, or direct and willful use), and that it is not the function of [the software] to make that determination." In other words, the software cannot show if Ms. Amero clicked on anything nor typed anything in.
Nevertheless, both the detective (Mark Lounsbury) and the prosecutor (David Smith) were unequivocal in their statements to the press and the jury that the forensic evidence demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the substitute teacher deliberately "typed in" the porn sites. They knew these statements were false, and yet they made them anyway.
Norwich Police Detective Mark Lounsbury has gone further, though. He reportedly also said that he can differentiate between what is and what is not a pop-up based on the source codes [sic]. There is absolutely no factual basis for this claim.
There is no room in our legal system for misrepresentation of the facts by prosecutors. Ignorance of computer forensic evidence is no excuse for falsely convicting an innocent person. The statements David Smith made are all false, and are not backed-up by the evidence. To make such an assertion to win a case is wrong, it is prosecutorial misconduct of the severest form, and is therefore cause for disbarment.
In addition we will be petitioning the U.S. Department of Justice to open a civil rights investigation into the actions of the State's Attorney, David Smith, and Norwich Police Detective Mark Lounsbury in this matter.
Bravo !
Merci pour elle.
I agree with virtually your entire post. I do want to point out that you should learn a little bit more about the so-called "twinkie defense" before characterizing it as an "obvious abuse of the court system."
http://www.snopes.com/legal/twinkie.htm
Ah, thanks Gmaki, I didn't actually know that. I'll correct the blog.
I just can not believe americans are so dumb, this is really laughable, it is idiotic.
I can not believe they can't prove innocence or guilty in a more clear way.
In any case if i wanted to see porn hell i would choose a site that does not have spyware and i have already browsed before.... it is so clear for me that she is innocent...
as a fairly experienced PC user possessing no more than a moderate awareness of the nature of spyware, malware and popups, it is blatantly obvious to me that this is a total travesty of justice. is the legal system this incompetent and asinine everywhere, or only in the supposedly progressive-thinking state of Conn.? the poor woman freaked and tried to turn the damn porn popups off, but was told previously not to turn off the PC, so she obviously was trying to do the right thing, but in her disturbed and emotionally upset state she didn't even think to unplug or turn off the monitor or just turn off the whole thing regardless of what she had been told. she tried to get help but couldn't. this school district, the judge, the prosecution, the jury and apparently even her attorney are all idiotic morons and simpletons at best, and evil heartless nazis at worst. they should be getting time for just being so terriblty f-ing stupid, let alone their apparent disregard for justice and the American way. this needs to get out in a big way to the national media. i hope to God that some common sense and technical competence will overpower the insanity and rescue this woman from being tarred, feathered, and stuck in a stinking cell. she should be suing all their asses but probably is out of money at his point; maybe some valiant knight offering his pro bono help will slay the dragon of ignorance, superstition, and middle age witch-hunt mentality that appears to be living and thriving in some medieval part of our nation, known as the state of Connecticut. please forgive my harsh ranting; i'm actually really sorry for the majority of you people up there who possess working brains.
I'm pleased that this case has become so prominent. One of my earliest memories is watching the March on Selma and other civil rights events on our brand new color television set, the first in our neighborhood. Up to that time, civil rights was something most of us believed in, but did very little about. But watching peaceful marchers set upon by state troopers, police dogs and water cannons outraged everybody so much that we simply couldn't just sit back and watch anymore.
Similarly, in the case of Julie Amero, all of our confusion about how to protect our innocent children from online porn has been shoved in our faces in the person of this nondescript substitute teacher with no criminal record and no apparent motive for any form of criminal activity, let alone distributing porn to children. Obviously, she will ultimately serve no time and all charges will be dropped; but in the process, our criminal justice system will be forced to draw the line on this hysteria over technology, and redirect their efforts toward those who do have the motives and the criminal intent.
I remember when this happened to me the first time. I visited a site that had been hacked and pop ups just kept looping on my screen. The more I closed the faster new pop ups generated. I ran from the room calling for help. I didn't think about pulling the plug on the computer either.
Anon above is right, this whole thing is typical AMERICAN excrement.
This women will not serve a day, nor should she - there was no crime.
For what it's worth to all the 'experts' here - exposing a child inadvertently to a sexual image does not cause trauma or brain damage. A healthy child without exception will pause - look - pull a face or giggle and keep walking, - it bores them.
Even if she did it intentionally [extremely unlikely] 40 years ?????
That is utter sickening madness.
In Aust/NZ she'd be sacked and that's it.
Our 5 and 7 yo's have seen these popups hundreds of times - SO WHAT???
They click on close window or hit alt-F4 once as we showed them, or yell out "mom (or dad) there's junk on the screen, can you make it go away?"
It bores them.
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great point made by JOel and lassiter. this stuff doesnt traumatize little children...
Commenting by HaloScan
