Miscarriage of justice

General Topics
1

Alex Eckelberry has been running the story of the American school teacher prosecuted and convicted for showing porn to minors after pop-ups appeared on her classroom computer.

http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/is-this-miscarriage-of-justice.html

This is a gross miscarriage of justice. The facts of the case are that the computer was running Win95, IE5, had no firewall, an ineffective AV program, no anti-spyware protection and the content filtering software put in place by the school had been allowed to lapse.

Anybody who’s been around this forum for long knows that porn pop-ups will appear on a computer like this even without going to porn sites.

Alex Eckelberry says that the case has not gained media attention inside the US except in the IT community.

Anybody in the US, please read the story and give it some publicity if you can.

Cheers,

FwF

2

If this was on school premises and the computer provided by the school then the school would/should be liable not some hapless substitute teacher probably totally unaware of the school systems and protection.

If tried by a jury of her peers, they obviously knew as much about computers as she did not much.

3

This is all true yet the hapless teacher is facing a maximum sentence of 40 years. (She has already been found guilty).

4

That is what surprised me any one with an ounce of common sense wouldn’t convict in these circumstances. But it seems much of the case was why didn’t she pull the plug, shock perhaps.

5

Apparently she had been given a direct instruction not to turn off the computer. She physically stood in front of the monitor to prevent the children seeing the images and reported the incident to the authorities.

6

This just seems so unbelievable that it could have got as far as a trial much less she was found guilty. It is almost like some plot from a film not reality.

7

Sorry but there has to be more to this story than what’s available here.
A conviction is impossible with the facts presented here.

Every story usually has 3 sides.
“as told by the accused” “as told by the prosecutor” “the actual truth”
In this scenario, there is probably a 4th side : “as told by the defense”

8

There actually is a high level of sanity in our courts system. If the facts are anywhere close to what is represented on the referenced blog, the conviction will be overturned on appeal. It’s also highly likely that the ACLU is reviewing the case too.

Edit:

Bob and I were posting at the same time. His comments are correct, of course.

9

Somethings gone amiss with Justice here, haven’t heard of or read of this matter in Australia, hopefully an Appeal is in motion is there any pettitions that anyone knows of for her ? What sort of defence did she have ? a junior Lawyer no doubt… Roseman Downunder in Oz

10
Bob and I were posting at the same time. His comments are correct, of course.
OrangeCrate, I've been known to pull a few blunders in my time..... ;D ;D

By the way, this topic could be considered off-topic and therefore could also get closed like:
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=26062.msg213271#msg213271

Another reason why the Off-Topic Forum should be re-opend.

Maybe this time with Unlisted and Unknown Moderators

11

Not very often. If you’ve made any, you’re at the same frequency as anyone else who contributes here.

Agreed, but unfortunately that’s probably not going to happen.

Well, believe it or not, Mastertech doesn’t bother me. When I get involved in one of his threads, I try to have a little fun. But, it’s become apparent that his level of participation in the forums will have to be addressed by the administrators. Probably sooner, rather than later.

If you’re referring to your participation as a moderator, I never did see where you did anything wrong.

Edit: Typo

12

The price of a direct answer to a direct question …

13

:slight_smile: Hi all :

I read Alex's Blog, that mentioned the porn MAY have come from accessing a hairstyling site;
if the substitute teacher had gone to that site on a computer in an elementary school,
why did she do such a thing ?  She should not be using a school computer for her personal
reasons . Regardless, the American LEGAL System may resolve the situation AFTER they have
gotten enough money .
14
If you're referring to your participation as a moderator, I never did see where you did anything wrong.
No I simply meant that the mods shouldn't be listed regardless of who they are. [b]That way, their action couldn't and shouldn't be personally attacked.[/b]

The same could also be instituted in the rest of the forums. If you don’t know which moderated took an action,
you (any one) can’t attack him/her. It would simply be viewed as an action of the forum.
If that’s still upsetting to the individual, they always have the option to participate in another forum. ;D

15

The anonymous action by a moderator with the individual having no recourse to that action other than ‘If that’s still upsetting to the individual, they always have the option to participate in another forum’ is totally wrong.

They have to have the ability to challenge that action, so your off hand remark is ill considered even if you tag a smiley at the end of, especially when you consider the Topic you make it under.

16

IMHO David it would stop all the infighting. Plain and Simple.
Besides, we’ve already been told and all know that a forum isn’t a democracy.

17

That is always going to be right those who pay the piper call the tune Alwil, but they exercise their power with due care and consideration. When done like that IMHO anonymity isn’t required by a moderator.

Any direct attack on a moderator would obviously passed the the administrators who gave that moderator the position and I believe if it were deemed an unjust personal attack they are more than capable of handing out ban(anna)s as has been mentioned in the past.

I don’t recall any forums that I have visited on occasion that felt the need to have their moderators remain anonymous.

So aside from the fact this is going off the main topic of this thread I will call it a day.

18
So aside from the fact this is going off the main topic of this thread I will call it a day.
Some things never change :) So will I.
19

An update on the case via the Sunbelt blog:

http://www.alternet.org/rights/46925/

A thorough forensic examination of the computer was carried out but disallowed in court:

Horner's analysis of Amero's hard drive cast doubt on Lounsbury's conclusions. Horner found that the computer had been infected with malware before she arrived.

“She was set up days or weeks before she ever sat down,” Horton said.

Here are just a few of the red flags Horton discovered in course of his laborious forensic reconstruction: Anti-virus software triggered security alerts as soon as he started copying the hard disk for testing. The computer’s Norton activity log showed that by the time Amero came to Kelly, her computer was already infected with spyware from notorious websites including marketscore.com and new.net.

One piece of spyware had been already been tracking the computer for about a month.

Horner also discovered that someone, presumably the computer’s regular user, had been accessing eHarmony.com before Amero’s visit. As he noted, dating sites are notorious for spreading porn-related adware.

Another program called Pasco showed that malware had automatically redirected Amero’s browser. Horner stressed that this particular form of hijacking is invisible to ComputerCOP Pro.

On Oct. 19, someone did an online job search shortly after 8:00 a.m., activating several different malware apps. At approximately 8:15 a.m., someone accessed www.hair-styles.org, Horner suspects student involvement, in part because the next visit was to Crayola’s homepage. Over the next several minutes, still more malware came alive, most likely triggered by the hair site.

The user kept surfing, and by this point, “crap was pouring into the computer at the speed of electricity,” Horner said. The real point of no return was when the computer received a huge porn-filled Java file. From that point on, the machine was locked in an endless porn loop.

Note that Amero’s class started around 9 a.m. Neither the prosecutor nor detective Lounsbury was able to tell AlterNet whether the room had been locked before class, or exactly what time Amero sat down at her desk.

At trial, it emerged that the school IT department offered no protection against obscene content or invasive software. The Kelly Middle School’s firewall license had expired, leaving the whole system unguarded. To make matters worse, Amero was working on a very old Gateway PC running Windows 98, an extremely vulnerable setup.

“Anyone could send anything they wanted to any computer on the site,” Horner said.

In the course of his investigation, Horner became convinced of Amero’s innocence. After she was convicted, he sent a letter to her attorney offering his services pro bono for her upcoming appeal.

“This whole trial was so unfair,” Horner said. “When Julie was convicted, I went home that night. I was eating dinner, and I started crying. I just cried my eyes out. This was a total travesty of justice.”

20
Norwich schools have a p0rn history.... Frank Krasicki, a teacher (who actually has taught in Norwich in the past) has been covering the Amero scandal on his blog, and he's pissed.

And now he’s found out something pretty interesting:

I just searched the Bulletin for the word porn and came up with two hits that indicate that in June of 2004 the Griswold Middle school had children printing out graphic materials and that hard drives were seized containing pornography.

In fact there are so many porn stories during that period it looks as though it were a local cottage industry.

This indicates that both the public, the school board, the authorities, and the law KNEW there was a problem in Windham long before Julie Amero set foot in a classroom. For the responsible parties this suggests criminal negligence in not upgrading EVERY school's anti-virus and anti-piracy software. Furthermore, by not providing policy guidance, procedural steps to take, and so on EVERY TEACHER in Windham county was being put at risk.

IMO, Norwich is going to have a LOT of explaining to do.

Good for you Frank.

Folks – this issue has still failed to get national media attention. If you have friends in high places, now is the time to alert them to this travesty. They can contact me or others covering the case. We need to get major people involved here.

The appeals process is not a certain one, and there’s a real chance she’s going to prison. And that would be a disaster for a whole lot of reasons.

http://sunbeltblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/norwich-schools-have-p0rn-history.html