[IP] Re: Spyware may lead to jail - for recipient, not sender

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.net>
Date: January 29, 2007 1:48:14 PM EST
To: dave@farber.net, ip@v2.listbox.com
Subject: Re: [IP] Spyware may lead to jail - for recipient, not sender

Dave:

What is scandalous about this conviction (yes, the substitute teacher  
was convicted by a jury) is that the Judge refused to admit technical  
evidence from the defense which clearly would have demonstrated that  
she was not responsible. See the blog entry at

http://www.networkperformancedaily.com/2007/01/ 
the_strange_case_of_ms_julie_a_1.html

written by the expert witness who was not permitted to present his  
complete testimony.

Ironically, the teacher dared not even power down the computer's  
monitor to avoid the display of the controversial images in question,  
because she was specifically instructed not to turn it off by the  
teacher for whom she was substituting. (Turning off the monitor would  
not have powered down the computer, but a timid user who is not at  
all familiar with computers would not have known that.)

As an ISP, I deal with people whose computers are infected by this  
sort of spyware at least once a week. Ironically, the users often  
blame the ISP because they cannot believe that their computers could  
possibly be insecure and subject to such infections from Day 1 as  
delivered by the manufacturer.

My opinion as an engineer is that these flaws -- which are present in  
virtually all consumer PCs sold today -- meet all of the necessary  
criteria for labeling a product as "defective."

--Brett Glass

At 11:09 AM 1/29/2007, David Farber wrote:



> Begin forwarded message:
>
> This Washington Post article summarizes a remarkable story of a
> substitute teacher in Connecticut who faces jail time over
> pornographic pop-ups on the classroom PC.



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