beforeyoukillyourcomputer.com Saving computers one at a time from their owners

Ignorance of the law is no excuse but here is a different spin on that commonly used phrase:

In January, a jury found Amero guilty of four felony charges of risking injury to a minor or impairing the morals of a child, following a 2004 incident where her classroom PC became infected with pop-up ads that displayed thumbnails of pornographic imagery. The prosecution maintained that the pop-up ads were caused by Amero’s activity on the PC and the testimony of a forensic expert that would have refuted the charges was curtailed by courtroom rules…

“The primary reason that I got involved was to get Julie out of this train wreck, but it was also to bring awareness to the problem of malware and forensic analysis — it is a big problem,” he said.

In the latest case, one of the school’s teacher logged into the classroom computer, because Amero did not have credentials. The substitute teacher was told not to log out or turn off the computer. What happened after that has become the main point of contention.

A detective on the case using off-the-shelf recovery software argued that Amero clicked on pornographic Web links and caused the computer to display pornographic pop-up advertisements. However, the defense’s forensic expert, Herbert Horner, stated that a more complete analysis showed that a harmless hairstyling Web site had actually redirected the PC’s browser to pornographic sites, setting off the deluge of offensive ads.

The forensic analysis produced by Eckelberry and other independent security researchers found a large number of inconsistencies between what was said during Amero’s trial and what really happened, according to the analysis of the computer’s hard drive. Following the independent analysis, a state cybercrime lab produced their own study, concurring with the defense’s forensic report.

Amero’s defense attorneys had filed a motion on Monday, asking that the judge throw out the jury’s conviction against Amero, because information discovered after the case called into question the testimony of the prosecution’s expert witness.

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Imagine if Julie Amero had no expert to do a proper analysis or interpret the data properly. It’s disturbing and quite sickening when you think about this: Technically, Miss Amero was never truly proven guilty. She was found to be guilty because she was not able to prove herself innocent. What? What??!!! Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? I am sure the Duke Lacrosse players can empathize with that sentiment. What is not mentioned in this story is that Julie Amero was facing 40 years in prision. 40 years! For flipping spyware. What a colossal mistake averted. Let’s hope other mistakes in justice are averted as well due to this case.

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