Framed for child porn by computer virus

[S P Arif Sahari Wibowo]

Computer virus / trojan horses may download / access child porn, 
leave you with the blame and jail time.

------ http://www.arifsaha.com/ forwarded messages ------
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iFP7nhggkjFFeVx5PS60H2O4qeIwD9BRFQ680
> AP IMPACT: Framed for child porn _ by a PC virus
...
> Of all the sinister things that Internet viruses do, this 
> might be the worst: They can make you an unsuspecting 
> collector of child pornography.
...
> Pedophiles can exploit virus-infected PCs to remotely store 
> and view their stash without fear they'll get caught. 
> Pranksters or someone trying to frame you can tap viruses to 
> make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites.
> 
> Whatever the motivation, you get child porn on your computer — 
> and might not realize it until police knock at your door.
> 
> An Associated Press investigation found cases in which 
> innocent people have been branded as pedophiles after their 
> co-workers or loved ones stumbled upon child porn placed on a 
> PC through a virus.
...
> Fiola was fired and charged with possession of child 
> pornography, which carries up to five years in prison. He 
> endured death threats, his car tires were slashed and he was 
> shunned by friends.
> 
> Fiola and his wife fought the case, spending $250,000 on legal 
> fees. They liquidated their savings, took a second mortgage 
> and sold their car.
> 
> An inspection for his defense revealed the laptop was severely 
> infected. It was programmed to visit as many as 40 child porn 
> sites per minute — an inhuman feat. While Fiola and his wife 
> were out to dinner one night, someone logged on to the 
> computer and porn flowed in for an hour and a half.
...
> The Fiolas say they have health problems from the stress of 
> the case. They say they've talked to dozens of lawyers but 
> can't get one to sue the state, because of a cap on the amount 
> they can recover.
> 
> "It ruined my life, my wife's life and my family's life," he 
> says.
...
> In one case, an infected e-mail or pop-up ad poisoned a 
> defense contractor's PC and downloaded the offensive pictures.
> 
> In the other, a virus changed the home page on a man's Web 
> browser to display child porn, a discovery made by his 
> 7-year-old daughter. The man spent more than a week in jail 
> and three months in a halfway house, and lost custody of his 
> daughter.
...
> the manager had visited a site for pirated software. It 
> redirected visitors to child porn sites if they were inactive 
> for a certain period.
...
> a computer was so "extensively infected" that it would be 
> "virtually impossible" to prove what an indictment alleged: 
> that a 16-year-old who used the PC had uploaded child 
> pornography to a Yahoo group.
...
> Loehrs testified that Solon's antivirus software wasn't 
> working properly and appeared to have shut off for long 
> stretches, a sign of an infection. She found no evidence the 
> five child porn videos on Solon's computer had been viewed or 
> downloaded fully. The porn was in a folder the file-sharing 
> program labeled as "incomplete" because the downloads were 
> canceled or generated an error.
> 
> This defense was curtailed, however, when Loehrs ended her 
> investigation in a dispute with the judge over her fees.
...
> "Computers are not to be trusted," says Jeremiah Grossman, 
> founder of WhiteHat Security Inc. He describes it as 
> "painfully simple" to get a computer to download something the 
> owner doesn't want — whether it's a program that displays ads 
> or one that stores illegal pictures.
...


http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/PCWorld/story?id=5188541
> A Misconfigured Laptop, a Wrecked Life
...
> I was just paralyzed, I couldn't do anything. I can't describe 
> the feeling to you. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. 
> It's just devastating.
> 
> If you get in a car accident and you kill somebody, people 
> talk to you afterwards. All our friends abandoned us. The only 
> family that stood by us was my dad, her parents, my 
> stepdaughter and one other good friend of ours. And that was 
> it. Nobody called. We spent many weekends at home just crying. 
> I'm 53 years old and I don't think I've cried as much in my 
> whole life as I did in the past 18 months.
...
> It was either a rogue hack ... or after my computer was 
> stolen, [the new computer] might have been loaded with the 
> stuff, ready to go. I'm not accusing anybody, but if it was 
> someone in the IT department who was doing this, [maybe they] 
> never had a chance to take it off of there.
...
> I will never go to work for them again. I would not work for a 
> company that would not protect its employees. I feel they 
> didn't protect me.
...


http://news.google.com/news/story?ncl=dVNMYKcrq6S5vvMrshLvrYPquD5GM

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