Think Pop-Up's Suck? This women could have gone to jail for it.

[Sock Full of Boiled Dimes]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070606-substitute-teacher-spared-sentencing-for-porn-pop-ups-gets-new-trial.html

My only question about this is what motivates people to prosecute crap like this.

Substitute teacher spared sentencing for porn pop-ups, gets new trial
By Nate Anderson | Published: June 06, 2007 - 01:39PM CT

Julie Amero, the substitute teacher who could have received 40 years in jail after porn appeared on classroom PCs, was spared that fate—for now. Instead, Amero will get a new trial after revelations that the original computer analysis was flawed.

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The backstory in a nutshell: Amero was substituting for an English class. She went to the restroom, and when she returned, students were gathered around a computer that was displaying porn pop-ups. Amero, who describes herself as a total computer novice, couldn't make them stop, and she eventually ran to the teacher's lounge to get help. In court, school officials admitted that the antivirus software installed on the PC was out of date and antispyware programs were not installed. A school official did tell parents, however, that the school district had comprehensive filtering and firewall software in place at the time.

Although it's hard to conjure up a simple explanation for why a substitute teacher would show middle-school students porn pop-ups on purpose, Amero was prosecuted on the ground that she had done this intentionally. She was eventually found guilty and faced the prospect of 40 years in jail because of the incident. A defense witness, who analyzed the computer but was unable to present all of his findings in court, called the case "one of the most frustrating experiences of my career, knowing full well that the person is innocent and not being allowed to provide logical proof." Her sentencing was scheduled for today, but the hearing instead turned into a motion for a new trial, according to the AP.

The computer in question was sent to a Connecticut state laboratory after the original trial finished, and the judge announced today that the lab findings may contradict those presented by the prosecution's computer expert at trial. Amero's lawyers asked for and received a new trial, and the request was not opposed by the prosecution. A date has yet to be set.

For Amero, it's been a long, strange trip, and though she'll have to wade through the details of the case once again in a new trial, today's result will certainly come as more relief than the alternative.

[Black fist]

Wtf

[Kfisher]

Wow, 40 years for that? And the sub was in the bathroom. How the heck was she gonna know that the students would run into porn popups?

[SlickWilly440]

This is messed up, doesn't that state government have anything better to do with the tax payers money? Well this article doesn't really cover all the aspects such as, what grade she was substituting and the age of the children.

Besides who hasn't gotten a porn pop-ups while browsing the internet...if that happens it's 100% unintentional to the user. .

[RandomPasserby]

So what was the crime?

[Dresh]

So what was the crime?

Showing pornographic material to minors, the sentence for which I can only guess is being multiplied by the total number of minors exposed to the material. I really want to know who pressed these charges, so that I can beat the ever loving shit out of them for being so quick to point fingers and destroy another person's life.

[japanat]

Showing pornographic material to minors, the sentence for which I can only guess is being multiplied by the total number of minors exposed to the material. I really want to know who pressed these charges, so that I can beat the ever loving shit out of them for being so quick to point fingers and destroy another person's life.More Zero Tolerance bullshit. Whatever happened to school administrators who actually used their minds and made judgement calls?

[Karthak]

Only in America...

[Knife-Fingered Sue Sanderson]

And meanwhile, Paris Hilton is released from jail after half a week.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/06/07/paris.hilton/index.html

wow

[Beowulf]

Note to self:
The next time I get arrested, all I have to do is claim that my back hurts and I have migrains. Then I get to be under house arrest instead and can eat all the ice cream I want! YAY!

[Shishio]

The most disgusting thing about all this, is that she was going to get 40 years, and yet a Canadian mother who used her own fucking daughter in a sex tape she created and distributed herself, only gets 18 months.

Of course, I realize Canada and America are two different countries, and I don't know how lenient they are on pedophiles or not, but I just wanted to vent a little, I guess. Sorry to get off track.

[Angelyne]

I'm not suprised given how our country freaked out at the sight of Janet Jackson's nipple. Still, it feels like something in that story is missing. Why was the class unsupervised? In my 12 years through the public school system, I can't remember a teacher (including substitutes) ever leaving a class alone. Especially in Middle School where the kids are a bunch of little shits.

And this is dubious:

Amero, who describes herself as a total computer novice, couldn't make them stop, and she eventually ran to the teacher's lounge to get help.

Um...isn't it just common sense to turn the computer off and THEN go run for help instead of leaving porn on the screen for a class full of children to see? Even my computer illiterate parents know how to turn a computer on and off.



Got a link to that story Shishio?

[Jetsetlemming]

This is why proper computer education should be mandatory for everybody. This poor teacher got screwed over by some computer illiterate retard prosecution and school admin for something that was the school's fault.

Um...isn't it just common sense to turn the computer off and THEN go run for help instead of leaving porn on the screen for a class full of children to see? Even my computer illiterate parents know how to turn a computer on and off.

Considering it's a laptop, she could have just closed the screen and taken it with her. The article doesn't expressly say what she did before running to the teacher's lounge, though.
Also, your average porn popup is just a TINY bit more explicit than a half-time wardrobe malfunction.

[Shishio]

Got a link to that story Shishio?

I don't, sorry. All I can tell you is that it was printed in today's edition of The Toronto Sun (http://www.canoe.ca), and the incident I'm referring to happened in Kenora, Ontario.

[Kaji]

I don't, sorry. All I can tell you is that it was printed in today's edition of The Toronto Sun (http://www.canoe.ca), and the incident I'm referring to happened in Kenora, Ontario.

So much for "only in America"...hehehe...

[Firefly]

I'm not suprised given how our country freaked out at the sight of Janet Jackson's nipple. Still, it feels like something in that story is missing. Why was the class unsupervised? In my 12 years through the public school system, I can't remember a teacher (including substitutes) ever leaving a class alone. Especially in Middle School where the kids are a bunch of little shits.



I had teachers that left all the time, to go to the restroom or to run an errand, (copy papers, talk to another teacher/student, etc). I've had professors leave during exams to use the restroom as well.

Considering it's a laptop, she could have just closed the screen and taken it with her.

True, but if they were in a computer lab or something, it was most likely a PC and not a laptop. She was probably panicked and wasn't thinking correctly, ie to turn off the monitor or just turn off the computer completely.

[Dresh]

I had teachers that left all the time, to go to the restroom or to run an errand, (copy papers, talk to another teacher/student, etc). I've had professors leave during exams to use the restroom as well.

Indeed, it was hardly unheard of in my elementary school for the teacher to need to step out for a tick for whatever reason. Usually this would result in someone saying "Party time!" in jest and then everyone would laugh and immediately resume their work.

[羽之助]

I've been reading this saga on BoingBoing for a few months now. I'm sure Slashdot has more detailed information.

Teacher faces 40 years for porn in classroom, blames adware

A 40-year-old substitute teacher faces up to 40 years in prison after being convicted of exposing children to pornography on a computer at the Connecticut middle school where she taught.

I suppose it's remotely possible the charges are valid. But the story doesn't add up. It seems far more plausible from the accounts I'm reading that this woman, who had no prior criminal record and a clean teaching history, was using an insecure edition of Internet Explorer and was hit with an adware infestation she didn't know how to deal with.

Some reports indicate the teachers at this school were prohibited by policy from turning off school computers, which would answer the "why didn't she just shut down the PC?" questions. Amero testified that she told four other teachers and the school's assistant principal about the popup problem, and nobody responded with help. The school's internet filter license had expired, and the detective in the investigation was quoted in one local paper's account as saying "there was no search made for adware, which can generate pop-up advertisements". So if that's true, and the arguments of the defense are valid -- wow, 40 years in jail for using a lame browser? Insane. That's more time than some convicted murderers get.

And beyond the question of what constitutes justice for Ms. Amero, how might this ruling affect other teachers using computers with children? Will some teachers limit their use of technology in the classroom, fearing greater liability risks if porn they didn't ask for shows up on an unsecured, school-owned PC?

Snip:

Julie Amero, 40, of Windham, was convicted Friday on four counts of risk of injury to a minor in connection to pornography the students saw on her computer screen. Prosecutors said sexually graphic computer images she accessed were seen by several of her Kelly Middle School students in October 2004.

During the trial, Amero said any inappropriate images on her computer screen were from adware, which can generate pop-up ads and not from sites specifically keyed. Prosecutor David Smith contended Amero physically clicked onto the graphic Web sites, which included meetlovers.com and femalesexual.com.

Link to AP item. Amero is scheduled to be sentenced on March 2.

More coverage: Norwich Bulletin, Link; Slashdot, Link; broadbandreports.com, Link; sunbeltblog, Link. (thanks, Walter Hooper)

Ben Edelman's blog has a good entry on how adware infestations work -- in particular, the kind that generate sexually explicit content: Link.

Previously on BoingBoing:
# Internet Explorer was unsafe for 284 days in 2006

Reader comment: Jonathan says,

I'm not sure if you noticed this: the Norwich Bulletin article had a VERY troubling quote on it -- the prosecution used an expert witness that said a highlighted link was proof that the accused had clicked on the URLs.

That is simply not true. The expert witness is either lying or a fucking idiot. Visited links are highlighted if a browser had ever loaded a URL-- I've yet to find a browser that highlights visited links on a "source | destination" basis -- every one i've ever encountered highlights links on "destination" alone.

I made a quick demo over here to illustrate my point: Link.

Technocrat says,

I'm the Technology Coordinator for a school district in Illinois, and would like to point out that if the school's internet filters are expired, they no longer are in compliance with the Child Internet Protection Act. This makes them ineligible for federal funding for telecommunications/computer monies (including 20-90% discounts on specific network/servers/internet connections under the E-Rate program, not to mention being held liable as an organization for anything exposed to minors.) Since we're currently in the e-Rate window for 2007-2008, an admission that they don't have proper internet filters very well could make them ineligible for e-Rate, which translates to a very sizable amount for any school. If they apply for e-Rate anyway (and part of the process is guaranteeing that you comply with CIPA), they can be kicked out of the program!

In any case, the school is required to have filters by law and in order to be eligible for e-Rate, so if they let the filters expire, they're going to have quite the mess on their hands.

Brett Osborne says,

I'm a certified information security professional. From the Norwich Bulletin article, I also see obvious problems with both "experts" for defense and the detective.

Of course I haven't seen the transcript. But there appears to be significant factual problems.

I've found the defense lawyer's information on FindLaw.com.

During the time frame of the alleged offence, one only needs to go to any antivirus company list, bugtrack, microsoft technet security, or any of about 25 other sites that I use to show the state of windows (patches, SP, etc.) and malware in the wild. This is simple (very) forensic reconstruction.

I doubt that Amero should have been charged let alone convicted. The fact that there was no up to date anti-virus/anti-spyware alone tells me that it was not a question of if it was an infection/intrusion.

And the apparent fact that the licences were allowed to expire would be significant enough to remove any culpability from Amero. If anyone were to be culpable, I would believe that the school administration should be at fault (this is a moral and ethical judgement, not a legal one). Isn't it the protection of the children their responsibility?

So, she may have been prohibited from turning the computer off at all. And, if she doesn't know computers that well, she might not even know how to quickly switch the thing off - something that panic could exacerbate.

And as for the "Hah! See, Canada has sick shit happening too!" - well yes, we had Bernardo. But Austria (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/02/07/international/i021852S81.DTL) has kids kept captive in buildings so their rapes can be enjoyed by men all over the world, and this week a girl was found locked in a secret room (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19088085/) after being held prisoner for a year (and she was possibly sold by her family) in Connecticut.

So yeah, not just the States, but welcome to the modern world.

[Angelyne]

I had teachers that left all the time, to go to the restroom or to run an errand, (copy papers, talk to another teacher/student, etc). I've had professors leave during exams to use the restroom as well.


Professors I can understand, because I've also had them leave during exams. 7th grade teachers, though--they never left us unsupervised long enough for something like this to occur. My seventh grade class caused enough trouble even while supervised--leaving us alone for a minute would have unleashed more trouble than a bunch of a porn pop-ups.

School policy prohibiting the computers from being turned off? Common sense would dictate that turning off the computer to get get the hardcore porn off the screen would take precedence. Why is this lady a teacher in the first place?

Again, something isn't adding up here.

Also, your average porn popup is just a TINY bit more explicit than a half-time wardrobe malfunction

Explicit enough to warrant risking a 40 year jail sentence? The attitudes in this country toward sex are completely FUBAR, from this bullshit to mass hysteria over a nipple.

[Jetsetlemming]

True, but if they were in a computer lab or something, it was most likely a PC and not a laptop. She was probably panicked and wasn't thinking correctly, ie to turn off the monitor or just turn off the computer completely.
The first time I read the article I thought it said it was a laptop. In my old high school all the teachers had laptops so they could take them home or to the teacher's lounge or whatever and still grade tests and make homework. Huh.

Explicit enough to warrant risking a 40 year jail sentence? The attitudes in this country toward sex are completely FUBAR, from this bullshit to mass hysteria over a nipple.
There's some porn out there on the internet that scars me at 18 seeing it and I like to think of myself as a mature, grown up person. :knockout: The internet is fucking disgusting in places, and it goes far beyond "sex".

[Trump]

The key here was did she initiate the porn or not? Even clicking on it should not be (I won't say isn't) enough to convict her because she may have just been trying to close a window when something shoved its way under her cursor.

Did she actually type anything into the address bar that involved porn or was it becase of the adware?

[Kaji]

Speaking from teaching experience over the past couple months, having computers permanently in place in the classroom (especially with internet) has to be one of the worst developments in classroom technology ever. Yes, it's convenient that they can do research and the like right in the classroom, but I've long since lost count of how many times I've had to unplug the two computers in the classroom to get kids to stop using them during reading/discussions, or had to force them off and let someone else use the computer due to Runescape/Newgrounds/Google porn searches when they're supposed to either be on educational game sites or doing research for their state reports.

The ideal solution, really, is having a set of laptops they can check out (as I've seen a one school). Easy to close and confiscate/move if they're not doing what they're supposed to, and in the space taken up by the rigging for two desktop computers they were able to hold enough laptops for the whole class, so that there didn't need to be bickering about who was using them, either.

[Jetsetlemming]

Speaking from teaching experience over the past couple months, having computers permanently in place in the classroom (especially with internet) has to be one of the worst developments in classroom technology ever. Yes, it's convenient that they can do research and the like right in the classroom, but I've long since lost count of how many times I've had to unplug the two computers in the classroom to get kids to stop using them during reading/discussions, or had to force them off and let someone else use the computer due to Runescape/Newgrounds/Google porn searches when they're supposed to either be on educational game sites or doing research for their state reports.

The ideal solution, really, is having a set of laptops they can check out (as I've seen a one school). Easy to close and confiscate/move if they're not doing what they're supposed to, and in the space taken up by the rigging for two desktop computers they were able to hold enough laptops for the whole class, so that there didn't need to be bickering about who was using them, either.
The last school I was in had something like that in the library, a cart with 30 Mac laptops.

Last October someone walked into the school (nobody's smart enough to lock doors there apparently... last month someone's kid got kidnapped out of the elementary school by her mom who didn't have custody), into the library, and pushed the cart right out the front door and made off with it. They never caught who stole them, and never bothered to replace them. They're raising the school taxes around here anyway, someone in the school board made off with $300,000 of the budget last year somehow. Never found out who did THAT either.

[Firefly]

in my middle school, when I was in about 6th or 7th grade, students were in the computer lab doing research on president Clinton, and punched in "whitehouse.com" instead of "whitehouse.gov" ...nobody got in trouble, though.

[Lea]

Wtf? I doubt she was trying to show kids porn. That makes no sense. And 40 years? Umm... Yeah... that's just a waste of time.

[Beowulf]

Yeah why are they even trying to prosecute this so hardcore (no pun intended)? The woman obviously did nothing wrong yet the state is going after her like they have a vendetta. Why can't they just admit they were wrong and stop wasting my goddamn tax money...