This is absolutely AMAZING! Why go after the people that developed the malware that was planted on the system when they can send an innocent teacher to jail for 40 years! The person was just freaking out about all the popups and panicked. How can you go to prison for that?!?! I say someone needs to bend that judge over a knee and give him a spanking like there is no tomorrow. The principle of that school should be standing in line for the next spanking. Unbelievable!

I've been following this story online for weeks now. Why isn't it bigger national news? Why aren't more people up in arms about how this woman is being railroaded? Why would any teacher in their right mind ever agree to use a net-connected computer in the classroom ever again?

If others can back up her story, she should not have been arrested, let alone convicted. Sounds like she needs a better lawyer when she goes to appeal.

I work in the computer lab in a middle school. This is scary because it is so easy for this to happen.

I am so glad that I no longer teach in the public schools--for several reasons, but this is just one more. How on earth can a substitute teacher be held accountable for what pops up on a computer that she has hardly used, especially since she is admittedly technology-challenged? Hysteria is running amok in America and reason has left for greener pastures. What a pity.

What is this, the 9th Circuit? I have never heard of such irresponsible prosecution except in the Duke Lax case. As someone who works in security certification, the responsibility falls on the management and IT staff, not the end user.

This is really scary story.

I'm an IT professional and I've had pornographic pop up ads that I spent hours getting rid of. My wife is a teacher and needed to take a test, as I recall, it was the MSAT test. In any event, we went out on the web and typed in www.MSAT.com or something like this and...whoa! Our home computer had, and I mean this literally, hundreds of pop up ads. As soon as you closed one, another three or four opened. All were explicit, very explicit, and there was flat out no way of getting rid of them. We shut down the computer and the minute it was rebooted and started all over again. I spent an entire weekend tracking down and getting rid of nearly 100 infections...and all of this was due to innocently surfing to ONE web site.

I'm an IT professional and I've had pornographic pop up ads that I spent hours getting rid of. My wife is a teacher and needed to take a test, as I recall, it was the MSAT test. In any event, we went out on the web and typed in www.MSAT.com or something like this and...whoa! Our home computer had, and I mean this literally, hundreds of pop up ads. As soon as you closed one, another three or four opened. All were explicit, very explicit, and there was flat out no way of getting rid of them. We shut down the computer and the minute it was rebooted and started all over again. I spent an entire weekend tracking down and getting rid of nearly 100 infections...and all of this was due to innocently surfing to ONE web site.

Add me to the list of people who believe that this poor woman is being shafted. There's probably some slack jawed little brat somewhere in Connecticut, calmly sitting at his or her desk, intentionally oblivious to the pain this woman is suffering.

It sounds like someone needs to arrest the so-called police who arrested her. Welcome to Ashcroft's America where spam and cybercrime operate with liberty and freedom while decent citizens have their liberty confiscated by the government.

Naner assumes the teacher will get an automatic appeal. As I remember, normal people (i.e. non-politicans) do not automatically get appeals. They have to have grounds for an appeal. (And hope the judge let's them out of jail pending appeal.)

I hope Naner is not underestimating the effort (and money) needed for an apppeal.

Don't arrest the police, thats just a rediculous. They are just following orders. Someone decided to press charges. Sue them, and the Prosecutor and the Judge, and pitch the jury in the Ocean.

What blatent idiocy!

Thanks for reporting this story so thoroughly. Everything else I've seen has been breathless "40 years for popups!!" coverage. It really sounds like bad, bad lawyering on both sides: overzealous prosecutors and ineffective defense counsel. Hopefully the public attention will help the teacher. -

THE REAL CRIMINALS ARE THE ONES PROSECUTING THIS WOMAN FROM THE TOP DOWN!!! Clearly none of those people know the first thing about IT security, let alone browsers and the Internet. I have not been this upset in a very long time! I will definitely be following this case. She better not go to prison for this!

There must be something else to this story beyond an ineffective lawyer. What reason did the judge give for not allowing the defense's evidence? That's a pretty big deal. Is the prosecutor's case really as flimsy as it sounds? What qualified a small town police officer to be the prosecution's expert computer witness? It sounds like maybe the jury members didn't have even basic computer literacy. If so why did the defense allow them to be chosen?

This is the first time I've heard the story, maybe these questions have been answered elsewhere.

I wish there was a way the teacher being substituted for, the school district, the police, and the judge in this case could all be brought to justice for letting such irresponsible behavior cause this woman such grief.

I wonder where they got those jurors from - 7-Eleven, 2nd-grade classes? These people apparently have not used the computer or surfed the internet their entire life. This pisses me off.

It sounds like the prosecution, the judge, and the cop are complete and total idiots. They make books for those types of people and they clearly need to read one. Start with Law for Dummies. And then work your way up to Internet for Dummies.

I have read about stupid convictions, but this wins the award by far.
The Judge and the prosecutor should be looked at just as Nyfong was with the duke trial.
I work IT in a district with 3000 computers, this happens all the time. All the time!
Also, our filter shows that kids this age spend quite a bit of time trying to access these sites in the first place. Im slowly loosing respect for law in this country.

What can reasonably be done by us to help her case?

The school system is using her as a scapegoat. Win98? Outdated protection software? WHAT ABOUT THE TEACHERS IN THE SCHOOL THAT WOULDN'T HELP HER?!!! WRONG!!!!

What's really shocking is how much I.T. ignorance, weak security, or hysterical over-reaction, there was among everyone involved:
the teacher who panicked,
the principal,
the kids who reported the teacher,
the parents of the kids who reported the teacher,
the school's I.T. dept. (the sysadmin in particular),
the police,
the prosecutor,
the judge who refused to allow an expert to present real evidence,
the jury who listened to everything.

In a fairly wealthy and well-educated state like Connecticut, it's appalling to find so many people with so little I.T. saavy. What would one find in a poorer state?

sounds to me like the principal ought to be fired for failing to take security precautions on his network.

If it's a criminal case, she gets an automatic appeal in every state.

It certainly sounds like her lawyers let her down on this one. To show intent, they would have had to show that she either clicked on one of the pop up ads or that she typed in a web address she shouldn't have, or that she ran an improper search and then clicked on a link. The last two are easily proven or disproven. If she clicked on one of the pop up ads then it seems an easy thing to convince a jury that in her panic she just missed the little "x."

I'm surprised at the grammar of all these comments. It's surprisingly good.
As for the case, I agree whole-heartedly that she shouldn't have been arrested or even prosecuted at all. This is the standard evil that plagues the internet and can happen to anyone. This justice is simply unfair.

Excellent comments.... and..

What were the kids doing hovering over the PC when the teacher was out of the room?

Why weren't they taught at home to never, ever look at pornographic images?

Yeah, sure.. the teacher's fault for not parenting.

If you are upset as I am, you will follow my lead and contact the following to voice your concerns. BE POLITE!!! AND TRY TO REASON!!!

Kelly Middle School
I recommend speaking to the principal and IT "department" and ask them have they decided to start legally licensing their equipment and patching their computers.
860-823-4211

David Smith - State Prosecutor
If someone figures out which one, that would be helpful:
SMITH, David (860) 515-5330 david.smith@jud.ct.gov Judicial Branch
SMITH, David (203) 974-8173 david.smith@po.state.ct.us Social Services, Dept Of
SMITH, David A. (203) 238-6135 david.a.smith@jud.state.ct.us Public Defender Services, Division Of
SMITH, David G.E. (860) 566-4284 david.g.smith@jud.state.ct.us Public Defender Services, Division Of
SMITH, David J. (860) 889-5284 david.smith@po.state.ct.us Criminal Justice, Division Of
"""
http://www.phone.state.ct.us/EmpByLastName/n_ls.html

Detective Mark Lounsbury
Norwich Police
Tel: (860) 886-5561 ext 153
Fax: (860) 886-4552

CT State governor M. Jode Rell
800-406-1527
Governor.Rell@po.state.ct.us

As an information security manager, I am completely shocked by the utter failure of the justice system to hold the school system itself accountable for lax protections and filtering on their systems. The duty to protect the integrity of the computer in the classrom does not rest with the teacher in this case, but with the distric IT dept. Additionally, the testimony of the local police officer regarding the so-called timestamped logs on the system proving deliberate, manual browsing of a website is total BS. That officer should be charged with with obstruction of justice. What a horrible miscarriage of justice!

Conneticut is full of a bunch of old money tech retards. So when you have a jury composed of that, what else would you expect.

It's not the old money retards, those people find a way out of jury duty. Juries are filled with losers with nothing else to do and no real excuses to weasle out of jury duty. I tremble at the thought of my freedom in the hands of a jury of my peers.

As for an appeal, she can appeal the Judge's ruling that kept out some of her expert testimony. Hopefully the appellate court (which tends to be populated by more experience jurists) will reverse the conviction and grant her a new trial.

ADD JUDGE HILLARY B. STRACKBEIN TO THE CONTACT LIST!

Hillary B. Strackbein
Superior Court, G.A. 10
112 Broad Street
New London , CT 06320
P (860) 443-8343
F (860) 437-1168

I dare anyone to go to google and enter this search:

Hillary B. Strackbein falling asleep

Take the B. out of the search for more results.

Shows what happens when stupid people run the government. On the local level we get creationism and a travesty like this. On the national level, we get bush. It's like giving a handgun to a monkey. As society requires more and more technical understanding to function, this will only get worse. And as always, it's the innocent who suffer from the arrogant stupid people.

The reason we get stupid judges,prosecutors, politicians, and a President like Bush is because we as a society only pay attention when we something that provokes our outrage. We don't pay attention on a daily basis, and during a campaign we fall for great soundbites and slogans. This case is the result. Not sure if this Judge was elected or appointed by an elected official, but the result is the same: we get the government we ask for when we don't pay more attention.

Great article and well thought out reader comments.

Pingback: http://securitygarden.blogspot.com/2007/01/chose-to-fight-charges.html

This is more of a political than anything else. Angry parents demand answers, principle point fingers at the teacher. Prosecuter worrying about his job, end of story.
I'm a IT professional responsible for our Company security patches. I once visited an "innocent" webpage, next thing you know I got literally hundred of popup. And this is with the latest Security patch and Anti-Virus software. Spent over hours trying to clean it. Finally gave up and reinstall Windows XP from scratch.
From the story, the teacher obviously panic and don't know what to do. How can this woman be charge left alone convicted.

Can someone provide email to the state prosecutor office, would like to submit my comments and volunteer my time if I can be any help.

This is a sad story that keeps getting repeated across America, with the details different each time. People who serve on juries have no clue what "reasonable doubt" is. Prosecutors and police are determined to get a conviction at all costs, even at the cost of justice. Defendants who can't afford good lawyers get ineffective public defenders. Why should anybody be surprised when innocent people get sent to prison?

I blame the DUMB _ _ S jurors who covicted this woman in the first place!! Most jurors are idiots to begin with, think about it, who in the world can go sit for weeks on a trial for $26.00 a day! People who don't work and have nothing else to do!
I know I'll get slammed on this but just think about it.

Lindsay Beyerstein has an excellent article on this as well. Very interesting reading. It is posted at Alternet.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/46925/

My wife is a librarian for a school in a very large district/county. She is also the ONLY tech person in the entire school. If CT is anything like my state, most schools don't have a dedicated technology/IT individual but they rely on a district-wide department to give mostly remote support and the librarian (now referred to as "media specialist") is the on-site IT person. Now my wife is very tech-savvy but the lack of support from a dedicated IT department and the general lack of pc/internet knowledge whatsoever on the part of the MAJORITY of teachers is a bad combination. Add to that, the general state of funding most public school systems are in and you can see how the factors listed in this article come about (the aging and outdated systems/software). This ruling is absurd from any perspective.

Even if she is guilty (which she is probably not given the What "endangering child" has to with the case? What child had even slightest possibility to be dead or injured because of looking (willful looking, nobody made them) at some bad pictures? Why strip a person of even a day of freedom and put her to a jail for this - LET ALONE 40 YEARS! $1000 fine would make the teacher (given teachers' salaries) not to do it ever again. But 40 years of jail time! Who were the crazy fascists who invented the laws like these?! They should be put in jail themselves forever for taking freedom from innocent people like this poor soul.

I hope that every person who is upset about this case remembers it the next time they get a summons to jury duty -- and all start talking about how to "get out" of it, how their time is so much more important than sitting in judgment on a woman's life, or their work is so much harder and can't be done without them, or someone else will do it if they don't. Don't wonder why verdicts like this happen if you aren't willing to do your civic duty and add an intelligent, thoughtful voice to the jury room.

This is an example of the guilty passing the blame to the innocent. The school "IT" admin should have ensured the computes have the latest security updates. (by the way, schools get great discounts on software...no excuses. The computers in a school with young children should be locked down so this cannot happen.
But this is getting away from the fact the Justice is being withheld from this poor substitute teacher. How can the judge not allow such important evidence to be admitted?
I hope this story gets national coverage and instead of the teacher being made an example of, the prosecutor and judge are made examples of.

Idiots. all of you can take your special, precious children and kiss my a...what an inbred, hick town

and the judge is probably a catholic pedophile

I know where I have lived they select jurors from registered voters who tend to be old people. Then a lot of the potential jurors who have computer skills find reasons to be excused from service cause they would rather not miss work etc and you are left with a jury box full of computer illiterate grandparents getting half the facts and making a stupid decision like this.

The one thing no one mentioned was that the actual teacher of the class basically told the sub not to mess with his/her computer, that's why she didn't restart it. Yet no one seemed to bring that point up or ignored it completely. If anything that's where the blame could be put if there is any blame at all since they are obviously the primary user.

Absolutely amazing what this world has come to... In ten years we wont have any teachers left...

I can't wait to she gets found innocent and sues for defamation of character

I'm hesitant to blame the IT department. The school district I work in has thousands of computers and we have a department of only 5 staff members. We all have college degrees and are underpaid by normal standards. The district doesn't have the payroll funds to hire more staff; just as most the other districts I have visited. Anyone who thinks we have the time to patch and keep all the computers free of spyware is living in a fantasy world. Let me say again, 5 staff members, about 2800 computers.
If you blame the IT department you either cant do math, or you know nothing about what goes on in an IT department all day. This is a problem with the judicial system, law and the morons who let it escalate to this level in the first place.

We really need to help this teacher if there is anyway we can.

From a legal standpoint, its pretty clear that the trial court committed reversible error in excluding "technical" evidence.

That's like not letting in the results of DNA that would exonerate a defendent because the judge can't be bothered to learn 10th grade science.

I hope her lawyer is appealing.

Yowza. The most amazing thing here to me, as a "veteran court observer," is that the prosecution met the "reasonable doubt" standard in presenting its case. Based on the defendant's self-assessment of her own computer skills, it may be simply that her own defense was a bit too rigorous in empaneling a jury of her peers. That, or Connecticut has a fairly large Amish population (whose members nonetheless report for jury duty).

I am a high school teacher in Europe and am vastly encouraged at the reaction of nearly all posters tonight.

This poor woman is so obviously a victim of a miscarriage of justice.

The School I am in has set filter levels which would make these images impossible but they went too far.

We organised a trip to Italy with a Travel company but had real communication difficulties, e mail, the lot.

The reason was that the travel company operated from Dyke Road, Bristol.

The filters objected, to the first word but I am also told that Bristol is slang for breasts.

Glad to know we are so well protected!!

Me again ... I've just scrolled back up and my hat is off to Kozmo! It is truly frightening to consider that we live in a nation where such important matters as whether one lives free or behind bars rest upon the decision-making ability of people too stupid to get out of jury duty.

This is stupid injustice. It is clearly not her fault and she should not go to prison for it. But of course the liberal court system will put her in jail because the system is screwed up.

It's really hard to beleive that this is actualy happening.
This seems like the inquisition.

Wow. A couple years ago in my third grade class students who were trying to reach an online educational site accidentally typed the url incorrectly and graphic pictures of anal sex popped up. My kids were a little too naive to understand what they were looking at. I close the window as fast my fingers could move and just said, "I don't know what it was either..." Of course with middle schoolers it's harder to pull that off.

I've had the same uncontrolled popup hell. It is the SCHOOL's FAULT for not installing adequate security software. No security, no guilt on part of teacher, whether it was a mistake on her part, or not. What happened to innocent until proven guilt????

Besides feeling terrible for this poor teacher, I am entirely amused by seeing the message at the top of my browser at this moment: "Firefox prevented this site from opening a popup window." Even as reputable a site as the Washington Post would subject visitors to popup ad(s).

Besides feeling terrible for this poor teacher, I am entirely amused by seeing the message at the top of my browser at this moment: "Firefox prevented this site from opening a popup window." Even as reputable a site as the Washington Post would subject visitors to popup ad(s).
(reposting - I just saw the note about unsigned Posts - I didn't notice the Name space above, the first time.)

This so-called teacher is obviously a terrrist and as such an unlawful enemy combatant. She's lucky she didn't wind up in a navy brig somewhere. That she received a trial at all is a blow to the modern American way of justice--and even without resorting to hearsay testimony and supression of classified exculpatory materials she was still convicted! How can you write such comments just because you read a story put out by our libral mainstream media?

I bet a little waterboarding would get the real truth out of her. We must keep these terrrists from attacking our children!

A school pays for computers using tax dollars and think they'll magically stay spyware-free until they die a slow death... Allows full access to users (bad choice of OS there), violating every good IT practice ever envisioned. Substitute teacher enters stage-left and get caught in a storm of s@#t being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Techno-idiotic prosecutors and administrators convict substitute teacher. WOW, just WOW...

PS If the teacher can access porn sites, the students certainly can and this, to me, is the problem. In this day and age, to connect computers to the Net in a lab, you need the help of a professional who will lockdown user accounts, provide anti-spyware and/or website blocking software. I wonder how much money was spent prosecuting this unfortunate individual as opposed to the money invested in the above.

so sad. QQ

Re: Jury duty

I'd like to dodge jury calls too. Why? The system is broken. Last time I was called, I sat in a room with 40 other individuals for 4-6 hours reading a book. At the end, the judge gave us some asinine reason why we wasted our time there and sent us home. Here's an idea, figure out if you need a jury and then call it! I wouldn't mind serving time on a jury (as long I didn't get sequestered for months), just don't imprison me in a room for a day and call it civic duty.

Who should we contact at local TV news stations and papers in Hartford and Boston to give this case more widespread attention?

I'm a programmer. This happens all of the time, the only way to kill the pop ups is to hit cntrl alt del and when the manager pops up highlight everything and hit shutdown.

I can't believe that if everything is as you say it is, this woman was convicted. That police officer that testified is either an idiot or a lier. The browser will store the addresses but it doesn't tell you who pushed the button, or if it was accessed automatically. Secondly, It doesn't make sense that a sub teacher would show kids porn and then run to the lounge and ask for help.

Plus 7th graders are more computer savy than many 40 year old teachers and II wouldn't doubt that they had a hand in it.
Plus
Only in America.

"Later on, prosecutors would ask why she hadn't just thrown a coat or a sweater over monitor. The day, it turned out, had been balmy, and Amero hadn't worn either."

Why she does not turn off the monitor?

if this is a security issue then there should be a law make all public school disable Java, running Firefox instead of IE, and do not let user install Plug In

The judge in this case let the prosecution railroad an innocent person. I can't believe the judge would disallow expert testimony about the existence of spyware and adware infections. That's outrageous. THE JUDGE IN THIS CASE SHOULD BE IMPEACHED and removed from the bench for incompetence. Also, the student affected should be entitled to damages from the school district for using outmoded operating systems and browsers and allowing their firewall software to be four years out of date. That's negligence, in this case criminal negligence.

Police, prosecutors and judges make money from sensational cases.

Police get promotions for big cases, prosecutors get elected to higher offices, judges get re-elected.

I became involved in a car-jacking case when called for help. The accused was poor and had a public defender. The stupidity of the accusation was to great to go into detail here. I was given the transcripts of confidential follow-up interviews conducted by the police where the accusers changed their story dramatically and two of the three accusers stated the 18 year old being held in prison was not at the scene at all. The third accuser positively ID'd 3 out of the 2 people involved. It turns out the accusers ambushed the "car-jackers" and one of the people they attacked used the accusers own car to escape. The transcripts show the detective told the people who said the 18 year old not involved that he was thinking of releasing him. The detective then puts on his cover letter to the prosecutor that the only thing the accusers were sure of was the involvement of the 18 year old. The 18 year old was held in prison from February to November before the prosecutor decided there was no case and released him.
No charge of filing a false report was ever brought against the accusers. Local media (whore for the prosecution) refused to cover the story when I showed them the transcripts.

This happens every day all across the country. Unless you have money for an attorney no-one ever hears about it.

Does the Prosecutor have any responsibility to read the transcript or just go by what the police say?

Does the Judge have any responsibility to read the transcript or just go by what the Prosecutor says?

How can anyone get elected locally if they can be vilified by accusation of standing against law and
order?

I think we need ballot or constitutional initiatives to get prosecutors who think their job is to secure a conviction no matter what, under control. we need more transparent oversight of people in power.

I hope the print edition of the Post will give this dramatic miscarriage of justice and incompetence the national exposure it deserves.

Grassroots letter campaigns to the daft parties involved can't hurt, but I think more national attention and rightful ridicule is what will really make a difference. Moreover, the story can help raise awareness of the need for better IT support, resources, and security in our public education system in general.

The type of persecution was bound to happen given the level of hysteria concerning sex in this country. The political motivation to take advantage of concerned citizen's emotions made passing these restrictive laws a winner for politicians and conservatives trying to further their own agenda. Now there are victims of these laws. We have seen this before. Evolution in the class room, teaching Marx, reading the Bother's Grimm unabridged fairly tails. When emotion replaces reason and reaction replaces thought the consequences are easy to predict. We see it in the Middle East and we see it home. I do hope that justice will prevail in the end.

This is why schools and non-techie users should run Linux or Mac. At the very least, use Firefox, and disable javascripts. Use the NoScript extension to make it easy to trust certain sites, but block others.

Amazing...this has got to be one of the most bizarre miscarriages of justice that I have heard of! Very scary stuff. I pray that an excellent appellate attorney will take her case, 'pro bono.'

This case is just like the Nifong case: prosecutors wrongly going after innocent people just to further their careers. It is my hope both the prosecutor and the biased Judge's reputations are ruined because of this, as they deserve to be, because any fool can see what truly happened here. If you can fool an OJ jury, you certainly can fool a bunch of red neck jurors when in comes to computers.

It is crazy that a woman surfing porn sites would run to the teacher's lounge trying to get help to shut it down if she were actually guilty. This verdict is a travesty. I also agree with someone above who wondered what kind of Puritan fantasy land do we live in where someone could be convicted of "endangering a child" for this. If I were a teacher in that school system, I'd refuse to use the computers. Why would any teacher use them with a 40-year prison sentence just one innocuous click away?

The Beyerstein article (linked to above as alternet.org) contains the telling fact that the defense expert testimony was kept out of the trial based on a procedural problem that the defense attorney is responsible for creating. Basically, a trial is supposed to overcome the limitations on a judge's technical sophistication about any subject (much more a jury's limited familiarity with the nuances of interpretting facts) by having both sides present their case. But, to make sure the sides are fully engaged and that the truth therefore emerges, there are rules requiring that evidence/arguments get revealed in advance of the trial. It sounds like the defense failed to disclose their adware arguments and the related expert testimony and the judge employed the only penalty he has for such situations -- excluding the evidence. The result is the same as when a confession is thrown out because of a procedural error by the cops or the prosecutors. The lack of any sanction other than ignoring evidence is a major flaw in our judicial system, but it is a familiar one. The only real grounds for appeal may be incompetence of defense counsel.

This is crazy! A woman's life is about to be ruined for something she had no control over, or so it seems... becuase unless you were there, its no way to trully know the truth. But if what I read is true, then this just shows the state of our loveable country. This could've happened to anyone. First thought that came to mind was, that woman needs a better lawyer. Its no way she should have been convicted. My second thought was, why would a judge bar technical information that could potentially save a persons life. How can that judge sleep at night? Its obvious the judge doesnt care about what happens. Probably just wanted to get home to watch CSI. If the case is reversed through appeals and what have you, the judge should be removed from the bench for poor (I should use the word dumb but I wont) judgement. The US legal system sucks!!!! Its evident in this case.

Its just sad to hear!

Having been an IT consultant for 15 years, the most obvious issue for me is that she simply hired a lawyer completely unfamiliar with arguing technology cases. A competent lawyer would have introduced the evidence properly and easily shown that the prosecution's witnesses backgrounds and testimony were grossly inadequate. They would have also proceeded with a lawsuit against the district for failing to provide adequate security to her and the children and ComputerCop for misleading law enforcement agencies and judicial systems as to the use of their products. Too bad it has to be this way, but that is probably the only way to get this rectified.

First off, there is a reason why corporations spend a great deal of money on security - even with new technology and competent professionals it is difficult. Second, there really no way to secure a computer with Windows 98. Within minutes of connecting a Windows 98 computer to the internet it will be compromised -- one need not even open a browser. A network firewall (if it were even working which in this case was not) would likely not provide significant protection and if any of the other computers on that network were infected -- which likely all of them are, an infection would come from them also instantly. Windows 98 and older I.E. browsers are almost impossible to lock-down and most any malicious script will run. Anti-virus software is of little or no use unless you are already infected with a well known virus and on a Windows 98 machine, the anti-virus is unlikely to be up-to-date.

This truely must be a horror but it is a great example of how those without money can easily be trampled.

lame and lamer, no way should the teacher be sentenced to 40 years for the faults of microsoft security, or malware and pop-ups

I had to re-read this article. I can not believe that some poor woman is about to go to jail because some kids saw a series of explicit images. Even if she had done it deliberately, which seems unlikely, the sentence is extreme. She is no real threat and the damage is already done. I am just glad it was not my taxes paying for the prosecution. It would appear that the world is crazy. I was incensed last year to read about paedophiles in the UK who were caught with thousands of images of child porn being sentenced to what amounted to less than a year in jail and a place on the sex offenders register. There are real criminals out there who pose a substantial threat to kids. These are the people that need to spend 40 years in jail for child endangerment not a substitute teacher doing a tough but very vital job. It seem to me that justice is not only blind but deaf and inexcusably ignorant.

The comments posted by Law and Order are indicitive of the judicial system today in that it does not matter about the truth of anything but rather how things are presented. It would appear the justice system in this case was/is only concerned with procedure rather than right or wrong. I do believe however, that the substitute teacher should have turned off the monitor (If she knew how) regardless of the desire of the prime teacher. (End would justify the means)

the principal , the parents , the prosecutor , the police , the jury , the
judge do any of them own a computer .
Do they know we are being over run by spam.
I've been a computer analyst for twenty five years and my computer was just completely taken over by spam. And even if she did what they say , there must not be ant real crime in that town . MORONS

the principal , the parents , the prosecutor , the police , the jury , the
judge do any of them own a computer .
Do they know we are being over run by spam.
I've been a computer analyst for twenty five years and my computer was just completely taken over by spam. And even if she did what they say , there must not be ant real crime in that town . MORONS

The prosecutor is Attorney David J. Smith. Pros. Office Tel # 1-860-889-5284

As someone who has provided tech support for over 10 years [from windows 95 through windows xp] for users here's my perspective that will hopefully be used during her appeal.

The computer should have been put in a state where the drive contents could be "frozen in time"...take an image file of the drive and load the imaged drive in the machine. Otherwise it would be contaminated evidence and not admissible.

Look at the timestamps of the access they accused her of typing in. If it was pop-ups that used mousetrapping, you'd probably find access to dozens of sites happened faster than she could have physically typed. [sequence: pop-up, close window, pop-up, close window, probably as fast as she could hit the X to close]

Going further back in the history of the browser [if it wasn't set to delete history after x number of days, you might find the day and time(s) that someone else first visited sites that installed the pop-ups.

Supoena the ISP logs of the inbound requests for the porn sites to see if they had happened so quickly, sequentially, that a person couldn't have typed fast.

Bring the creator(s) of the spyware residing on the computer in and have them prove that their software wasn't set to automatically take over the machine and re-route to porn sites.

Nearly every computer I've been provided to fix, has had porn on it in the browser cache when used by a male, and occasionally when used primarily by a female.

Imagine if you were at a public library that didn't have filtering software and the user before you had just surfed a child porn site. Then you sit down to surf, pop ups came up and some children were within viewing distance. Would you be liable? The library for not filtering that out?

What if someone had poisoned the host file on the local computer? You could type in www.washingtonpost.com and instead of routing there, it could be rerouted to a site filled with illegal content. [host file on xp resides at C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\ open the file with notepad and see how routing can be manipulated]

What a miscarriage of justice. I truly hope that she gets a retrial with people technically capable of getting to all of the facts.

This case should have been thrown out of court by the judge to begin with, simply refused to heard! And now that the judge has allowed this to happen; he or she should be thrown out of office! I too am an IT professional and a CIT Instructor, this very thing happens daily all across America and the World and it will continue until National Legislation is made to apprehend those that publish the SPAM. The fact that the PC was loaded with Windows 98 alone should have been enough for anyone with any knowledge of computers to have said no to conviction. It browser is open to SPAM worse than any other version written especially when no antispam and antivirus is loaded.
Lets get real people! If your on court cases like this, stand up to the judges and the idiot prosecutors and just say no!

I'm a computer technician so it's my job to deal with just this kind of thing. Theirs not much I can add to this that has not already been said but I really would like to see this woman sue the school & the Judge. Furthermore since you can use the ISP and the computers to back track every site this pc visited it would be nice to see the site that launched this infestation tracked down and held liable. If you are looking for somebody to pin 40 years on it's the person or persons who stand the most to gain from such a popup generator.

Enough with the witch hunt. What's next? Burning teachers on a cross? Thank god I moved out of the U.S! You guys are on a sinking ship that I for one got completely
Fed up with.

I have over 30 yrs in the computer field and it really burns me to get those sickening popups and the nasty email spam from the ex-cons who bring us this stuff :-( ... It is way too easy for even the odd kid for kicks would likely setup her computer to be filled with viruses and popups while she was distracted...
Also, most of us do not like to perform Jury Duty since it does not pay well and is a total bore... This implies that any poor sap who is being judged by their peers is in fact being Judged by those who don't have a regular job or can't hold a regular job... You will be judged by the worst losers of society... so much of our judicial system...

Is this the same crappy system we are trying to impose on various Middle Eastern countries? We cloak our junkie institutions in a word "democracy"... yuk, Puke!...

Those who found America recognized that the only way for a Nation to survive is to be "For the People, by the People". Since the founding of America, all other self serving governing bodies have since then perished...

If we don't stand up and protect the rights of this woman and other nasty events, then our beloved country will too perish a slow decline... :-(

Is this Sixty Minute subject matter or not?

Just think: If she had been a man, she might have got the chair.

No benefit of the doubt, and none of the tea and sympathy I'm reading here. The majority would instead be baying for blood. Quick to believe the worst, hundreds would be lined up, eager to pull the switch. I can see it all now.

I wonder how many men have been railroaded like this woman so obviously has, yet no one has come to their rescue. The innocent but unlovely men, summarily arrested on trumped up charges and quickly buried alive to assuage the frenzied indignation of Smalltown USA.

That this can happen to anyone in an unguarded moment has already been demonstrated, and should give us all great pause. The question is, When laws are multiplied and sentences compounded, what besides dumb luck is keeping any of us out of jail?

We have more to fear from the State we have charged with protecting us from our fears than from anything that might ordinarily befall us.

From our own nightmares comes this hysterical urge to lock up criminals forever, so they can never ever possibly harm us. Except we never imagine that quite by accident, some *other* hysteric might one day label *us* a criminal and entomb *us* in the very prisons we so eagerly voted to build.

This woman's story is a cautionary tale if ever I've heard one.

What a shame that this even became a case; let alone the fact that her justifiable panic was deemed punishable by 40 years in jail! Shame on the judge, and the police who wasted time testifying against her when real predators lurk behind the scenes posting such obscenity.

As an IT professional, I know exactly what has happened to her as it also has happened to many of my clients, who were 'fortunate' to experience the obnoxious popups on their computers in the privacy of their homes and offices, and have me offer them assistance in lieu of being sent to jail... To this date, I haven't heard of an office lawsuit in the same vein yet, but after this case, I wouldn't be surprised at all. It's a despicable case of misused law.

So a female teacher can have sex with her students as long as she does not to expose them (girls ???) to objectionable material (porn) on the internet.

This woman is innocent, she did not do anything wrong. I always thought the law is for the victim (she as a victim of people producing malicious popups), not against them. Who still wants to become a teacher, under these circumstances?

Is'nt this the same state that has been giving pedophiles probation for sodomizing & raping little children. Bill Orielly should look into this one. What is wrong with Connecticut, are all the people there just stupid or what.

Were the students allowed to get up out of their seats and use the computer?

Just more evidence that Americans are the stupidest people on earth.

This is outragous. I am sitting here eating my brains about the outcome of this event. If what is reported here is true, then I believe that we are all headed to jail someday.

Hmmm, Connecticut... I don't think their tree goes all the way to the top branch...

I think that in sexual relation animals better than the some humans' .animals know the sex and do it. But my question is 'why human do that this behaviour?'

someone hs to have contacted the big papers about this???

also what is the prosecutors email address?

Dateline NBC should be all over this - they seem to be quite interested in cybercrimes these days. They recently covered another travesty where a 16-year-old boy was busted in Arizona for child porn, all because of a similarly compromised PC.
Completely disturbing miscarriage of justice.

What has happened to justice and equally in the US ? huh...

I am simply disgusted with the obvious in-competency of the defense attorney.

This is a general problem with prosecutors across the country. Since most of them are using the office as a springboard to higher office, they do a lot of hysterical grandstanding and are more interested in winning than in the concept of justice.

I would rank this guy with Mike Nifong and Tony Rauckackas (the Orange County, CA DA) as the scum of the earth in being willing to ruin an obviously innocent person's life for their own corrupt sense of narcissistic glory. This was a disgrace.

Have one thing in mind. This is the way the prosecuters work. They only care to find evidence of your crime, and ignore proof of your innocence. They get credit by convicting you, and they don't know much (nor care) about the information tehnology. There were so many cases like this one in the news, and in most of the cases, they didn't care much about justice, at least not before the story became the center of attention in the news.

Why not get the Whistling WEASEL Gang to torture this teacher with poisons for a decade or more just to be on the safe side? ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________The open and notorious Whistling WEASEL Gang poisonings are now a fact of life in America and the police and government do not seem inclined to stop it.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Lots of money in hysteria!
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
.

Thee teacher should (has a duty to) sue the school for have such a hazardous piece of equipment in the classroom.

As an IT Professional I am astonished how this poor woman was convicted by a jury that obviously knew little about technology. While WinXP PC is not immune from today's sophisticated viruses and worms, imagine how Win98 PC connected to the internet without up to date antivirus/firewall is an easy target. Even Microsoft stopped support for Win98 in July 2006. The school should be held responsible for failure to provide security for any of its computers connected to the wild internet. This is miscarriage of justice.

I have no blogged on this miscarriage of justice, and urge others to spread the word.

http://terablog.blogspot.com

Please forward this story to your lawyer friends if you have any--maybe they would know something we don't about what could be done!

What a contradiction! A case completely based in the technical realm, and technical evidence is refused??

Jon said:

"I can't wait to she gets found innocent and sues for defamation of character"

Unfortunately, no amount of damages can makeup for the presumption of guilt, stained reputation, embarrassment and sheer 'let down' she has endured :-(

Hassan

This is seriously whacked out people! Blaming ANY person for popups is just plane stupid /idiotic / dumb / childish / positivly insane / and totally 100% wrong!!! How on earth can they arrest / accuse a person of something/anything because of pop-ups... Whao... scary... plane old scary...

That poor lady! I hope the people that accused her gets sued and pay her an enormous amount of money for the injustice that they have caused!!!

This poor woman is being persecuted, and the school administration is to blame. It is the responsibility of the administration to ensure that the IT staff is doing its job, and that includes having safe and up-to-date computer equipment and software, and proper filtering in place. In fact, they are required by federal law to protect students and adults from porn. Has that principal never heard of CIPA? And please don't say that the the poor school couldn't afford expensive Internet filtering. I recently retired from a tech coordinator position in a small rural Maine school, and my primary concern was keeping the kids safe when they used the web. There are free or nearly free applications that can be used if someone takes the trouble to find them. The middle level teachers, the principal and I met weekly to address any concerns about improper use of the computer systems. Put the blame where it lies - with the administration, starting with the principal, and on up through the superintendent and school board, not with the substitute teacher who is being made the scapegoat.

Connecticut has just proven itself one of the most IT ignorant and backwards states of the US.

Turning a computer off does not always get rid of this type of material. What if she had turned the computer off and the returning teacher found it and reported it. Julie would still be in serious trouble.

School officials had the school's protection ware updated shortly after the incident. If they had fulfilled their responsibilities prior to the incident, none of this would have ever happened.

It's hard to believe that the community's citizens are so ignorant or stubborn that they can't figure this out.

One more reason schools should be using Open Source Software, (ie. Linux).
It´s Free, it costs nothing to maintain up-to-date, is more stable, more secure, and is not susceptible to spyware and adware written for Windows computers.

This case is ridiculous.
I hope Mrs. Amero wins on appeal and p0wns that principle and district superintendent, etc.

I would like everyone who has expressed surprise by the behavior of this court to think hard about what happens in worse situations like murder trials. Everyone here realized this woman is getting railroaded. Evidence was suppressed, police word was taken to be absolute by the jury and an innocent person probably got convicted.

I have personally seen it happen in worse situations to others. America needs to wake up. While many are guilty and need punishment. This womans situation, suppression of exculpatory evidence and unreasonable conviction is NOT the exception in our courts!! This is standard operating procedure.

Everyone here who was surprised by this is a good person who, like I used to be, is not understanding the situation. Pay very very close attention to our courts, we are in trouble!

BURN THE WITCH!!! People need to point the blame at someone, and this innocent woman is the perfect scapegoat. I hope this all blows over and the people who are both responsible for the problem and for tarnishing her reputation are publicly embarassed in front of the rest of the nation. We should all make examples out of them. I'll bet Ms. Amero will be awared a substantial sum of money when this is all over for her suffering and humiliation. She deserves it, at the very least.

About a year ago, I ended up having to remove spyware and adware from a local business's computers that was popping up some rather rude messages and images for the reception staff to deal with. This was on a couple of Windows XP Professional machines with the latest antivirus updates and Windows/IE security fixes installed. Luckily, the business owner wasn't an asshat and understood that these things can sometimes Just Happen.

I ended up spending several days at that business cleaning those machines. One of the machines was so badly infected, I ended up working on it from about an hour or so before close of business until a few hours past start of business the next morning.

Once the machines were all cleaned, I created a new security policy there (everyone there had Administrator privileges on the machines), locked down IE's security settings, and educated everyone there about just how malware works and how it is spread. They haven't had any issues since.

The real culprits guilty of endangering children are the people in charge of IT at the school. They're the ones who should be prosecuted and imprisoned.

Were this travesty...err trial, to take place in my glorious homeland of Iraq, someone would, no doubt, have already had the good sense to shoot the judge and decapitate the prosecuting attorney. Maybe a suicide bomber could take them both out with the jury to boot? American justice clearly isn't working.

The Governor, Legislator, School Administration, Police, and Prosecutors, and Judge, in this case are Disrespectfull of the Constitution, Natural Law, International Law, Comparative Law, All American Traditions, Amoral and Incompetent. All Should be Punished, and given the same sentences these Liars gave the Innocent teacher. Thats how the Bible reccommends dealing with Liars. No Decent Legal System prevents defendents from presenting Evidence of Innocence, except some Kangaroo Court Systems, Communist and Nazi Law Systems. Yale University, and now, seemingly the whole state, has always been Proto-Nazi.

Frankly, this demonstrates the Need to Repeal the Possee Commitatus Act, and appoint Military Governors, as during US Civil War Reconstruction Period, to run Incompetent, poorly educated, poorly read, semi-literate, Emmanuel Kant's deciples ran States.

Where are the so-called Christian and Jewish Clergymen, in this matter of horrific unethical, injustice? Moses' Tithes of 10% were to support Moses' Social Security Program, not fancy religious digs, fancy chiors, fancy clergy salaries, or worse yet, to give to the Rich, like George W. Bush does with Federal Funds. Read Amos, the first in time of the post-Davidian Phrophets, and how Amos condemns the blood sucking economic policys, exhummed by GW Bush. In the first century AD/CE synogoges, on which churches were based, recieved only 4.5% to 5.0%, seperately from, or in addition to the Tithes.

I helped my mother-in-law attach a printer to her computer a few years ago. She had taken some computer classes, and knew how to use MS Office, and surf the net, etc. She could do basic stuff, but not super computer saavy as most users. No idea what a command shell is, .exe, .pif, etc.

About a week later, she told me that I broken her computer. She couldn't access the Internet. I laughed, and thought computer newbies always blame the last computer "expert" of any problems that touched their computer. I just installed a printer that was already on her machine --- no big deal.

She lived about 45 minutes away from us. After some griping and maybe a month, I happen to be in the area and decided to stop by and help her out.

We turned on the computer, and instantly pop ups. It looked like Times Square. Lots of obnoxious, flashing ads. Some sexual explicit, some for money schemes, etc. My jaw dropped, I started attempting to regain control of the system by closing windows, more would pop up. It was insane --- the computer was close to unusable in this state.

I think the system was Me or 98. Anyway, I somehow was able to kill the applications. And then I went on a hunting for bad .exe files, and started deleting them by hand.

Nowadays, I am sure the harddisk would need to be wiped, due to a root kit being installed, but back then deleting .exes worked well. After several hours, I had the computer cleaned up; atleast there was no more pop ups, etc.

Luckily she had dialup service, if she had broadband I would needed to unplug it from the wall, to prevent more malware from being installed.

This woman is not guilty of anything, and put into an incredible situation that few would know how to handle. Does the school provide emergency training for fires, earthquakes and other natural disasters? What sort of training is offered for Internet disasters.

I'd love to see the judge or prosecutor attempt to deal with my mother-in-laws computer.

B.S.

I followed some other links to this story and found this one that has information by the computer expert that was not allowed to testify in the trial:

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

I can't tell who is dumber. the teacher, the cop, the lawyers, the judge or the local media ?

It's a complete breakdown of technological literacy.

Sounds like a typical public school to me-No one helps the substitute, neither principal nor teacher; outdated computers with compromised security, as well as outdated textbooks and curriculum. Just another day in paradise

I read recent publications in ABC and Fox news about
16 years old boy in Arizona and his criminal case.

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=bizarre&id=4935302

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,244009,00.html

I send you again links to publications about my case.
I was forced to confess to the
possession of internet digital pictures of porn in deleted clusters of
my computer hard drive. My browser was hijacked while I was browsing
the web. I was redirected to illegal sites against my will. Some
illegal pictures were found on my hard drive, recovering in
unallocated clusters, without dates of file creation/download.

I do not know how courts can widely press these charges on people to
convict them, while the whole Internet is a mess.

This is my story in inquisition21.com. There is all
information about case written by Irish writer Brian
Rothery. You can see a lot of violations of law by police

http://www.inquisition21.com/article~view~7~page_num~3.html

This is publication in Wired news

http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,63391,00.html

This is publication in Theregester

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/13/browser_hijacking_risks/

Article in Globe and Mail newspaper
http://ctv.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040617.gttwhijac17/tech/Technology/techBN/ctv-technology

Article in ZDnet
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5344831.html

This is article in Washington Times, May 22, 2004
There is information about my case.

http://www.cato.org/cgi-bin/scripts/printtech.cgi/dailys/05-30-04.html

Article in Crime research center:

http://www.crime-research.org/news/07.22.2004/506/

Article in Dallas, TX Newspaper

http://www.crime-research.org/news/24.12.2004/862/

Child porn law was declared unconstitutional in Hennepin County, Minnesota, USA'
http://xbiz.com/news_piece.php?id=11750

It's to bad that the teacher couldn't have gotten a "substitute" judical system.

Geesh.....

Did anybody notice the hugh security violation in letting a substitute teacher use another persons password? Most places have an end user policy that this type of practice violates and would be grounds for disciplinary action. If the teacher is guilty then I think that the owner of the password, Manager of the desktops and whoever is ultimately responsible for the security of the network should be on trial next.

Now that I'm thinking about, the proxy logs would all have the other teachers credentials. The Substitute didn't even have an account. How can there be any evidence of this person using the computer at all?

She should have said it never happened and made them prove that she was logged on to that PC.

I guess it's guilty until proven innocent!!

Uneducated comment above.
Blaming the school or IT department???
The only person to blame is the prosecutor, jury and judge. Don't pass the blame.
No, sharing teacher passwords with substitutes is not good, but to create a new account every time a sub will be needed on a workstation is not realistic. I don't know about the Connecticut school district, but the district I work for gets hundreds of subs a day. With such a small IT staff what are you going to do? Create new users accounts all morning while other things need attending. I said it once. I will say it again. All school districts are the same. A very small IT staff managing many computers. Often a 600 to 1 ratio. Do you really think the IT manager has time to keep track of teachers sharing passwords, updating software, software patches, spyware sweeps, cleaning viruses, managing servers, fixing computers, reloading operating systems and a thousand other duties not including desktop support to help someone realize there monitor is not plugged in, or forgotten passwords, broken mice, software training..... please!

I also read a comment about running "free unlicensed versions" of Linux. Apparently this user has never worked with free versions of Linux on a large network in a school environment, not to mention a trained Linux staff to work for peanuts. - Get real! Sounds good, but not realistic. Before anyone blames the poor IT staff that most likely does the best with what they have to work with; learn a little about what we do all day. The next time you take four hours to clear the spyware off your computer at home (fdisk), think of endless rooms full of computers with the same problem.

Run some free anti spyware programs?
Who's going to install them? Who will manage them and update them?

Enterprise spyware solutions?
Sure, its only money - oh, what money!

Hire some more staff?
Sorry, referendum didn't go through, no money. You voted against it.

Talk to the school board composed of mostly retired housewives?
"Oh, we don't need software, we need new playground equipment", that's what the parents want.

Please don't blame the IT staff unless you really know you are talking about.
And the only way to know is to work for one.

I am completely amazed at the number of posts on this story and their nearly unanimous perpsective that the entire incident was blown way out of proportion - which it has been.
I wonder whether the parents who brought the complaints a) have protection software on their home computers; b) have a whisper of common sense; and c) have ever considered the circumstances of this incident and considered speaking out in defense of this poor woman.
If she goes to jail for one minute, this is the case that should mobilize people everywhere to show up and protest (arrogant stupidity) non-stop until the woman is free. Forty years is the equivalent of a death sentence.
One lesson might be: Never volunteer.

this used to be such a wide spread problem with may folks computers, that there was even an online game made about pop up blocking. its crazy that someone in this situation can be put away. i hope she beats it.

Response to Ouch;
Obviously you type without thought and before thoroughly reading. The statement I made was "If the teacher is guilty...." So either you are saying that you feel that she has been tried justly or are just unable to process sarcasm.

The point is that the school should be protecting the children, staff and equipment. If you think budget constraints are an acceptable reason to neglect security you are truly distant from real world. Let's dissect your statements just for fun....

-Ouch says 'With such a small IT staff what are you going to do? Create new users accounts all morning while other things need attending.'

You obviously are not familiar with security policies. If you do not have time, then the policy should state that subs do not get computer access. I couldn't imagine giving a stranger access to my network without some sort of audit trail. How do these strangers know what all of the files, printers and programs are? Somebody has had some time to train them. I bet it's the same subs in the same district over and over. In the worst case scenario, lets create a generic sub account with limited access. I know you're busy but take the extra 2 minutes and ratchet down a little!

-Ouch says 'A very small IT staff managing many computers. Often a 600 to 1 ratio. Do you really think the IT manager has time to keep track of teachers sharing passwords, updating software, software patches, spyware sweeps, cleaning viruses, managing servers, fixing computers, reloading operating systems and a thousand other duties not including desktop support to help someone realize there monitor is not plugged in, or forgotten passwords, broken mice, software training..... please'

I work in an environment with 3000 computers. Myself and 1 other person manage the entire network. Welcome to the 90's my friend but updating security patches is free from Microsoft either via the web or SUS. Most corporate Anti-viruses also work with a central repository. Cleaning viruses seems to be because you have not sacrificed the few for the good of the many and have spent your time on things other than creating central management for the core security applications. Reloading an OS, Hmm...Microsoft RIS seems to come to mind. PXE boot has been around for a long time. Instead of running around all day putting out fires you should address the major flaws of your design and you might have more time to audit and train.

-Ouch says 'The next time you take four hours to clear the spyware off your computer at home (fdisk), think of endless rooms full of computers with the same problem.'

If I had Spyware on my PC at home it would be because I allowed the PC to access a site with malware on it. Obviously from the article (that you probably did not read completely) referred to some sort of timestamped logs that means that they have either a firewall or a proxy. Either way you can whitelist/blacklist sites and once again, based on the policy you will either be granted or denied access to the site. It sounds like your experience tends to run you around in circles always trying to catch up. The things that I have suggested are very simple and if you are really taking 4 hours to clean room after room of PC's you would be much better off trying to eliminate the problem. Identify the root cause - troubleshooting 101.

-Ouch says 'Please don't blame the IT staff unless you really know you are talking about.
And the only way to know is to work for one.'

I do work in the IT industry. Once again, you skimmed over the text and skipped immediately to your rant, the post name CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) implies that the person typing is in the IT industry. I have a feeling from your post that you also work in the IT industry. I would suggest spending more time implementing technology and less time posting if your network is really that jacked up. I don't believe that your lackadaisical approach to security and administration is true of most public schools.

** I sure hope that you don't work for the schools because your grammar and spelling really suck!!

CISSP,

I want to see you do all this in an environment where all the computers are running Win98 and are located in thirty or forty separate physical locations, each many miles from one another -- in other words, in your typical public school IT environment.

Ouch isn't lackadaisical, just realistic. School systems are notoriously underfunded when it comes to technology. Inevitably, hardware and software solutions are purchased for their cost, not their technology and usefulness. Not every school district is Fairfax County or Montgomery County.

This issue needs as much publicity as we can generate! All rationaly thinking persons who know of this situation have a duty to raise a stink about it. I just sent a letter to the editor of the NY Times. Friends: send more letters!

Oh, C.I.S.S.P. You so F.U.N.N.Y.!

You write:

"** I sure hope that you don't work for the schools because your grammar and spelling really suck!!"

And then you write:

"Myself and 1 other person manage the entire network."

Really? Just the two of you? Awesome!

You know, though, I'm thinking that maybe once in a while you get too much Diet Coke in you -- it's understandable, you're a CRISPY, after all -- and instead of saying, "Myself and 1 other person..." you say proudly, "Myself manage the entire network." With that, you demonstrate both your virtually unstoppable IT skills as well as your nuanced grammatical stylings, which would shame Tarzan.

Regarding Jury Duty, I feel it is my personal duty to serve when called. And when I do serve, I keep in mind that one of the chief duties of the jury is to not allow the misapplication of the law. The jury must not allow the letter of the law to be used to unjustly punish an otherwise inocent person, the judge will tell the jury they must follow the letter of the law as the judge explains it to the jury, BUT the jury must evaluate everything they see and hear and make sure that TRUE justice is served and find the person not guilty if the law is misapplied or is unfair on its face.

I'm an Network Engineer by trade and feel this is absolute rediculous. I don't blame the teacher at all, but rather the school. With spyware and adware being the # cause of popups and stolen information, how could you blame the teacher for something she did not physically cause. Plus, The schools network should have implemented a simple but effective antispyware/virus and content filtering solution. I have tons of clients which utilize backend hardware solutions known as Proxy's or firewalls. Manufacturers as: sonicwall, watchguard and Iprism uses just such technologies. They intercept traffic that attempts to push specific content groups which IT admins set up. Therefore allowing or denying depending if sites get flagged. It is not something that manageable at the pc level. That in conjuntion with Spysweeper Enterprise will virtually keep you pc free of spyware and adware and prevent the access of porn sites. You could even take it a further level if you prevent the downloading of any Executable or zip files which include: .exe, bat, msi, zip, vbs, cab, rar. This will eliminate the download of any applications which could accidently be installed on the pc by non experienced users.
The point is being that this is a school, wouldn't you think it would appropriate to have this type of solution to prevent kids from viewing porn. I think so.

The school systems are to quick to judge. They get so excited when they think they've caught someone in a wrong that they act without even thinking. Our school personal should be monitored and watched, but when they are suspected of doing wrong should not be hung wether or not all the evidence is aloud in. That just shows you they were to anxious to punish her. They didn't even want to hear the actual evidence. Things like this give a to anxious administration a chance to use their power and all to often it's just to get attention and throw around their authority. They need to grow up and look at the facts.

"Firefox prevented this site from opening a pop-up window"

Sounds like the school is trying hard to shift attention away from the fact that they're using out of date *everything* with expired licenses.

All I can say is:

Linux

Firefox

Ad-Aware

SpyBot

FREE FREE FREE

This woman is obviously being railroaded so the school's administration won't look like the clueless, dimwitted boobs they are. (oops - did I say "boobs" - aaaggghhh!)

@AltPOV
I concur with your analysis. I have a great deal of experience being "railroaded" While I am merely an educated end user I find it baffling that anyone let alone a school system would trust Windows 98 at all.
The system has been out so long that it has had more than sufficient time to be exploited to the fullest.
That this was even brought to court is beyond my kin.
@ all unemployed people bashers:
Knock it off! Just because a person is out of work it doesn't make them stupid or incompetent. To say that jurors consist of out of work idiots is just plain ignorant. This further enforces AltPOV statements.
Let the burnings begin.
nuff said

Where do you go from here? Now this is being debated on FOX News, by equally ill-informed former prosecutors, parroting all the same baloney that is SO WRONG, it's inconceivable.
http://www.foxnews.com/video2/launchPage.html?012807/012807_wl_kendall&Kelly%27s%20Court&Weekend_Live&Teacher%20faces%20prison%20for%20porn%2C%20but%20was%20it%20just%20pop-ups%3F&Law%20Center&-1&Kelly%27s%20Court&Video%20Launch%20Page&News
In this interview, Lis Wiehl admits straight out that she knows NOTHING about computers, but somehow she's still qualified to give an opinion. Put some duct tape on these idiots' mouths, please, before they dumb any more people up! ...Shaking head in absolute disbelief...

I am a systems admin in a public school in NJ and all I can is two things to say, Sonicwall & Auto updates...

-Rick

PS- She is being used as a scape goat!

Un-fricking-believable. What a sorry DA those people have. And what a stupid inept INEXCUSABLE defense team/lawyer.

This is just so outrageous! These people ought to be horsewhipped and humiliated. It will be up to the press to keep the pressure on these stupid luddite puritanical ignorant lemmings.

It is salem witch hunt time, McCarthyism, red scare, modern claims of occult blood sacrifices, McMartin Preschool and inquisition all rolled into one....these people are so stupid they do not even know they are beyond satire -- you could not write this as fiction and have it believed.

Please do not allow this to drop. This woman needs the ACLU NEA to come to her defense with the most powerful top high-powered attorneys -- can't ABC NBC CBS CNN Court TV Catherine Crier Rikki Kleiman .... anyone get this out in the airwaves and get enough people to contribute to this woman's appeal/defense fund? We are living in a place as stupid and superstitious as the ones we claim to be spreading democracy to -- and all we do there is murder and imprison them. What a bunch of hypocritical crap this country perpetuates here and abroad. We ought to be ashamed that we elect and allow such prosecutors and elected officials and their lobbyists and corporate string pullers to keep doing this kind of fascist anti-democratic horse-doo-doo. We have fallen into through and beyond the looking glass.

This poor woman panicked, that was her only error but certainly no crime.

Is there somewhere one can go to sign a petition on her behalf?

Hm. I don't know. When something sounds THIS stupid, I assume there's something missing from the story.

I really feel sorry for this person. While some would argue that the problem was not pulling the plug, I can totally see the panic setting in; there is also some need for criminal intent. And because Porn and Children are involved, of course Fox will bring its 'fair and balanced' view...

I checked the Fox news link above, thanks Rob.
This prominent attorney Mercedes Colwin has lost all my respect. Is she an idiot or is she just playing the good cop bad cop routine. She should really keep her mouth shut on national tv unless she actually knows how spyware works. And these cops who looked at her computer, they are a joke. They are trained to uses software tools, most of which are lacking, and they poses no real computer forensic skills. I know because I have worked with them and I know the scope of their training. It's like comparing a master ASE certified mechanic to the Lube Right boy.

I do admit that the teacher should have turned the monitor off, but I see people here where I work, that cant find the switch to shut if off. I compare it to having a fire, and the teacher not figu