Outrageous Porn Pop-Up Case in Norwich is Over

If there were ever a modern case that could be compared to the Salem witch trials, it would be the effort to prosecute Julie Amero, a Norwich, Connecticut school teacher for (allegedly) exposing her students to pornography.

Julie was convicted on four counts of exposing kids to pornography after she turned on a spyware-infested (school-owned) machine and a flurry of porn pop-ups began appearing on the screen. Julie, who was merely a substitute teacher, didn't know what to do and the teenagers in her class witnessed the event.

Even worse, the school district had let their content filtering software expire. Computer experts later discovered the spyware infestation was caused by someone accessing a hairdressing site. Presumably, this site was accessed by a student, who wasn't aware of the spyware and didn't know the school district had let their content filtering expire.

On Friday, Alex Eckelberry, CEO of Sunbelt Software, announced that the Amero nightmare is over in his popular Sunbelt Blog. Sadly though, she still had to plead to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. The result was a $100 fine and she has had her teaching credentials revoked in Connecticut.

Considering in the initial trial she was facing a conviction on four felony counts — which could have netted her 40 years in the slammer — I suppose this is a win?

"She acquiesced to the lesser misdemeanor charge, and while it may have been a bitter pill to swallow, she can at least can move on now without this sick cloud hanging over her head. It was less than two years ago that Julie was facing felony charges with a maximum of 40 years in prison," according to Alex Eckelberry,

Alex and a host of people from the computer security industry, along with a pro bono attorney, William Dow, led the effort to expose this injustice and get Julie a new trial. The number of people who got involved in this is amazing and many of them are mentioned in Alex's blog post.

I found this case amazing since malicious and even so-called commercial sites infest unprotected machines with all kinds of "ware" on a daily basis. In this case, it was the industry that protects computers from unwanted "ware" that had to step in and educate the authorities that there was a problem with the intent in the case. Perhaps the authorities should have hired someone a little more knowledgeable in computers in the first place before attempting to prosecute Julie.

Sadly, Julie's health has been failing as a result of the stress induced by this prosecution. Even sadder, with all the real crime on the Internet, which rarely ever results in a prosecution, a lot of taxpayer money was wasted going after someone who most believe was completely innocent!

I've written a few posts about the Julie Amero story. It's ironic that Internet porn, which is allegedly controlled by organized crime, translated into a teacher being charged for turning on a computer for the first time. Even more ironic is that in those four years, very few, if any, of the people behind the actual problem have been brought to justice. Also, ironic was a WebMD survey that found that Internet porn reaches most children, including the age of the teenagers present in Julie's class that day. The truth is that most of the teenagers in the class have probably seen worse, unless they've never surfed the sometimes murky waters of the Internet.

The ironies in this case are many and in the end, history will write it that way.

Identity theft victim branded a paedophile still suffering after proven innocent!

This isn't the first time, I've written about Operation Ore, where a lot of British citizens were wrongfully accused of viewing child pornography.

Operation Ore was the result of an investigation conducted in the United States (Operation Avalanche), where a lot of credit card details being used to view child pornography were provided to the British authorities. It eventually led to a lot of people, including Pete Townsend of the Who, being charged with viewing child pornography.

It was later revealed that a large number of the credit card numbers obtained in the Avalanche search warrant had been stolen in one of the data breaches we read about, too frequently. In my original post on this story, I wrote about the data breach that caused this:

54,348 of the credit card numbers discovered in the U.S. search warrant were identified as having been stolen from Levenger Incorporated, a luxury goods company. Of course, Levenger declined to comment on how the information was stolen.

This case showed how an innocent person can be charged with a crime after becoming an identity theft victim.

The BBC just did a personal account of one person, who was victimized by being wrongfully accused, where they wrote:

With ID fraud on the rise, the assumption is you'll lose money which can be claimed back. But Simon Bunce lost his job, and his father cut off contact, when he was arrested after an ID fraudster used his credit card details on a child porn website.

And Mr. Bunce didn't frequent "fly by night e-commerce sites, either." In his own words his credit card details were stolen from a "trusted" site.

The bottom line is that Mr. Bunce lost his job, was shunned by his own family and branded as a paedophile.

Furthermore, months later when he cleared his name, it took him a long time to get another job earning only a fraction of his previous salary. Even though, he has clearly been proven innocent, Mr. Bunce is still suffering the financial repercussions of identity theft.

While I'm certain that cases like this have made the authorities a little more careful of who they are prosecuting, if a criminal assumes a legitimate identity (complete with documents to support it) this could be happen to any of us.

This case and the personal story of Mr. Bunce clearly shows the dangers everyone is facing from continuing to store too much information in too many not very secure places.

BBC article (highly recommended reading), here.

Attrition.org and PogoWasRight try to document the record amount of everyone's information that is stolen. Please note, there is so much of it being compromised they freely admit they cannot keep track of it all. Of course, the criminals stealing it probably don't reveal all the places they are getting it, either.

Suad Leija's Paper Weapons site shows how easily (extremely convincing) documents can be obtained by just about anyone to use the stolen information. "They are as good as anything in your pocket," according to Suad.

I also try to keep up with some of this on this blog. Here is my original post on Operation Ore, which was called Operation Avalanche in the United States:

British citizens accused of child porn found to be fraud victims

Profiting at the Expense of the Poor, Electronically

Recently, I was in San Francisco and made a small purchase for about $5.00. While waiting in line, I watched the customer before me use one of the new EBT cards. EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) cards have replaced checks and food stamps for that segment of the population receiving government assistance.

The clerk behind the counter asked me whether I wanted to use credit, or debit and I said credit (I hate those pesky ATM fees). Much to my surprise, he put it through as a debit and handed me the PIN pad. I noticed that the amount (taking into consideration sales tax) had increased by $2.00.

When I confronted him, he claimed his command of English wasn't very good. Of course, I demanded a refund (out of principle) and left the store. Interestingly enough, he refunded my money in cash and declined to give me a receipt (which didn't exist).

The reason there was no receipt is that he used a calculator to figure the amount of the purchase. Please note, there was a cash register right in front of him. The only receipt available was from his handy debit card processor, which only accounts for the total dollar amount taken and doesn't break down the transaction.

Pretty handy and makes me suspect he was also skimming sales tax proceeds, which pay for needed government services.

The gentleman with the EBT card was standing near my car so I asked him about the fees. He told me that he gets charged wherever he goes. I mentioned that larger retailers don't charge to use the cards and he informed me that they were too far away and he didn't have a way to get there.

I started to think about it and what amazed me is that someone had just tried to charge me a 40 percent surcharge for using my debit card. Then I reflected on the plight of that poor individual using his EBT card. What was a minor inconvenience to me (I got in my car and drove to a reputable retailer) is something that he is forced to deal on a daily basis.

EBT cards were heralded as a means to reduce fraud and ensure that our tax dollars reached the poor. If they are being charged outrageous fees every time they use the card, it seems to me that this new system isn't helping the poor. Besides paying higher prices at inner city markets, they are getting dinged for a fee every time they use their card.

Alameda County (near San Francisco) has an interesting web page on how people on assistance can avoid surcharges. Please note that it is illegal to add a surcharge on the "food stamp" portion of the card.

A lot of this information is good stuff, but it is unlikely that poor people in inner cities are going to find the places that don't charge the extra fees easy to get to.

Small retailers aren't the only ones profiting from all of this. In fact, most states allow a legal surcharge to administer the cards. This means that certain financial institutions are profiting from processing the transactions. One example of this is Citibank, who contracts nationally to administer EBT. I wonder how profitable this is to their bottom line? At the .53 cents a transaction quoted on the Missouri Poverty at Issue site, it must make a lot of money for them.

Granted, most of this is based on a personal observation, but to me it doesn't seem fair. In fact, it reeks of "welfare reform" gone bad. I wonder how much of our tax money was spent thinking up this program and how many pockets it's lining?

The sad thing is that it probably takes money away from those, who need it the most.

Of course, this happened in California, where welfare reform has been criticized for other abuses. Here is a post, I wrote on that:

Back to Work Programs a Fraud Heaven for Scammers