NEWS 40 years in jail for being a n00b

http://www.norwichbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070109/NEWS01/701090303/1002

cliff notes
substitute teacher, computer n00b, infected school computer
porn popups, District attorney blocks security expert testimony, kneejerk children + teacher + porn reaction = Guilty
faces 40 years at sentancing

you might see my commentary on the story
were I may have exaggerated my qualifications just a bit for effect.

hell, here it is.

this travesty needs a very bright spotlight IMO

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-rgreen0130.artjan30,0,4371427.column?coll=hc-utility-local

 

Hi Ice

Yeh I saw this one and read many accounts. I agree that apart from a technological & possibly a common sense shortfall, this is rough. Particularly as I understand it, the school had allowed the filtering licence to lapse.

What I wondered, was what impact it had on people who sign onto somebody else's computer - particularly when it's part of a wider network ? Have administrators up and down America, been hit with multiple requests for proof of content filtering etc, in case a co-worker in an office falls foul of a pop-up on a networked machine ?

I know Brian Krebs blogged it for the Washington Post - just how high is the profile of this case in the USA ?

 

its beginning to climb, and I plan on helping it
this is a ridiculous travesty of justice, and the idiot DA that chose to prosecute it deserves to be tarred and feather, draw and quarter and buried in unconsecrated ground with a stake through what remains of his....hold it
he has no heart.

 

I think this article does a pretty good job of bringing up details that I didn't see in a lot of other articles on the same subject.

 

My heart sinks when reading these bulletins
The whole scenario is absurd
Now of course the prosecutor and judge will have to "get tougher" or look stupid.
The school admin running for cover ...

Hopefully some higher court will review this case and beat the prosecutor and the school with a stick for "terminal' stupidity

This is not the first time this has happened either.

Ice; how could I help push this.?
Regards.

 

post it to forums, add commentary to news coverage of the story, forward the story to tech news sites, point it out to popular tech bloggers, blog it yourself, add commentary to other blogs covering it, explain it to the less sophisticated in other venues.

 

This is a prime example of the system looking for a scapegoat instead of addressing the real problem. The real guilty party is out of reach or unknown, so punish the first defenseless target available. That DA needs to be hacked so his system displays porn in front of anyone who walks into his office, then charged with the same crimes.
Rick

 

My read on all of this is she the teacher had a very poor lawyer.

 

This is really ridiculous. Even the thought of someone put to jail because of this... 40 YEARS!!!! They actually CONSIDER IT?!

 

Probably due to her being a substitute teacher and not eligible for being in a teachers union. I am not aware if the state this case is in has a teacher's union, as many states do. But had she been a union member I imagine there would have been a pretty good lawyer provided for her as a benefit of being a union member.

 

Id agree of course justice is often a function of what you can afford.
but

you dont need a lawyer when the school administration is realistic about what happened steps up an takes resonsibility, and you dont need a lawyer when the police bother to get off their asses and do a proper investigation, and you dont need a lawyer when the District Attorney stops for just a second and considers if prosecution is really in the course of justice.

Hell even with a bad attorney it simply takes one juror with a half a brain a little knowledge and a backbone. Judges deplore folks learning about jury nullification

.

 

Wow... Where was this? Stepford? Its almost like reading about the Salem Witch trials.
This woman was obviously found to be suitable to teach in schools, which is why she was there in the first place. Why don't we give her the benefit of the doubt?
It sounds like Julie Amero took action to stop the situation. So maybe she didnt turn the computer off... Some people just don't respond to stressful situations the same as others.
If I heard about this in my community, the thought of criminal charges would not have even crossed my mind. I would have thought "Wow, this school needs better filtering and software."
If I was in Julie Amero's position, inside the school, I wouldnt even think that I would be able to access these things from there no matter what I clicked on. I thought that protection software prevented access of unsuitable links. I guess I don't know much about computers either. . .
There are so many ways this issue could have been dealt with. The school district could have mandated a computer information course so Mrs. Amero understood about popups and how to close Windows, and shut the computer down... Better yet, if prison time is a possible consequence for error, computer information courses should be mandantory for all teaching personnel.
The district could have placed a record of warning on her teaching record, describing the incident.... just in case the woman had a sudden lapse of judgement, and let curiousity get the better of her and clicked on an image that caused this uncontrollable spamming of images... Of course, the rest of us are perfect, we have never clicked on the giant flashing 'CLICK HERE' tabs, or glanced somewhere we shouldnt have.... : /
These images may have been inappropriate, but if anything is likely to scar the children here, it will be seeing that our justice system is a joke. We are really paying tax dollars for this woman's conviction and possible prison stay, while real child molesters and sexual offenders walk the streets? If the system actually put all the effort of convincting her, into looking how to make the use of computers suitable for schools, we could actually prevent this from happening again... But its easier to blame the little guy, or woman in this case.

Unbelievable!

 

Whilst the evidence is pointing otherwise, the Prosecutor's argument that you "have to physically click on it to get to those sites" is nonsensical in this case. I'd ask would a teacher, substitute or not, knowingly click on such links in front of minors? If you're gonna look at porn, you'd do it in private surely.

 

Without a doubt. But, to me, even if it were totally true, which doesn't look like at all, 40 years for who? The judge or jurors??
Are we comparing this to real criminals? Is this a legal system??

 

Sentencing is due this Friday, March 2. I agree 40 years is way OTT so if they're going to jail her, be more realistic. There's criminals who've been jailed for less, but for more serious things.

In the meantime Alex Eckleberry and his team are looking into things, which may help with the appeals process.

 

http://windowssecrets.com/comp/070222#story0

just a portion of the above site pasted below:

she does not deserve this treatment for not at least knowing that the monitor could have been turned off without violating the orders not to shut-down...

 

The school´s network admin is more responsible than she, IMHO.

 

The latest news is that sentencing has been postponed until March 29.

 

Follow-up:
Connecticut teacher convicted on school porn charge a victim of spyware, says BigFix CTO

Posted March 1st at 9:00 pm |
Tags: adware, court ruling, schools, security, spyware |
“The scheduled sentencing Friday for a Connecticut substitute teacher convicted of exposing her middle-school students to pop-up internet pornography has been postponed so the 40-year-old’s new defense team can learn about the case.”

link: Connecticut teacher convicted on school porn charge a victim of spyware, says BigFix CTO