The scatterbrained commentary here is in too many instances as asinine as the case itself - of which we have a damned poor presentation of fact.

The case will be substantially modified in appeal.

But in any case, it seems there is PLENTY of fault to passed around. And as much as so many want to champion the case of the teacher, there are still substantial questions regarding her role in performing the due diligence required in her supervisory position for which she should be held culpable!

But the entire process illustrates - much like what this forum is also a prime example - that proper forensics plays a significant role in such cases, and the failure to follow such procedural precedent, and the rise of emotional conjecture jeopardizes a case.

There is plenty of blame to go around here - from the parents seem to absolve themselves of all responsibility for their children the moment they send them off to school and who expect the school to assume all responsibility for their kids, to the lack of an implimentation of a viable best practices policy for the maintenance of said computers by the school system, to the negligence of the teacher as well!

But bottomline, the appeals process will sort this out. Its a shame it got this far, as far too many folks who know far too little have had far too much to do with this case thus far!

And it is hilarious to listen to so many here reach all sorts of spurious conclusions based on such a lack of factual basis!

...just another thread consisting of little more than noise. The military developed an acronym for situations such as this long ago in "snafu".

What absolute bollocks! If I said the sun was yellow or that grass was green you would argue the toss. Foxy? Monkey-brain more like. [tsk]

Teachers, as the interface between government and family, have always born the brunt of Calvinist witch-hunts. Does the Scopes trial ring a bell?

Check out the movie "Inherit the Wind." A documentary should be made on the Amero case: "Inherit the Internet."

yawn....

except there is a significant difference between the expression of OPINION and the assumption of procedural responsibility and best practices that have little or nothing to do with the expression of one's opinion.

And the failure to recognize the radical difference bwtween the two illustrates an even greater problem by the 'oh so unenlightened' public who so often are so quick to run and gather the torches and pitchforks and who comprise the 'oh so self-righteous' lynch mob!

I wonder if this poor woman will now be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of her life?
They don't really give enough information in the article as to whether she was nailed with one of the "sexual" disorderly conduct definitions.

I haven't followed this case via other media, so I don't know anything about it.

This is why every school should use Macs. Had this woman been on a Mac this ridiculous situation would have never happened. PCs REALLY blow.

Your right, Macs are real secure. This is why Apple is telling people they should install antivirus software...

"Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult."

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2550

Hmmm, then why did Apple make an announcement that Apple customers should look into anti-virus protection for their computers?

OS X so far has been secure because most malware groups are going to focus on Windows machines since they hold the majority of the computing market.

Security by obscurity is a poor model to follow, one that wanna-be Apple techies love to spew...

The only thing blowing is the sound of the wind echoing through that hollow head of yours...

To the degree that Macs utilize sandboxing and other techniques, can indeed result is fewer and less compromizing machine infections.

But they offer little protection from folks actually accessing such sites as those which present the problem in the first place.

And they have little to do with the establishment and practice of best practice policies by school systems, teachers, and students.

And to that degree, the platform is irrelevant. Sort of like you asinine fanboy comments that only serve to belittle the very thing you attempt to push.

Of course, the responding fanboy whines prove that neither side who make blanket overly generalized statments, one way or the other, have a clue!

oh no! not another who knows so little about fundamental OS security models who still thinks that many of the advantages are soley a function of market share!

Here is a prime example of the idiot mindset that dominated and drove this asinine court case!

...Not to mention that he is talking about computer security all the while touting a completely out of date and fundamentally insecure access methodology as telnet! LOL!

Unless there is something significant missing from this story, the judge, the prosecutor, and the detective should all have to hand in their licences or badges. This is just such a stupid outcome for this case that it only establishes two things: first, the utter incompetence of those who prosecuted her and found her guilty; and second, the fact that the power of the state can brow beat an innocent person into admitting guilt. Both outcomes cry out for remedial action!

Sounds like that idiot in NC for the phony rape charges. Hope the same thing ahppens to these people. Justice was finally done there.

WHY WASN'T THIS JUST DISMISSED? WHAT KIND OF IDIOTS ARE IN THE PROSECUTION OFFICE? THEY SHOULD BE FIRED!!!
I had to help an employee in our accounting department with a similar problem. One wrong access and POW... ads with the most graphic sexual images started popping up and the employee did not know how to stop it. You'd close one and 10 more would pop up. He was using an up-to-date anti-virus but this was not a virus! This simply wrote a different 'home page' address in the browser so even if you stopped and restarted the browser, it started all over again. I don't recall exactly what I did to get rid of it... r-click closed the browser windows from the system-tray.. to start. Somehow got the bad 'home page' out of the browser.

Some people, who have a less than minimum knowledge of computers and how they work, should just not even touch the things. Even cops.

If those detectives were so computer illiterate, they should have turned it over to a (presumably) more professional organization like the State Bureau of Investigation or the State Police or whatever agency Connecticut has.

Having wasted my time reading many of the comments here that are as equally well grounded(sic) as so many in the tragi-comedic case presented herein, I'm not at all surprised that the case has thus far turned out the way it has.

Its nice to see that this forum is a fair(sic) representation of the same mindset, exhibiting much of the same emotional baggage that has resulted in that fiasco; which I am pretty sure will be tossed out on appeal.

I completely disagree. Most of the moral and ethical issues today are made more complicated by technology. Are you not aware of the famous case concerning Lori Drew and MySpace? This is a very real problem.

There is much work available for computer and law enforcement experts, and security remains an urgent need both in government and private sectors.

Good God, man. Wake up!

What?

Really? There is a legitimate need for qualified Information Assurance professionals?
No! You must be kidding!

And you think I was saying that?!?! LOL!

The fact is, most here on this forum, just like those principles in the case, know little to nothing about computer forensics, let alone proper site procedures!

And the preponderance of the comments here simply prove that, just like the case itself, rather than adding to any understanding of what should have been done or what the proper procedures should be at this point!

Hystrionics are fun to watch, but such uninformed emotional outrage is worth little, especially as you can't even correctly interpret my post that laments not only ALL of the parties involved in the case, but the wacko emotional responses offered by so many here!

The fact is, there are indeed substative issues to be addressed! And it is amazing that so many in the Conneticut court system, as well as here on the forum are clueless as to the proper forensic and site discovery procedures as well as the legal responsibilities of the various parties culpable in the issue.

Next time get a clue as to what you think others are saying before utterly demonstrating that you do not.

Well IT (Pun intended) happened in Connecticut, why wouldn't you have a witch hunt. What idiots, sad to see things like this happen. The unfortunate part is that people of the town probably sided with the law. Justice would be for the cops and prosecutor to accidently get some unappropriate pron on their home computer and get charged. Oh how sweeeeeeeettttt that would be in the headlines a few years from now. Then let them plead "stooopid" after being "experts". I believe that as another stated the IT department bears most of the blame for this since the words "new hairstyle" have nothing from nothing to do with malicious intent.

You can donate to their family (since they're down to 1 income), post comments/supportive thoughts, and possibly help find a way to stop this chain of school system/judicial system ignorance all here:
http://julieamer.blogspot.com/
Wes (her husband) goes by 'Injustice'.

The accumulated incompetence of the school, the schoolboard, the police and the courts is beyond belief. They have ruined this young ladies life.
Such damage should be punished, but how? The mentality they have displayed in their hunt for revenge is appalling. I wish Julie well, and hope there is a way that justice can be served.

GAAAHAHHHH...ignorant back-woods school system and prosecuting office!!! Linking on links...javascripted...WTF? They probably don't know the difference between onClick and onBlur...good LORD! This poor lady should be consoled, not stripped of her teaching license. She miscarried from all this crap... the good state of Conn. owes her an apology and her teaching license back.

The IT manager for Norwich Public Schools, Bob Hartz, needs to be fired - he's a blatant idiot. He's probably some bum that knew that a CPU and 'the tower' aren't the same thing, so they hired him to watch the computers. Geez... 2004, still running 98!!! HOLY S*(&.

In a criminal case, you have to prove intent. How do you prove malicious intent by typing in "new hairstyles"? Regardless of the failure of the AV or firewall software, they are missing a basic legal point. They have bigger problems in their legal system than just lack of computer competence.

I remember when this incident first occurred and how it once again proved the incompetence of the legal system as well as its ability to steamroll someone into being guilty. The way the initial case was handled was beyond outrageous.

When I heard experts had stepped in and raised questions I had hoped to see a far better conclusion to things. Of course she'll never truly be "innocent" because once it was ever mentioned she was already forever labeled as having done something wrong. Regardless, I had hoped to see a reversal and everything quietly vanish. Sadly, no, they may have given her a way out but they are still punishing her beyond belief and still placing fault on her. Her plea is either fight and possibly be found guilty again or plead, give up your teaching credentials, and still admit you did something wrong.

This highlights what is wrong with the justice system, wrong with prosecutors, and shows just how much of a divide there is between the people who have knowledge about computers and those who don't.

This situation should both outrage and sadden everyone.

It does sadden me, but the legal "system" actually worked to some degree here by reducing her sentence by allowing for appeals. I wish she would have fought it, and I wish the best for this poor lady.

What astounding incompetence and vicious meanspiritedness on the part of prosecutor. This entire case was also a total waste of taxpayer monies and human resources. The case was much ado about nothing, and the substitute teacher paid for it.

David Smith, the prosecutor, needs to be charged with malicious prosecution. This jerk should have his license to practice law revoked and never reinstated. People like Smith either haven't enough to do... or they possess a malicious streak in their soul. We predict that a guy like Smith is begging for a cancer. His karma will be coming to collect on his ass!

"A cynical observer might think that the whole incident is a case of two small-town politicos gunning for a pass to a State Legislative seat or the like,"

yeah, I do, it's basically what "child porn" and underage "rape" charges are fueled by an attempt to get up the legal ladder system.

I think this is ridiculous that the teacher is prosecuted for the porn in her computer. First of all, the computer is supposedly managed by the IT in school. Therefore, it is the job of that IT in the school to make sure the computer is free of any bad software. Judging from what that IT manager said, it is clearly he is incompetent. How did he get the job in the first place? second, the OS is Windows 98, running expired anti-virus software and I assume there is no anti-spyware software installed. The computer like this is the easy target to be setup as zombie computer. Not to mention that the computers in school are free to use for all students. Therefore, it could be that any other students used that computer to visit any site that was infected with spyware. I was the computer Technician who spent alot of time fixing the computers in school. Trying get rid of spyware was part of my job. There were many times that the teacher would pull me aside and asked me to fix their porn infected computer.

I read about this in DISBELIEF!
We have succeeded in dumbing down our country to the point where people in power can do serious damage. 40 years could have happened!

A Catholic priest tells his flock to go to confession if they voted for Obama.

I woman on 'Who wants to be a Millionaire' blows through 3 life lines on the $100 question, ignoring the help to answer that an elephant is bigger than the moon!

My God, we are doomed as a nation! Please take all the money & put it in EDUCATION!!!

http://www.hoax-slayer.c...oon-quiz-question.shtml

Not only education, but the eradication of ignorance! ;)

The loss of her baby makes the rest of this pale in comparison. What a horrible, misguided tragedy that was totally preventable. School employees that use computers need to be trained to understand the internet and in basic computer security. They should be paid to take mandatory computer courses during the summer months or something. Either way, the school's IT guy should have been facing the same charges if they really thought the teacher committed a crime. After all, he was responsible for maintaining the nonexistent antivirus software. What a mess!

This is SO SAD!!!!!!

I can't belive we have a court system like this, but thank goodness for that poor lady our system is setup so she could appeal and finally get some kind of reasonable outcome. However, ANY conviction is honestly prepostorous. She was convicted of being a poor computer user. You know, that state could have went against the porn site here, that would have actually HELPED their citizens more than this case.

On the subject of porn, if there were pictures of people dead on the screen noone would have said anything, its very sad that sex is so incredibly taboo. I'd prefer to see sex than violence any day.

"You know, that state could have went against the porn site here, that would have actually HELPED their citizens more than this case."

Followed straight by:

"On the subject of porn, if there were pictures of people dead on the screen noone would have said anything, its very sad that sex is so incredibly taboo. I'd prefer to see sex than violence any day."

Nice bit of contradiction there.

Not really, I hate popups. So getting rid of a company that provides porn in popups will help everyone. I think I just didn't state it correctly.

Paul,
You should look up the definition of "contradiction" lest someone thing you're an idiot.

A contradiction would be to say "A" then refute "A", or at least later support "B" if "B" were contra to "A".

Poster "The-One" first stated that the state could have gone after the Porn sites that were advertising through adware/spyware. This is, of course, entirely reasonable. The porn site bought advertising from someone who likely infected the target (the computer or a server that redirected the local computer). The actually.. get this.. broke the law.

"The-One" later said three things in the section you quoted.
1. No one would care if this was about Violence than Sex
2. Sex is taboo (inferring Violence is OK)
3. Expressed a personal preference, "I prefer", to seeing Sex over Violence.

Which one of those is contrary to the first quote:
"You know, that state could have went against the porn site here, that would have actually HELPED their citizens more than this case."

I'm guessing you thought it was 3. Because "The-One" finds violence more objectionable than sexual content, you must assume that "The-One" can't argue that the state should go after Porn Sites who break the law and thus force inappropriate content on minors.

You're a moron.

Thank you!

"Prosecutor David Smith and Norwich, Conn. police detective Mike Lounsbury ran a perfunctory test" --> Mr. Smith should be FIRED! and loose his license to practice Law and Mr. Lounsbury should be FIRED! and not be in any position to be hired as a cop again. as a CT resident I followed the court case and without a doubt this was prosecutorial and police misconduct and the State Of Conn should fully exonerate Ms. Amero and reinmburse her for lost wages and fair compensation for the anguish she went through by the unlawful hands of the government. Richard Blumenthal the CT Attorney General should have stopped this madness before it even went to court. Pity the State spends millions on prosecuting so called sex crimes while the cities are unsafe after dark due to crime

I agree. This type of "prosecutors" and "police officers" are the real villains behind such shocking tragedies. They are the reason US looks like Russia more and more. There will be no end to this while these self-righteous morons are allowed to run the show. They should be doing something they are actually qualified to do. Like cleaning the streets.

I had a friend suggest having the ISP's and hosters charge one cent for every e-mail sent into their servers, and of course we pay a penny for outgoing too. You don't pay, you don't get past. Or use the model where the spammer has to verify an image before they can get their spam past the wall. If every ISP did this, most would be stopped in their tracks.

There is no way to have all ISPs do this at the same time while implementing fees. As for image verification, humans will just be hired to verify the images, like they are now.

Are you sure this didn't happen in Russia in the 1980's?

Surfing the internet with Windows 98 and with a POS security suite? HAAAA well thats the problem.

I blame the electric company, for allowing her to use THEIR electricity to power her pc to show those poor innocents that pr0n

this should be the fault of the schools IT Dept not the teacher

^Very much this^

Even then, what the heck is this doing going to court?

100% agreed. Absolutely ridiculous.

if more children were exposed to the naked truth, then there wouldn't be any sexual dysfunctions or diseases or improprieties.

the methodology has worked well in europe and south america for centuries and those kids don't grow up with perversions.

isn't strange how statues made in american don't have any wieners or boobs.

not only is there a lack of class on main street but in schools too.

Your kidding right?

"the methodology has worked well in europe and south america for centuries and those kids don't grow up with perversions."

Thats assine statement if I've eve heard one.

It's pointless to even start when it's so blatantly untrue.

American is still a bit 19th century about the whole sex thing though.

Sex, alcohol...

It amazed me once I began traveling, how completely isolated the US was, and how backwards they were in regards to dealing with such issues.

For example, in the Bahamas, the only drunk idiots on the beaches or in town are the tourists; and they allow anyone who can see over the bar to drink. By US beliefs, the islands should be in total chaos with nothing but a huge population of alcoholics and drug addicts.

You'd think there would be all kinds of problems there, but there aren't. Not to mention the whole marijuana non-issue there.

Sex? Another issue in teh US that doesn't seem to be all that big of a deal elsewhere in the world. Amsterdam, Sweden; actually, a good portion of Europe seem to be quite a bit farther along than the US in terms of realizing that the more taboo you make something, the more likely it is to become a problem among adolescents.

That's just what I've noticed as a tourist. I've not stayed more than a month or two in any of those locations, so perhaps a longer duration might provide another opinion. As such, these are just the observations of another "drunk idiot" tourist...

19th century??

perhaps you forgot the pilgrims and the quakers and the so-called puritans.

as we now know they were all perverted in one form or another, killing indians, burning witches and much fornication in the back room, while preaching the bible in the front room.

if all the old farts no longer were interested in their old wenches, then they would accuse a fare maiden as being a temptress or witch.

well said.

unfortunately, there are many that beleive man and woman covered up themeselves with fig leaves.

but in reality, humanoids frolicked peacefully in all their nakedness for tens of thousands of years before the invention of clothing made from animal hide.

It seems to me that the school district should be held accountable for this. If the teacher was able to access pornography, due to the lack of a proper firewall and IT department(or even person) then there is nothing preventing the students from accessing it. By the logic applied by the court this would "risk injury to a minor, and potentially impair the morals of a child."

Ridiculousness

The parents of the children should file suit against the school district for endangering thier children.

Right on!~

What the **** is going on here?

This genuinely went through a court of law and "When you link on a link, again, links are Javascripted, you click on a link, it changes color..." was said. There was no proof of firewall/antivirus software having been on the machine and yet she's still found guilty over such a ridiculously trivial mistake.

What the heck is wrong with that particular court?

Ain't that the truth. I'm wondering if someone hacked betanews and made this crap up. For any court to be stupid enough, at this stage of the game, to even listen to this, let alone rule on it...

I think this is partly due to judges and prosecutors who do not want to admit how utterly incompetent they are when it comes to I.T. issues. This poor woman was put through hell for something that was not her fault. It's well known that even very astute computer owners can fall prey to these evil popups and spam, as well as spyware, malware, adware, and viruses. It was the School District's job to keep those computers protected. They should have had Net Nanny type of software which would prevent any access to any questionable site, and should have had someone maintaining that software on a regular basis.
The teacher should have sued the district for allowing her to be put in such a position due to their lack of effort in prevention.

It is the fault of the defense then. It is not up to the court to understand every technological iota of a particular matter. It is the responsibility of the defense or prosecution to educate judge/jury.

From what I read about the trial initially, that the judge blocked testimony about spyware, my first impulse on your comment was to write that it was the court which didn't allow the jury to hear the technical explanations. But after reading the trial transcript, I have to grudgingly admit you're right. It wasn't only the prosecution who had no clue about computers and the internet, and it wasn't only the IT manager of the school who showed not being really up-to-date, the defense lawyer almost totally screwed up, fighting about details that weren't important while at the same time not pushing on issues that would have helped the defendant, like that all computers in school used the same firewall and antivirus-software, and so the question if there had been ANY problems with pornography issues on ANY computers obviously was relevant (contrary to the objection of the prosecution). And the computer forensic expert of the defense made matters worse by arguing with the judge and by being unable to present the core of the problem in an understandable manner. And the core of the problem apparently wasn't adware or spyware, but the fact that that "haircut" website contained program code that would redirect the browser to pornographic sites, against the defendant's intent. I don't think the jury really understood that point because of the way it was presented. Hell, at one point during his "presentation" the expert was even unable to get to the bottom of the browser screen and helplessly stated "Well, anyway, if you could see it at the bottom of the screen there is a reference...". For heaven's sake, what kind of a presentation is this? That's embarassing if it happens in a business presentation, but it's totally unexcusable at court! Horrible.

Really, I'm in IT myself, but not a forensic espert, and I know a bit about computer related jurisdiction, but I'm not a lawyer, and I'm quite sure I would have done a better job in trial than both the defense attorney and the expert witness. I guess you would have been better than those incompetent guys, too, mjm.

Yes, you're right, to a large part, the defense is responsible for that atrocity. This doesn't say that the prosecution was right in brining this to trial at all, but after the s*** hit the fan, Julie Amero deserved a much better legal representation in the trial. It's a shame.

Why doesn't the district just install Comodo Internet Security...and hire a real I.T. Manager?

Have you ever seen the average salaries for IT Managers of public school districts, compared to IT Managers of other organizations (including other non-profits and government agencies)? If a given school district is lucky, it will find someone good who is motivated enough by other factors to work for little money. But even then, they don't stay forever. The rest of the time, most districts are forced to settle for people who wouldn't qualify to work the computer aisle at Best Buy.

Looking from the outside into the so-called U.S.A. justice system this case looks all too common. They have a system that is inherently corrupt/incompetent due to political interference and the way cases are decided more on crowd hysteria than legal foundations.
Why be surprised? I had a smile after reading it because that is the way of the American justice system!

Indeed. And after reading the transcript of the first trial, I don't have such an unfavorable view of that IT manager. They did use a firewall with a filter for pornographic content, they had anti virus software both for the internet and for email, with regular updates. And the guy was reasonably aware how to use these tools, and of the basics of internet websites. Yes, of course, he should have cared more about the proper maintenance of the anti virus software, a weekly update was totally inadequate. But then, the IT department had to care for several thousand computers. Without further knowledge of the details, I would say the IT guy probably did as best as he could under the circumstances. And he made a much better performance on the stand than the computer forensics expert of the defence, who made it look as if the defendant had an interest in pornography and succumbed to an "opportunity" ("In this case, because of the spyware and the adware that was being uploaded because of the interest of the user, there was an opportunity to go to many different sites being presented in the background in the Internet cache files.").