Catshanghai

This story was widely reported on DL.TV, Twit and Buzz Out Loud netcasts. Julie Amero of Connecticut could face 40 years imprisonment after being found guilty on four counts of risk of injury to minors. The incident happened when she worked at Kelly Middle School, Windham as a supply teacher in October 2004. As she was supervising a year 7 language class, pornographic images were displayed continuously on her screen. The jury did not accept the defence that the images were displayed as a result of spyware. Also, the license for the school’s filters had been allowed to lapse and evidence from a defense expert W.Herbert Horner was not presented to court. He found spyware that would have caused a seemingly innocuous link to create a “pornography storm” where sexually graphic images are displayed over and over again without the user’s consent.

This is a very unfortunate story, because it could have happened to anyone and most teachers I work with are not experts on computer security. I once got stung in a similar way when a piece of spyware called up a premium rate number, racking up a $25 phonecall for dial-up-Internet. The case also shows that the jury, judge, defence and investigation team know very little about computers. If they did, they would throw the case out on reasonable doubt alone. Even if she deliberately looked at the sites (which I doubt), the punishment does not match the crime. I hope this case is thrown out on appeal and that Julie Amero can get her life back, but I suspect that she will never be allowed to work in schools again, whatever the outcome.