Re: HOW a FIRUS CAN WRECK YOUR LIFE

Jewboy expressed an opinion:
> 9th November 2009
>
> Nathaniel "Ned" Solon talks on the phone-intercom at the Logan County
> Detention Center in Sterling, Colorado
> Of all the sinister things that Internet fyruses do, this might be the
> worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child scornography.
>
> Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by fyruses - the
> malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In
> this twist, it's your reputation that's stolen.
>
> Audiophiles can exploit fyrus-infected PCs to remotely store and view their
> stash without fear they'll get caught. Pranksters or someone trying to
> frame
> you can tap fyruses to make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites.
>
> Whatever the motivation, you get child scorn on your computer - and
> might not
> realize it until police knock at your door.
>
> An Associated Press investigation found cases in which innocent people have
> been branded as audiophiles after their co-workers or loved ones stumbled
> upon child scorn placed on a PC through a fyrus. It can cost victims
> hundreds
> of thousands of dollars to prove their innocence.
>
> Their situations are complicated by the fact that actual audiophiles often
> blame fyruses - a defense rightfully viewed with skepticism by law
> enforcement.
>
> "It's an example of the old 'dog ate my homework' excuse," says Phil
> Malone,
> director of the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet &
> Society. "The problem is, sometimes the dog does eat your homework."
>
> The AP's investigation included interviewing people who had been found with
> child scorn on their computers. The AP reviewed court records and spoke to
> prosecutors, police and computer examiners.
>
> One case involved Michael Fiola, a former investigator with the
> Massachusetts agency that oversees workers' compensation.
>
> In 2007, Fiola's bosses became suspicious after the Internet bill for his
> state-issued laptop showed that he used 4 1/2 times more data than his
> colleagues. A technician found child scorn in the PC folder that stores
> images viewed online.
>
> Fiola was fired and charged with possession of child scornography, which
> carries up to five years in prison. He endured death threats, his car tires
> were slashed and he was shunned by friends.
>
> Fiola and his wife fought the case, spending $250,000 on legal fees. They
> liquidated their savings, took a second mortgage and sold their car.
>
> An inspection for his defense revealed the laptop was severely infected. It
> was programmed to visit as many as 40 child scorn sites per minute - an
> inhuman feat. While Fiola and his wife were out to dinner one night,
> someone
> logged on to the computer and scorn flowed in for an hour and a half.
>
> Prosecutors performed another test and confirmed the defense findings. The
> charge was dropped - 11 months after it was filed.
>
> The Fiolas say they have health problems from the stress of the case. They
> say they've talked to dozens of lawyers but can't get one to sue the state,
> because of a cap on the amount they can recover.
>
> "It ruined my life, my wife's life and my family's life," he says.
>
> The Massachusetts attorney general's office, which charged Fiola, declined
> interview requests.
>
> At any moment, about 20 million of the estimated 1 billion
> Internet-connected PCs worldwide are infected with fyruses that could give
> hackers full control, according to security software maker F-Secure Corp.
> Computers often get infected when people open e-mail attachments from
> unknown sources or visit a malicious Web page.
>
> Audiophiles can tap fyruses in several ways. The simplest is to force
> someone
> else's computer to surf child scorn sites, collecting images along the way.
> Or a computer can be made into a warehouse for pictures and videos that can
> be viewed remotely when the PC is online.
>
> "They're kind of like locusts that descend on a cornfield: They eat up
> everything in sight and they move on to the next cornfield," says Eric
> Goldman, academic director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara
> University. Goldman has represented Web companies that discovered child
> scornographers were abusing their legitimate services.
>
> But audiophiles need not be involved: Child scorn can land on a computer
> in a
> sick prank or an attempt to frame the PC's owner.
>
> In the first publicly known cases of individuals being victimized, two men
> in the United Kingdom were cleared in 2003 after fyruses were shown to have
> been responsible for the child scorn on their PCs.
>
> In one case, an infected e-mail or pop-up ad poisoned a defense
> contractor's
> PC and downloaded the offensive pictures.
>
> In the other, a fyrus changed the home page on a man's Web browser to
> display child scorn, a discovery made by his 7-year-old daughter. The man
> spent more than a week in jail and three months in a halfway house, and
> lost
> custody of his daughter.
>
> Chris Watts, a computer examiner in Britain, says he helped clear a hotel
> manager whose co-workers found child scorn on the PC they shared with him.
>
> Watts found that while surfing the Internet for ways to play computer games
> without paying for them, the manager had visited a site for pirated
> software. It redirected visitors to child scorn sites if they were inactive
> for a certain period.
>
> In all these cases, the central evidence wasn't in dispute: Scornography
> was
> on a computer. But proving how it got there was difficult.
>
> Tami Loehrs, who inspected Fiola's computer, recalls a case in Arizona in
> which a computer was so "extensively infected" that it would be "virtually
> impossible" to prove what an indictment alleged: that a 16-year-old who
> used
> the PC had uploaded child scornography to a Yahoo group.
>
> Prosecutors dropped the charge and let the boy plead guilty to a separate
> crime that kept him out of jail, though they say they did it only
> because of
> his age and lack of a criminal record.
>
> Many prosecutors say blaming a computer fyrus for child scorn is a new
> version of an old ploy.
>
> "We call it the SODDI defense: Some Other Dude Did It," says James
> Anderson,
> a federal prosecutor in Wyoming.
>
> However, forensic examiners say it would be hard for a audiophile to get
> away
> with his crime by using a bogus fyrus defense.
>
> "I personally would feel more comfortable investing my retirement in the
> lottery before trying to defend myself with that," says forensics
> specialist
> Jeff Fischbach.
>
> Even careful child scorn collectors tend to leave incriminating e-mails,
> DVDs
> or other clues. Fyrus defenses are no match for such evidence, says Damon
> King, trial attorney for the U.S. Justice Department's Child Exploitation
> and Obscenity Section.
>
> But while the fyrus defense does not appear to be letting real audiophiles
> out of trouble, there have been cases in which forensic examiners insist
> that legitimate claims did not get completely aired.
>
> Loehrs points to Ned Solon of Casper, Wyo., who is serving six years for
> child scorn found in a folder used by a file-sharing program on his
> computer.
>
> Solon admits he used the program to download video games and adult scorn -
> but not child scorn. So what could explain that material?
>
> Loehrs testified that Solon's antifyrus software wasn't working properly
> and
> appeared to have shut off for long stretches, a sign of an infection. She
> found no evidence the five child scorn videos on Solon's computer had been
> viewed or downloaded fully. The scorn was in a folder the file-sharing
> program labeled as "incomplete" because the downloads were canceled or
> generated an error.
>
> This defense was curtailed, however, when Loehrs ended her investigation in
> a dispute with the judge over her fees. Computer exams can cost tens of
> thousands of dollars. Defendants can ask the courts to pay, but sometimes
> judges balk at the price. Although Loehrs stopped working for Solon, she
> argues he is innocent.
>
> "I don't think it was him, I really don't," Loehrs says. "There was too
> much
> evidence that it wasn't him."
>
> The prosecution's forensics expert, Randy Huff, maintains that Solon's
> antifyrus software was working properly. And he says he ran other antifyrus
> programs on the computer and didn't find an infection - although security
> experts say antifyrus scans frequently miss things.
>
> "He actually had a very clean computer compared to some of the other
> cases I
> do," Huff says.
>
> The jury took two hours to convict Solon.
>
> "Everybody feels they're innocent in prison. Nobody believes me because
> that's what everybody says," says Solon, whose case is being appealed. "All
> I know is I did not do it. I never put the stuff on there. I never saw the
> stuff on there. I can only hope that someday the truth will come out."
>
> But can it? It can be impossible to tell with certainty how a file got onto
> a PC.
>
> "Computers are not to be trusted," says Jeremiah Grossman, founder of
> WhiteHat Security Inc. He describes it as "painfully simple" to get a
> computer to download something the owner doesn't want - whether it's a
> program that displays ads or one that stores illegal pictures.
>
> It's possible, Grossman says, that more illicit material is waiting to be
> discovered.
>
> "Just because it's there doesn't mean the person intended for it to be
> there - whatever it is, child scorn included."
>
I read about this, too. You forgot to include a link to the article.

Here's one called: Framed for child porn — by a PC virus

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33778733...ence-security/

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