Badware led to child porn charge

Posted by Maxim Weinstein Mon, 16 Jun 2008 17:17:00 GMT

An article in today’s Boston Herald highlights a case in which an unsuspecting user had his life turned upside down because of malware:

A child porn possession charge lodged against a Department of Industrial Accidents investigator fired for having smut on his state-issued laptop has been dismissed because experts concluded he was unwittingly spammed.

“The overall forensics of the laptop suggest that it had been compromised by a virus,” said Jake Wark, spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel Conley.

In addition to highlighting the importance of keeping one’s computer well protected, this story reinforces our previous position about the Safari “carpet-bombing” vulnerability. If users are going to be held accountable for the files downloaded to their PCs, it is critical that web browsers protect users from unexpected, unauthorized downloads.

I’m heartened by the fact that prosecutors dropped the charges in light of the forensic evidence, and I hope that they eventually catch the real bad guys, who are the ones taking and distributing inappropriate pictures of young children.