You know the feeling – I think we’ve all experienced it at one time or another in our life. Whether it’s a childhood fantasy or an adult reality, the truth is that we are being watched through one method or another – specifically when it comes to computers.

Recently, I came across two cases where people were charged with severe punishments due to viewing pornographic images on their computers. The first case caught my attention immediately and comes out of Norwich Connecticut where 40 year old Julie Amero is facing up to 40 years in prison after her conviction for viewing pornographic images on her laptop while substituting at Kelly Middle School. She is convicted of four counts of risk of injury to minors. Apparently, she connected her laptop to the internet in her classroom where she is accused of accessing pornographic material. There were children present in her classroom who have testified to seeing images of naked men and women, which adds much fuel to the fire, and not to her defense in the case. However, Amero’s defense is claiming that the images were triggered due to an adware infection being present on her computer. Further, she claims that she did not specifically key in the sites that were accessed in October, and that she had no control over what was simply popping up on her computer screen. Amero’s sentencing will be March 2^nd and her defense is working hard to convince the court that this was in fact an accident – that Amero’s machine had an infection that caused the horrific images to popup.

From a technical standpoint, it is entirely possible, and not at all unlikely, that there was an infection present on Amero’s machine that caused these images to popup. Who knows – maybe she has teenage children living at home who might have contracted the Adware online somewhere. There are multiple ways that her computer could have become infected, and would certainly be at risk if she was not running up-to-date virus protection and a firewall. I have come across similar infections before while working in the antivirus industry. Basically, if you have one of these infections on your machine, they may not only [pop up] images, but also access the Internet to take your browser to additional sites. It’s a cascading effect that is completely uncontrollable. You can’t simply exit the windows that are popping up – when you try to exit, more just popup at a quicker rate. So, I can feel comfortable in saying that, yes, there very well may have been an infection present on the substitute teacher’s machine that may now cost her nearly half her life.

The second case involves a sixteen year old boy named Matt Bandy. You’ve probably heard about this boy in the news, or maybe you saw the interview on ABC’s 20/20. Matt was an average teenage boy who’s life came crashing down on December 16^th, 2004 when police raided his family’s house in Phoenix Arizona just after 6AM that morning. The police had a search warrant for the boy’s home that included evidence that Matt had pornographic images of minors on the family computer, and that he was not only involved in housing this illegal material, but also sharing the images online through a popular Yahoo group. Matt was facing up to life in prison for these felony crimes. As the story goes on, and after a year of painful and costly legal battles, Matt’s family and their defense had produced evidence that someone else was in fact using the family computer through a connection to the internet, and housing the illegal material on their computer system. They discovered that there was no antivirus protection on the machine, no firewall, and a connection to high speed internet – which is always on. Most people simply don’t realize that under these conditions, your computer is at risk of being compromised – through one method or another. In Matt’s case, the person who was taking control of the computer was involved in very illegal practices – viewing and sharing child pornography. You may be wondering how the local Phoenix police discovered that there was illegal material on Matt’s computer in the first place. The Yahoo group that Matt was subscribed to alerted the local law enforcement of the illegal material being posted from Matt’s computer IP address which told them where to look. Every computer that is connected to the Internet has a unique IP address. If you want to read Matt’s full story, you can visit the family website at http://www.justice4matt.com/.