How spyware nearly sent a teacher to prison

IT World ^ | 27 November 2008 | Robert McMillan

[COBOL2Java]

If there's a poster child for the dangers of spyware, it's Julie Amero.

The 41-year-old former substitute teacher was convicted of four felony counts of endangering minors last year, stemming from an Oct. 19, 2004, classroom incident where students were exposed to inappropriate images.

Prosecutors had argued that Amero put her students at risk by exposing them to pornography and failing to shield them from the pop-up images after they appeared on her classroom computer.

Amero was an unlikely porn surfer. Four months pregnant at the time, she said she had only just learned to use e-mail. She says she was well-liked by teachers and students at Kelly Middle School in Norwich, Connecticut, where the incident occurred. "I was the cool teacher everybody liked," she remembers.

Amero said she did everything she could to protect her kids, but school officials, reacting to angry calls from parents, went to the police, who soon pressed criminal charges.

The case ruined her life. She believes that stress from the arrest caused her to miscarry her baby, and her career as a teacher is finished. A heart condition landed her in the hospital after she fainted several times. And while she was briefly employed at an area Home Depot last year, she was fired from the job shortly after an employee posted news clippings about her trial in the employee lounge.

Her conviction in January 2007 was the low point of her life, but soon after that Amero found a champion in Alex Eckelberry, the CEO of Sunbelt Software, who contacted her after hearing about her case. After looking at the evidence, he and other security professionals concluded that Amero had been wrongly convicted. Within months they had mustered a high-powered team of lawyers and security experts who ultimately got the guilty verdict overturned, setting the stage for a retrial.

She calls Eckelberry her "shining star" and keeps a picture of him on her wall

Amero reached a plea bargain agreement with prosecutors late last week. She pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge, paid a US$100 fine and had her state teaching license revoked. Now, she says, she wants some peace, but she's still clearly upset with local prosecutors, whom she says pursued an "incompetent and malicious" case against her.

Following is an edited transcript of a telephone interview she gave to the IDG News Service on Wednesday.

IDG News Service: What happened on Oct. 19, 2004?

Julie Amero: I went into the classroom and the regular teacher was there, Matt Napp. He was on the computer and I talked to him about the work for the day and I asked him if I could use his computer at some point. I wanted to e-mail my husband because he had just taught me how to e-mail and was on a business trip.

He [Matt Napp] was like, 'Yeah, it's all logged on for you; you're all set to go. But don't turn it off because you have to do attendance and this and that with the computers.' And I was like, 'Sure, I'm going to run to the ladies' room before class starts.' When I came back he had left, and there were two kids sitting at the computer, which was at the side of the teacher's desk.

I looked at the screen and it was kids looking at hair sites -- red and green spiky hairdos -- it was no big deal. I started my day and did attendance. Some of the kids were talking and giggling. They were glancing toward the computer which was not facing them, it was facing the window which looked out to a courtyard, and I looked and things were popping up on the screen that were inappropriate. And I knew no better than to, the little tiny box on the right hand corner, click it off. And every time I clicked it, more came.

IDGNS: What was on the screen?

Amero: Little itty bitty tiny pictures of sites: Viagra sites, sex enhancement creams, women in lingerie, things of that sort. Nothing lewd.

IDGNS: So no pornography?

Amero: No.

IDGNS: Was there nudity?

Amero: There was no nudity. There were sites listed. And the things they said [in court] I clicked on and went and looked at have been proven that they never were clicked on and looked at. The things that were on there were just inappropriate things to be looked at in a classroom; Victoria's Secret kind of stuff, you know.

IDGNS: So what did you do?

Amero: There was a woman in the classroom; she was an aid that helped with a little girl who was deaf. I actually asked her if she'd watch the classroom because something was going on with the computer, and she said, 'That's not my job.' So I had to actually sit there, and I was pretty peeved that she would not watch the class.

So I had to wait until my break and at breaktime I ran, literally ran through the halls to the teachers' lounge. There were four teachers in the room ... and then the art teacher said, 'You know what, you should probably let someone in the office know.'

I went down to tell ... the vice principal and she wasn't there, so I was like, 'OK I'll catch her toward the end of the day.' I went back to the lunch room and talked to them. I was really worried and I said, 'I don't know what to do with it. I keep popping the little Xs, but more come back.' And [a teacher] said, 'Make sure you tell somebody by the end of the day.'

At the end of the day, I ran into [the vice principal] and I told her, 'Hey did you hear?' and she said, 'Yes I did. Don't worry about it. See you tomorrow.'

IDGNS: So there was never anything pornographic?

Amero: [The prosecution] said there was one site visited, where there was a thumb-sized picture of oral sex.

IDGNS: So they found one picture of oral sex on the computer, but you didn't see that?

Amero: No.

IDGNS: When did this become a criminal case then? Because what you're describing doesn't seem that bad.

Amero: I worked for a couple of days after this incident. It took two or three days. I finally got called down to the principal's office. He sat me down, shut the door and said, 'What is this?' And he showed me a list on paper of a bunch of sites. And I don't know what they were.

So anyway, he gave me a ration of shit and he said, 'You're going to go home and you're not subbing for a while.'

That night he called me at home and said I wasn't working for that school anymore. He said, 'Right now, we just can't have you here. The kids are talking about the sites in the classroom. They peeked and they saw a few things, and we can't have that. And a couple of parents called and they were kind of upset about the kids seeing things in the classroom.'

A couple of days go by and I never get anymore phone calls about [substitute teaching]. Then all of a sudden, the police called. They asked me to come down and give a statement. They told me when I went in that I was going to be arrested for 10 counts of risk of injury. They just took my picture and said, 'See ya.'

IDGNS: How did you feel?

Amero: I was numb. I was like, 'What is going on?' I had no idea.

We came home and then the fun began. All the news people showed up on my front lawn and we got a lawyer.

IDGNS: Why do you think you were initially convicted on these charges?

Amero: Jurors saw things on the wall [images displayed by the prosecution in the courtroom] that were huge pictures. They said I didn't do enough to protect the children. I went for help; I don't know what more I could have done.

IDGNS: How did you feel after the verdict?

Amero: I felt like, 'I'm going to die. I'm going to go to jail.' I walked out of there looking to find me a new toothbrush to take to jail. I was in bed for a week or so, crying. My husband had to stay home with me. My family came to me, and we thought I was going to jail. And then out of nowhere, Alex popped up.

IDGNS: Alex Eckelberry, the CEO of Sunbelt Software.

Amero: He's my shining star. He hangs on my wall at my home.

IDGNS: Does he really?

Amero: There's a picture of him there. My husband even blew it up.

IDGNS: When did you start feeling like you might have a chance that you might get out of all of this?

Amero: Once the compilation of all the records and the trial transcripts were sent to Alex. They were like, 'It shows here this, this and this, but they said you did this, this and this. That's wrong.' They started giving me little pieces of hope. It moved on from there. I started feeling better daily.

IDGNS: Tell me about the day your guilty verdict was set aside.

Amero: That day I felt vindicated. I felt that there was hope. Now the world sees that there was erroneous testimony on [the prosecution's] part. Now the world will see it

IDGNS: So what did you do that day?

Amero: I came home with my husband, and where we live we have an outdoor fire pit and a big yard facing the woods. We had a fire in the fire pit; we had a couple of beers and roasted marshmallows. I felt like it was the beginning of something new.

IDGNS: How do you feel about the way it ultimately resolved last Friday?

Amero: I'm not happy that I had to give up my teaching credentials, but that was part of the bargain. They wanted a pound of flesh; they got it.

IDGNS: So what are you going to do now?

Amero: I've been trying to keep calm for the last couple of days. A lot of calls have come in. People wanting to see or speak to me. A guy from New Zealand wants to come and do a documentary. I don't really know where to go with it. I'm kind of timid. I don't really know what to do.

IDGNS: Do you feel that there are probably other people in your position?

Amero: I suppose there are; you just don't hear about it.

IDGNS: Do you see yourself ever working again?

Amero: I don't know if it will ever happen. At this time, I don't think straight. I put my hand in a wood splitter last month. I was really upset and all this stuff was going on and I wasn't paying attention. I ended up getting 14 stitches put in my finger.

IDGNS: What do you think about computers?

Amero: I don't touch them except for e-mail.

IDGNS: So you don't use the Web?

Amero: I don't want to touch it. I just don't like it (laughs). I just don't do anything with it.

IDGNS: Why do you think prosecutors didn't back off and just drop the case?

Amero: I don't know. I think they wanted their pound of flesh because all these people in the world came to my defense. They thought they had a crack case, 40 years in jail, make a name for themselves, another notch in their belt.

And somebody, my shining star, said 'No way.'

[FormerACLUmember]

Gross prosecutorial misconduct.

[goldstategop]

Of course. An unshielded computer has lots of porn from hell pop ups... all unwanted. It doesn't mean you want to look at the stuff!

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[smokingfrog]

She seems blameless, but why didn’t she just turn off the monitor and call tech support?

[goldstategop]

You'd be surprised few people know how to protect a computer.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[ComputerGuy]

A Nifong wannabe

[Mojave]

Negligent, ignorant and incompetent.

Well, at least she lost her teaching credentials.

[KarlInOhio]

How spyware nearly sent a teacher to prison

Back around 5th or 6th grade we had a filmstrip (do those exist anymore?) version of Romeo and Juliet with pictures taken from the 1968 film (I think). Well, apparently one of the pictures involved some nudity with the expected reaction from the boys in the class. Unfortunately I was in the afternoon class after the filmstrip had been edited :-(.

[devane617]

if she was in the classroom, the computer should have belonged to the school system. if that is the case, the school system is to blame for the pop-ups.

[bigbob]

This is why I have zero tolerance for zero tolerance rules. There is no substitute for human judgement and analysis.

[TChris]

She seems blameless, but why didn’t she just turn off the monitor and call tech support?

She had just barely learned how to use e-mail. The teacher she was subbing for had told her not to turn off the computer. Most users of that level would think that turning off the monitor is turning off the computer.

She is guilty of nothing more than computer illiteracy, hardly a crime. The prosecution is a pack of blood-thirsty jackals in this case.

[OneWingedShark]

>if she was in the classroom, the computer should have belonged to the school system. if that is the case, the school system is to blame for the pop-ups.

Agreed, because the school has techs that are supposed to protect and maintain the hardware from malicious acts, the pop-ups were merely an annoyance, but imagine the harm that could have been had if there were viri and/or cracking going on.

To put it in other terms, if the person responsible for such a lapse worked for the DoD or Pentagon, they would NOT be working there any more... and possibly “enjoying” a stay at Leavenworth.

[Star Traveler]

A good “rule of thumb” for *all prosecutors* — is that they simply want to win cases and don’t care if someone is guilty or not. That’s why in this particular case, they wouldn’t dismiss the case — they *had to have* at least “some conviction” regardless of what the real situation is....

I’ve had my own “run-ins” with prosecutors (usually traffic kinds... LOL...) and they don’t care about what happened. One particular prosecutor was going to continue with a case against me (a traffic case) when the state had already admitted, in writing, that they made a mistake on the computer record that caused a violation to be written by an officer. The prosecutor said he didn’t care if the state made a mistake or not — he was going to prosecute anyway. It was only when I knew he would be made a fool of, in front of the judge and told him that I would do so, that he dropped the case... LOL..

He wanted me to “plead out” and pay a small fine... what a jerk...

[The prosecutor “hung on” until five minutes before appearing in front of the judge, I mean, while the court was in session. He was trying to “wait me out”... LOL...]

[henkster]

The power of the State used to crush the individual. This is only going to get worse.

[petro45acp]

Typical sub-moronic, NEA bureaucrats!!!

Certainly hope this lady didn’t completely queer her option of suing the SH17 out of these idiots by taking the misdemeanor deal! If it was a school computer, the school is responsible for providing pop-up-blocking configuration according to the school systems’s policy (provided they have one). From the interview, it sounds as though the regular teacher was actually logged on (again provided the school uses unique credentials for each user), making any previously loaded popup-warez HIS responsibility. ANY information security gonk would have taken the drive, made a bonded evidentiary copy, then pulled all logs to determine intent. If the lady’s story is true (sounds very likely), she would be off the hook and again, hopefully, lined up to sue the SH17 out of these brain-dead nimnals.

“Users, can’t live with em, can’t provide multi-tier hand-holding...er tech-support without em.”

Cheers,

[sickoflibs]

Now there is an unusual but interesting story. I am very surprised she lost a criminal case. This is a typical civil case like the Walmarts trampling, the two cases are very similar. Whose job was it to protect the computer?

[Syncro]

It looks like the kids went to these sites, or the regular teacher.

The school should have protected the computer from pop-ups and porn sites before ever putting it where the students could have access to it.

Yes, she should have turned off the monitor but she seemed pretty unaware of how a computer works.

Why wasn't the regular teacher charged instead of blaming it on the substitute?

Everyone knows that all guys do on computers is look at porn /s

It's illegal in many places to deny the access of porn at libraries, kids can go to many of them and watch anything they want.

[Dallas59]

Why don’t they go after the spy/malware makers? I guess it’s just easier to drag a pregnant teacher through the fire.

[Cicero]

This is totally insane. It wasn’t her computer, and she didn’t regularly use it.

She didn’t turn it off because the regular teacher in that class told her not to, because it would somehow spoil taking attendance.

Since it wasn’t her computer, she had nothing to do with the porn that was on it.

She could be called “incompetent” with computers, but so what? She wasn’t in class to teach computer science. That was not supposed to be one of her skills.

What gets me is that, even with zero tolerance rules that sucked, why was this HER fault?

[umgud]

What is a popup?

[ColdWater]

She didn’t control the class?

[Mojave]

If it was a school computer, the school is responsible for providing pop-up-blocking configuration according to the school systems’s policy (provided they have one).

And the school is responsible for sending someone in to turn off the monitor for her, to call tech support for her and to pay her. Her only responsibility is to cash the check.

[CGTRWK]

The school system had installed Symantec WebNOT content filtering software at one time, but had not kept up their subscription.

The school system owned the computer. It was running obsolete - Microsoft had end of lifed standard support more than a year prior to this happening - and notoriously vulnerable Windows 98. It was running long out of date filtering software - effectively no filtering at all.

And the school system didn’t pipe up one word in Amero’s defense because they didn’t want to be found liable in her place. Locking some woman in prison for the rest of her life was no price at all from where they were standing.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Would this have happened today in China? In India? In Russia? In Brazil? Just what kind of country is the United States any more?

There is something else - it is likely than none of these prosecutors are Republicans. Yet it is this kind of story that contributes to the widely held MSM/public image of a gang of "right wing religious zealots" spreading Inquisition-like terror throughout the land, even if Republicans and religious conservatives had nothing directly to do with it. NEA idiots, overprotective liberal parents who are even bigger idiots (single biggest group of idiots on the planet Earth, in my opinion), and ambitious Democrat prosecutors do the witch hunting - Republican politicians get blamed at the ballot box.

[stinkerpot65]

The prosecutors and the principal ought to go to prison for murdering the woman’s baby.

[library user]

The school system had installed Symantec.

Installing Norton Anti-Virus was the first problem. Resource hog which probably locked up the computer when the ad's came up, thus freezing them on the screen, unless she turned the monitor off.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Norton Anti-Virus is VERY problematic, based upon several anecdotes I’ve heard lately. Also, uninstalling it will kill your internet service. Leo Laporte has the fix for this.

[Emmett McCarthy]

I agree completely. I am not very swift with a computer and was even less so a few years back. My teenage son had some underage gal who send him naked pictures of herself on my computer. I happened to find them in my “pictures” file and it scared the living crap out of me. I called somebody I happen to know who is an FBI agent, followed their directions to delete the things and made sure there was an official record of my having called them for help. My computer is used by my teenagers and I have no idea what could be in or on it. My son was maybe 14 at the time and some gal had seen his picture on MySpace or something and contacted him. We had a VERY serious talk about that one.

[Leftism is Mentally Deranged]

There should have been no prosecution. There should have been no plea bargain. This is a case of the prosecutor looking at the woman’s ethnic background and skin color and deciding that this would look good on his resume.

He decided to prosecute someone who he knew was innocent.

He knew that there would be no Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson doing a death dance around his office. There would be no riots in the streets and threats of beheading. Just a White European who would not fight back.

Not as bad as Duke, but bad nevertheless. The prosecutor should resign.

[Mojave]

She didn’t control the class?

Maybe she could have mentioned the Internet porn streaming into her class to someone while she was hanging out in the teacher's lounge.

[CGTRWK]

There is something else - it is likely than none of these prosecutors are Republicans.

Perhaps. But perception is everything in politics. The perception is Republicans are the law and order puritan party, lock em up and throw away the key.

That isn't a perception I've seen Republicans anywhere doing anything to dispel. The governor of Connecticut is a Republican. The President is a Republican. Either one of them could have ended this witch hunt with a pardon at any time. And scored big he-gets-it points with everyone who works in IT and understands what happened here. They still could for that matter.

They didn't. They'll get blamed for this one at the ballot box too. They'll deserve it.

[FatherFig1o155]

Exactly my first thought.

Where was IT, who should have been responsible for proactively blocking those sites from those computers?

The school system is at fault here. Not the substitute teacher.

OTOH, this substitute just learned how to use email? Really? And she didn’t think to turn off the monitor? Please.

And about that aide: Not my job? Not her job to protect the kids from pornographic content? If the state prosecutes the substitute, they have to prosecute the aide, too.

Just my 2 cents.

In reality, the whole thing is just stupid and another sign that my beloved country is dead, or at least doomed.

[petro45acp]

“And the school is responsible for sending someone in to turn off the monitor for her, to call tech support for her and to pay her. Her only responsibility is to cash the check. “

Yes, Yes, and Yes, if stated as such in the school’s IT/IT security policy (required and regulated by the NEA/government?). With a hyper regulated system, all aspects have to be covered by policy and that policy has to be taught to the people the policy affects. If at any point her ignorance was not covered by auditable policy, she is not responsible (read culpable). It is not a perfect situation, but it is the way it is.

Cheers

[Mojave]

No responsibilities, only entitlements. At least they managed to can the parasite.

[Niteranger68]

I'd feel safer with porn on my computer than I would Norton.

[BuffaloJack]

Last sping my 24 year old daughter asked me to fix her computer because it was so slow.
I examined it and really didn’t find anything strange. Since it was slow, we decided to scrap eveything and reformat the drive, load the OS and start over. The first thing I did was duplicate the harddrive on a spare (just in case). Then I formated the drive. It was then that I noticed that the drive size was 76 GB instead of the 80GB that it should have been. Investigation showed a 4GB hidden partition. I unhid the partition and discovered 4G of porn video and a website.
I erased it all. I then loaded the original disk copy back but before turning it free, I wiped out the hidden partition. When the system booted, it faulted trying to load a driver. The driver was a clandestine driver that served to operate the porn website. I then edited the startup script and killed off the driver call and other stuff. It PC now booted fine and ran fine. Neither McAfee nor Norton ever saw nor flagged the porn virus website that had been there.
My daughter didn’t even know this stuff was on her machine.
Oh, and by the way, it took over a week to clean everything up.

[Red Badger]

You'd be surprised few people know how to protect a computer.

I know a guy so dumb he can't find porn on the internet..........

[DryFly]

In not Norton, what do you recommend?

[Orange1998]

ping

[mbarker12474]

This is the equivalent of a teacher opening up a window to let a cool breeze in the room, then having some scumbag toss a bunch of porn advertisements in through the window, then blaming the teacher for giving porn to kids.

Instead of going to the principal for advice, the teacher should have instead gone to the school nurse and brought back condoms for the children.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Julie Amero and her husband.

This looks like a case of a woman returning to the workforce after being out for a while. Certainly a person graduating from college in the last 20 years would have full knowledge and ease with computers before stepping into a classroom. This lady's account indicates that she is not too swift. She really doesn't even use good English if the transcript is an accurate reflection of her explanation to the reporter. Perhaps that is why the school was willing to throw her overboard.

That said, there is absolutely no excuse for the school and the prosecutor to treat her the way that she has been treated.

[holymoly]

In not Norton, what do you recommend?

Avast! Home Edition or AVG, both of which are free.

[Hyzenthlay]

“OTOH, this substitute just learned how to use email? Really? And she didn’t think to turn off the monitor? Please.”

Really, you’d be surprised at some of the computer illiteracy you can find in substitute teachers. For example, in high school, I was in a computer graphics class, and we had one notoriously clueless sub one day. It took us at least five minutes of explaining that since it was a *computer* graphics class, our projects were on the *computers*, not in the back room with the rest of the art project. Another time, with another sub, in my programming class the kids just played text-based RPG’s and goofed off on IRC, telling her they were ‘programming stuff’. As far as the sub was concerned, all computer activity fell under ‘email’, ‘myspace’, ‘bad sites’(aka porn) or ‘something else’ (which included programming), so since she didn’t see email, myspace, or porn, she assumed everything was OK...

In any case, I don’t think either of the computer-illiterate subs could have turned off the monitor had a similar situation arose, or even would have thought of doing so, so I can easily believe that this sub didn’t have a clue either. Heck, my mom’s savvy enough to use email, the internet, and computer games and she still can’t figure out what button to push to turn an unfamiliar computer/monitor/etc on or off unless it has the word ‘power’ printed next to it.

[afraidfortherepublic]

The first lesson my son in law taught me when he and my daughter were teaching me to use the computer was to unplug it when I was having trouble and all else failed. Of course, this lady had been told specifically not to turn it off, so I can understand her reluctance.

[BenLurkin]

"he gave me a ration of shit"

Yikes, lady. Do you kiss your baby with that mouth?

[metmom]

I just stumbled across this. Would this qualify for your public school ping list?

[Still Thinking]

If all the facts are as reported, maybe she has a case for malicious prosecution and get the prosecutor censured or disbarred or something.

[Still Thinking]

Are you logged on? ;-) A popup is a secondary window that will open in your browser, usually over the top of the site you were viewing, with no intervention from you. The new window just opens by itself. And sometimes, they have a “Close” button or something you might think to click to get rid of it, but the code behind the “Close” button does something else, like opening even more windows. Any window that opens without you requesting it should be closed with the buttons in the title bar of the window, and not with any buttons inside the window itself. Good browsers such as Firefox have addons and options that you can use to control these. I suppose IE may finally have it too but I really wouldn’t know.