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| I hope the teacher wins on appeal Based on what the articles say, she was a substitute teacher in one class. She tried to use the computer, got a bunch of popups and couldn't get rid of them. She talked with several teachers and the principal but claims to have not gotten any help. Meanwhile, 10 kids saw the graphic images and likely reported it to their parents.
Now, my wife is a 6th and 8th grade teacher (in an all-girl's Catholic school no less) teaching science and language arts. Parents will complain about much less than accidental viewing of pornographic images. They will also attempt to hold the teacher responsible 100% for whatever happens. (Even if the kid is being punished due to bad behavior. After all, their precious little one can't possibly be bad. The teacher must be out to get them.) So the kids likely told the parents, the parents went to the principal and/or reported it to the police directly. Cue a simple case of spyware infestation turning into a life destroying case.
But where did the spyware come from? It could have been from the teacher, but considering that she was a substitute, it could also have been from the usual teacher, a kid, the school's IT guy or virtually anyone else who had access to that system.
It could have also been an accidental mistyping. Once, years ago, I tried to go to Barnes and Noble's website by typing in barnesnnoble.com. Unfortunately, their website was barnesandnoble.com. Barnesnnoble.com was a porn site at the time. Upon seeing the naked images, I quickly closed the browser window. (I was new to the office and in any event didn't want to be looking at that stuff at work. This was also in the pre-popup blocker era.)
Unfortunately, the site opened a new window when I closed the first one and loaded more graphic images. So I closed that one and another popped up. I started getting more and more nervous that my boss would walk in. Finally, I managed to close a window before it loaded the JavaScript code that it needed to keep popping more windows up.
Had my computer's security been weak enough, that series of pop-ups could have installed spyware onto my computer to keep showing me graphic images.
School's are notorious for not having the best computer setups. They did have content filtering software, but it was expired. The same was probably true for any anti-virus software that the computer had. In additions, the IE settings were probably very weak. Given all that, spyware could slip in without anyone even noticing. (Until the porn popups start, after all.)
Thinking like a novice user, the reaction upon seeing an unwanted pop-up is to close it, not shut the computer down. After doing this a dozen or so times, she might have even tried to turn the computer off via Start->Shut Down but spyware can slow the computer down to the point that shutting down takes too long. Or perhaps her lesson was based around the computer itself and she figured that she would press through it as best she could.
In any event, she shouldn't be sent to prison for 40 years over a spyware infestation. The spyware authors, maybe, but not some substitute teacher who was unfortunate enough to encounter a spyware infestation in class. | |
 major marcoRes Firma Mitescere NescitPremium
join:2003-02-13
Stepford, CA | said by Jason Levine:In any event, she shouldn't be sent to prison for 40 years over a spyware infestation. The spyware authors, maybe, but not some substitute teacher who was unfortunate enough to encounter a spyware infestation in class. Assuming the Defendant retains competent legal counsel, then everything you just stated here will serve as reasonable doubt to defend against the 40 yrs sentence. The D.A.s office is obviously looking to make a career here by making an example of the substitute teacher.
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The Toll
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patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | reply to Jason Levine
2 keys, Alt-F4, just keep holding that down till the avalance will go away. | |
| said by patcat88:2 keys, Alt-F4, just keep holding that down till the avalance will go away. Of course, nowadays I browse with FireFox complete with its built-in pop-up blocker so that kind of site can't bother me anymore. | |
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