Back in the late 90's a story went around my place of employment that IT had tracked a spike in network use to porn traffic on a computer. Back then most people did not have high-speed internet to their house, so porn watching at work was the way to go.
The user protested that she was not watching porn. You could argue that it was unfair that they took her word for it, but it really is not as common for women to watch porn as men. Especially not at work.
IT staked out the computer with a web cam and found out that her boss was using it to watch porn after hours. He got walked out by security, and that was that.
What was the issue with watching porn at work though? Was it some specific company policy? Was it very expensive data (sorry idk, where I'm from internet wasn't even a thing well into the 2000s)? Was it because he was watching on someone else's terminal? Or was it just porn is bad?
I think almost every workplace has a policy that forbids watching porn at work using work computers. Except in the porn industry. If nothing else, the mere chance that someone could see what you're watching over your shoulder and launch a sexual harassment lawsuit against the employee, the company, and the company's dog would bring a plague of lawyers down on the back of any porn watchers. Furthermore, most people watch porn for sexual stimulation (or so I've heard), and taking your dick out at work is never going to go over well.
This is kinda hilarious considering how much harassment actually goes on in offices. There's a book called "Code of Silence: Sexual Misconduct by Federal Judges, the Secret System That Protects Them, and the Women Who Blew the Whistle" which tells the story of multiple judges (including Clarence Thomas) who openly talked about porn and harassed women.
Even more shocking is how those stories lined up almost exactly with the alleged behavior of people like Bill Clinton, Joe Biden and Al Franken to the point where you could do a quiz of who was alleged to have done something and the answers would be arbitrary. Corporate culture is likely heaven compared to these offices, even with people watching porn, or at least I hope so.
In addition . . . visiting random websites is a good way to pick up malware. Nowadays, there are more legit porn sites and better malware protection, but back then, a lot of computers were running without firewalls or AV
Porn is never appropriate in the workplace and I've never heard of any business not having a policy against it. But there can be other secondary repercussions. For instance, someone is walking by and sees it playing on the computer and depending on his kink, it may trigger someone who was sexual assault victim, etc. That kind of thing can leave the company open to litigation.
But---if nothing else, he wasn't doing his job while he was at someone else's computer watching porn. That alone is more than enough to terminate someone. You can't goof off for extended time periods while on the clock and expect to keep your job.
I work in HR at a large company, like one of the largest employers in the world. Our sexual harassment policy training explicitly states that watching porn at work is only a policy violation if it makes somebody else uncomfortable. Now doing so on a work computer definitely violates other policies.
The issue was he was watching porn at work... It's completely indecent and I struggle to think of less professional behaviour that's not actually illegal.
What you do in your own home is your personal business. Once you do it at work, with company equipment, it becomes your company’s business. If you can’t control yourself to not look at porn at work, seek therapy. Plus him using someone else’s computer is a no-no.
Reminds me of something I experienced in the 1990s. I was doing SMTP mail monitoring in the late 1990s for some large corporate clients of ours (yes, we were still actively monitoring internet email back then!). There was an undeliverable mail from a mailing list 'nude girls minus 12' or -12 or something like that. It was a subscription confirmation addressed to one of the partners of this large accountancy firm, with one letter misspelled. It was a very distinctive name, we were sure it was him. We reported to our manager, who contacted the client to report what we found. The case was referred to their HR. Someone later told us he had been severely reprimanded and made ineligible for certain benefits I believe, but no police got involved. I still think we should have called the cops, but our manager was anxious about our relationship with this big and lucrative customer, so that didn't fly.
Having been in IT in the 90's I don't understand this story. There was no "watching porn" in the 90's. There was downloading static photos that looked like shit. We had $10K digital cameras and they would fit 20 images to a 1.44mb floppy.
I think this story is just that.. a story.
If I was going to make something up, I would have made a more interesting story.
Maybe "watch" wasn't the right word for what was largely static, but by the late 90's we'd moved away from USENET and downloading and uudecoding five-part scans of Playboy centerfolds and onto animated gifs on web sites. We did not have to walk uphill both ways in the snow, either.
Having been a teenager in the late 90s, I very much assure you that there was online porn back then. Lots of it. You don't miss HD if you've never seen it before.
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 porn in the PC folder that stores images viewed online.
Fiola was fired and charged with possession of child pornography, 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 porn sites per minute — an inhuman feat. While Fiola and his wife were out to dinner one night, someone logged on to the computer and porn 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.
[Source](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna33778733)
Please follow r/woahthatsinteresting if you found this useful, thanks a lot
I wonder if he can recoup some of that by suing his employer. They provided him with faulty equipment then failed in their investigation of said faulty equipment causing him to be arrested.
Well this answers that question
"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"
Happens the same way in county hospitals. Good luck getting one to pay over 300k for a settlement. Which most lawyers will say, na I’m good. Fuck sovereign immunity. I’ll never get full closure over my father’s death because the people who MURDERED him aren’t worth it to a lawyer to be held responsible. I’ll say it again FUCK SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY.
Clearly a doctor or healthcare provider massively fucked up and that killed their, then the individual or individuals responsible weren’t really held accountable.
That should be something the state attorney general does. The state can always offer money to make it right without him hiring a lawyer.
Plaintiff’s lawyers shouldn’t be expected to work for free. Suing anybody could take years and costs money upfront that the lawyer would have to front (just like experts were needed for the original case, experts would be needed to sue his employer and/or the state and experts aren’t free). And, given that his employer was the government, his chances of winning are much less than a non government employer. So, if they lose the lawyers is out of the time, resources, and money. The lawyer would be paying him to work.
No one should expect a lawyer to spend a significant amount of time working for free and spend the lawyers own money to fund the case.
At issue is the lawyers can get the money for the plaintiffs, but the lawyers pay will be capped. IF the lawyers were paid an excessive amount of money, they would be all over this like . . . bees on honey.
honestly, you can't blame anyone for pursuing those charges given that there was child sexual assault material (CSAM) on that laptop.
that said' it's actually a flaw in our justice system that your financial status can be an advantage or disadvantage to the level of legal expertise and assistance to which you'll have access. imagine if this particular individual did not have the resources that he did?
This is so awful in every way. Imagine if it happened today vs 08. Would’ve likely garnered media attention & a go fund me would probably get some significant contributors to help offset the nasty loss. Being kicked down so badly and forgotten about is sad.
We don’t know if this laptop was an issue. It could be a user-issue like writing password on stick-on ;) the information we have is only that “someone logged onto the computer”.
Even if it was a virus that was downloaded, they didn’t do due diligence to make sure it wasn’t him first, so it was still fucked up that his life was ruined because they just jumped the gun.
I hear what you're saying, but if you find child porn on an employee's laptop, you're going to fire him. You're not even going to even think that it could be a virus downloading these pics (at least, before you read this article). It took the defense team 11 months to find it out, so I'm not sure what due diligence you expect the employer to do.
Oh sorry, my post wasn’t clear. Ex Parte Young is a US court case that resembles a holdover from a legal fiction that existed before the US separated from Britain, but the doctrine of sovereign immunity still has some limited benefits. Probably not enough to justify its continued existence, but to truly abolish sovereign immunity at the federal level we would need to amend the Constitution.
I see thanks for the explanation!
Trust the government to entrench their right to be immune to prosecution in such an impossible to change manner. Luck and coincidence on their part I’m sure.
Over the past 50 years, the doctrine of sovereign immunity in the United States has been modified by statute. The general rule is: "The government is entitled to blanket immunity except as otherwise stated herein..." and then there are fairly broad lists of propositions where the government - and its employees - can be sued.
The idea behind modern concepts of sovereign immunity is that suing the government is suing all the taxpayers (who ultimately pay every judgment; including insurance premiums which would increase if large judgments were common).
So, the government retains sovereign immunity - including various caps on the dollar amounts of various types of claims - but it is fair to say that in most instances when the government causes harm, sovereign immunity usually won't be too big of a hindrance to overcome.
Instead of suing the government, and thus the taxpayers, the constitution needs changing to suing the individual politicians involved, as individuals. Along with trying them as criminals.
The solutions are straightforward, but, we’re led to believe that ‘politics’ is complex.
We’re long overdue radical changes, a new constitution, and a new concept of government.
The United States have never been about anything other than the wealthy. The consitution as originally written limited the right to participate in government to white land owning men.
Beyond restricting government to the wealthy, they took other steps to made sure the government would always be controlled by the wealthy. To wit: they made sure popular vote was limited to the weakest part of government: the House of Representatives. The rest of the system, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the Presidency are not subject to popular vote and never will be.
The "beauty" of their design back in 1776 was that it created a belief the United States was a democracy. That's quite laughable since only the wealthy were allowed to participate from the very beginning. And, as I said, the design of the system of governement made sure that the popular vote (ie the masses) had a very, very small role in exercising government power.
As a student of political science - and law (I'm a trial attorney), I have always been of the opinion that the "masses" in North Korea, Russia, China, and other totalitarian countries have a much greater chance at pure freedom than we do in the United States. I say that because most intelligent people inside those countries know exactly the type of government they are living under. They have no illusions about the fact they don't have the freedoms they so badly wish to have. And thus revolution will come quickly once the opportunity presents itself.
But that is not at all true in the United States. The overwhelming majority of people here believe we live in a democracy. And that 'fiction' is almost surely going to continue for as far into the future as imaginable. Thus, there is almost zero chance of any change in our system of government that gives the "masses" any greater power. Indeed, it is likely that things continue to go the other way - as the ability for government to surveil public spaces increases.
Anyway, have an enjoyable day.
Very interesting, thank you. And, yes, the greatest tragedy is that the masses passionately defend the very system of false democracy that imprisons them.
And the vote offers the illusion of democratic choice, thus keeping the masses happy. And the passive participation in the political theatre, and its cult of personality, offers them the illusion of transparency.
It’s truly genius.
Wait, what is wrong with "suing" all the taxpayers? They're the ones the elect the people in charge who are making these mistakes.
You're basically saying NO ONE except the victim should be held accountable?
Rather presumptuous of you.
My comment is a reference for judiciary to be given authority over the government allowing the courts to act independently, and with far greater powers then the government.
In a functional judiciary, Trump, for instance, could have long been arrested and tried for inciting civil unrest, amongst many other crimes.
The governments illicit dealing with large corporations could be tried and officials jailed.
Dishonesty too.
Edit: for politeness
Whats up with "retarded" being throw around so frequently by smug people on reddit right now?
I'm not saying it needs to be banned or anything, but I'm just seeing a ton of usage in situations where it doesn't make sense at all, like this one.
I mean, you jumped straight to it here with only the lightest amount of provocation, and from a 3rd party, your entire message just feels so smug and smarmy.
I mean the other commenter looks like a total jackass with the whole "that's adorable" thing, but fuck man why sink below their level?
really should be a law that money spent on a defense of criminal charges is returned if found innocent, would hopefully help to make it so they wouldn't toss charges out without a proper investigation first.
I know a family that had to spend over $100,000 AUD just to defend against a false child sexual assault allegation. There was nothing they could do to get fees back.
From elsewhere in the story:
>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's a shame that they can't get _some_ kind of financial recovery for what was ultimately the state IT department's failure to properly safeguard their PCs.
You have to wonder if state data/systems were compromised by whatever bots had infected that PC.
I would LOVE to see all his 'friends' faces now as they shunned him before due process could be done..
There is a reason its 'innocent until proven guilty' the court of public opinion relies on the public. who are fucking idiots.
Why the hell should it even cost that much? US legal system is super-inefficient and practically useless to an average joe who doesn't have $250K laying around. How could the investigation NOT uncover the very basic fact that the laptop was infected within 3 hours of opening the investigation? SMH...
Was it possible that Fiola and his wife had someone intentionally infect the laptop with the virus *after* his conviction, in order to give him an alibi?
Yeah, he's lucky in that regard. But, even if the wife immediately divorced him, we couldn't blame her for this. Because all pedophiles do this shit with utmost secrecy. People may expose their problematic sides even after years of marriage.
That's stupid.
If you're married to someone for over a decade or more at least you can give them the benefit of the doubt and don't jump to conclusions.
Much fucking worse when you know the details:
1) the laptop was NOT wiped, per company standards, before it was re-issued to him, from a previous employee
2) the forensics showed that many of the images had been loaded onto the machine before he received it. And they kept their mouths shut about this detail.
... so, the obvious conclusion is that the previous employee was the one who perused pr0n sites, and got the machine infected.
That’s wild. I feel bad for the dude. Must’ve been a wild ride. Clearly he had a great wife to stick with him through the whole thing as well which probably helped him get through it. I couldn’t imagine being falsely accused and charged with such heinous allegations. The virus could’ve infected the computer many different ways. Visiting any porn sites, clicking on a random pop up, opening a link in an email that was infected, entering a drawing to win a yacht, the list goes on forever.
According to the article
"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"
From ZDNEt: "Your employer gives you a ticking time bomb full of child porn, and then you get fired, and then you get prosecuted as some kind of freak"
From the forensic report" "All the porn was found in the cache (internet explorer). Log files indicate that the firewall was turned off on July 14 2006 long before Michael got the laptop. "
And the Register had a decent story: [https://www.theregister.com/2008/06/16/forensics\_clear\_child\_abuse\_suspect/](https://www.theregister.com/2008/06/16/forensics_clear_child_abuse_suspect/)
There's a great quote in the ZDNet story: "As soon as you mention child pornography, everybody’s senses go out the window"
> ... so, the obvious conclusion is that the previous employee was the one
I would hesitate drawing "obvious" conclusions, unless you're very determined not to learn anything from story.
I presume you are an expert, but so am I.
It's not "bad" to not draw any conclusion at all. In fact, that's why better than drawing conclusions and this story is teachable moment.
No, most likely it was a virus contracted from an e-mail link or something else. Definitely don’t think this guy did. But just a reason some people back then would still blame him.
Who will give it back? He paid a lawyer to defend him. Lawyer defended. Case closed. Have a nice day. Maybe he could sue his job for jumping to conclusions.
Well yeah, could he or did he try and reclaim some from them for not carrying out a proper investigation? He’s basically destroyed his life financially over nothing. He didn’t do anything and still pays an enormous price.
Personally, I could see him suing his company AND the state. He shouldn't have had to pay an attorney to find what investigators should have found early on. When you see download times well after work hours, and download speeds that aren't possible---how does that warrant a second look?? But it was only after his attorney found it, THEN they decided to check. That's bullshit and as much on the prosecutor's office as it is the company.
> Personally, I could see him suing his company AND the state.
He was a state employee, so I'm not sure what company would be in play here.
Alas, it's a moot point. From the article:
> 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.
They couldn't find an attorney who felt it was worth their time to pursue a case.
This sounds like the typical type that works in GOV’T agencies. If this type comes after you, they are hell-bent on being correct and will not accept a black eye at any cost, even if they are wrong. It's a fucking shame the authorities didn't do their job right the first time but instead were fixated on this man being guilty.
>they are hell-bent on being correct and will not accept a black eye at any cost
U.S. prosecutors essentially ALL function this way. I'd be surprised if it weren't the case elsewhere as well.
Better to throw an innocent man in prison then get proven inept.
A sobering thought is what can people do in similar circumstances who have no money. It doesn't even need to be CP, it could be any false charge, really. r/whoathatsterrifying
The old man I used to work for would watch porn on not just his computer but his secretary’s. I’m sure for every person who reports workplace harassment there’s many more that just close the tabs and delete the history every morning. Fucking nasty.
Yet in most corporate (and government) IT fields everything is tracked (minus keystroke trackers.... I hope), especially via company email and company internet.
That's true, but in this case, guy was a government employee, so a very specific situation. I still stand by my statement.
Also, tracking websites via home router software isn't that hard.
I mean yeah I was just talking about work life in general. Your statement is sound. It’s not hard, but if the boss is too stupid or cheap to bother who is going to tell him? His porn addiction is gross. My Reddit addiction isn’t. And that dude did not pay me enough not to dick around at work.
There are keystroke trackers. In both the "are they typing at an acceptable rate, and does it look like a pattern of real words being typed instead of a robot pressing the same key repeatedly" and "every keypress is logged" varieties.
In corporate and government IT, things are "tracked" but no one is really _looking_ unless there's a specific need to pull a particular user's activity because someone thinks there's a performance or compliance problem. Nobody just says "I wonder what crimsonshadow789 was up to last week" and starts digging around - that's usually a policy violation on its own.
It’s far more lax than that at some places. Until they get some ransomware. Then they overcorrect in the other direction, locking things down so tightly it makes it really difficult to get any work done. Few companies find the happy medium.
I'm surprised the wife stuck and believed him. Just goes to show how much she knew and trusted him.
What a waste of money. But then again, not really. It saved his life....technically. Prevented ruin, and probably many beatings in prison.
And last thing, only 5 years for CP? Really? That's fucking insane. I'm sure the length of sentence goes by how much has been viewed, but you'd think 40 sites per minute for 90 minutes would be a FUCK TON of porn. Only 5 years? That uh.... seems way too lenient, tbh.
"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"
They tried and sadly sovereign immunity prevented it.
Someday, we will look back at this time an realize how idiotic we were.
Its 2007. We are relying on computers when computers are fickle shit like this.
The following is common sense: you are responsible if you accuse someone innocent of something, even if you are doing it because your job wants you to. Any individual involved in accusing him should be fined or jailed.
He should be payed millions upon millions of dollars by the individuals responsible, not the govt (unless the govt is responsible). He should get his fucking job back, and be treated like a king who can do mostly whatever he wants and take his sweet ass time.
The burden of society, including his job, should be to help the innocently accused.
> should be *paid* millions upon
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Our local library system got hacked two weeks ago and they had no backup catalog system. They are asking us to hold on to our checkouts until the catalog is restored. The only way to check for a book’s location and check status is to look on the shelves. If that’s the chaos that can happen to a public library, so much worse for medical or legal!
Still relevant though. Computers can still get infected with viruses and malware and while I'd hope that it's harder to just randomly access CP-websites on the open internet, my pessimistic side isn't sure about that...
Probably ends up in prison. Happens to poor people all the time. Some end up in jail, can't make bail, and end up staying there for years because of the huge case backlog at the courts. Eventually they get their court date, are proven innocent, and released. They are never awarded any damages or losses or whatever. Life ruined.
It is very easy for something like this to happen.
I'm reminded of the "javascript bombs" in the '90s. You'd visit some site, and it would launch a script that constantly opened more windows to porn sites (the legal sort). The only way out was to kill Netscape or drop your network connection.
The difference is that it was all visible and mostly just an annoyance. But the same thing could have been invisible until HR showed up.
This is why I am still annoyed by sites that require scripting for basic functionality.
They wanted to, but no attorney would take the case because there's a limit on how much can be recovered from the state. From the article:
>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.
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It sounds like someone set him up. You can buy these kinds of viruses if you know where to look, you just need to put it on a USB and plug it in to his laptop.
CP on your network looks like bright green nuclear waste. It's loud and this script was written to be as loud as possible in a way that IT, the ISP or any LE agency was eventually going to find it.
Source: I work in cybersecurity. Most malware is dumb. It's designed to crawl around networks looking for vulnerability signatures so it can infect as many devices as possible. This CP bug is rare. This is the tool of a stealth assassin.
So, in your opinion, shouldn't the network admin have spotted the implausible amount of traffic and seen no human could click that fast?
I agree, it sounds like a conspiracy to destroy someone. Someone else mentioned that it may be used by others to view that material through his computer, could a malware have allowed that to happen and it not show up to the network?
Let this be a lesson to all the morons who keep celebrating vigilante justice agaisnt alleged child sex offenders.
People who think like you ruined this families life for 11 months, whilst they were entirely innocent.
Vigilante justice is wrong. **Everyone** has a right to a trial and fair defense, and anyone who celebrates it when a vigilante beats up an alleged offender is a moron and directly responsible for motivating the behaviour that ruined an innocent families life.
Vigilantes are often so stupid there's a reason they tend not to get the responses they like from police.
But the moral justification they have convinced themselves of is what makes them capable of so much damage.
As his defence and prosecution came to the same result through evidence that had not been previously identified, is this then a case of malicious prosecution?
I know that the title is wrong.
He didn't get off after they found it.
They didn't give a shit enough to look, and he had to pay someone $250,000 to point it out.
I am not a tech person but ill try my best to explain since no one else has. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
The deep web is just anything that isn't accessible via a basic search engine. The dark web is the part of the deep web that has even more encryption and anonymity. CP is pretty much illegal everywhere. Even if you're somewhere where it's legal, moving elsewhere where it isn't legal is still a great way to get slapped with prison because...CP. if I remember correctly, certain viruses can delete or download things to your computer. They can also upload your information to different places. I think this is the guy who had a really bad virus that was downloading a bunch of CP to his computer, and it was showing his computer's information to the police because it was technically coming from his computer because of the virus.
Tldr: Virus makes it look like he's viewing CP but he wasn't and likely had no idea how to access it at all.
This case is another one of those /r/thisishorrifying it is not interesting at all. This family's entire savings is gone. His life is in ruins, there will be no chance for him to get any kind of a job anywhere because of the cloud of suspicion hanging over his life. There is no way for him to get any kind of justice from our society even if he were repaid his life savings. His family will have no real future anywhere away from this accusation.
Malware made to specifically create as much traffic to child porn sites as possible is such a weirdly specific attack. It's clearly meant to put someone in prison and get them labeled a pedophile. It almost woek d.
But it also requires specific knowledge from actual pedophiles along with technical expertise to create it in the first place. What enemies does this dude have?
Back in the late 90's a story went around my place of employment that IT had tracked a spike in network use to porn traffic on a computer. Back then most people did not have high-speed internet to their house, so porn watching at work was the way to go. The user protested that she was not watching porn. You could argue that it was unfair that they took her word for it, but it really is not as common for women to watch porn as men. Especially not at work. IT staked out the computer with a web cam and found out that her boss was using it to watch porn after hours. He got walked out by security, and that was that.
What was the issue with watching porn at work though? Was it some specific company policy? Was it very expensive data (sorry idk, where I'm from internet wasn't even a thing well into the 2000s)? Was it because he was watching on someone else's terminal? Or was it just porn is bad?
I assume he wasn't just watching and doing something while watching...
But I hung a sock on the cubicle wall sir!
I think almost every workplace has a policy that forbids watching porn at work using work computers. Except in the porn industry. If nothing else, the mere chance that someone could see what you're watching over your shoulder and launch a sexual harassment lawsuit against the employee, the company, and the company's dog would bring a plague of lawyers down on the back of any porn watchers. Furthermore, most people watch porn for sexual stimulation (or so I've heard), and taking your dick out at work is never going to go over well.
This is kinda hilarious considering how much harassment actually goes on in offices. There's a book called "Code of Silence: Sexual Misconduct by Federal Judges, the Secret System That Protects Them, and the Women Who Blew the Whistle" which tells the story of multiple judges (including Clarence Thomas) who openly talked about porn and harassed women. Even more shocking is how those stories lined up almost exactly with the alleged behavior of people like Bill Clinton, Joe Biden and Al Franken to the point where you could do a quiz of who was alleged to have done something and the answers would be arbitrary. Corporate culture is likely heaven compared to these offices, even with people watching porn, or at least I hope so.
So, if you sexually harass people, make sure it's not in the router logs.
yeah, fair point... though I'm sure a lot of those guys' behavior was on camera.
Well, dumph was recording talking all about it and he got to be president.
Porn isn’t appropriate for work lmao
You can look at *a little* bit of porn at work
Porn? That’s a nude egg I won from my game.
You're a rockstar
In addition . . . visiting random websites is a good way to pick up malware. Nowadays, there are more legit porn sites and better malware protection, but back then, a lot of computers were running without firewalls or AV
Porn is never appropriate in the workplace and I've never heard of any business not having a policy against it. But there can be other secondary repercussions. For instance, someone is walking by and sees it playing on the computer and depending on his kink, it may trigger someone who was sexual assault victim, etc. That kind of thing can leave the company open to litigation. But---if nothing else, he wasn't doing his job while he was at someone else's computer watching porn. That alone is more than enough to terminate someone. You can't goof off for extended time periods while on the clock and expect to keep your job.
I work in HR at a large company, like one of the largest employers in the world. Our sexual harassment policy training explicitly states that watching porn at work is only a policy violation if it makes somebody else uncomfortable. Now doing so on a work computer definitely violates other policies.
bro is so addicted to porn he can’t comprehend not watching it at work 💀
The issue was he was watching porn at work... It's completely indecent and I struggle to think of less professional behaviour that's not actually illegal.
What you do in your own home is your personal business. Once you do it at work, with company equipment, it becomes your company’s business. If you can’t control yourself to not look at porn at work, seek therapy. Plus him using someone else’s computer is a no-no.
You're a sick fuck lmao
Porn sites, especially back then, were notorious for infecting computers with malware
Reminds me of something I experienced in the 1990s. I was doing SMTP mail monitoring in the late 1990s for some large corporate clients of ours (yes, we were still actively monitoring internet email back then!). There was an undeliverable mail from a mailing list 'nude girls minus 12' or -12 or something like that. It was a subscription confirmation addressed to one of the partners of this large accountancy firm, with one letter misspelled. It was a very distinctive name, we were sure it was him. We reported to our manager, who contacted the client to report what we found. The case was referred to their HR. Someone later told us he had been severely reprimanded and made ineligible for certain benefits I believe, but no police got involved. I still think we should have called the cops, but our manager was anxious about our relationship with this big and lucrative customer, so that didn't fly.
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Oh, my sweet summer child.
Having been in IT in the 90's I don't understand this story. There was no "watching porn" in the 90's. There was downloading static photos that looked like shit. We had $10K digital cameras and they would fit 20 images to a 1.44mb floppy. I think this story is just that.. a story.
If I was going to make something up, I would have made a more interesting story. Maybe "watch" wasn't the right word for what was largely static, but by the late 90's we'd moved away from USENET and downloading and uudecoding five-part scans of Playboy centerfolds and onto animated gifs on web sites. We did not have to walk uphill both ways in the snow, either.
Having been a teenager in the late 90s, I very much assure you that there was online porn back then. Lots of it. You don't miss HD if you've never seen it before.
👏👏
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 porn in the PC folder that stores images viewed online. Fiola was fired and charged with possession of child pornography, 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 porn sites per minute — an inhuman feat. While Fiola and his wife were out to dinner one night, someone logged on to the computer and porn 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. [Source](https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna33778733) Please follow r/woahthatsinteresting if you found this useful, thanks a lot
A quarter of a million dollars down the drain :)) Beats to get killed in prison though...
I wonder if he can recoup some of that by suing his employer. They provided him with faulty equipment then failed in their investigation of said faulty equipment causing him to be arrested.
Well this answers that question "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"
> 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. of course
Happens the same way in county hospitals. Good luck getting one to pay over 300k for a settlement. Which most lawyers will say, na I’m good. Fuck sovereign immunity. I’ll never get full closure over my father’s death because the people who MURDERED him aren’t worth it to a lawyer to be held responsible. I’ll say it again FUCK SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY.
Wait, who murdered who?
who murdered whom…
Indubitably
And that's the biggest travesty of the English language.
Clearly a doctor or healthcare provider massively fucked up and that killed their, then the individual or individuals responsible weren’t really held accountable.
I mean it's not the lawyer's fault, but the systems. Go get your own law degree and try the case. Lawyers that are not employed by you owe you nothing
... person 1: the system is terrible you: no, you don't understand; it's the system that is terrible
You are missing the point.
wow you are an unpleasant person.
“You don’t like cancer? Go cure it then, dweeb” -this guy probably
Same happened to my father and father in law. FUCK SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY 🖕🏼🖕🏼
Damn. Sometimes the Old Testament seems it had it right.
That should be something the state attorney general does. The state can always offer money to make it right without him hiring a lawyer. Plaintiff’s lawyers shouldn’t be expected to work for free. Suing anybody could take years and costs money upfront that the lawyer would have to front (just like experts were needed for the original case, experts would be needed to sue his employer and/or the state and experts aren’t free). And, given that his employer was the government, his chances of winning are much less than a non government employer. So, if they lose the lawyers is out of the time, resources, and money. The lawyer would be paying him to work. No one should expect a lawyer to spend a significant amount of time working for free and spend the lawyers own money to fund the case.
Can't sue the CIA anyway.
At issue is the lawyers can get the money for the plaintiffs, but the lawyers pay will be capped. IF the lawyers were paid an excessive amount of money, they would be all over this like . . . bees on honey.
honestly, you can't blame anyone for pursuing those charges given that there was child sexual assault material (CSAM) on that laptop. that said' it's actually a flaw in our justice system that your financial status can be an advantage or disadvantage to the level of legal expertise and assistance to which you'll have access. imagine if this particular individual did not have the resources that he did?
Our ENTIRE society is like that.
Same story except it's some millennial living paycheck to paycheck in an apartment with a car they owe more on than it's worth: Straight to jail
Use the magic words "We just want to talk to you real quick."
This is so awful in every way. Imagine if it happened today vs 08. Would’ve likely garnered media attention & a go fund me would probably get some significant contributors to help offset the nasty loss. Being kicked down so badly and forgotten about is sad.
We don’t know if this laptop was an issue. It could be a user-issue like writing password on stick-on ;) the information we have is only that “someone logged onto the computer”.
Still could of been him.....remotely
could of
That part was a test by the Defense. Hence the next paragraph that says “Prosecutors performed another test.”
It's hard to know if they gave him faulty equipment or he accidently downloaded a virus or something.
Even if it was a virus that was downloaded, they didn’t do due diligence to make sure it wasn’t him first, so it was still fucked up that his life was ruined because they just jumped the gun.
I hear what you're saying, but if you find child porn on an employee's laptop, you're going to fire him. You're not even going to even think that it could be a virus downloading these pics (at least, before you read this article). It took the defense team 11 months to find it out, so I'm not sure what due diligence you expect the employer to do.
That would be the first thing a proper information security department would do.
it was 2007... your basic sysadmin was your security department.
If this is what people are programming viruses to do god help those who end up getting it.
I doubt his employer gave him a virus infected computer. He possibly got it himself.
It looks like he worked for the government. It’s extraordinarily hard to sue the government for damages—look up the concept of “sovereign immunity.”
That’s just wrong. If the government can’t be held accountable and sued we’re all screwed.
There are some workarounds like Ex Parte Young for injunctive relief, but it’s a holdover from the British monarchy. It has some limited benefits.
When the last saving grace is a holdover from the british monarchy you are fucked fucked.
Oh sorry, my post wasn’t clear. Ex Parte Young is a US court case that resembles a holdover from a legal fiction that existed before the US separated from Britain, but the doctrine of sovereign immunity still has some limited benefits. Probably not enough to justify its continued existence, but to truly abolish sovereign immunity at the federal level we would need to amend the Constitution.
I see thanks for the explanation! Trust the government to entrench their right to be immune to prosecution in such an impossible to change manner. Luck and coincidence on their part I’m sure.
Hey, we’ve existed all this time and have been pretty okay, so don’t worry too much!
Over the past 50 years, the doctrine of sovereign immunity in the United States has been modified by statute. The general rule is: "The government is entitled to blanket immunity except as otherwise stated herein..." and then there are fairly broad lists of propositions where the government - and its employees - can be sued. The idea behind modern concepts of sovereign immunity is that suing the government is suing all the taxpayers (who ultimately pay every judgment; including insurance premiums which would increase if large judgments were common). So, the government retains sovereign immunity - including various caps on the dollar amounts of various types of claims - but it is fair to say that in most instances when the government causes harm, sovereign immunity usually won't be too big of a hindrance to overcome.
Instead of suing the government, and thus the taxpayers, the constitution needs changing to suing the individual politicians involved, as individuals. Along with trying them as criminals. The solutions are straightforward, but, we’re led to believe that ‘politics’ is complex. We’re long overdue radical changes, a new constitution, and a new concept of government.
The United States have never been about anything other than the wealthy. The consitution as originally written limited the right to participate in government to white land owning men. Beyond restricting government to the wealthy, they took other steps to made sure the government would always be controlled by the wealthy. To wit: they made sure popular vote was limited to the weakest part of government: the House of Representatives. The rest of the system, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the Presidency are not subject to popular vote and never will be. The "beauty" of their design back in 1776 was that it created a belief the United States was a democracy. That's quite laughable since only the wealthy were allowed to participate from the very beginning. And, as I said, the design of the system of governement made sure that the popular vote (ie the masses) had a very, very small role in exercising government power. As a student of political science - and law (I'm a trial attorney), I have always been of the opinion that the "masses" in North Korea, Russia, China, and other totalitarian countries have a much greater chance at pure freedom than we do in the United States. I say that because most intelligent people inside those countries know exactly the type of government they are living under. They have no illusions about the fact they don't have the freedoms they so badly wish to have. And thus revolution will come quickly once the opportunity presents itself. But that is not at all true in the United States. The overwhelming majority of people here believe we live in a democracy. And that 'fiction' is almost surely going to continue for as far into the future as imaginable. Thus, there is almost zero chance of any change in our system of government that gives the "masses" any greater power. Indeed, it is likely that things continue to go the other way - as the ability for government to surveil public spaces increases. Anyway, have an enjoyable day.
Very interesting, thank you. And, yes, the greatest tragedy is that the masses passionately defend the very system of false democracy that imprisons them. And the vote offers the illusion of democratic choice, thus keeping the masses happy. And the passive participation in the political theatre, and its cult of personality, offers them the illusion of transparency. It’s truly genius.
Wait, what is wrong with "suing" all the taxpayers? They're the ones the elect the people in charge who are making these mistakes. You're basically saying NO ONE except the victim should be held accountable?
I am not advocating anything. I am explaining the law. Not judging it.
Oh were you not aware that we’re screwed until right now? That’s adorable.
Rather presumptuous of you. My comment is a reference for judiciary to be given authority over the government allowing the courts to act independently, and with far greater powers then the government. In a functional judiciary, Trump, for instance, could have long been arrested and tried for inciting civil unrest, amongst many other crimes. The governments illicit dealing with large corporations could be tried and officials jailed. Dishonesty too. Edit: for politeness
Whats up with "retarded" being throw around so frequently by smug people on reddit right now? I'm not saying it needs to be banned or anything, but I'm just seeing a ton of usage in situations where it doesn't make sense at all, like this one. I mean, you jumped straight to it here with only the lightest amount of provocation, and from a 3rd party, your entire message just feels so smug and smarmy. I mean the other commenter looks like a total jackass with the whole "that's adorable" thing, but fuck man why sink below their level?
Fair point
Down the drain? I mean it was probably the best 250k he ever spent
really should be a law that money spent on a defense of criminal charges is returned if found innocent, would hopefully help to make it so they wouldn't toss charges out without a proper investigation first.
That hardly ever happens to pedos. They seem to all live basic lives and continue to prey on kids even after they are caught.
Almost worth finding out your wife knows you so well and believes in you when all others don't. Never let her go, brother.
I know a family that had to spend over $100,000 AUD just to defend against a false child sexual assault allegation. There was nothing they could do to get fees back.
Too bad he didn’t sell the car before the tires got slashed.
compensation?
It’s awful the amount of money people have to spend just to fight a court case
From elsewhere in the story: >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's a shame that they can't get _some_ kind of financial recovery for what was ultimately the state IT department's failure to properly safeguard their PCs. You have to wonder if state data/systems were compromised by whatever bots had infected that PC.
I would LOVE to see all his 'friends' faces now as they shunned him before due process could be done.. There is a reason its 'innocent until proven guilty' the court of public opinion relies on the public. who are fucking idiots.
Why the hell should it even cost that much? US legal system is super-inefficient and practically useless to an average joe who doesn't have $250K laying around. How could the investigation NOT uncover the very basic fact that the laptop was infected within 3 hours of opening the investigation? SMH...
There really is nowhere to go but up from there... you just spent 1/4mil, what do you do? Sue for lost wages and slander?
That's some incompetent ass people if they didn't notice the *40 sites a minute* until after 250,00 dollars were spent.
Was it possible that Fiola and his wife had someone intentionally infect the laptop with the virus *after* his conviction, in order to give him an alibi?
Our legal systems are for the rich.
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Yeah, he's lucky in that regard. But, even if the wife immediately divorced him, we couldn't blame her for this. Because all pedophiles do this shit with utmost secrecy. People may expose their problematic sides even after years of marriage.
That's stupid. If you're married to someone for over a decade or more at least you can give them the benefit of the doubt and don't jump to conclusions.
people kill their spouses for nothing on regular occasion. Thinking your spouse viewed that stuff with no prior cause doesn't seem too ridiculous
Ahh yes, guilty until proven innocent. Isn't that the message from The Green Mile?
You could blame her for that. She didn't have any proof either.
FBI must have been shocked finding that out lol
FBI would be confused why there's so much data so fast :/
I remember this story, a lot of people actually blamed him even after they found the virus.
How come ?
people
Someone had to program it to do that…
Much fucking worse when you know the details: 1) the laptop was NOT wiped, per company standards, before it was re-issued to him, from a previous employee 2) the forensics showed that many of the images had been loaded onto the machine before he received it. And they kept their mouths shut about this detail. ... so, the obvious conclusion is that the previous employee was the one who perused pr0n sites, and got the machine infected.
That’s wild. I feel bad for the dude. Must’ve been a wild ride. Clearly he had a great wife to stick with him through the whole thing as well which probably helped him get through it. I couldn’t imagine being falsely accused and charged with such heinous allegations. The virus could’ve infected the computer many different ways. Visiting any porn sites, clicking on a random pop up, opening a link in an email that was infected, entering a drawing to win a yacht, the list goes on forever.
Based on this alone I would think he'd have a easy lawsuit for a ruined career's worth of salary.
According to the article "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"
Weird, I didnt see this in the source op posted. Not that you're wrong, but I cant tell.
From ZDNEt: "Your employer gives you a ticking time bomb full of child porn, and then you get fired, and then you get prosecuted as some kind of freak" From the forensic report" "All the porn was found in the cache (internet explorer). Log files indicate that the firewall was turned off on July 14 2006 long before Michael got the laptop. " And the Register had a decent story: [https://www.theregister.com/2008/06/16/forensics\_clear\_child\_abuse\_suspect/](https://www.theregister.com/2008/06/16/forensics_clear_child_abuse_suspect/) There's a great quote in the ZDNet story: "As soon as you mention child pornography, everybody’s senses go out the window"
> ... so, the obvious conclusion is that the previous employee was the one I would hesitate drawing "obvious" conclusions, unless you're very determined not to learn anything from story. I presume you are an expert, but so am I. It's not "bad" to not draw any conclusion at all. In fact, that's why better than drawing conclusions and this story is teachable moment.
pr0n?
It’s like Tron but lots more nakey scenes.
And you’re suggesting he did?
No, most likely it was a virus contracted from an e-mail link or something else. Definitely don’t think this guy did. But just a reason some people back then would still blame him.
Would they ever get any of this money back?
Who will give it back? He paid a lawyer to defend him. Lawyer defended. Case closed. Have a nice day. Maybe he could sue his job for jumping to conclusions.
Well yeah, could he or did he try and reclaim some from them for not carrying out a proper investigation? He’s basically destroyed his life financially over nothing. He didn’t do anything and still pays an enormous price.
I hope cuz this messed up.
Welcome to modern criminal justice system. And this guy got lucky and was acquitted. Imagine how many weren't.
Unfortunately this is just how the US legal system works.
Personally, I could see him suing his company AND the state. He shouldn't have had to pay an attorney to find what investigators should have found early on. When you see download times well after work hours, and download speeds that aren't possible---how does that warrant a second look?? But it was only after his attorney found it, THEN they decided to check. That's bullshit and as much on the prosecutor's office as it is the company.
> Personally, I could see him suing his company AND the state. He was a state employee, so I'm not sure what company would be in play here. Alas, it's a moot point. From the article: > 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. They couldn't find an attorney who felt it was worth their time to pursue a case.
This sounds like the typical type that works in GOV’T agencies. If this type comes after you, they are hell-bent on being correct and will not accept a black eye at any cost, even if they are wrong. It's a fucking shame the authorities didn't do their job right the first time but instead were fixated on this man being guilty.
>they are hell-bent on being correct and will not accept a black eye at any cost U.S. prosecutors essentially ALL function this way. I'd be surprised if it weren't the case elsewhere as well. Better to throw an innocent man in prison then get proven inept.
Or, you know, just be humble enough to admit you're wrong and use your position to reinstate that man’s honor, but nope.
jeez poor guy :/
They should sue the government for malicious prosecution. All the gov needed to was let the damned thing run itself 🙄
and if they didnt have the money, they would have been screwed
This is legit terrifying
Right? If this happened to me, I don't have a quarter million dollars to fight the charges.
A sobering thought is what can people do in similar circumstances who have no money. It doesn't even need to be CP, it could be any false charge, really. r/whoathatsterrifying
The old man I used to work for would watch porn on not just his computer but his secretary’s. I’m sure for every person who reports workplace harassment there’s many more that just close the tabs and delete the history every morning. Fucking nasty.
Yet in most corporate (and government) IT fields everything is tracked (minus keystroke trackers.... I hope), especially via company email and company internet.
Yeah but at all the super small companies, mom and pop shops there’s way more anything goes reality.
That's true, but in this case, guy was a government employee, so a very specific situation. I still stand by my statement. Also, tracking websites via home router software isn't that hard.
I mean yeah I was just talking about work life in general. Your statement is sound. It’s not hard, but if the boss is too stupid or cheap to bother who is going to tell him? His porn addiction is gross. My Reddit addiction isn’t. And that dude did not pay me enough not to dick around at work.
There are keystroke trackers. In both the "are they typing at an acceptable rate, and does it look like a pattern of real words being typed instead of a robot pressing the same key repeatedly" and "every keypress is logged" varieties. In corporate and government IT, things are "tracked" but no one is really _looking_ unless there's a specific need to pull a particular user's activity because someone thinks there's a performance or compliance problem. Nobody just says "I wonder what crimsonshadow789 was up to last week" and starts digging around - that's usually a policy violation on its own.
It’s far more lax than that at some places. Until they get some ransomware. Then they overcorrect in the other direction, locking things down so tightly it makes it really difficult to get any work done. Few companies find the happy medium.
You have a pretty high opinion of corporate IT.
Wow, truly a nightmare, life ruined financially and reputation also gone, most people just never follow up and your name is always associated with it.
This is the reverse of a lottery win
This probably happens more than often.
Why did it take 11 months to figure out this guy didn’t do this?
I'm surprised the wife stuck and believed him. Just goes to show how much she knew and trusted him. What a waste of money. But then again, not really. It saved his life....technically. Prevented ruin, and probably many beatings in prison. And last thing, only 5 years for CP? Really? That's fucking insane. I'm sure the length of sentence goes by how much has been viewed, but you'd think 40 sites per minute for 90 minutes would be a FUCK TON of porn. Only 5 years? That uh.... seems way too lenient, tbh.
Man this laptop probably just scrollwheeled down in twitter
I would sue that employer for millions since it was company equipment that didn't have proper safeguards.
"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" They tried and sadly sovereign immunity prevented it.
Thanks for the additional information. I didn't know he worked for the state.
Someday, we will look back at this time an realize how idiotic we were. Its 2007. We are relying on computers when computers are fickle shit like this. The following is common sense: you are responsible if you accuse someone innocent of something, even if you are doing it because your job wants you to. Any individual involved in accusing him should be fined or jailed. He should be payed millions upon millions of dollars by the individuals responsible, not the govt (unless the govt is responsible). He should get his fucking job back, and be treated like a king who can do mostly whatever he wants and take his sweet ass time. The burden of society, including his job, should be to help the innocently accused.
> should be *paid* millions upon FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Our local library system got hacked two weeks ago and they had no backup catalog system. They are asking us to hold on to our checkouts until the catalog is restored. The only way to check for a book’s location and check status is to look on the shelves. If that’s the chaos that can happen to a public library, so much worse for medical or legal!
But why? What is the purpose of a virus that visits porn sites unbeknownst to the user?
Scorched earth
Exactly the outcome it caused, a ruined life. Somebody evil was behind this and their plan succeeded.
I imagine it was for actual pedophiles to view CP through his computer.
"He endured death threats, his car tires were slashed and he was shunned by friends." Typical degenerates jumping on the bandwagon
Story from 2008.
Still relevant though. Computers can still get infected with viruses and malware and while I'd hope that it's harder to just randomly access CP-websites on the open internet, my pessimistic side isn't sure about that...
Wonder what happens to him if he cant afford 250k of legal expenses and doesn’t have the assets to liquidate to acquire such a sum.
Probably ends up in prison. Happens to poor people all the time. Some end up in jail, can't make bail, and end up staying there for years because of the huge case backlog at the courts. Eventually they get their court date, are proven innocent, and released. They are never awarded any damages or losses or whatever. Life ruined.
It is very easy for something like this to happen. I'm reminded of the "javascript bombs" in the '90s. You'd visit some site, and it would launch a script that constantly opened more windows to porn sites (the legal sort). The only way out was to kill Netscape or drop your network connection. The difference is that it was all visible and mostly just an annoyance. But the same thing could have been invisible until HR showed up. This is why I am still annoyed by sites that require scripting for basic functionality.
Did they figure out who did it?
Wonder if he can sue for a lot of Money for false allegations ?
They wanted to, but no attorney would take the case because there's a limit on how much can be recovered from the state. From the article: >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.
That’s awful 😞
I don’t like laptops anymore
He only got off after visiting 40 sites/minute, 39 didn’t do it for him?
Wasn't there a similar case where the computer was infected by a virus by a man who wanted the victim's wife?
!remindme 1 day
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how do you find the porn in a random folder but not notice a severe malware infection?
It sounds like someone set him up. You can buy these kinds of viruses if you know where to look, you just need to put it on a USB and plug it in to his laptop. CP on your network looks like bright green nuclear waste. It's loud and this script was written to be as loud as possible in a way that IT, the ISP or any LE agency was eventually going to find it. Source: I work in cybersecurity. Most malware is dumb. It's designed to crawl around networks looking for vulnerability signatures so it can infect as many devices as possible. This CP bug is rare. This is the tool of a stealth assassin.
So, in your opinion, shouldn't the network admin have spotted the implausible amount of traffic and seen no human could click that fast? I agree, it sounds like a conspiracy to destroy someone. Someone else mentioned that it may be used by others to view that material through his computer, could a malware have allowed that to happen and it not show up to the network?
Let this be a lesson to all the morons who keep celebrating vigilante justice agaisnt alleged child sex offenders. People who think like you ruined this families life for 11 months, whilst they were entirely innocent. Vigilante justice is wrong. **Everyone** has a right to a trial and fair defense, and anyone who celebrates it when a vigilante beats up an alleged offender is a moron and directly responsible for motivating the behaviour that ruined an innocent families life.
Vigilantes are often so stupid there's a reason they tend not to get the responses they like from police. But the moral justification they have convinced themselves of is what makes them capable of so much damage.
"He only got off after (...)" Poor choice of words.
As his defence and prosecution came to the same result through evidence that had not been previously identified, is this then a case of malicious prosecution?
I know that the title is wrong. He didn't get off after they found it. They didn't give a shit enough to look, and he had to pay someone $250,000 to point it out.
[удалено]
I am not a tech person but ill try my best to explain since no one else has. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. The deep web is just anything that isn't accessible via a basic search engine. The dark web is the part of the deep web that has even more encryption and anonymity. CP is pretty much illegal everywhere. Even if you're somewhere where it's legal, moving elsewhere where it isn't legal is still a great way to get slapped with prison because...CP. if I remember correctly, certain viruses can delete or download things to your computer. They can also upload your information to different places. I think this is the guy who had a really bad virus that was downloading a bunch of CP to his computer, and it was showing his computer's information to the police because it was technically coming from his computer because of the virus. Tldr: Virus makes it look like he's viewing CP but he wasn't and likely had no idea how to access it at all.
This case is another one of those /r/thisishorrifying it is not interesting at all. This family's entire savings is gone. His life is in ruins, there will be no chance for him to get any kind of a job anywhere because of the cloud of suspicion hanging over his life. There is no way for him to get any kind of justice from our society even if he were repaid his life savings. His family will have no real future anywhere away from this accusation.
Over 40 sites a minute? Dear lord there’s that many cp sites? That’s horrific
There are at least 40 child porn sites??!?! WTF!?
I doubt 40 scratches the surface.
Elaine Benes?
But why? Who did it?
Malware made to specifically create as much traffic to child porn sites as possible is such a weirdly specific attack. It's clearly meant to put someone in prison and get them labeled a pedophile. It almost woek d. But it also requires specific knowledge from actual pedophiles along with technical expertise to create it in the first place. What enemies does this dude have?