State worker cleared on child porn charges that were due to malware
A fired Massachusetts state worker has been exonerated of a charge of possessing child pornography after computer forensics showed that his work laptop was infected with malicious software that was surreptitiously visiting illegal Web sites.
Michael Fiola, 53, was fired as a worker's comp fraud investigator with the Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents in March 2007 after IT administrators found cached images of child porn in the temporary Internet files in his browser, according to the Dark Reading security news site.
Fiola, described as being "computer illiterate," hired a forensics expert who found the evidence that was used to convince the court to drop the case last week. He remains unemployed and plans to sue the agency over his firing.
"Our lives have been hell," Fiola, a former state park ranger now living in Rhode Island told the Boston Herald. "I hope to recover my reputation, but our friends all ran."
His laptop initially attracted attention because its wireless usage was four times higher than that of his co-workers. But because the IT department hadn't properly configured the agency laptop and antivirus software wasn't working on the machine, it was riddled with Trojans and viruses, in addition to the malicious software that was bringing up the porn sites.
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor. 
I never said they don't need protection, I said they don't need AV software. Nice attempt at a strawman. I wouldn't expect this level of idiocy from you, your comments are exactly what vegetablehead, future guy, jean and suyts would blather about.
Again no one said that linux and OSX are 100% secure, you are this stupid to believe I did.
The issue is responsibility of the employer who failed in their required dilligence and as a result, create a victim out of someone they should have protected, educated, and respected.
A lesson to users not to be so trusting, especially of the "experts" who set them up...litterally! But as for the rest of his life, he may never regain the trust and respect of those who gave value to his life...his friends. That's a little more important than a petty, childish attitude about an operating system. It's not about a platform, and it's not about data...it's about something more important.
Anyway, no OS presently out there will keep a determined idiot at the keyboard from malware. Some OSs do better than others at this but they all have security holes. That being said, it is a whole lot easier to secure OS X, BSD and Linux than it is to secure Windows. Your odds of getting infected with malware with a default setup are much higher with Windows.
I do monitor my systems for any unusual activity because the only secure system is one that is locked in a vault and has no power applied. Even with those precautions someone will eventually figure out a way to access it. :-)
Only those functions need admin privileges that perform privileged actions. Normal user software doesn't need that. I know Windows in and out. Can you cite an example of something that unnecessarily need elevated privileges?
And, by the way, limited used account is no worse that non-root account in Unix. Is you think otherwise, feel free to tell.
The fact is, the DEFAULT config in Windows is to download and install updates automatically AND to turn on the firewall. So, if I leave this brand new Vista box I'm building all alone for a few minutes, it'll get all of the updates, install them, and reboot.
Oh, the Server 2008 machine I'm running at home is my DMZ box, running with with no AV...guess what? All that internet traffic is pouring in, and it's virus and malware-free. Did I mention it's running in the default config? Firewall...Auto-updates...You know, things that a good sys admin utilizes. The defaults.
Now, please stop spewing garbage until you know what you're talking about.
You're headed to a tropical climate where you'll have a chance to say hi to Hitler!
'OSX is 100% secure so it is as vulnerable as windows and therefore needs AV'
"No one has ever put a default Windows install on the INTERNET that got exploited"
"The only time Windows gets exploited is when the user does something stupid,."
It would be funny if it wasn't for the fact that this fan boys truly believe it.
I guess you were right about mac's not being able to be exploited. Sure if you put a PC on the internet with no updates it will be exploited, thats what updates are for and Apple has em too, same with *nix .
It is fairly easy to use other computers for illegal activities if they are not protected with properly configured firewalls. It doesn't even take a lot of computer savvy.
This is about someone being terminated by an employer before there was a competent investigation into wrongdoing according to a court. Then there is the issue of the long term consequences of the unjustified termination which has yet to be decided.
It appears he wasn't just fired. You don't end up in court charged with something when you're fired. The company must have turn over their suspicions to a prosecutor.
- by Pause2Reflect June 17, 2008 10:07 PM PDT
- Here's what will change as a result of this sad story: zip. Also, zilch, squat, and nada.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (53 Comments)Prosecutors adore child porn cases. They enrage the public (justifiably) and appeal to the prurient subconscious, bringing more attention than any other type of case to the prosecutor -- along with a nice "child protecting hero" veneer. Add to this, over the past twenty years (and especially since 9/11) Americans have been tripping over each other in a non-race to see who can be more complacent about the disintegration of civil rights. The drivers for prosecution continue to firmly favor "shoot first, act questions later (or never)."
Maybe you're next. But of course, odds are you won't be, so don't worry about it.