Computer Virus Leads to Child Pornography Charges

By Charlie Brett
15:35, June 18th 2008
61 votes
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Computer Virus Leads to Child Pornography Charges

Technology, although, most of the time is better, it is not perfect. Even more, sometimes, it can be destructive. From sophisticated nuclear weapons to a common laptop, this new technology can provoke disasters, whether is implies thousands of people or just one.

In the last situation is Michael Fiola who was accused of child pornography. Fiola, a former investigator at the Department of Industrial Accidents in Massachusetts had his old laptop stolen and his employers replaced it with a new one. Little did he know that this would lead to a chain reaction. After his bosses fired Fiola without allowing him to say anything in his defense, the state charged him in August 2007. Moreover, his friends didn’t believe he was innocent, either.

Even though he tried to fight the criminal charges, no one believed him. He stated many times that he didn’t download those child pornography images but prosecutors were convinced he was guilty.

According to PC World, last week Fiola was vindicated of child pornography charges as the forensic investigators proved he was innocent. The problem was with the laptop which had been poorly configured and the antivirus didn’t protect the computer. The Microsoft SMS (Systems Management Server) software was supposed to keep his laptop up to date but it didn’t work.

TG Daily reported that Tami Loehrs, a computer forensic investigator who was hired by the defense, said that a computer virus scanned about 40 sites a minute and downloaded thousands of images, adding that “the child pornography was just a very small portion of it” and “the majority was just bizarre porn.” She said that the computer “was being hit with everything.”

With the horrible event, Fiola, who is now an insurance salesman in North Scituate, Rhode Island, has become a spokesman for those people who went through similar situations. He said that the last 18 months were the worst of his life.

“I'm 53 years old and I don't think I've cried as much in my whole life as I did in the past 18 months,” said Fiola in an interview he gave to the IDG News Service.



© 2007 - 2008 - eFluxMedia
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