Teacher Spyware Case - a Good Reason to Have Linux in Schools...

[aysiu]

I couldn't believe this news story--a substitute teacher could face 40 years in prison because she unknowingly downloaded spyware that had uncontrollable porn pop-ups onto a Windows 98 computer?

Porn-surfing teacher: Spyware made me do it! (http://computerworld.com/blogs/node/4346)
Column: Teacher in porn case victim of own ignorance (http://www.norwichbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070120/OPINION/701200303/1014)

[youthforlinux]

This is unbelievable

(it just shows the evils of windows)

[Garyu]

Is it wrong of me to laugh about this? Come on, it has to be a joke, right? Though there are newspaper articles about it that seem quite real. Hmm. 40 years in prison for showing naked pictures of people? How much for streaking across a school yard? Or "doing it" in a van on the parking lot with windows open? If this story is really true, then it is fascinating in a lot of ways.

[aysiu]

40 years in prison for showing naked pictures of people? That's already ridiculous, but it's also clear that this teacher wasn't even intentionally showing the porn to the children or even knew what was going on.

[mushroom]

This doesn't make a case for Linux as much as it makes a case for eliminating excessively long sentences. Fourty years for showing porn to minors is already ridiculous, but it's twice as stupid when it isn't even your fault.

[FuturePilot]

Very interesting. IE5!+no anti-virus:o

[jamyskis]

Who's the clever sod running the school network who saw fit to continue running Win98 in a school environment? There's little excuse for running Windows, there's absolutely no excuse for running Win98.

[urukrama]

Wow. Very different reports indeed! Thanks for the links aysiu

[agurk]

Hehe, the justice system in that there country on the north American continent, always good for a laugh. Keep it up you fellow taxpaying citizens, thanks!

[bastiegast]

Hehe, the justice system in that there country on the north American continent, always good for a laugh. Keep it up you fellow taxpaying citizens, thanks!

I don't consider 40 years prison for literally nothing good for a laugh.

[Polygon]

if the judge has any intellegence at all, this person will get off. Its not that hard to explain that it was the tech's fault for not resubscribing for the anti-spyware subscription, and its also not her fault that spyware automatically gets downloaded onto the computer when you surf the internet.

[agurk]

I don't consider 40 years prison for literally nothing good for a laugh.

I obviously need to work on my sarcasm.

[creigscofield]

if the judge has any intellegence at all

Therein lies the problem. It is a sad fact that in this country the people who are in charge are, as a rule, completely computer illiterate. There is no doubt that she should be acquitted (and receive a formal apology from the court, prosecution, and school district) however I doubt that any of the above will take place. Perhaps I'm just pessimistic, and I sincerely hope that to be the case.

[Erunno]

Well, a couple of life sentences and maybe one or two lethal injection to boot might help Linux spread on the PC desktop faster than 10 years of Ubuntu development. The warning that it is dangerous to use Windows would get a whole new dimension.

[Polygon]

lawyers arnt stupid... they would do research on this kind of stuff, find that it gets on your comp without any user interaction besides the insecurity of windows and they have basically just won the case right there. I am sure she will get off.

[agurk]

Ironically, or perhaps perfectly fitting this surreal story, the voice of reason seems to be coming from the president of the Scientology encumbered Sunbelt Software. Who woulda thunk it?

[Polygon]

she must of converted to Scientology or something.... lol

anyway, got a link about that Scientology bit? id like to read more about it (as in why they are helping her..?)

[mips]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/14/julie_amero_case/

Nice 7 page writeup on the issue.

[aysiu]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/14/julie_amero_case/

Nice 7 page writeup on the issue.
Thanks for the link.

I do have one beef to pick, though:
Now one can reasonably ask why Julie was checking email, or for that matter surfing the web while she was supposed to be teaching. In fact, she spent most of the day logged on to the internet – not just logged on, but actively surfing. And why were her students allowed to be surfing internet websites about hair styles? In fact, Julie Amero had been reprimanded for not paying enough attention to the students and instead just web browsing while in class. Having both taught and substitute "taught" English (also known as Language Arts, as described in the article) in Connecticut public schools (not Norwich, but I'm sure the experience is similar), I can attest to an English class being totally thrown away if the teacher is out.

Is the substitute teacher going to really teach English while the real teacher is gone? She has no idea what they have or have not covered. More importantly, the real teacher has no idea the quality of the substitute teacher and would likely end up teaching the material all over again. In Connecticut (as probably with most other states), all you need to do in order to sub is have a bachelor's degree... in anything. You could be subbing for any subject, not necessarily your area of expertise. You don't have to have any teacher training, experience, or certification. They just fingerprint you to make sure you're not a criminal.

When there are substitute "teachers" in public schools, they are often just babysitters. Their job is to hand out a busy-work assignment or to just make sure the kids don't leave the room (except for bathroom breaks) or poke each other's eyes out. I subbed for only a short time, but I subbed for a variety of subjects (Spanish, French, chemistry, history, English, etc.). Most of the time, the students watched a movie, wrote an in-class "essay," did a crossword puzzle, "worked" in small groups in preparation for when the real teacher came back, or just had study hall.

When I later taught in private school, we had lighter teaching loads and could cover for each other (rarely did we need a substitute "teacher" from outside), and when we couldn't, we would give the students a free period after they checked in. No need for babysitting.

I see nothing wrong with her checking her email. If I'd had computer access in the rooms I substitute "taught" in, I would have checked my email, too.

[Kernel Sanders]

There is far more to this story than meets the eye.

Firstly the 40 year potential sentence is the MAXIMUM. Its because there were 40 kids in the class, and hence 40 cases of showing porn to minors, each carrying a 1 year sentence. If she's convicted all that will be taken into account, and she wont get anything like 40 years.

Secondly, her story doesnt add up. The "spyware defence" is just a poor excuse, and its likely that it didnt happen as she claims it did. The jury and the judge arnt stupid you know. Read the facts of the case and its clear that the "spyware excuse" is a blatent lie.

[aysiu]

I'm sorry... her story doesn't add up?

What do you think really happened? She went in to substitute teach that day and thought to herself, "Bwah ha ha! I think I'll corrupt some young minds today... 40 young minds"?

[mips]

Is the substitute teacher going to really teach English while the real teacher is gone? She has no idea what they have or have not covered. More importantly, the real teacher has no idea the quality of the substitute teacher and would likely end up teaching the material all over again. In Connecticut (as probably with most other states), all you need to do in order to sub is have a bachelor's degree... in anything.

So what is the point of having a sub then ? Do you guys not work according to a set syllabus. This way you work 'through' the syllabus breaking it up into classes in order to ensure you get through all the work for the given time period of the subject.

Over here if we had a sub for whatever subject they just carried on where the other teacher left off. No problem.

If the sub is not going to teach the students then they might as well be given time off to do whatever they want.

Coming back to the trial & sentence though I find it sad that something like this actually happened. And I can quite easily believe her story as this has happened to myself. No children were exposed though. I once went searching for technical data on streaming video for work and clicked on one site, next think you know up pops a site called pink tv and the pop ups just keep coming. This was despite the fact that a good corporate firewall, proxy servers & content filters were in place. I just fire a mail of to my boss explaining to him what happened and he told me to archive the mail I sent him if something did come of it. I then fire the same mail of to the security people and they basically said no problem, ocassionally it happens even with all the security in place.

[mips]

I'm sorry... her story doesn't add up?

What do you think really happened? She went in to substitute teach that day and thought to herself, "Bwah ha ha! I think I'll corrupt some young minds today... 40 young minds"?

I have to agree. I cannot see a teacher sitting in a class surfing porn in full view of the kids. And the logs only recorded the one porn site.

Geez, she could even have clicked on an innocent link and that could have happened. Sure it has happened to many people before.

[aysiu]

Over here if we had a sub for whatever subject they just carried on where the other teacher left off. No problem.

If the sub is not going to teach the students then they might as well be given time off to do whatever they want. Don't even get me started on the public school system in America.

A lot of teachers like me end up leaving because of how poorly run the whole system is. You come in with all these ideals that you're going to shake up the schools, inspire kids to learn, and all that... you then end up spending 90% of your energy policing kids and babysitting them, filling out useless paperwork... and then you spend about 10% actually teaching them.

Public schools (with few exceptions in some more affluent communities) are very strict about knowing exactly where all students are at all times and making sure they all have adult supervision. It's like a police state.

That's why I was laughed at when I first transitioned from teaching public school to teaching private school. The kids didn't understand why I was logging what time they left for the bathroom and then logging when they came back. In public school, you have to do that... and usually give a bathroom pass as well.

In fact, I remember in one school I taught in, I tried to create a generic bathroom pass so as not to take up precious class time filling out the official bathroom passes, and then the hall monitors rejected my passes. So I had to spend precious class time handing a pass to a student, having her fill it out, checking she filled it out correctly, then signing it. Then I made to make a mental or physical note to myself about when she left so that if she didn't come back in five minutes, I'd be able to reprimand her and possibly give a detention. If you didn't do that, people would be leaving for the "bathroom" for thirty or forty minutes at a time.

It's crazy...

[mips]

It's crazy...

I can understand why you left.

When I was in school teachers left because of money. Some were highly educated B.SC or higher in math etc + additional teachers bridging diploma in order to teach. For them it was a calling but at the end of the day they had families to feed 7 bills to pay. I had a math teacher in high school and he was a brilliant teacher and well respected among his students. the grades in his class were always of a good quality irrespective of whether he set the paper or another teacher or the final year national paper everyone in the province writes. Sadly he left 2yrs before I finished school and my next teacher was nothing like was unfortunately.

It's people like this we really need in education.

As for students being watched that was not really an issue. If for example a teacher got sick and had to leave there was not much that could be organised for that class so we usually ended up in the library, joined the PT class if we had our kit with us or were allowed to go onto the school grounds into one of the many open areas used during breaks without supervision and I don't ever recall any incidents. You were not allowed to leave the school grounds though but if you lived in the area you could walk home during school breaks for lunch. most of us were bussed in though and had no such opportunity unless we went with someone that lived there. But even those that did have the opportunity preferred to stay at school.

[Adamant1988]

I read about that. the pop-ups were moderately bad, nothing those kids won't see at home on their parents spyware infected computers. But 40 years in prison for that, rediculous.

[shining]

That reminds me of this story mips posted a while ago:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=351649

[aysiu]

In case anyone's interested, the full transcript of the trial is now available online.

Here's an article that dissects parts of the transcript:
Case against Julie Amero needs to be deleted (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2007-03-16-julie-amero-update_N.htm)

[OrangeCrate]

There's been a lot of coverage of this on security forums, with many links to newspaper articles and blogs from around the world. Many security experts have volunteered their services to help this poor lady on appeal. A truly dumb, sad state of affairs. Hope it all works out, and she gets the satisfaction of winning a very large civil suit against the school board.

[daynah]

Who's the clever sod running the school network who saw fit to continue running Win98 in a school environment? There's little excuse for running Windows, there's absolutely no excuse for running Win98.

They're running win98 because they are believers in the Windows myth, and they don't have the money to upgrade to a better version of windows.

When I was in school (and I'm not old, I just graduated last year) my geography textbooks still said there was a Czechloslavakia (did I spell that right?). I think they seperated in 93? I graduated in 06? Somewhere in there my textbook should have been upgraded.

Get money to your public schools, please, it's something our nation was actually founded on, indisputibly. If you don't like how they're run, please fight to fix it. Having a voice to fix things is another thing our nation was founded on.

---

In the article they keep saying, "Why was she even on the internet?" over and over again... and I keep thinking, "Substitute teachers never do squat, she's doing what every other substitute teacher does. Sit on their butt."

And then I realized that no adult that isn't also involved in the public school system realizes this. No sub ever teaches, unless they're like a month long sub.