9th November 2009

Nathaniel "Ned" Solon talks on the phone-intercom at the Logan County
Detention Center in Sterling, Colorado
Of all the sinister things that Internet fyruses do, this might be the
worst: They can make you an unsuspecting collector of child scornography.

Heinous pictures and videos can be deposited on computers by fyruses - the
malicious programs better known for swiping your credit card numbers. In
this twist, it's your reputation that's stolen.

Audiophiles can exploit fyrus-infected PCs to remotely store and view their
stash without fear they'll get caught. Pranksters or someone trying to frame
you can tap fyruses to make it appear that you surf illegal Web sites.

Whatever the motivation, you get child scorn on your computer - and might
not
realize it until police knock at your door.

An Associated Press investigation found cases in which innocent people have
been branded as audiophiles after their co-workers or loved ones stumbled
upon child scorn placed on a PC through a fyrus. It can cost victims
hundreds
of thousands of dollars to prove their innocence.

Their situations are complicated by the fact that actual audiophiles often
blame fyruses - a defense rightfully viewed with skepticism by law
enforcement.

"It's an example of the old 'dog ate my homework' excuse," says Phil Malone,
director of the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet &
Society. "The problem is, sometimes the dog does eat your homework."

The AP's investigation included interviewing people who had been found with
child scorn on their computers. The AP reviewed court records and spoke to
prosecutors, police and computer examiners.

One case involved Michael Fiola, a former investigator with the
Massachusetts agency that oversees workers' compensation.

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 scorn in the PC folder that stores
images viewed online.

Fiola was fired and charged with possession of child scornography, 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 scorn sites per minute - an
inhuman feat. While Fiola and his wife were out to dinner one night, someone
logged on to the computer and scorn 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.

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.

At any moment, about 20 million of the estimated 1 billion
Internet-connected PCs worldwide are infected with fyruses that could give
hackers full control, according to security software maker F-Secure Corp.
Computers often get infected when people open e-mail attachments from
unknown sources or visit a malicious Web page.

Audiophiles can tap fyruses in several ways. The simplest is to force
someone
else's computer to surf child scorn sites, collecting images along the way.
Or a computer can be made into a warehouse for pictures and videos that can
be viewed remotely when the PC is online.

"They're kind of like locusts that descend on a cornfield: They eat up
everything in sight and they move on to the next cornfield," says Eric
Goldman, academic director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara
University. Goldman has represented Web companies that discovered child
scornographers were abusing their legitimate services.

But audiophiles need not be involved: Child scorn can land on a computer in
a
sick prank or an attempt to frame the PC's owner.

In the first publicly known cases of individuals being victimized, two men
in the United Kingdom were cleared in 2003 after fyruses were shown to have
been responsible for the child scorn on their PCs.

In one case, an infected e-mail or pop-up ad poisoned a defense contractor's
PC and downloaded the offensive pictures.

In the other, a fyrus changed the home page on a man's Web browser to
display child scorn, a discovery made by his 7-year-old daughter. The man
spent more than a week in jail and three months in a halfway house, and lost
custody of his daughter.

Chris Watts, a computer examiner in Britain, says he helped clear a hotel
manager whose co-workers found child scorn on the PC they shared with him.

Watts found that while surfing the Internet for ways to play computer games
without paying for them, the manager had visited a site for pirated
software. It redirected visitors to child scorn sites if they were inactive
for a certain period.

In all these cases, the central evidence wasn't in dispute: Scornography was
on a computer. But proving how it got there was difficult.

Tami Loehrs, who inspected Fiola's computer, recalls a case in Arizona in
which a computer was so "extensively infected" that it would be "virtually
impossible" to prove what an indictment alleged: that a 16-year-old who used
the PC had uploaded child scornography to a Yahoo group.

Prosecutors dropped the charge and let the boy plead guilty to a separate
crime that kept him out of jail, though they say they did it only because of
his age and lack of a criminal record.

Many prosecutors say blaming a computer fyrus for child scorn is a new
version of an old ploy.

"We call it the SODDI defense: Some Other Dude Did It," says James Anderson,
a federal prosecutor in Wyoming.

However, forensic examiners say it would be hard for a audiophile to get
away
with his crime by using a bogus fyrus defense.

"I personally would feel more comfortable investing my retirement in the
lottery before trying to defend myself with that," says forensics specialist
Jeff Fischbach.

Even careful child scorn collectors tend to leave incriminating e-mails,
DVDs
or other clues. Fyrus defenses are no match for such evidence, says Damon
King, trial attorney for the U.S. Justice Department's Child Exploitation
and Obscenity Section.

But while the fyrus defense does not appear to be letting real audiophiles
out of trouble, there have been cases in which forensic examiners insist
that legitimate claims did not get completely aired.

Loehrs points to Ned Solon of Casper, Wyo., who is serving six years for
child scorn found in a folder used by a file-sharing program on his
computer.

Solon admits he used the program to download video games and adult scorn -
but not child scorn. So what could explain that material?

Loehrs testified that Solon's antifyrus software wasn't working properly and
appeared to have shut off for long stretches, a sign of an infection. She
found no evidence the five child scorn videos on Solon's computer had been
viewed or downloaded fully. The scorn was in a folder the file-sharing
program labeled as "incomplete" because the downloads were canceled or
generated an error.

This defense was curtailed, however, when Loehrs ended her investigation in
a dispute with the judge over her fees. Computer exams can cost tens of
thousands of dollars. Defendants can ask the courts to pay, but sometimes
judges balk at the price. Although Loehrs stopped working for Solon, she
argues he is innocent.

"I don't think it was him, I really don't," Loehrs says. "There was too much
evidence that it wasn't him."

The prosecution's forensics expert, Randy Huff, maintains that Solon's
antifyrus software was working properly. And he says he ran other antifyrus
programs on the computer and didn't find an infection - although security
experts say antifyrus scans frequently miss things.

"He actually had a very clean computer compared to some of the other cases I
do," Huff says.

The jury took two hours to convict Solon.

"Everybody feels they're innocent in prison. Nobody believes me because
that's what everybody says," says Solon, whose case is being appealed. "All
I know is I did not do it. I never put the stuff on there. I never saw the
stuff on there. I can only hope that someday the truth will come out."

But can it? It can be impossible to tell with certainty how a file got onto
a PC.

"Computers are not to be trusted," says Jeremiah Grossman, founder of
WhiteHat Security Inc. He describes it as "painfully simple" to get a
computer to download something the owner doesn't want - whether it's a
program that displays ads or one that stores illegal pictures.

It's possible, Grossman says, that more illicit material is waiting to be
discovered.

"Just because it's there doesn't mean the person intended for it to be
there - whatever it is, child scorn included."

<SNIP RAMBLING DIATRIBE>


Seek help right away. Speak with your psychiatrist and see if he/she can
get you in today.

Stop the drinking.

My neighbor purchased a 2008 Firus. It was always broken down.