Blue Collar Muse

For those of us that spend inordinate amounts of time online, there is a new danger out there for those foolish enough to browse without practicing “Safe Surfing”. Increasingly, the potential for porn to be stored on your computer’s hard drive without your knowledge or consent is becoming reality.

In early 2007, news broke about Julie Amero, a supply teacher in Connecticut who was arrested and charged with “Risk of Causing Injury to a Minor” when a classroom computer began displaying pornographic images in pop up advertisements that Amero could not stop.

Last night I ran across an ABC video depicting the plight of a 16 year old Arizonan, Matt Bandy, charged with 9 counts of Child Pornography and facing 90 years in prison for the crime.

While the motto would appear to be better security and practicing safe surfing as both computers had no firewall or protection against intruders, a deeper issue of responsibility for content on what is essentially a “public” computer would seem to be developing.

For those of us who spend hours on the net, the bottom line is to make sure your machine is secure. That will take care of the problem … well, at least until folks figure out a way around it. Given the ingenuity of today’s hackers that should take all of 90 seconds as opposed to 90 years …

Blue

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Internet Interests, Judicial Matters, Law Enforcement, Pornography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.