Fighting malware and spam

Amero case sent for retrial

Spyware popup teacher told earlier trial was flawed.

Connecticut temporary teaching assistant Julie Amero, convicted of exposing minors to danger when a classroom computer she had been using displayed a barrage of pornography, has heard her case will be sent back to the courts after the earlier trial was found to have relied on evidence which may have been false.

Amero's defence team insisted that a spyware infestation hit the under-protected machine and resulted in an unstoppable flurry of popups, but the 40-year-old teacher was found guilty in the original trial, in early January, after evidence provided by a police 'expert' suggested that the presence of highlighted links on the system proved that those links had been followed deliberately. Other irregularities in the trial process were also reported.

The conviction, which carried a possible maximum sentence of 40 years, sparked considerable debate in the security community, with the quality of expert witness evidence a particular point of controversy. Representatives of Sunbelt Software, ESET and MessageLabs were among the most vocal supporters of Amero.

Now a Superior Court in New London, Connecticut, has decided the case should be retried, and Amero finds herself facing a second chance, rather than the sentencing due to take place yesterday. Full details of the decision, along with official documents, can be found on the site of local news resource the Norwich Bulletin, here, with detailed coverage of the original trial here. Comments on the latest development are here, from Sunbelt, or here, from Sophos.

Alex Shipp of MessageLabs will present an in-depth study of the Amero case, entitled "The Strange Case of Julie Amero", at the Virus Bulletin conference, being held in Vienna from 19-21 September. Details of how to register for the conference are here. A discounted rate is available for subscribers to VB, who also have access to the full content of the site - subscription information is here.

Elsewhere in the world of spyware and the law, the second of two items of anti-spyware legislation has been passed by the US House of Representatives. The so-called 'SPY-ACT' follows the less strict 'I-SPY', approved last month, to the Senate for the next round of the process of becoming law.

Continuing the legal theme, early motions in a court case brought by Zango against anti-spyware firm PCTools, along with another similar case brought against Kaspersky, have been thrown out by a judge, who supported the right of security software makers to block suspect and dangerous software from infesting their clients' systems. However, according to a Zango blog entry on the case, PCTools have voluntarily altered their Spyware Doctor product to stop automatic removal of Zango products.

07 June 2007

Tags: legal, spyware, zango.