Reckless endangerment -- another World's Gone Mad case?

[snorkackcatcher]

Via the story in the WindowsSecrets email newsletter, a case I hadn't heard of before. A Connecticut substitute teacher has recently been convicted of 'child endangerment' and is liable to a hefty sentence, because porn pop-ups appeared on an infected school computer she was using -- and although she tried to keep the kids from seeing them, she apparently didn't try hard enough for the liking of the prosecution and the jury down in CT, who seem shaky on the technical issues involved. The SecurityFocus site probably has the best coverage of the links given in that article.

Hard to know if you can generalise from this, but likewise for anyone in an educational situation, or working at certain companies, it might be worth avoiding, say, looking at your flist during your lunch hour, you know? Especially if you're a member of certain comms, or even the news comms. Because it strikes me that, for example, a page which has links to those NC-17 underage dubcon incest fics (or whatever) that they're so fond of reccing might just get you into serious trouble if noticed. We, inured to such stories, might just smile tolerantly or roll our eyes at such silliness as examples of the bizarre things the fen come up with -- but any normal person, not Lost In Fandom, would be liable to run screaming for the nearest police officer.

Comments

[tree_and_leaf]

That's utterly mad.

I do sometimes wonder what 'normal people' would make of some of the stories linked to on the newsletters - screaming in horror's probably about right.

Mind you, the thing I really roled my eyes at was the orion/ Walburga fic I saw linked to, with the warning 'non-explicit second cousin incest canon sex' (personally, I take the view that if it's not forbidden by the table of kindred and affinity, it ain't incest - but there you go)

[snorkackcatcher]

True -- second cousin means a shared set of great-grandparents IIRC, which is hardly a close blood link. And once you get to third cousins and further, who keeps count these days?

[tree_and_leaf]

Yes, I bet lots of people have been involved with third cousins without even realising it...

[tree_and_leaf]

The other thing I couldn't make out from the warning was whether the 'canon' was an extenuating or an aggravating factor...

[snorkackcatcher]

Yes, for some people you can't quite tell ...

[snorkackcatcher]

I've only met even my second cousins a few times and doubt I'd recognise them if I met them in the street. Which is unlikely, seeing as how they live in a completely different part of the country, but there you go.

[heartsncraftslb.livejournal.com]

Man -- It's cases like that that make me glad that our school district's internet access is so rigidly firewalled, we can barely use Google. >;D

Craziness.

[snorkackcatcher]

Yes -- the impression I get was that it might have been reasonable for the school to refuse to employ the teacher again because of slipshod work (although I imagine it could happen to others), but criminal penalties are just nuts.

[lazy-neutrino.livejournal.com]

LJ is a banned site where I work, so no danger there. But I have unintentionally done searches and clicked on links which have been very not worksafe. I always make a point of emailing the network manager to explain the context, as a way to cover my back.

(For example, a search for 'hairy pigs' on google a couple of years ago, as part of a quite innocent class discussion, came up with some very dodgy images of leather-clad men doing odd things...!)

[snorkackcatcher]

Very wise. That was not a pretty mental picture. :)

[shiiki.livejournal.com]

It really sounds like another one of those crazy suits in which the prosecutors are making a mountain out of a molehill. The poor sub. I read a bit of both links, and the prosecutor's case that she deliberately typed in a porn address just seems completely nuts.

It is warning to us to be careful what we surf during work times, though!

[snorkackcatcher]

Yes indeed. A computer forensics officer realy should know the difference and be able to recognise</> a popup URL ...