Unbecoming Levity

Election: Live Audio Election Coverage at WBUR.ORG

Abacquer — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:00:00 -0500

WBUR.ORG will be carrying live audio election coverage tonight. Local coverage at 7PM eastern, and national coverage at 8PM. I will be listening and I encourage you to as well! If you live in Massachusetts you can tune it in at 90.9 on your FM dial.

Mind What You Post on Flickr

Abacquer — Wed, 30 May 2007 10:02:00 -0400

(Or anywhere on the internet really.) People will find your images, copy them, and use them for their own purposes.

I mention this because I have just heard about Flickr user "Lara Jade" who recently discovered that a self portrait she photographed when she was 14 years old was used as the cover for a pornographic DVD without her knowledge. The responses she has received from the DVD company border on the bizarre and betray an extremely warped sense of morality and personal responsibility.

Sadly for Lara Jade, she cannot afford the legal fees necessary to pursue the matter, especially since she lives in the UK and the photo was misappropriated by a company operating in the USA.

Read her story here.

Those of you who post personal or family photos are advised to publish them as "private" photos -- viewable only by people you name as family or friends. This is not something I've ever worried about on my blog, but I am now wrestling with the idea of marking some of my photo albums as private. If that happens, anybody who wants to view those albums will need to create a reader account so I can add you as an approved reader. I haven't decided what I am going to do. This could be a good opportunity to just switch to Flickr. I'll have to think on it.

Aces Full of Trouble

Abacquer — Mon, 21 May 2007 15:42:00 -0400

Those of you that enjoy the thoroughly wonderful blog Aces Full of Links (which is written by my friend James) have probably noticed it seemed to be down for most of the day today, and now although visible is not available for commenting. James is having server issues and asks that you please bear with him while he gets things back in order.

Here's to you Aces Full. Get well soon!

Farewell Falwell

Abacquer — Tue, 15 May 2007 13:59:00 -0400

Reverend Jerry Falwell is no longer with us, having died suddenly today as reported by the Houston Chronicle:

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, who founded the Moral Majority and built the religious right into a political force, died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University, a school executive said. He was 73.

Falwell was hospitalized in "gravely serious" condition after being found unconscious Tuesday in his office at Liberty University, a school executive said earlier...

I've never made any secret that I don't think highly of Jerry Falwell. But that said, he was still a human being, and doubtless had friends and family who loved him and who are suffering now. I know what that feels like and they have my sympathy and my condolences.

Let's Get Nuts

Abacquer — Tue, 01 May 2007 11:27:00 -0400

Okay, don't have time to write a long article. Just wanted to pass along this tidbit I found about a recent study that determined that eating pistachios can significantly lower your cholesterol. So next time you want a snack, have some pistachios... not only do they taste good, apparently they're good for you as well.

Virginia Tech Shooting Spree

Abacquer — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 21:14:00 -0400

I always knew that one day the horror that was Columbine would be surpassed. I just hoped it would never happen in my lifetime, and I didn't expect it to be this bad.

To the families of those killed and wounded at Virginia Tech today, my sorrowful condolonces. This is just awful.

Hooligan's On The Loose!

Abacquer — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 13:06:00 -0400

Yes, my good friend Jay (you may know him as "Hooligan" from comments here on ULev) has decided to take the plunge and start a blog. Yayyy! Check out Jay and "Stuff" when you get a chance, it's been added to the blogroll. It's brand new so it may change names or appearance as Jay settles in.

Jay is a software developer whom I worked with for several years, we were introduced by our mutual friend Brian over at Bri Wise World. He is an excellent cook and anticipates writing some about that, as well as personal stuff related to his life. Expect some technical stuff related to dotNet or whatever Jay happens to be into at the time as well. I'm looing forward to it! Welcome to the blogosphere, Jay.

BlogRoll Changes

Jay and "Stuff" added!
CuriousFrog removed, my friend Mike hasn't been blogging for awhile and the link no longer works.
AbsitInvidia removed, my friend Steve's blog also seems to have been inaccessible for a long time, and I think he's moved on to other interests.
ARTifactor modified, the URL has changed since Art has left BlogHarbor and moved to VOX.
Minor edits to the mouse-over information on PurpleCar, and ManRobotMonster.

Julie Amero -- Sentencing Delayed Again

Abacquer — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 12:16:00 -0400

According to the Hartford Courant, sentencing in the Julie Amero case I wrote about last month has been pushed out a second time to April 26. States Attorney Michael Regan has become involved. No reason for the delay has been officially given, but it's clear that it probably has something to do with a pantload of people who actually have a clue when it comes to computers saying, in effect, "WTF are you idiots doing over there?!!?"

Stay tuned...

Julie Amero's Bad Day

Abacquer — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 19:33:00 -0400

In all likelihood, if you are reading this you are a computer user who has a basic familiarity with the Internet and using computers, and that knowledge may serve you well as you read this. This is a story about a 40-year old substitute teacher from Norwich, Connecticut, who apparently through ignorance of computers, is facing 40 years in jail, because of porn pop-ups on a classroom computer.

Having visited porn sites, I know full well that once you have one open, it's often quite difficult to get rid of it. What happens is when you click the close box, either a bit of JavaScript or a piece of malware traps the "OnClose" event and opens a new porn page for you. Close that one and it happens again. And usually you have to close many such windows before they stop coming back. This is standard operating procedure for most porn sites. Usually porn sites are part of a "family" of sites all owned by the same distributor. Thus when you click the close box on one site the next site in the family will pop up, unbidden. And it is quite possible for this to happen even with standard IE-pop-up blocking turned on.

You can make this not-happen if you have a very good pop-up blocker, but such blockers are not reliable in my experience... they catch some pop-ups but not all. There are other tricks (I'm told) that you can use if you are a real computer expert. But the victims in this case were not computer experts. They were a substitute teacher covering a computer class, and her 11 to 13 year old students.

According to Ms. Amero, in October of 2004, she entered the classroom to find some students at the teacher's computer, accessing a site about hair care. One of them didn't belong in that classroom and the other did. Being a substitute, Ms. Amero was not familiar with any of the students. Shortly thereafter porn pop-ups began appearing on the machine. Ms. Amero sought to get rid of them in a fashion typical of an average user. She clicked the close box.

"The pop-ups never went away. It was one after another," she testified. "They were continuous. Every time I clicked the box in the corner, the red box, the red X, more were generated."

The school for its part, did what most schools do when parents overreact to something that could have happened to anyone. They fired Ms. Amero. Shortly thereafter, Ms. Amero was arrested--charged with four felony charges of risk of injury to a minor, a sub-clause of that violation specifically with respect to the morals of a minor.

Ms. Amero lost her court battle. The prosecutor maintained that there is no way to get porn sites to pop up without deliberately clicking a link to open them--which is twaddle, and anyone with a passing knowledge of web surfing knows it. Further he claimed that since Ms. Amero didn't simply pull the plug or throw a jacket over the monitor until the problem could be dealt with, then she must have intended to view those sites in the presence of children.

Ms. Amero claimed that substitutes are not supposed to disturb or touch anything in a teacher's classroom, and therefore believed that she could not shut the computer off.

I've seen inexperienced computer users when faced with an unexpected behavior--in college I worked for the school's computing services department, and one of my jobs was assisting people using computers. Many of those people were computer illiterate, and let me tell you, the obvious solution isn't the first thing they try. Many computer illiterate people are afraid they are going to "break the computer" and are therefore unwilling to try anything unusual. It doesn't surprise me in the least that this substitute teacher would simply try closing the pop-ups ad nauseum.

I have read the entire record of testimony from the case, and see a number of problems here. In my opinion this is a mistrial, and the case would need to be heard again.

With respect to the evidence, a number of the expert witnesses made claims that I know for a fact are false. Whether or not they know they are false, I can't say, but I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that there are gaps in their expert knowledge. The information services manager for Norwich Public Schools testified under oath that is was not possible to get into an "endless loop of pornography". That's flat out wrong. He was also asked under oath if spyware or ad-ware could generate pornography, and testified that they could not. This man does not know what he is talking about.

The detective on the case is clearly very knowledgeable about computer crime. And yet, at one point in the case he testified that if you click a link to a page, when you next view the link on a web page the link has changed color, but this does not happen if the page in question opened as a pop-up. That's completely incorrect. Your browser tracks URLs that were visited, not how they were visited. Links to pop-up pages will turn purple just like links you clicked manually. The reason it is important is it has direct bearing on whether Ms. Amero deliberately chose to view a porn page, or if that page appeared as a pop-up through the action of ad-ware or hokey JavaScript or whatnot.

The other, immensely huge problem with the case is the defense attorney. The defense attorney is a self-professed computer illiterate, and should have had a computer consultant with him at all times so that when other witnesses are offering incorrect testimony as expert opinion, he could consult with his own expert and get him up there on the stand. But the defense attorney appeared to be completely unprepared most of the time. When the state rested the defense attorney wasn't ready to present his case, to the consternation and bewilderment of the judge. "I wasn't expecting the state to rest right now."

The defense's first witness was a computer expert who intended to give a presentation in court regarding ad-ware and spyware he found on the machine, a presentation that would have explained the difference between clicking a link and being redirected, and which would have demonstrated how Ms. Amero could have gotten stuck in a loop of porn pop-ups without necessarily clicking on anything suspect. He was not allowed to give his presentation (which I got the impression included slides, and ad-ware/spyware reports from the hard drive in question) because the defense attorney hadn't seen fit to give the reports and slides to the prosecution ahead of time. If you don't disclose evidence to the other side, it can't be presented in court. The only thing I could conclude is it was taking the defense expert time right up to the day before to get the presentation ready.

The defense expert was also dreadful. Having only prepared to give a presentation, his responses to question-and-answer type testimony were confusing and ultimately probably seemed evasive to the jury. I understood what he was trying to get at, having built web applications myself, but even I found myself saying "why in the hell would he choose to phrase it that way?" He was also a little combative at times because he couldn't understand why he was not allowed to discuss his findings with respect to ad-ware and spyware on the box in question--mainly because the defense attorney wasn't doing his job.

Of course one of the big questions is, was the teacher deliberately viewing porn on the computer at her desk while class was in session? Prosecution says yes, defense says no. People who have been following the story have checked the haircare site in question and have discovered that it can indeed lead to a cycle of porn pop-ups (Associated Content 2/26/2007).

The other big question is, did the teacher do enough to prevent the students from seeing the porn? From the testimony given, it seems that when students came up to the desk, the teacher tried to block the screen or otherwise shoo the students away. But it is clear from the testimony of the students, a couple of them managed to catch a glimpse of pornographic material. And from her own testimony, the teacher attempted to close the offending windows which kept popping up, and also at two points during the day told other teachers and the vice-principal she was having trouble with pop-ups. She said she felt she was not allowed to shut the computer off, and upon being questioned about turning off the monitor only, said she wouldn't know how.

Contrary to the detective's claims, links recolor themselves when a URL is loaded in any fashion, and apart from redirects, it's not really possible to tell from looking at temporary Internet files whether someone visited links deliberately or though the action of spyware or some other agent. The detective continues to say that he stands by the evidence and that people can't claim spyware or ad-ware was responsible without producing the spyware or ad-ware in question. Which is rather convenient since the defense expert wasn't allowed to present such evidence in court due to the apparent ineptitude of the defense attorney.

The substitute teacher was in charge of the class, and it was definitely her responsibility to get rid of the porn, and if she didn't know how she should have called up to the office and explained immediately that there was a problem. So it seems a little incongruous that she would wait until lunch to tell someone she was having a problem (while not bothering to mention that the pop-ups were pornographic in nature.) I assume she simply made an unwise decision to try and solve the problem herself based on her own limited knowledge. Therefore at present I can't say that this was a "willful" act (i.e. she was deliberately trying to endanger these children). Then again, I doubt a 12 or 13 year old catching a glimpse of a nude woman is going to be impaired for life, but that's a topic for another day.

Assuming she is guilty, it seems to me that locking up a 40 year old woman (with no prior convictions) for 40 years because some kids glanced over her shoulder and caught a momentary glimpse of porn on her computer screen is a little extreme. I think what would be more appropriate is something on the order of 4 months of community service and you can't teach anymore. There are female teachers who have had sexual relations with their students who've spent no more than a few years in jail. So something in this case is way out of whack with respect to the punishment fitting the crime.

What do you think?

Sources:

Reality Out of Focus: Julie Amero's Raging Internet Porn Addiction (Associated Content 2/26/2007)
Case against Julie Amero needs to be deleted (USA Today 3/16/2007)
Inaction sank Amero; read the full trial transcript (Norwich Bulletin 2/25/2007)
Experts rebuke Amero ruling (Norwich Bulletin 3/9/2007)
Julie Amero's Blog
Teacher Faces Prison for Pop-Up Infested PC (PC World 2/7/2007)

EDIT: spelling issues, and modified final paragraph to be less flippant.

The IRS Wants a Piece of Your eBay Earnings

Abacquer — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 08:36:00 -0500

It's been years since I sold anything on eBay, and when I was selling, I made a pittance. But some folks make their living via eBay, and the IRS knows it. Unlike full time employment, there are no W-2's from eBay, and it is not up to eBay to report your earnings. Yet...

According to an article on ars Technica, the IRS is attempting to force eBay to submit documentation to the IRS on the yearly earnings of it's sellers. eBay for its part is resisting at present, by rightly pointing out that there are many online auction/sales houses, and if eBay is singled out, the customers will simply go elsewhere.

So a word to eBay sellers out there... if you aren't reporting your earnings, you might want to start.

Saddam Hussein Executed

Abacquer — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 00:44:00 -0500

CNN World has the story.

Generic Acetaminophen Recall

Abacquer — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 14:01:00 -0500

A company which produces generic acetaminophen which ends up on store shelves under over a hundred different store-brand names (Wal*Mart is one example) is recalling over eleven million units after discovering pills contaminated with metal fragments during quality control. If you've purchased generic acetaminophen recently, please take a moment to make sure it's safe.

...Customers can check whether products they bought are being recalled by checking the store list on the FDA Web site, http://www.fda.gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/perrigo/perrigocustlist.html, and the batch list, http://www.fda.gov/oc/po/firmrecalls/perrigo/perrigobatchlist.html...

Dirty Republicans

Abacquer — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 19:50:00 -0500

Well we knew it would happen, they've done it before and it's no surprise that they're doing it again. At least this time they were caught on tape and the FBI is looking into it...

Should You Vote? If You Do, Will it Count?

Abacquer — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 16:22:00 -0500

My friend James posted the link to DontVote.org on his blog Aces Full of Links. I must say DontVote.org is certainly an atypical get-out-the-vote organization...

Ground Rules

Abacquer — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 01:25:00 -0500

Okay, I just had to delete some comments on an earlier article here because a fight was brewing between two of my readers. This is my blog, and I don't like deleting comments here--I don't believe in censorship--but I've got to lay a few ground rules that I would think are obvious...

Upcoming Downtime...

Abacquer — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 07:21:00 -0400

A message from BlogHarbor...

FYI You Might Not Be Strong to the Finish...

Abacquer — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 14:03:00 -0400

Here's what we know, there are bags of fresh cut spinach circulating in our country that are contaminated with E. Coli bacteria. Several people have gotten sick in Wisconsin, Connecticut, and other places. At present they have not been able to narrow the problem to a particular brand of spinach or a particular lot number. So please, if you've bought bagged spinach recently, toss it until they get this one nailed. The news articles caution that washing the spinach will not protect you. I heard this on the news this morning, but I'll give a tip of the hat to PurpleCar for reminding me I wanted to post about it...

Coggshall Geese Redux

Abacquer — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 09:58:00 -0400

Just a followup to Saturday's story about the canada geese in Coggshall Park and the local hunter who was proposing he be allowed to shoot them to keep the population under control. I heard back from both the Mayor and the Recreation Director in response to the letter I sent...

Do NOT Click That Link -- Another E-Mail Scam

Abacquer — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 01:20:00 -0400

Well I just got a scary letter from PayPal.com... the subject was "Account compromised: billing information moved or changed". So I cracked it open and it said...

Perseids Expected to be Poor This Year

Abacquer — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 00:15:00 -0400

For me the Perseid meteor shower has been poor every year because without fail there are clouds in the sky on August 12. Have been every time I've looked for the Perseids since the first time I saw them at summer camp 29 years ago. This year, even if there are no clouds, there's going to be a brilliant moon spoiling the shower. This Nasa website on the 2006 Perseids suggests viewing before the moon rises for rare "Earth grazers" (that is, meteors that hit the atmosphere nearly horizontally and skip across the sky like a rock bouncing on a pond.) Apparently this type of Perseid is very rare, and you are likely to only see 1 or 2 before the moon rises and ruins the show. Murphy's law dictates that this year, the sky will be brilliantly clear just to piss me off. Wait and see.

Take it Easy For a Couple Days Please

Abacquer — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 09:30:00 -0400

My fellow Northeasterners, we are about to be hit with some very hot weather. Hottest days on record, some reports say. So please, over the next few days, for me, take it easy okay? I really don't want to find out that one of my friends suffered a heat stroke or something. Please chill for a bit? Thanks...