Man Fired When Laptop Malware Downloaded Porn

Geoffrey.landis writes "The Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents fired worker Michael Fiola and initiated procedures to prosecute him for child pornography when they determined that internet temporary files on his laptop computer contained child porn. According to Fiola, 'My boss called me into his office at 9 a.m. The director of the Department of Industrial Accidents, my immediate supervisor, and the personnel director were there. They handed me a letter and said, "You are being fired for a violation of the computer usage policy. You have pornography on your computer. You're fired. Clean out your desk. Let's go."' Fiola said, 'They wouldn't talk to me. They said, "We've been advised by our attorney not to talk to you."' However, prosecutors dropped the case when a state investigation of his computer determined there was insufficient evidence to prove he had downloaded the files. Computer forensic analyst Tami Loehrs, who spent a month dissecting the computer for the defense, explained in a 30-page report that the laptop was running corrupted virus-protection software, and Fiola was hit by spammers and crackers bombarding its memory with images of incest and pre-teen porn not visible to the naked eye. The virus protection and software update functions on the laptop had been disabled, and apparently the laptop was 'crippled' by malware. According to Loehrs, 'When they gave him this laptop, it had belonged to another user, and they changed the user name for him, but forgot to change the SMS user name, so SMS was trying to connect to a user that no longer existed ... It was set up to do all of its security updates via the server, and none of that was happening because he was out in the field.' A malware script on the machine surfed foreign sites at a rate of up to 40 per minute whenever the machine was within range of a wireless site."

Re:I submitted to the Firehose at 6PM! on the 18th

[Brian Gordon]

Why don't you try writing your submissions intelligently and professionally?

That's a nice HUGE FREAKIN' BLOCK OF TEXT

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a nice HUGE FREAKIN' BLOCK OF TEXT you've got there, buddy. Maybe you'd like some PARAGRAPH STRUCTURE to wash it down.

Foreign sites?

[mr_lizard13]

A malware script on the machine surfed foreign sites at a rate of up to 40 per minute

Pesky foreigners. Child porn peddlers, the lot of 'em.

Re:What is the real truth here?

[One Childish N00b]

Hey, this trick worked on my mother when she busted me with (regular) porn on the family computer back in the day. I just showed her some flashy sensationalist article from the newspaper about 'malware' and 'popups' and told her the internet must have done it. Obviously it was that evil internet that had filled her computer with pornography, and not her pure-minded, cherub-like son. Curse that evil internet.

I wonder if she ever noticed that 'the internet' preferred brunettes?

Re:I submitted to the Firehose at 6PM! on the 18th

[hummassa]

Why don't you try writing your submissions intelligently and professionally?

Because then it would eliminate any chance of them going to the /. front page? :-)

Re:Whats interesting in this story is....

[locokamil]

You mean your friend's experience, right?

Re:What is the real truth here?

[susano_otter]

Let me guess: Your mom is a brunette...

Re:That's a nice HUGE FREAKIN' BLOCK OF TEXT

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I have a SIDE ORDER OF CAPS LOCK with that, please?

Re:What is the real truth here?

[blofeld9999]

She is. I know this because I also prefer brunettes.

Re:Certainly sounds fair...

[dal20402]

Anytime. It was so satisfying, I'd leave again if I weren't already gone. Maybe I'll fly up there just to leave again.

Re:What is the real truth here?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do you think I did wrong in not reporting the guy? (It was obviously deliberate browsing, but no kiddie stuffs)"

No, who gives a shit? Unless you've got a personal stake in the company, why do you care if some other employee is fucking off on company time?

Re:Certainly sounds fair...

[treeves]

Maybe they'll change their name to The Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents Waiting To Happen.

Re:What is the real truth here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't work when you're caught with the little guy protruding from your opened zipper.

the child porn was not visible to naked eye

[commodoresloat]

From the summary:

Computer forensic analyst Tami Loehrs, who spent a month dissecting the computer for the defense, explained in a 30-page report that the laptop was running corrupted virus-protection software, and Fiola was hit by spammers and crackers bombarding its memory with images of incest and pre-teen porn not visible to the naked eye.

Of course, there's a lesson in this. If you're going to surf for porn and you actually want to see it, you must clothe your eyes.

Re:Not everybody is a slashdotter

[MrNaz]

You mean like this:

Staff Member: Boss, sorry I had an accident.
Boss: Really? What happened?
Staff Member: Well, I was playing around with a large toroid and I accidentally dropped the laptop into the center of the flux field at the same time as my hand slipped on the high current switch.
Boss: Never mind, that could have happened to anybody.

Re:Dayam.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a linux machine, and it is always full of porn. I have to delete some of the files from time to time to emerge software.

How do you keep it clean? I have this malware, qbittorrent, it downloads all kind of god-awful sex videos all the time :(

Help me!

Re:What is the real truth here?

[Anonymous Coward]

I routinely exceed every skill my parents (or anyone) tries to teach me in a few months

Ask for lessons in humility.

Insanity

[Yvanhoe]

"We've been advised by our attorney not to talk to you."
When lawyers seems a safer medium for understanding between people than regular speech, there has to be a problem somewhere.

Re:You're not entitled to the truth!

[ArsenneLupin]

I protested my innocence, and begged to be told what they thought I'd done. I was offered one chance: they'd tell me, but then they'd go public with it. Maybe they thought I stole something. Maybe they thought I'd sexually harassed someone. Maybe they thought I'd been surfing porn. Maybe my boss got scared that I was going to stop covering for her and made something up. Any of which I could mount a defense against. But some of them could have involved criminal charges as well, which scared the hell out of me, because I don't fully trust the criminal justice system. And maybe they were going to accuse me of downloading kiddie porn, and it's impossible to be exonerated of that: even if the court says "not guilty", your life as you knew it is over. I couldn't take that chance, so I passed.

That's where you strike back with the same weapons. Go to police, file charges that you saw kiddy porn on your manager's screen when you happened to walk in for some question. When asked whether you have any more evidence, say "unfortunately not", you were fired before you could gather any / find other witnesses.

That will probably be too flimsy to sue, but you'll get a nice receipt for your deposition which you can trot out if ever any prospective employer ask why you were fired.

Turnaround is fair-play.

Re:Not everybody is a slashdotter

[smallfries]

Because you like to park in handicapped spaces while handicapped people make handicapped faces

Re:What is the real truth here?

[Hognoxious]

He obviously speeks from experience.

He obviously claims to.

Why should he be all "Naw, I'm not really that good" if he actually is? Just so YOU don't need to feel challenged?

On teh intarwebz, nobody knows you're a dog. That's what Chuck Norris told me - I say told, he more or less gasped it - after I kicked his ass.