Is Child Pornography on Your Computer?

Do you have child porn on your PC or laptop? I would hope not. But, even if you answered "no" to the question, you might be shocked to discover that your computer DOES have child porn secretly residing there.

Picture this case in point: Michael Fiola of Massachusetts was fired from his job as a state investigator for workers compensation after a technician found child porn on his state-issued laptop. His bosses got suspicious when they noticed his laptop stored 4 ½ time more data than his colleagues.

In the process of proving his innocence, as the child pornography charge could get him up to five years in prison, his tires were slashed, he received death threats and his friends shunned him.

Fiola and his wife fought the charge. In order to pay the legal fees, they drained their savings accounts, took out a second mortgage and sold their car. All in all, they spent $250,000 to prove his innocence.

What happened to Fiola could happen to any of us. Particularly if you don't have an active anti-virus program scanning your computer and is regularly updated. Fiola's defense team had a forensics inspection done on his laptop. The result? It was severely infected.

His computer was turned into a zombie, remotely controlled by a real pedophile who had it programmed to visit up to 40 child porn sites per minute. In one instance, Fiola and his wife went out to dinner and a pedophile logged on to his laptop with porn flowing in for an hour and a half! The pictures were stored in a hidden folder on his hard drive.

Their lives were ruined, their health was ruined, they were out a quarter of a million dollars and couldn't sue the State of Massachusetts as no lawyer would take their case due to a cap on the recovery amount.

F-Secure, a security software maker, estimates that of the estimated 1 billion computers connected to the Internet, about 20 million are infected with viruses that could allow full control by hackers.

It doesn't surprise me, as I personally know people who are either not tech savvy with anti-virus software or are just plain lazy. And it's not a cost issue, as there are some excellent anti-virus programs available for a free download. I've personally used AVG and Avast software.

Now, here's the flip side of these disgusting pedophiles and their child pornography pursuits: they are using the "infected computer" excuse as a defense when they get caught. It usually doesn't work, but they try it.

It costs tens of thousands of dollars for a forensics expert to conduct a detailed analysis of the computer. Defendants can request the court pay for the exam, but judges sometimes balk at the expense versus shrinking budgets.

Do you really want to suffer the fate of the Fiola's? If not, make sure your firewall is turned on and actively monitoring incoming data, and you have an anti-virus program that is actively scanning not only emails and attachments, but also the web sites you visit.

While using Avast on my computer, I have had a bright red screen pop up, warning me that it was an "attack site". Had I not had the anti-virus program running, any kind of malicious virus could have been planted in my hard drive.

Source: http://www.denverpost.com/ci_13743063