Child porn downloaded?
By Sumir Singh

As far as most people are rightly concerned, anyone exploiting children should spend the rest of their lives in jail. And worse.

As these vile criminals hide in the nooks and corners of the internet, only the best IT security professionals can flush them out and help track down the organizers as well as the sickos who watch.  But highly specialized software skills are needed to work out what exactly happened in some cases. Just like in real life crimes, some illegal activities on the internet need the best problem solving skills to get justice for the victims.

On Nov 20, 2009, I had reported on how some innocent people in tech hub Hyderabad found themselves in hot water when child porn was found on their computers.  They were lucky as their IT colleague’s investigations found malware on their computers which was accessing these child porn sites. The computer virus on their laptops was itself logging into and downloading child porn effectively with the idea to frame innocent users.  

Now international news organization CBS is reporting on how many people downloading ‘adult porn’ from file sharing program called Limewire found it also had child porn.  And now have the FBI knocking on their doors

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Matthew White, 22, said he was surfing for pornography two years ago on Limewire -- a fire sharing application that allows users to trade music, movies, games and pictures -- when he discovered that some of the files he had downloaded were images of children. Matt claims he quickly erased the files.

About a year later, FBI agents showed up at his family's home. The family agreed to let agents examine the computer, and at first, they couldn't find anything. Investigators later were able to recover the deleted images from deep within the hard drive.

"I asked them, 'Where did you get that? I don't remember that.' I asked them, 'Could I access that if I wanted to?'" Matt said. "They said no."
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(Techgoss had published the following on Nov 20, 2009)

Hyd: Child porn planted
By Sumir Singh

Few crimes are more despicable that those which attack the innocence of children. Pedophiles face long jail terms and social ostracism when they leave prison. 

Naturally, any work colleague or friend who has any form of child pornography runs the risk of being arrested.  But is seems that devious hackers are plotting up ingenious ways to harm innocent people.  Stealing bank accounts is no longer enough.  Now hackers are planting child pornography.

In 2007, a Government employee in USA, Michael Fiola was sacked from his job for possessing child porn.  The Government prosecutors wanted to jail Michael for 5 years. But Michael was determined to prove his innocence.  Highly skilled computer experts found that hackers had installed malware on his computer which automatically logged on to 40 child porn sites a minute and download illegal material. So, while Michael and his wife were at dinner, the malware downloaded child porn. He was cleared but at great personal and financial cost.

This week a version of the same malware is compromising many computers in tech hub of Hyderabad and innocent people run the risk of losing jobs and reputation.  Deccan Chronicle is reporting one such case

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In fact, this virus almost cost Anand Mandupa, an employee of GE, his job. “The HR personnel who were using my office laptop found pornographic pictures of minors, much to her shock. She brought it to the notice of the management and I was questioned. I was mortified and tried to plead innocent, but my job was at stake. It’s only when the IT department investigated, they found that it was a virus which came through an infected mailer circulated to my whole team. Many other systems too were found to be infected.”
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