A Really, Really, Really Good Reason to use Spybot

Story from the Nor­wich Bul­letin. The nub:

NORWICH — State Pro­sec­utor David Smith said he wondered why Julie Amero didn’t just pull the plug on her classroom computer.The six-person jury Fri­day may have been won­der­ing the same thing when they con­victed Amero, 40, of Wind­ham of four counts of risk of injury to a minor, or impair­ing the mor­als of a child. It took them less than two hours to decide the ver­dict. She faces a sen­tence of up to 40 years in prison.

Oct. 19, 2004, while sub­sti­tut­ing for a seventh-grade lan­guage class at Kelly Middle School, Amero claimed she could not con­trol the graphic images appear­ing in an end­less cycle on her computer.

“The pop-ups never went away,” Amero test­i­fied. “They were continuous.”

This all sounds some­what incred­ible to me, to be hon­est. Not just the fact that she was con­victed, and con­victed so quickly, but also the max­imum pun­ish­ment of 40 years. Seems a bit high when one hears of killers being con­victed of man­slaughter and get­ting maybe 2 – 3 years.

related:

1. cana­dian hacker puts judge in prison
2. A Real Quantum Com­puter  —  This Week!
3. Vir­tual Diplomacy