[ql06] CRIMINAL: Trojan Defence to Child Porn Charges
- From: Stephen Kennedy <2srk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: ql06@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 16:19:42 -0500
Here's a English case where an IT forensics company got child porn charges
dropped against some hapless computer user. Seems some unsolicited emails
(aka spam) dropped a Trojan onto his computer causing it to download porn
to his hard drive every time he surfed the net.
The article doesn't mention what email program he was using, but there's
one program that comes up consistently in articles about Trojans, worms and
viruses spreading on the Internet: Micro$oft Outlook (or Outlook Express).
The risk of unwarranted kiddie porn charges is yet another reason to switch
to Eudora, Lotus Notes or Netscape. (Mac and *nix users can relax - the
chance of this happening to you is remote.)
Suspected paedophile cleared by computer forensics
By John Leyden
Posted: 28/10/2003 at 16:56 GMT
IT forensics firm Vogon has explained how its work helped clear a man
accused of storing child pornography on his computer by proving his PC was
contaminated by Trojan horse infection capable of downloading illicit
images onto his machine.
Julian Green was arrested in October 2002 after police raided his home and
found 172 indecent pictures of children on his hard drive. His solicitor,
Chris Bittlestone of South Devon law firm Kitson Hutchings, called in one
of Vogon International's forensic investigators, Martin Gibbs, to help.
A clone of Green's hard drive was sent to Vogon International in Bicester,
where it was imaged and processed in the forensic laboratory using Vogon's
specialist software. The data was then extensively examined and a report
prepared, which highlighted that the Trojans were most likely to have come
from unsolicited emails that Green opened before he deleted them.
Gibbs identified 11 Trojan horse programs on Green's computer which were
set to log onto "inappropriate sites" without Green's permission whenever
he loaded up a browser to access the Internet.
These findings were decisive in clearing Green of the 13 charges of making
indecent images he faced at Exeter Crown Court this summer. On receiving
evidence from Vogon the prosecution decided to drop the case.
"The prospects of my client being able to effectively defend himself
without Vogon's help were very remote," said Bittlestone. "The stakes for
him were extremely high - if he had been convicted, prison was a strong
likelihood.
"The maximum sentence for possession of such images is ten years'
imprisonment, and anyone convicted of such a matter would have become
subject to registration with the police as a sex offender for a period of
five years. Martin Gibbs' report was pivotal in this very important case."
Green's acquittal is one of three recent cases where a Trojan defence has
succeeded in a British court. In April this year, Karl Schofield, 39, was
cleared of possession of child porn when prosecutors accepted expert
testimony that the unnamed Trojan could have been responsible for the
presence of 14 child porn images on his PC.
Aaron Caffrey, the teenager hacker accused of crippling the Port of
Houston's web-based systems, was found not guilty of computer crime
offences this month after a jury accepted his story that attackers used an
unspecified Trojan to gain control of his PC and launch the assault.
The prosecution argued that no trace of Trojan infection was found on
Caffrey's PC but the defence was able to counter this argument with
testimony from Caffrey that it was possible for a Trojan to wipe itself.
Nobody is disputing the validity of these verdicts, however legal and
security experts have expressed concerns that the Trojan defence might
become subject to misuse.
Vogon's Gibbs believes such concerns have been overplayed.
"I don't believe, as some have suggested, that recent cases with 'open the
floodgates' to Trojan defences in cybercrime cases. When we look at how
indecent image got onto a PC, for example, there is more to substantiate a
claim that a Trojan was responsible than just the viral infection of a PC,"
Gibbs told The Register.
Gibbs was reluctant to go into details but said that factors like file
directory structures and registry entries are among the items it considers
when making a forensic examination of evidence. Vogon is asked to carry out
computer forensic examinations in a variety of civil and criminal cases,
working for both the prosecution and defence.
When a Trojan defence is used in a criminal case it is "down to the
prosecution expert to dispute the claim", Gibbs added.
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