Indeed. I ran Firefox for years but had to keep IE around (using the IETab add-in) for particular sites. When I moved to Comodo Dragon a few months ago, I put it on my work laptop, our home laptop, our two netbooks, and our old XP desktop. I haven't needed or used Firefox or IE since. Sure, a few sites bitch that I'm on an "unsupported browser" but they work fine, and a rare few sites screw up the page layout. But, unlike using Firefox five years ago, I've yet to find anything that simply doesn't work or that absolutely requires IE. Progress baby.

http://www.library.gatech.edu/services/reserves/index.php

When I was an undergrad, library reserves usually consisted of hard copy materials that the professor used to supplement the required items. It might be a different textbook, some notes that he had put together over the years, old tests, or any other similar materials. There were usually only one or two of these items so they were pretty tightly controlled by the library (kept behind the desk, check-out time very limited, can't leave the library, etc).

Perhaps so. It is a reasonable angle for a defense attorney to try. I think most judges and juries are so scared of CP that they would convict based upon the following simple series:

Prosecutor: "Did you, accidentally or otherwise, use your computer to view one more images of child pornography?"
[after some objections are overruled, the defendant will be reminded to answer with a yes or no]
Defendant: "Yes, but..."
Prosecutor: "Are you aware that Internet Explorer (and all major Web browsers) use a technology known as caching whereby images from the Internet are stored on your computer to speed up future downloads of the same page?"
Defendant: "Well, I'm not sure"
Prosecutor: "Have you ever been told by tech support to clear your browser's cookies and temporary internet files?"
Defendant: "I believe so"
Prosecutor: "Did you do that after viewing this child pornography?"
Defendant: "I don't remember"
Prosecutor: "The pictures were still there, so you either saved them intentionally or didn't bother to delete them. Which is it?"
Defendant: "I guess I didn't think to clear my cache."
Prosecutor: "So, you viewed child porn, were aware that it was still on your computer, and didn't take any action to remove it? That sounds like a clear-cut of possession to me"

A good judge very well may see through this and but most won't. I think it will be immaterial soon enough because every law will get updated to criminalize the act of viewing (or requesting for the purpose of viewing, or something similar).

That's fair enough. The other cases I have linked in my replies demonstrated a much clearer affirmative action (copying out of the cache, manually deleting the cache files, etc). However, I tend to think most judges aren't going to be quite so demanding on this. Also, this case will spur state legislatures to make sure their laws include viewing. Then the cache will support the viewing piece, whether or not it proves possession.

That seems like an absurd question. Of course you do, generally speaking.

Again, you're coming at this ass backwards. You're not guilty because you know how a browser works. You are guilty because you have CP on your computer. However, if you can convince a judge/jury that you had no idea that it was there, you might get away with it.

Both have broken the law (assuming neither clears the cache or otherwise gets rid of the images). The one who knows they still have the pictures but does nothing to get rid of them is pretty likely to get in trouble for it. The other one has a pretty good argument for some mitigating circumstances. This is how the legal system works.

I'm not defending the law. It has a huge loophole because it does not criminalize viewing the content. As written, you can look at all the CP you want as long as you don't possess it. But that's really unrelated to your complaint.

Maybe a car analogy would help you? If you rob a bank and I then drive you to the bus station in the next town, that looks bad and I'm likely to get arrested or at least detained by the cops. If I knew you robbed that bank and was the fleeing the cops, I'm probably in big trouble. If I had no idea about any of that and just did you a neighborly favor, I'm much less likely to get in trouble. Is this absurd?

Or if you need something involving possession, how about drugs? If your friend drops off a package on your porch and the cops show up and find drugs in it, is it fair for you to be charged for possession of drugs if you had no idea what was in the package? Is it absurd for a judge to consider whether or not you knew, or should have known, that you had an illicit substance in your house?

It's pretty straightforward actually; perhaps you're looking at this from the wrong end.

You are guilty if found to be in possession of CP. A possible defense (and one which worked in this case) is that you couldn't be held responsible for possessing something that you never knew you had. If you know that your browser caches images and there is CP in your browser cache, that defense is unlikely to work.

It really would depend on the quantity and how the attorneys presented it. Having a cache filled with months of CP and no alternate explanation for how it got there is unlikely to be looked on favorably by a judge and/or jury. Several federal cases have tried to use a similar defense (see http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/305/1193/593156/) without success, but all I've seen had evidence of the defendant manipulating the files in the cache so they really couldn't claim ignorance.

That's a great theory, but it doesn't seem to match up with what the ruling actually says:

We must consider, among other issues, the evidentiary significance of "cache files," or temporary internet files automatically created and stored on a defendant's hard drive, and the defendant's awareness of the presence of such files. We conclude that where the evidence fails to show that defendant had such awareness, the People have not met their burden of demonstrating defendant's knowing procurement or possession of those files.

Thanks for the lesson but your analogy is off. Under NY state law, looking at that picture on the wall is not illegal (federal law is another story but not in play in this case) but taking a picture of it so you can look again without going to the stall (i.e. caching it locally) means you now possess it. But what if the kid who took the picture didn't know that he has the picture, didn't look at it again, and didn't even take it on purpose. Can he be said to possess for purpose of criminal prosecution? The court said no. Taking it home and hiding it under his mattress would be a completely different story.

Yet in other cases where the defendant was shown to have manually deleted images from the cache and/or copied them to other locations, this same defense has failed. If you actually read the ruling (and others that I've linked in other posts in this story), you'll see that the critical issue is whether the defendant demonstrated that they were aware of the cached images.

Which is exactly what the judges said in this case. The state law speaks only to possession, unlike the federal law that wasn't used in this case. Rest assured that the NY legislature will update their law.

The NY law at issue doesn't speak to intent at all. If you posses CP images, you are breaking the law. End of story. The issue in this case was whether someone can be held responsible for possessing something he doesn't know he has (i.e. images cached by the browser). This is completely separate from the intent required by the federal law. If he was charged under it, the prosecutor would have to prove that he was looking for CP or at least knew what he was getting when he looked at it.

I agree but you're off-base assuming this ruling relates at all to your point. The court simply ruled that the NY law under which Kent was convicted requires possession and that something he didn't know he had could hardly be considered. This eliminated a handful of counts from the approximately 150 initially brought forth. The NY law is shit - it doesn't have any provisions for intent and it doesn't address viewing. If you have CP, then you are guilty. FWIY, the federal law attempts to do a better job; it addresses accessing with intent to view and requires knowledge of what you're doing.