Comment Norwich, Conn is my hometown. (Score 1) 597
How happy I was to find the name of my name of my home town - Norwich, Connectictut - listed in the news items on Slashdot.org, a website I visit nearly every day. Since graduating from NFA, and moving on to technical schools WPI and MIT, I have heard so little about Norwich, yet told so many people stories of my hometown, its friendly people, its enthusiasm for the arts. As an adult, I have come to realize, speaking with students from around the country and around the world, that our schools' teachers are certainly in the top 5%. Thus, it was a strong disappointment to read the news item further, and to discover that Norwich was highlighted nationally because you are prosecuting a teacher.
The crime is one of ignorance and so, too, are the prosecutors ignorant. Ms. Amero is charged for injuring minors with a machine that was out of her control. As a veteran computer user (I first learned to program computers in 4th grade at Samuel Huntington 23 years ago), and a professional software developer, I can inform you that computer security is a very important and very poorly understood topic. Computers, especially those running the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems, are extremely vulnerable to virus, spyware and adware attacks. This is widely known - not only among computer professionals like myself, and there are many siding with Ms. Amero on the internet - but in fact among many more casual users of computers. Adware attacks are sometimes mischievous, but much more often commercial in nature, forcing many millions of computers to go to websites without the user's consent, in order to generate fake advertising revenue for the website owners.
There is a declared online war between the adware attackers and the defenders, with geniuses on both sides. Home computer users' computers serve as the battlefield for the cat and mouse game. The entire scene is out of the users' control. Embarrassing incidents like Ms. Amero's occur daily, even at professional lectures. It is no surprise to me that many are upset when children were subjected to material that is out of place in the classroom. Steps should be taken, such as school-wide firewalls, to prevent this from happening again. However, it is false to assert, as Mark Lounsbury has stated, that users have 100% responsibility for what appears in the history of peoples' browsers. Once a virus or piece of spyware has control of a computer, all bets are off. These "rootkits" do anything they want to the computer in service to their own goals, acting increasingly sneaky to get around defenses. Reprimand Ms. Amero for not canceling the lesson due to faulty equipment, but do not punish her for it. She is a Norwich teacher.
Sincerely,
Noah Vawter
