Man exonorated of child porn charges following malware discovery

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:59:15 -0400

Like most employees, Michael Fiola assumed his IT department was doing its job when they handed him a state-issued laptop. Instead, expired virus protection resulted in the former Massachusetts Department of Industrial Accidents (DIA) employee losing his job, his reputation, and most of his friends.

Fiola was exonerated after investigators proved that the laptop had been corrupted with malware that enabled crackers and spammers to access his laptop, depositing hundreds of images of child pornography in his cache, and setting off over a year of personal and legal struggles for the 53-year-old and his wife. The DIA has no plans to give Fiola his job back, and according to The Boston Herald, DIA spokesperson Linnea Walsh says that the state bureau stands by its decision.

Fiola's case is an example of how reactionary our society has become when it comes to issues of child pornography, and how a little knowledge can often be a dangerous thing. The images on Fiola's laptop were first discovered after DIA staff noticed his wireless usage bill was four times higher than those of his co-workers. He was fired in March of last year, and charged last August after the DIA took the laptop to the state police.

The DIA (and the police) knew child pornography when they saw it, but apparently not how to figure out how it got on Fiola's laptop in the first place. There was no evidence of sites in the browser history or cache that showed Fiola visiting any site, nor any history of downloading the files. All the malware and backdoors were still on the laptop. And everyone who looked at the laptop who was responsible for charging Fiola knew enough about the evil Internet to be afraid of the porn, but not enough to follow the "innocent until proven guilty" premise. Now the DIA is facing a lawsuit by the Fiolas. To date, the DIA hasn't revealed whether or not anyone whose negligence led to the malware installs nor the accusations has been disciplined.