A second British man in four months has been cleared of child porn charges because investigators discovered a Trojan horse infecting his personal computer had put the child porn images on his drive and not himself. Now, where does he go to get his reputation back?
"I had never been in trouble before," Julian Green told the London Evening Standard. "In cases like this it is not innocent until proven guilty but the other way around." And he also told the newspaper he intended to sue the police for compensation.
Green was in custody since October 2002 following a raid on his home by police warrant. And, while he was spending a night in police cell, nine days in prison, and three months in a bail hostel, his former wife won custody of his seven-year-old daughter and possession of his house, according to ZDNet UK.
In April, a Reading man was cleared of child porn after technological experts testified that Trojan horses can put child porn images on a computer drive without the computer's owner even being aware of it. Trojans can install "back doors" on computers and send or store pictures or other files or use the machine to access illegal Websites while hiding the raider's identity, ZDNet said.
Symantec Security Response told ZDNet Trojans can pretend to be a game, picture, even a Windows folder, and those who know how to deploy Trojans can use them to turn your computer into a proxy machine. Updated antivirus software or personal firewalls usually block and eliminate Trojans.
