Tuesday, February 1, 2011

A computer virus can lead to your arrest if you travel abroad

According to several websites a computer specialist named Kai Lundstroem Pedersen has been arrested in the United States on the charges of distributing child pornography.

Recent analyses of his computer have revealed that his laptop and work computer was used as a bot. Not even the internal computer security teams at his workspace - the city hall in the town of Randers - had caught the illegal traffic despite their monitoring of all employees 24/7.

His colleges had no suspicion of his activities. Not surprisingly taken into account that the illegal traffic most likely came through a small program - called a Bot - hidden in the operative system on his computers.

Unfortunately most anti-virus programs cannot offer 100 percent protection and while the employees and their work on the computers are monitored 24/7, the computers themselves are not monitored in the same ways as it is expected that the security programs should be able to handle all problems on their own.

It is however not the case. In the town of Hilleroed the entire system crashed and work including emails was lost because the servers were only monitored during work hours.

His colleges know him as a good man with honest values. They are shocked over his arrest.

Kai Lundstroem Pedersen is therefore not a victim of xenophobia against Danes. He is a victim of technology left unsupervised. He has not been fired from his work. He is only suspended because he didn't show up for work after his holiday. He had no reason to suspect that a pedophile did use his computer through a hidden VPN-tunnel.

The security firm working for his employer has been denied access to his computer as the Danish police has confiscated the computer due the wish of maintaining a good relationship between Denmark and the United States. Therefore it has not been possible to determine how the Bot got installed on his computer. Unfortunately it means that others could be a risk.

If you use a computer at your work the advice is not to travel abroad.

Even when the criminal act was done by another, the IP-number used for the crime could be yours and then you are arrested.

Update september 2011: Forced to plea guilty by the fact that the trafic came from his computer despite the fact that an internal investigation by his employer has revealed that he hadn't committed the criminal acts in person, he now risk between 15 and 30 years of prison.

He could be returned to Denmark as early as in 7 years to serve out his sentence because US normally expell prisoners once they have served half their time. In reality he would be freed the moment he sets foot on Danish soil as the act is considered to result in a prison term of 4 years if he had been convicted in Denmark.

What seem strange is that he didn't take an Alford plea, because the Danish investigation did clear him, but perhaps he didn't know about this option because he couldn't afford a lawyer. Justice in the US is equal the ability to finance your defense.


References:
Randers Kommune chokeret over børnesex (Jylland-Posten)
Dane arrested in Stony Brook (The Times Record)
DANISH MAN ARRESTED IN NEW YORK, CHARGED WITH DISTRIBUTING CHILD PORN Justice.gov

10 comments:

  1. Can't you read you asshole, the guy was guilty, GUILTY, of spreading porno, - the authorities should get this foul, lying website removed, and you should be locked up, and the key thrown away.

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  2. He has not been convicted yet. Here in Denmark he is a respected service man. Not everyone can work in his job, you know. They do background checks.

    However the economy is bad. Some of the towns have saved money by only having monitoring during work hours. A town named Hilleroed lost a weeks mail correspondance because the politicians wanted to save some money.

    I guess that the virus was inserted in the public system during the night and once he started to work a virtual PC hidden in his computer did the dirty work.

    BTW. He not charged with spreading porno. He is charged because someone using his IP-number took illegal contact to a girl trying to get the girl to meet the criminal for real.

    Who know what person would have turned up if the police had set up a meeting instead of arresting him too soon.

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  3. People are innocent until proven guilty in court. The track-record in the States against Danes are bad. The woman who was extradited to the States was exonerated fully and returned to Denmark after some 8 months in a US jail.

    The computers on our school are used by many students, so I would never travel again.

    BTW. The background check is only used when the employee is expected to deal with children. People who seek jobs like Parking attendants are not checked at all. Otherwise they would not be able to get some to work in jobs like that. It demands some degree of mental disturbance. I don't know whether the town did a background check on him

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  4. He has pleaded guilty to the charges and is now waiting for a 15-30 years sentence in US...

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  5. The man that you are referring to today plead guilty in a US Federal courtroom and admitted his guilt in open and public court. Your article is full of misinformation.

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  6. I am a woman but with such terrible news about what people can do to your computer I will not leave Denmark's safety.

    Thanks for the update.

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  7. Jeg er glad for at du skriver om sagen.

    Det er svært for et overlegen og udviklet samfund som vores ikke har udviklet nogle forholdsregler imod disse alt-ødelæggende bot-net udover dyre antivirus programmer.

    Jeg ville ikke vide hvis nogle havde taget styringen af min computer, men hvis jeg imod alle forventninger skulle for lyst til at rejse udenlands vil jeg prøve at få checket maskinen først.

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  8. A therapist was just sentenced to whooping 60 days in jail because he forced a 15 year old girl to oral sex while she was in isolation at a residential treatment center and it is by far the most serious jail time caretakers have ever been sentenced to.

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  9. He should pay in some form considering if we are to assume that the conviction is rightfully and that is the question because we all know how corrupted the US justice system is. If you have not the money you are done for.

    But if this is not a scam he had put the poor girl through some torment. You cannot measure torment. We Danes are among the most tormented in the world. Denied early retirement is torment. Being forced to pay for the 98 percent of Greeks who have not seen a full day of work despite efforts from their politicians to get them to work is torment.

    We are suffering just as much as the 11 year old girl are supposed to have by his actions and we do not see justice. Our televisions do not broadcast news of hunger in Greece. My saying is that he of course should have been penalized but 30 years is too much. Maybe more in line with the punishment the Danish therapist got would have been more rightfully.

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  10. Well. Seems he was guilty after all.
    http://www.newspressnow.com/localnews/30362729/detail.html

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