Laptop malware ruins career

摘要

When the Commonwealth of Massachusetts issued Michael Fiola a Dell Latitude in November 2006, it set off a chain of events that would cost him his job, his friends and about a year of his life, as he fought criminal charges that he had downloaded child pornography onto the laptop. Last week, prosecutors dropped their year-old case after a state investigation of his computer determined there was insufficient evidence to prove he had downloaded the files. The case shows how easy it is for someone to be charged with illegal computer activity that they may know nothing about, said Fiola's attorney Timothy Bradl. "This type of thing could have happened to anyone with a work-issued laptop," he said.