Trojan - Man Cleared On Child Porn Charges

[Zone-MR]

Yes, its a difficult dilema.

In 99% of cases, saying your computer was infected by a trojan is going to be a handy excuse. I would be surprised if the guy wasnt guilty. One could say that in cases such as this, it shouldnt be that easy to get away with them.

Problem is, if the law is to reject a trojan as a valid defense, it opens up a huge scope for abuse. I could pick a victim who I don't particularly like, send them a small exe file, and then upload what I want to their PC. I can even host a little webserver there making offensive pics availible globally, and then report him. He could be jailed, have his life destroyed, for the possession of illegal images. Even tho he is innocent.

So it is simply wrong to convict a person unless you can be 100% sure they were responsible for what was in his possession. The problem is that ANY pervert looking at child porn can abuse this, and say "hmm, that defense worked for person Z, ill use it myself". There is no way whatsoever of verifying weather the claim is true or not. I can frame someone and with a few clicks remove the trojan and destroy the evidence.

In 90% of cases there will not be sufficient evidence to prove or disprove such a claim. IMHO I would rather see a criminal walk, than an innocent person have their entire life destroyed.