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by Mike Masnick


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Blaming Tax Fraud On A Computer Virus

from the yeah,-nice-try... dept

Now that someone found with child porn on their computer has been cleared by saying that a Trojan horse virus put it there, it appears others are trying out that sort of defense. A man who was cleared on tax evasion charges claims that his returns were screwed up because a virus made his income calculations turn out to be incorrect. I have no idea how this guy got cleared for that sort of excuse, when he couldn't actually show what the virus did. The article also quotes an anti-virus company exec who mentions that it's "curious" that this is the only person who seemed to have been infected with such a virus. Of course, now that this defense was successful, I'm sure we'll suddenly hear about plenty of others who were mysteriously "infected" with the exact same virus.

7 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

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  1. A virus ate my homework....

    by Tony Preston - Aug 29th, 2003 @ 6:58am

    This will present all sorts of excuses. The dog will no longer be blamed for eating your homework.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. New Business

    by Beck - Aug 29th, 2003 @ 7:15am

    This gives me an idea for a new business. My company will write custom viruses. The customer will specify the action to be performed by the virus, we'll write the program and send them an executable which they can plant on their computer.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Re: New Business

    by shadow - Aug 29th, 2003 @ 7:43am

    that's exactly what I thought! =)
    way to go

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  4. Re: New Business

    by Anonymous Coward - Aug 29th, 2003 @ 10:50am

    Ha, too late -- that would violate several business practive patents that I already have.

    I do have to wonder why our biggest client (WorldCom, aka, MCI) has yet to use this information to their advantage though.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  5. Cheat on my wife?

    by Oliver Wendell Jones - Aug 29th, 2003 @ 11:19am

    No, honey, I didn't cheat on you... it was the virus on the computer! It made up all those e-mails you found including the naked pictures of me and another woman - it's a very sneaky virus.

    Why, I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't somehow steal my credit card number and use it to pay for hotel rooms and meals to further support this 'phony affair' it created...

    I'll bet the virus author even sneaks in here late at night and puts lipstick on my collar, that dirty rotten scoundrel!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  6. Re: Cheat on my wife?

    by Bastard SAM - Sep 1st, 2003 @ 6:34pm

    Yeah, but think of the possibilities:

    The virus ate my homework
    The virus ordered that pizza, but I'll take it off your hands.
    The virus nuked the election!
    The virus was responsible for that terrorist bombing.
    The virus stole my social security number and gave it to three dozen illegal aliens in the bay area!
    The virus got into my head and made me kill that cop.
    The virus forced me to write that virus.

    And so on.
    I say, this is great, and can prove a viable defense for ANYTHING.

    A little anarchy is healthy.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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