ISPs to Create Database to Combat Child Porn 595
BlueCup writes to tell us that several media companies are banding together to create a database of child pornography images to help law enforcement officials combat distribution of questionable material. In addition to the database several tools and new technologies are also planned but most notable is what some perceive as a willingness to cooperate which critics say has been lacking in the past. From the article: "Each company will set its own procedures on how it uses the database, but executives say the partnership will let companies exchange their best ideas — ultimately developing tools for preventing child-porn distribution instead of simply catching violations."
Yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)
ISPs have long said that they are just carriers and are not responsible for the content they provide access to. As soon as the technological solution for implementing a "content filter" is there, RIAA and friends will _require_ ISPs to use it for that purpose as well.
This is completely ignoring the technical stupidity of trying to "fingerprint" media that is _not_ going to be transferred in plaintext.
Re:Yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)
> _not_ going to be transferred in plaintext.
And even if it is, it's trivial to come up with a way of altering images so that they look identical but where every bit is different to the original.
I'm sure the Chinese government would literally kill to have a way of tracking the movement of files too.
But yeah..kids...photographs...the internet...
So this is like... (Score:5, Insightful)
The big problem (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I don't agree with this database. Keeping these images, even for law enforcement purposes, is a violation of the privacy of children who have already been subjected to a horrific violation. Leave them alone already.
Devil's Advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
~Rebecca
wont work (Score:5, Insightful)
zip, rar, and other compression formats
encrpyted
hidden inside other files (stenography)
the list goes on...
these people should learn, you cant fight the internet
Everything about this seems... (Score:5, Insightful)
AOL, for instance, plans to check e-mail attachments that are already being scanned for viruses. If child porn is detected, AOL would refer the case to the missing-children's center for further investigation, as service providers are required to do under federal law.
Sounds like one of those 'good on paper' ideas that later spins itself into a slavering monster that eats half the internet. What's to say they don't start scanning for other things? Is the RIAA going to be knocking on my door because I sent an AOL member a Metallica MP3?
privacy issues... (Score:5, Insightful)
so they will be scanning our web traffic in real-time to determin if we are sharing child porn?
anyone else see this and think something along the lines of "this is just a 'think of the children' excuse to implement advanced monitoring systems, which in due time the govt. will take over 'in the public interest'"?
Re:This can be a problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:wont work (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sick of this mentality that criminals (esp terrorists) are not as smart as you or I. They know just as well as we do they can throw it in a zip or rar file (It's probably a better way for them to transfer the files, anyway!). In fact, IF THEY AREN'T SMART THEY GO TO JAIL. I think that's a pretty strong motivation for covering their ass.
Re:This can be a problem (Score:3, Insightful)
So actually, you are not for the children, but against child porn (even fake) consumers. Interesting..
Re:This can be a problem (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Wanna bet? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the same thing while watching some news report about child porn on television recently. A cop was sitting at his computer doing some clicking as he viewed child porn (obviously the camera didn't show the screen), and he talked about his war against distributors. Something just wasn't right about the way he talked about child porn, almost as if it took effort to disparage it and I got the sneaking suspicion that he had been compromised by it in some way. It made me wonder how much of a risk there is of a police officer developing an addiction to the matter he's sworn to defend against, a la Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly [amazon.com] One wonders why cops are allowed to work on this on their own, seems to me it would make much more sense to allow people access to the material only in teams, perhaps mixed-gender.
And of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
the low hanging fruits (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think this scheme is intended to catch all child porn traffickers. Just the easy-to-catch idiots. And there are plenty of them out there. Think of all the dudes you read about who get busted because they brought their laptop to CompUSA for repair and the techs found a folder titled 'young' on the hard drive.
Don't get me wrong.. I'm 100% opposed to this system.
Seth
It's a really delicate subject (Score:4, Insightful)
The subject is really complicated, here you have a conjunction action from the top ISP companies, but there are some things we must know.
This means that if "somebody" sends to me an image that triggers the filter I'm gonna be a "suspect" (at least for a while) so AOL refer the case and 1 minute later i have an investigation running on my private emails.
BTW... i don't want to sound paranoid, but this is a "way to start", then the database can include another kind of images (who knows?). Or just filter anything they want. The comparison with the Antivirus system (intentionally and not so technical related) put me more alert.
I don't want to sound liberal, I'm against child pornography, but i think that this is not the way to fight against it. If some sick-man (A) have a picture of some-more-sick-asshole(B) doing nasty things with a child, he(A) is a sick person but not a criminal, the asshole(B) must go to jail because he abuse (mental and physical) the boy (the other guy(A) must go to a doctor).
Another idea could be the "infection" of some images/files/videos and leave in the wild (this pedophiles bastards are not technical specialist, the majority of them are teachers, fathers or military related). So we keep track of the files all over, and figured out "sources" where they upload this files not a "single email address" i mean where a lot of files converge from different places. Then, security experts with some legal support, 0wn the server and monitors everything... and the investigation continues.
Also the P2P networks has a LOT of "pedophilic" shares, but you can't run after every sick people, you must go to the source and condemn the one who abuse the child.
I don't like the idea of "monitors everything -> searching for something". I think it must be like i said before... its a HUGE difference.
How would it work?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Duplication of effort (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.interpol.int/Public/ICPO/PressReleases
I've met some of the guys running it, and while I really admire their dedication and achievements, I can honestly say there's no job on earth I'd less like to have.
Re:This can be a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
So because some asshole posts offensive images, he gets the whole site banned? Once that policy becomes established, think how easy it would be for any determined person to get just about any site blacklisted. Just post some kiddie porn every day for a week, reporting the site immediately after before it can be removed.
Re:Everything about this seems... (Score:5, Insightful)
How many people have been seriously inconvenienced when trying to take a flight because the system has flagged them as a potential terrorist? A lot more innocent people have been inconvenienced than terrorists have been caught. Now, imagine the same situation but applied to this...
We can just laugh off being tagged as a potential terrorist and tell it as a funny story to our friends and work collegues. Would you do the same thing if you'd been investigated by the police as a potential paedophile? I could see it happening quite easily - send a photo of your kids in the bath to their grandma, AOL system tags it, police come knocking at your door and take your computer and all your archives away. You get the computer back a week later with an apology from the police. But the damage is done, your neighbours and work collegues have found out why the police visited... It's a nightmare scenario but I'm afraid it's going to happen. And perhaps, more innocent people are going to be investigated than real paedophiles caught, as is the cause with "the war on terror".
Re:So this is like... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but the bad guys will still have nukes. Making statistics that say "they only have 0.1% the number of nukes we have" doesn't fix that.
.. and *WOOOSH* goes the sound of the joke.. :-)
Re:Everything about this seems... (Score:5, Insightful)
That was just one example of how an innocent person might be flagged, there are many others I can think of. For instance, we all know that people who have very insecure Windows machines. Say they get infected by a worm that then emails kiddie porn. The same scenario applies... Visit from police, computers taken away, the shy funny looking guy in the office who everyone thinks is a bit weird commits suicide because everyone thinks he must be a paedophile since he was investigated by the police...
Re:Hashing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Theres a lot of gray area, and a huge list of hashes isn't going to be very descriptive. While we're at it, they're just flagging files transfered.. What if someone sets up a relayer in a country where its legal and uses it to send kiddieporn to you via email? Click a message, commit a crime and go to jail. Or if someone defaces a site and puts up CP, or if someone just ups random CP to a public site(4chan), or any number of other ways.
Going after real pedophiles hurting real people would be great, but this isn't going to help and passing this kind of tech off as "for the children" is downright offensive.
Re:Wanna bet? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd open a book on it, but only at 1/33.
Just like the Catholic Church is full of pedophiles and pederasts, no doubt "internet" law enforcement is filled with closet perverts who delight in ammassing volumes upon volumes of illicit data. It's probably also filled with those who get their thrills from snooping on other people's emails.
Let's put it this way. Where's the best place for a criminal to hide. A position of authority.
Re:So this is like... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons by creating a stockpile of blueprints telling what various nuclear weapon looks like so they can easier be detected.
Re:Wanna bet? (Score:5, Insightful)
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146
So much potential for abuse (Score:5, Insightful)
I piss off the wrong person. This person has access to material of this kind, and a zombie botnet. He arranges for this botnet to spam me with pictures of kiddy porn. The emails are caught by this system and flagged, and suddenly I'm the subject of an investigation. The way that sort of thing works here in the UK, I'm likely to be splashed all over the papers before my innocence is proved (which won't make nearly as large headlines, of course). Even if I am cleared, my reputation may well be shot to hell; people over here aren't too picky when it comes to this sort of thing. A few years ago a tabloid paper raised hell about paedophiles having been released into the community after serving their sentence. Some of the resulting protests saw a paediatrician being hounded from her home - people saw "paed" and thought "paedo". Rationality often takes a back seat where kids are concerned; this could be a very cheap and easy way to utterly ruin someone.
Hypothetical scenario 2:
I go on holiday with my family. I take photographs. I email some of these photographs to my friends and parents. Some of them contain shots of my 6 year old daughter in her swimming costume. An overzealous automated process tags this as a false positive, and suddenly we're all under investigation.
To be honest, scenario 2 doesn't worry me so much; it should be obvious to even the most rabid "think of the children" zealot that the photos are perfectly innocent. It's the first one that gives me grave cause for concern. It would potentially take some effort to prove ones innocence, during which time you're very likely to have been utterly pilloried in the press. If you have kids yourself, they may even have been taken into care for the duration, and are likely to have been teased or bullied about it at school.
I appreciate that measures do need to be taken to fight against child porn, but given the highly sensitive nature of the subject, I have conerns about implementing any sort of automated system.
Re:The big problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. In the 10 years I've been using the Internet, I've come accross child porn one (1) time, and even that looked more like two kids playing doctor than any pedophilic photo setup. If that's the "darkest side of the Internet", then the Net's brighter than the surface of the Sun.
No, what's happening here is simply another censorship / surveillance system being built with the mantra "think of the children". And the makers do think of the children - they think of those children in the future, all grown up and in chains and get a hardon from that.
So no, all the Net's users should not be on guard for the infinitesimally small chance that they happen upon CP by accident, anymore than all the people in Real Life should be on guard for the infinitesimally small chance that the guy passing you on the street happens to be a terrorist. Yeah, it's possible, but even if it happened, what the heck are you going to do - you sick pervert looked at the picture, so by law you should go to prison, since such pictures incite people to such acts, so you can't now be trusted anymore, right ? And what were you doing on a netsite where pedophiles hang out at, anyway ? You must be one too !
Every time I hear "think of the children", I think of the future of those children and want to cry. Well, actually I want to protect those children by beating the living crap out of whoever it is trying to enslave them this time, but crying is more socially accepted.
Do you honestly think that those who are building this censorship & surveillance system are doing it for the childrens sake ? No, it is something that will be used to put those children into chains, once they grow up.
Don't be fooled by their lies; these people care nothing for the children, or anyone else for that matter; they only care about power.
Child porn filtering only helps its distribution (Score:3, Insightful)
Essentially, any filtering mechanism depends on ability to detect the illegal act. If you prevent every method of distribution possible, the only channels left for child porn distributions are ones which are currently impossible to detect. Thus, in the long run this will only make it safer and more secure for people to download child porn. With filtering in place, the end users will know that if they're able to get the material, it means it probably cannot be traced.
If you want real solutions to the child porn problem, you should attack the people involved. "Divide and conquer" is the basic strategy, the different groups have to be isolated from each others and dismantled. Currently there are large anonymous p2p networks which are mainly run by people who want to share files, namely to perform copyright infringement. The child porn distributors use the same networks. If you want to eliminate child porn, you need to isolate these two groups from each others by giving them different goals. Currently, they both want to hide what they're doing from the authorities. One straightforward solution would be to allow filesharing for non-commercial purposes and encourage it to be done in plain sight and moderated networks, so child porn distributors couldn't piggyback in warez networks. Not going to happen anytime soon, eh, so does anyone else have any other ideas?
Re:So this is like... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you only store a small piece of information per image, the number of false positives will make the whole thing useless. Store too much and your storing the image.
Using SSL etc. will make it impossible.
The analogy with nuclear weapons would be similar, change the box, add a few decoy parts, paint the others a different color and the original "plans" or pictures are worthless, the machine won't detect squat. A human expert probably would.
I think this is probably all B.S., i.e. it's someone's idea of how they will make a lot of money in consulting and software developemnt. All the ISPs will buy into to say that they are doing something even though they know it is B.S.
This is really a socialogical problem which is hard to fix and this makes just it sound like everyone's doing something. They dont have the answer. If pcs of 100 people are confiscated and their personal lives invaded for every one person caught, this is a vast injustice.
Re:Yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides I rather have someone like a teacher arrested because they found Child Porn on his PC, vs. Having him just work there for years not knowing because the ISP has blocked the traffic.
Wouldn't it make more sense ..... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with people who just want to look at pictures. Yes, they may well be pictures documenting a crime that was committed
I say let people jack off into a box of tissues as much as they damn well like. At least once they've spent their pocket money, they're no danger to anyone for a couple of hours. If they're doing more than look at pictures, then by all means go after them. But what a person does within the privacy of their own imagination is nobody else's business.
Re:So this is like... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The big problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, I'm scared of how much 'for the children' there is today. It's become the clarion call of those who want to take our rights away.
I mean, think about what else this can be used for, and you know it will be used for other things. Looking for copyrighted media, anyone?
Re:Wanna bet? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, I wasn't using the word "normal" in a moral sense. I meant normal as in the vast majority who have the instincts to nurture and protect children.
To illustrate my point: Theoretically, someone with malformed instincts might be able to supress the actions or even thoughts that accompany this flaw through their morals. Just because they have a moral stance against what their diseased instincts are telling them, doesn't mean that they are *not* normal.
Or, to put it another way: A NORMAL adolescent male (I use male 'cos it's much more pronounced in males) wants sex as often as possible - he's not interested in children because they don't trigger his instincts. He doesn't try to rape every female who comes his way because he has NORMAL morals (and/or a normal understanding of what will happen to him if he's caught). In this case the instinct is normal, but it doesn't *necessarily* result in moral behaviour.
Err... does that make sense?
Re:So much potential for abuse (Score:2, Insightful)
Murdering is a lot cooler than child porn so you'll get treated a lot better in prison. Your kids will probably brag about it in school.
And you'll get a nice headline. Remember, murdering is always better than downloading child porn.
Re:The big problem (Score:1, Insightful)
Just like when arresting a guy for posessing child porn, the police will need to view the images to see if they are actually child porn or not[1]. What difference does it make that after viewing the pictures they run them through a program to create a hash, before destroying them?
[1] The part about checking if a crime was actually committed may not apply in the USA or certain other countries.
They're gonna get you one way or another... (Score:2, Insightful)
"The order relates specifically to offences relating to child pornography and allows the authorities to inform a credit card issuer of the identity of someone who has used one of its cards to commit a child pornography offence." From here [theregister.co.uk]
Pretty soon this will turn into "Big Brother can check anyones bank account and take action against pretty much any online transaction just in case its kiddy porn with a false transaction reference". This would result in so many "plain brown packages" in bank accounts that we won't be able to identify legitimate transactions and thus be more open to fraud. Unless banks change their rules to conform with the goverments crazy ideas. And everyone else changes to accomodate for this change. Bla bla bla...
Re:The big problem (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a pity that I already used my mod points because I agree 100% with you.
I have been using the Internet for 20 years. Before the web was invented, I saw hardcore porn pictures floating around in the alt.* newsgroups and on some ftp servers, including on a server that I was administering (the unprotected incoming directory was used by some porn traders until I discovered it and deleted the whole stuff - no, I did not keep a copy). Some of it was rather nasty: zoophilia, BDSM, deep fisting, lots of fetish stuff and so on...
Later, when the web was invented and started to grow, I started seeing porn popping up on many web sites. Although the number of porn sites has been growing steadily, I would say that the amount of porn that you can be exposed to by accident is not larger than 10 or 20 years ago. The amount of porn that you can find if you are actively looking for it may be a bit bigger, but not much (taking into account all sources of porn that existed then and that exist now: magazines, tapes and now the web).
But during all that time, I did not see a single child porn picture (save for some censored pictures illustrating articles about how to fight against child porn). Of course I'm not actively searching for that because I find the idea disgusting. But I am convinced that those who make so much publicity around the fight against child porn are overstating the problem and (most likely) have a hidden agenda that I cannot agree with.
Re:Yeah. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yeah. (Score:3, Insightful)
This kind of pointless action doesn't help anyone except those who hunger for power. The people who try to objectively evaluate the situation are flagged as pedophiles due to subject being such a taboo.
Re:How would it work?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Some of it's obvious and should be filtered or flagged, if the ISP's are willing to take on that role, but I really don't see a lot of this being practical. Will they also take the time to determine if all the porn spam involves models over 18?
Copyrighted material detection would seem much simpler to implement.
Re:So this is like... (Score:5, Insightful)
> You need a fingerprint, not a copy of the act.
That might be correct for examination of files. However, we're talking about ISPs here. It is not very far fetched that an ISP would try to match TCP/IP packets. That would require a fingerprint of a part of the image (impossible to produce without the original image).
My point is that an "ad hoc" database won't be useful without the original images. Sooner or later a user will come up with a new (incompatible) usage mode. Without the original images, the database can not support it.
The statement "Each company will set its own procedures on how it uses the database" just asks for it.
Official stance (Score:5, Insightful)
Sharing of copyrighted music leads to less copyrighted music.
Find the anomaly.
In fact, to follow the "think of the children" idea, I believe that such a database would lead with more CP production, as you would have to "replace" the material censored (assuming this measure would be efficient) leading to profits for pornographer producer.
Just a thought
Is a picture of your kids naked child porn? (Score:3, Insightful)
While I find it mildly weird to put family photos with naked kids on Flickr or your own family picture site, I can see no reason why this should be illegal. But isn't there a chance of these pictures finding their way into the kiddie porn database? If so, isn't there a decent chance someone may end up being tracked as a pedophile simply for proudly posting family pictures on the Internet?
Differentiating between kiddie porn and legal pictures of kids is probably hard enough when you do it manually and individually, but doing this on a massive scale just sounds incredibly hard and possibly dangerous.
Re:Hashing? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what worries me about the "it's illegal to view $foo" laws - it's entirely possible that you don't know you're about to view $foo until it's too late and you've broken the law. Is there a need to go after people who have simply downloaded something dodgy since they may not have intentionally done so? Better to concentrate on people who are *paying* for content since by paying they are financially supporting the continuation of the crime (the people who haven't paid are not supporting the real criminals).
Re:So this is like... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is really a socialogical problem which is hard to fix
Rubbish. It's (fairly) easy to fix. The trouble is that it's been demonised so much that it's turned into a "thoughtcrime".
Here's an idea. Remove all laws against copying, selling and downloading child porn, but keep the laws against things that actually involve the children - like statutory rape, child abuse, etc. This makes it more likely that police will be able to find images of kids being abused, partially because the black market won't be so hidden and partially because it's more likely that the illegal stuff will be photographed. If the police have images of abuse, they can crop out everything but the kid's face and stick it on a milk carton with "do you know this kid"-style messages, thus actually tracking down the kids that are being abused and stopping the real crime, not the symptom.
Unfortunately, this tactic would involve scaling back the paranoia and hatred and making a distinction between people who actually abuse children and people who are attracted to underage people. That's not a distinction society is willing to make, in my opinion, we collectively seem to like having people that we can point unreserved hatred at.
Open up the can o'worms (Score:3, Insightful)
That's pretty much it.
Now, when A can't get his pictues from B anymore the "normal" way, what will happen? Will they stop trading?
Would you stop getting music from the 'net if the RIAA (who do I fool, that should read "when", not "if") buys the corresponding law to apply this technology to music?
What will happen is that the ways to transfer those items become more obscured. Hashes are worthless as soon as you change a single byte. Both ends agree on an encryption scheme and the transfer is possible again. What automatically fails is any kind of tracking possibility.
Currently, when those files can pass, CP traders might be carelessly using traditional means to transfer their material. Because "it works". When it doesn't "work" anymore, they won't stop, they will turn to technologies that can not be stopped.
Those can't be tracked as easily either, though.
REALLY bad idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think anybody is against the idea of nailing the kiddie pornographers and getting their "customers" into therapy or whatever they need, but I think this particular idea is a bad misfire.
ISP's to Create Database to Combat Child Porn (Score:2, Insightful)
How is this legal? ISPs aren't law enforcement, and I don't think (but ianal) possession of ANY child porn is legal.
And how is this supposed to cut it down? It's just going to get more children molested on camera if what's there goes away.
The software can't possibly tell whether it's a picture of a child unless a human has tagged it. Methinks somebody at AOL and Yahoo and Microsoft wants to watch child porn legally! Fucking perverts.
Plus, different states have different legal ages. In Illinois it's 17, in some states it's 18, in Arkansas it's 13. So a movie of two fifteen year olds its legal in Arkansas but not Illinois.
Redd Foxx once asked "what looks like sex but isn't? Fidel Castro eating a bananna!
If the computer can tel Castro from oral sex, how can it tell a 16 year old from a 17 year old? Hell, at my age the thirty year olds look like children! If a human can't tell, how can a machine?
</on topic>
<-1 off topic>
It's bad enough when the New York Times stubbornly insists on being illiterate, but this is allegedly a nerd site.
If "ISP's" is plural for "ISP" then what is the possessive? What is the plural posessive?
ISP - a single ISP
ISPs - more than one ISP
ISP's - singular ossessive; "the first ISP's routers were down"
ISPs' - plural possessive, "the next two ISPs' routers were down"
The Times says ISP is a contraction, but it isn't. Its an acronym. Just because the New York Times editors are illiterate morons doesn't mean slashdot has to be, to.
You learned this is the fourth grad, guys. Stop embarrassing me.
</off topic>
Gov. sending you child porn? (Score:4, Insightful)
So, the ISP's put this system in place, the GOV hires a bunch of spammers (all under the table of course) to email low grade kiddy porn to everbody who looks like the next terrorist and VOILA instant access to all your information: digital and physical. A kiddy porn investigation gets the judges to write out all kinds of warrants for the FBI and you are powerless to stop it.
Some asshat senator mad at your company for opposing one of his bills? Send some kiddy porn to you, and start an investigation. Even if they don't find anything, you'll most likely lose half of your cusotmers and most of your respect.
I'm scared.Re:So this is like... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Official stance (Score:3, Insightful)
Sharing of copyrighted music leads to less copyrighted music.
Find the anomaly.
More sharing means more instances of child pornography which inspires more people which leads to more child molestation which again leads to more child pornography.
More sharing means less sales of copyrighted music which leads to less revenue which leads to less (copyrighted) commercial music.
While I suppose there could be some commercial child pornography producers who would stop because it's no longer profitable, I imagine most are amateur producers since money is very tracable. Also, child pornography producers can't stop others from selling it on via copyright. I imagine at lof of the proifts is in finding stuff for free, then selling it to others without any kickback to the producer. All that would happen is that a bunch of pedos which are would-be molesters would go "oh, that looks hot... imagine the girl next door doing that to me". My impression with great music is that most people simply want to listen to it, not recreate it themselves. That's the difference.
Re:This can be a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a commonly held belief. wonmder though why it only applies to sexual fantasy (again, FANTASY, not real ) about children? Look for instance at the NY Times list of best-selling books. Currently the top 5 are:
- THE HUSBAND, by Dean Koontz
- BEACH ROAD, by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge
- AT RISK, by Patricia Cornwell
- THE BOOK OF THE DEAD, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
- TERRORIST, by John Updike
I think at least 4 of the top 5 are about murder, some presenting killing and rape in great, loving detail. Why then do not the millions of readers of these books find their appetites for murder and rape whetted? Why is it perfectly acceptable for maiden aunts to read Hannibal on a bus? Do any of them go home and crack open someone's skull to eat fresh brains?Here this "whetting" argument is often riduculed when Jack Thomson comes out with another vilification of video games.
Children know that cartoons are not real. They don't think they can fall off cliffs and survive like Wile E Coyote. People can indulge themselves in all kinds of horrible fantasies, and then close the book and live in the real world.
Oh, please. (Score:4, Insightful)
How did this get moderated up? I'll find you the anomaly: No company in the world has a legitimate market in online pornography. The rationale is that illicit/illegal downloading leads to more illicit/illegal downloading in the cases of both child pornography and copyrighted music.
The damage (theorized by the RIAA) to legitimate music markets by illegal downloading cannot happen to the market for child pornography because there is no market of child pornography to harm.
Re:Wouldn't it make more sense ..... (Score:1, Insightful)
And that's ignoring the fact that, in all likelihood, the photographers generate their own demand. I don't really see someone getting into creating child pornography if they've no personal interest in it.
Re:Yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)
See, that's the problem -- "rather 100 innocent jailed than one guilty man go free." It's supposed to be the other way around.
So now these anonymous media companies... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The big problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is this really a problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now child abuse is the second most abused fear in the American meme. Politicians create stupid ineffectual laws using this fear. Prosecutors create headlines and positive self images misusing this fear. And now this scheme comes along with another way to spy on me using this fear. There is no mention of a method to protect a falsely prosecuted person in this scheme. This scheme does not actually protect children.
So in summary all of this money is spent, a few people will have their lives ruined because of mailing or receiving some objectionable images, perhaps even a few who are actually abusing children will be caught, but in the end the real criminals learn how circumvent it and we all lose a little more of our privacy. I don't think it worth it, at all.
I think if we are going to spent money and effort protect children form sexual abuse we should spend it on the people who work with actual children detecting and preventing this sort of crime... like educators, sociologists, healthcare workers, etc... Creating the kiddie porn version of Total Information Awareness or Carnivore won't help.
Re:This can be a problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, REAL child porn does necessarily in its manufacture.
I will argue that quasi child porn is similar enough to real child porn that there is no substantial difference between a child porn consumer and a quasi child porn consumer.
That's not an "argument", it's just expressing distaste.
I'll again pose the challenge, what is the difference between real child porn, photo-realistic child porn with a model, and photo realistic child porn without a model? Now what is the difference between photo-realistic porn and more stylized child porn?
Challenge? The first is criminal and involves abuse, the second maybe or maybe not, depending on the age of the model and the jurisdiction; the last is just art (or just porn), but not hurting anyone.
Re:This can be a problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hashing? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wanna bet? (Score:2, Insightful)
They dont need to have a database, it's pretty damn stupid to have one,,,,,,it's just a matter of time until someone from the inside makes cd's a makes money out of it, they should only ban and arrest those responsible and then use the materials to find missing children or other pedophile but like drugs,,,dispose of it by burning everything.
Anything that gets on a hard disk somewhere is potentially reusable by a twisted human being.
Re:That sums up all religions (Score:2, Insightful)
- Isaiah 1:18
Re:Hashing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Search Warrant (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:wont work (Score:4, Insightful)
2. Like any male adult with a sex drive who isn't a lying sack of shit, you admitted that sometimes individuals that haven't quite reached the age of consent turn you on. I applaud you for your integrity, but think about what you said right afterward: these pragmatic reasons you talk about amount to the laws being so screwed up that you're afraid to do what you want with your own computer in the privacy of your own home. And unless you believe law = ethics, the ethical argument falls apart when you realize there are perfectly civilized, modern, and inhabitable countries where the age of consent falls anywhere between 15 and 18. The US is an anomaly in treating every individual under 18 as a child (except for purposes of administering the death penalty, of course).
"illegal drawings" are a disgusting concept (Score:1, Insightful)
So - in your opinion, it would be morally preferable for one to kill a child than molest her?
>>watching Kill Bill, or playing GTA...
(Excuse my lack of evidence, but can't we criminalize simulated murder on my word? I put several minutes into forming this opinion.)
>>quasi-child porn breaches the barrier to real child porn.
You lost me.
Are you trying to say that checking out lolikon (drawn pictures of young girls) will lead someone to look at real kiddie porn?
Without any evidence? I'd like to see it, since all the anecdotes I've encountered suggest otherwise - most even that "quasi-child porn" acts as a substitute for real CP and helps them keep away from that shit.
>>quasi child porn is similar enough to real child porn that there is no substantial difference between a child porn consumer and a quasi child porn consumer.
Real child porn hurts children - its creation innately requires the exploition of (meatspace) children. "Quasi-child porn" doesn't, 'cuz it's just motherfucking ink on paper. 'No children were harmed in the making of this porn.'
>>The offence that kiddie porn consumers commits isn't the molestation itself it is the creation of a market that hinges on abused children. If you get your rocks off looking at quasi porn you are creating the exact same market as if you were looking at real porn.
Good God...
THE MARKET OF "QUASI-CHILD PORN:" PEOPLE DRAWING.
THE MARKET OF CHILD PORN: PEOPLE RAPING LITTLE KIDS.
"Exact same market," my ass.
>>I'll again pose the challenge, what is the difference between..
>>real child porn..
>>photo-realistic child porn with a model..
>>and photo realistic child porn without a model?
>>Now what is the difference between photo-realistic porn and more stylized child porn?
One involves child exploition - one doesn't. Do we really even need to explain this stuff, man?
BTW - it's good that lolikon can 'whet' a paederotic individual's appetite. Starving people who love children sexually *until* they snap isn't a great way to prevent child molestation, IMHO.
you are all missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
what is REALLY shocking is that this opens the door for ISPs to get their 'fingers on the bits' (its a data comm term - sorry about the double ententre).
so far, it has not been 'ok' to let ISPs scan for content and make judgements on it. most ISPs have drawn the line to say that we are just a carrier of bits and we are not RESPONSIBLE for what the user includes in the payload.
the music and film industry has tried to get ISPs to do their spying. with mixed success.
but scream 'CP' and you can't publicly NOT support that (and still keep your job). "have you stopped beating your wife yet?" goes the old joke. there's no safe way to answer that. if you publicly oppose such a politically charged idea, you are a boogeyman and an evil person. if you support it, you will pass under the suspicion-radar and will more or less be left alone.
this is a power grab to OFFICIALLY define an isp's job as net-nanny. first they claim to be protecting the citizenry - but its really far more devious than that. once the gov and the isp's convince joe sixpack that its in their 'benefit' for the net-nannies to read all your content ahead of you, you will NEVER get that level of privacy back again.
this is a sham. whenever someone says "won't you please think of the children!" you can bet that there are alterior motives going on.
remember: those in power just want to keep and increase their control level. fingers on the datacomm bits is one thing they've been after for a long time!
Re:Official stance (Score:2, Insightful)
Funny, I was thinking no one would have the courage to make that argument. I know I wouldn't have. Even if it's wrong, it needs to be made. So I commend you, for creative, independant thinking and courage.
So, the next task is to think of reasons it's wrong. The obvious argument is the "violent games lead to violence" argument, which I personally wholly reject. What else? Ah, how about this: it may lead to a decrease in the creation of child pornography, but it would greatly increase its consumption. But it's the creation that's harmful, not the consumption, right? I strongly believe that if it doesn't cause harm, it can't be wrong. But it does cause harm: having a recording of your rape as a child be seen by more and more people is more and more hurtful. You didn't give these people permission to view those recordings of you and you sure as hell wouldn't. I imagine it would be like being raped over and over and over.
Yet, I have this painful need to be logical. Is that continued harm less than the harm avoided by decreasing the creation of new child porn? Logic makes me want to say yes, and I don't like that. Perhaps it's good that the Internet allows people to consume child porn for free but in secret. At least then, it's less known to the victim. I would suggest the authorities never completely shutdown people's abilities to find free child porn online, for the good of many future potential victims. At least leave it safer to get it online for free than to buy it.
They are not stockpiling the actual pictures! (Score:2, Insightful)
RI** has already proposed fingerprinting their songs and then pressuring the ISP to allow them to monitor key internet streams for their songs being traded. This is truly a 1984 Big Brother kinda thing to do. "You're under arrest sir, your ISP reported you downloading nude images of Gary Coleman!"
Re:So this is like... (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, I personally there is a biological reason for wanting to be w/ younger children, i.e. 16+ years, because of the biological "guarantee" that the child is able to bear offspring. Once a women hits ~30 years old, the chances of a successful birth (read: no birth defects, retardation, autism, etc.) start dropping.
Having said that, I also feel that child porn is wrong. Young children have limited knowledge of sexuality (especially in more prudish countries) so can be psychologically affected, leading to poor person skills and hurting relationships. However, I think there needs to be more studies looking at when the psychological damage occurs and possibly lowering the age of consent, especially since minors are engaging in sexual activity at younger ages.
It may not be PC, but it is looking at the changes in culture. If kids are having consensual sex at 11 (or whatever), then how is it worse when a 16 year old wants to date someone just a few years older?
Re:Wanna bet? (Score:2, Insightful)
Err, that's getting offtopic, sorta. So what's going to happen when somebody sends a private nude pic to a significant other and it's hard to determine their age? I know women in their 30s and older that still get carded going into bars. What about porn sites and their customers? Will every image have to have that "18 at time of modeling" disclaimer have to be imbedded into the photos? What about when high school sweethearts, one just starting college and the other just becoming a senior send naughty pics or cyber via webcam? These are things that need to be considered. Improbable? Maybe, but not impossible. And once the term "child pornography" gets involved, the emotion and assumptions that come with it will overwhelm the truth. More than that, even if the person is declared 100% innocent, that word will be stuck to them for a long time. The media and a town's gossips rarely put as much effort into undoing damage as they do trying to get ratings. The way the government is going, that person might be stuck on a watch list for the rest of their life. That's wasted resources and an assumption of guilt. Bad, bad, bad.
What I really want to know is how prevelent this problem is. It's greater than none and maybe less than the hype being used to pass all of the laws, but who knows?
I don't think that's such a great idea... (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want the pictures of my abuse all over the internet were I so unfortunate as to be one of those kids
That's the rationale the Supreme Court has for blocking it: that a child is abused again every time someone looks at it, because on some level it's like defamation (even though it's true).
Don't get me wrong: I'm all for neutering pedophiles with a hammer, but I fear that the government will do nothing but make this into a massive spy operation that will do little, if anything, to actually protect children. Far more effective, IMHO, would be to *educate* those kids about not giving out personal information online unless absolutely necessary and to have a *central point of contact* for reporting child porn. Oh, and I should mention something I found out when reading the actual, federal laws on CP: there's a limited safe-harbor for people who come across it accidentally. IIRC, you must not tell anyone else or show anyone else (except law enforcement) and you must destroy the file ASAP (although you may be allowed to make a copy for law enforcement). I wouldn't suggest going around and looking for it, though. But that's just about wide enough for anyone who accidentally comes across the filth to pass it along to some anonymous police contact so that they can bust whoever is spreading it.
Those two things alone would probably be about a billion times as effective as storing a database of hashes of CP. Haven't they learned *anything* from all the hash-busting spam we get!? I don't seriously believe that they can find a hash of the image that cannot be busted by trivial things like cropping the image, adding JPG comments, randomising the less signficant bits, changing the compression, etc.
Oh, right, they're legislating without a clue. That should be a crime, but who would pass that law?