Kiddie Porn - The Virus Did It

The New York Times reports on a British man who was accused of downloading child pornography, and who successfully convinced the court that a virus did it. This is at least the second time this has happened. These cases are extremely interesting since they bring together all sorts of issues of computerized agents - who is actually responsible when your computer does something?

Comments

whoever the RIAA said did it

[RMH101]

i would have thought. we don't have to get the truth involved, do we?

Re:whoever the RIAA said did it

[Peterus7]

Wow, this is just a jackpot of excuses for when your mom checks the history of your computer and finds everything you don't want her to see...

"Mom, it was a virus... No, it was the RIAA... No, it was a big corporation... No, it was Gabe and Tycho... No, it was Dad... From the grave... No, it was Steve Jobs and Bill Gates fused together using alien android technology to make StevGate, the ultimate computer genius... Yeah. That's it..."

Virus?

[Renraku]

"It wasn't my fault, Officer. Honest, the video said it was Terminator 3 when I downloaded it!"

"The evil hacker even took the time to arrange and sort those pictures by series!"

Head cold?

[danormsby]

So the tissues by the keyboard were because you had a virus?

ISP logs

[Azadre]

Couldn't the courts just use these logs? If it shows him visting goatse.cx then downloading kiddy pr0n then going to google.com to search for lawyers, I'd say that's good evidence.

Where I come from...

[Phekko]

the law in Finland (IANAL, but still) says "if you know or SHOULD know..." I believe this one falls under the "should know" category.

Now that we're on this topic, though, does anyone know where to get a virus that downloads high quality images of nubile women with scant clothing who are of legal age?

It has to be a conspiracy

[__aadhrk6380]

Did anyone check the name of the company that located the virus? Vogon International, LTD.

I suspect the Prostetnic Vogon Geltz.

The computer did it!

[tobocop]

Yeah, I always said that to my girlfriend when she asked where to loads of pr0n came from...

Real child porn?

[simpleguy]

Excuse me, are we talking real child pornography here or images from those so called lolita and nymphets popups out there.

Re:who is actually responsible ...

[Blue Stone]

I have an idea of some sort of Bill gates silicone doll sitting on top of my pc, full of sensors, linked up to the USB port, so that when it crashes, it'll tell me it's responsible, I can torture it, and it'll scream, and reboot when the pain level reaches a certain level.

I feel this device would find a significant market.

Now I'm just looking for investors.

Re:The problem is over-aggressive law enforcement

[KingRamsis]

....view females as objects, like blonde DD bimbos and so forth.

not true, I respect females and when i meet one I always treat it nicely :-)

heh

[ed.han]

sorry, i just couldn't help thinking that the phrase "harvest porn" is not unlike "furniture porn" so couldn't help imagining combines in painfully silly poses.

OK, move along, nothing to see here...

ed

GOOD GOD, WE MUST CONTROL THE SPORKS!!!!!

[feed_me_cereal]

A basic computer competency test should be *compulsory* before anyone is allowed to purchase a computer.

Heck, sporks can be pretty dangerous too! A spork competency test should be compulsory before using such a potentialy dangerous tool. Said test should include the following areas:

• Basic form of spork (stops the old "is this a fork or is it a spork" question in the lunchline)
• Basic application of spork to lunch (by basic I mean VERY basic. "This is a porkchop. You insert the pointy parts into it first.")
• Basic spork skills (Don't insert the spork into your eye. Remove the food from the spork using your teeth, not your hand)
• Basic spork security (in fact, don't even include the word "security". Include this in the basic application section. Cover topics such as "don't share your spork, you might get cooties")
• How to report a problem (if there is a school chef or cafeteria supervisor available)

Hmm... actually, we could solve all of this and have a slashdot moderating competency test. Basically, whenever some short-sighted elitist suggests an insane reduction of basic freedoms for absolutely no reason, a mod of "insightful" will result in instant failure. Yeah, I think that would do it.