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Microsoft Collaborates On Child Porn Buster
pmike_bauer writes "Microsoft and Canadian authorities on Thursday launched a software program designed to help police worldwide hunt down child porn traffickers. Police departments can use it free of charge." From the article: "The program was developed by Microsoft Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Toronto police, with the help of the Department of Homeland Security, Scotland Yard and Interpol." Update: 04/08 18:09 GMT by Z : Modified to reflect the fact that it's not Open Source.
I watch 24 and like it. It's always made me laugh at how easily the agents in the CTU offices were able to bring up any info about anyone anywhere in the world and have that info be up to date. I was amused because it was just so stupid to think that that kind of technology could be developed. You'd need massive amounts of hardware, some serious database capabilities, and motivation to build a monstrosity like that.
I'm not laughing so much after reading this article. It seems to describe exactly the type of universal "Big Eye" technology that Jack Bauer and his cronies at CTU have at their fingertips. And with a cattle prod like CHILD PORNOGRAPHY they've got motivation to build it and a shield to protect themselves from privacy complaints. After all, it is designed specifically to protect the children.
I guess one good thing is that it was built by Microsoft, so it won't work correctly until v3.0.
I hate child pornographers as much as anyone. I find their perversion sick and disgusting. (I am not adverse to them getting their rocks off by looking at adults who look like children. Nothing wrong with that.) But I fail to see why everyone's right to privacy should be invaded just because the Canadians can't track down their own criminals.
What we need is the anti-24. A show with a hero who is interested in building up our rights rather than finding ways of tearing it down. I guess that wouldn't go over too well in these days of ultra-Americanism, though.
I googled for license agreement, but found nothing. I would be very surprised, if Microsoft released it under one of OSI approved licenses. So, what license is this "open-source"?
This Is Not a Sig
WTF does Homeland Security have to do with this?
Gee... I guess that couldn't be since the number of internet users has grown since 1996? Nah...
The Official Steve Ballmer Webpage
open source doesnt necessarily mean 'put the source on a website for all and sundry to download on a whim'
That's pretty much what it does mean. Otherwise it's just a source distribution, and proprietary code has been distributed in source form since, well, software's been around. Heck, big engineering projects and customised real-time control systems traditionally ship with full source, and it's only recently that a binary-only product wasn't a show-stopper in that market... but nobody would have described that as "open source".
Erm, actually they have about as many guns per person as the USA. They just don't quite as convinced that shooting someone is the way to solve a problem.
In Soviet Russia you own your cat
Obviously, entities people dislike are suspected of having a hidden agenda when they suddently change behavior and do something they've historically opposed. When the spyware folks started making anti-spyware statements people were suspicious. Likewise when the anti-OSS folks start releasing OSS. This kind of suspicion is quite reasonable.
This doesn't mean that there isn't a "good" explanation -- just that people are skeptical.
In support of suspicion: Why is the US Dept. of Homeland Security involved in kiddy porn? Could there be some application beyond kiddy porn that might interest them?
It's a fairly common tactic to establish a precedent for a questionable tactic by using it against an unquestionable evil. I think that's what worries people about this.
Dewey
This is only slightly off-topic but I think we have to start rethinking what we mean by child pornography. So far we play pretty fast and loose with the precise meaning of it. And specifically I am concerned with the ages at which we still consider people children.
Some cultures debut a woman into society at the age of 15 or 16. At the age she is debuted as a person of marriageable years. Doesn't that mean she is no longer a child? How about a boy of the same age? Some states allow 16 year olds, or minors, to be married. How about the child pornography laws in those states - is the age 16 or 18?
Yes, it matters. A lot. One makes sense and the other does not.
I even have a specific example: Traci Lords. IIRC, she was supposedly 15-16 when she made all those movies. Now I don't know the lady, but I have heard that she was the one that conned the porn industry into thinking she was over 18. They inquired, she lied about it. I have also heard that she was pretty much the slut and a driven porn career girl in her time.
But under the law something as innocent as her Penthouse magazine debut is considered child pornography. Sorry, if I don't cry a river of tears for a woman of 16 that looks and acts like that. It doesn't seem like child pornography to me, nor was it peddled that way in my view.
What about another child viewing the information in question? I mean your 13 year old son is trading naked pictures of himself with a 13 year old girl he knows. Are you liable? How do you prove it's your son and not you?
This is a big joke. This is more than a slippery slope - this a friggin' slip and slide hosed down in K-Y. The abuse of this technology is about to run wild. And as others have pointed out - it's really hard to be the guy arguing against a "child pornography" technology. They will cram it down our throats this way and then just sit back and watch the scary, abusive results.
Some of these children are not children. For all intents and purposes they are adults and should be treated as such.
BTW, you may curious if I have a cut off point at which age I think it makes sense to protect a child. I do: the age is 14. But I have a stipulation that the child cannot have lied or had false ID that suggested he or she was older than was the case. Now a lie is hard to prove, but if they have emails where the kid claims he or she is older, I consider that a fair defense. Any fake IDs indicating an older age are also a defense.
But 14 or under and with no extenuating circumstances, throw the book at them. Just don't trample all over everyone's privacy rights to do it.
I'm really sick of all the new laws, rulings, and technology whose purpose is just to make it easier to catch a supposed "criminal." We all commit crimes all the time. Surveillance is not really the answer. How much are you enjoying those street cameras that photograph your license plate and send you a mailed traffic ticket? Does it seem fair to you that it's you against a possibly faulty machine? Do you even time to fight it, or is it just more cost effective for you to take it in the ass and work that day instead?
You see, that's how they think. It's all about revenue collection and cheap prison labor to them; while to you it seems like it's all about an ordered society of laws.
think about the uses to which you can put that underlying code, which is now all open source. now imagine what will happen when someone takes this open source code and perverts it into a complete ID theft tool. what will the M$ press release look like then?
Then M$ just goes on saying this is because OSS is evil, and this only happened because of OSS.
it's a PR coup on two fronts...
Perhaps 3 fronts.
Microsoft just made a direct connection between OSS and kiddie porn. Whether or not it's a 'good' connection is irrelavent. The connection's made, just like the senators tring to associate P2P with kiddie porn. Any connotation with kiddie porn is a bad connotation in this "WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!11!!oneone!!OMGWTFBBQ!!!!!" world.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
That's the theory, then there's the reality. Police and prosecutors have agendas, the average person can't afford a decent defense and public defenders are grossly overworked, there's immense social stigma associated with the mere whiff of involvement, etc.
Then there's the current craze for overcharging. Hit them with dozens of charges so they'll plea bargain down to what you _might_ have been able to get if the case went to trial. The innocent will agree to it because the alternative could be life in prison without parole, the prosecutor loves it because it bumps up their kill rate while freeing them to pursue other cases. Even better, part of a plea bargain is a surrender of all rights to appeal the conviction!
If you want to see a horrid example of this run amuck, look at the Weenachee, Washington child abuse cases. According to the police (a single officer, Lt. Perez, iirc), and the prosecutor a 30+ child abuse ring was uncovered and convicted.
If you listen to the critics, you'll learn that almost everyone charged was poor, hispanic, and accepted a plea bargain because they couldn't afford a defense. They all continue to maintain their innocence. The only couple to get off where rich and white and they took the case to trial. (The critics also point out that Perez appeared to have used improper interrogation techniques for young children and was far more likely to have implanted false memories than to have uncovered true ones. E.g., iirc he had many of his victims live with him while the child's parents were under investigation! He would (subconsciously?) reward them with ice cream and other treats when they were cooperative.)
If you listen to the other courts the city really screwed up and owes millions in dollars in damages. The city is appealing because the judgement will bankrupt the town.
Unfortunately the real victims are the 30+ people convicted of these crimes. The subsequent court rulings introduce massive doubts about the prior convictions and most people could get a new trial. (Then the DA would probably decline to prosecute, freeing them without an admission of wrongdoing on either side.) But they're stuck in prison for 5, 10 or even 20 years because they accepted plea bargains and lost their right of appeal. Their only hope may be a pardon from the governor - and mass pardons for convicted child molesters (regardless of circumstances) is political suicide.
So tell me again how the system bends over backwards to protect the innocence and the falsely accused have nothing to fear.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Besides, drawn/written child-porn is already allowed in the US and Canada as long as its creator puts a little disclaimer on it saying that "All characters are 18 or older"... even if other parts of the work mention a character who's just turned 18 lusting after her younger brother (an actual example from a hentai game sold on j-list.com). Somehow, the way the laws work, you can sell graphic hentai starring a character who looks 8 or 9 as long as you claim she's 18 (See: this review of Jewel Knights Crusaders), but if you draw a character who looks 18 and say she's 15, that's OMG CHILD PORN! and will get you in serious trouble.