Slashdot Mirror
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.
This is a somewhat strange choice by Microsoft, in my opinion.
They cry and whinge about how inherently evil OSS is, and then when its used for a purpose that they know nothing other than OSS would be accepted, they go ahead and release software in this way.
It would be interesting to see what license this has been released under.
This could serve good use in showing they FUD around open source as the sham that it is.
Whilst im glad that they are doing this, I wonder if it may come back and haunt their OSS fighting efforts later down the line. Lets hope so, im all for Win-Win situations.
-Shepy
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.
About bloody time, too. Microsoft releasing an open-source tool-- good. Killing child porn-- even damn better!
Details of how the system works are being kept secret, Hemler (Microsoft Canada president) said. "We're intentionally coy about the technology that is used in this because we think it gives the good guys an advantage over the bad guys," he said. "Think of it as an assembly of commonly available Microsoft software, using techniques from Microsoft Research and best practices that the law enforcement community shared with us."
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
The article from MSNBC mentioned in this story is very light on details. Thanks to Google News, here are some more useful articles about CETS, the Child Exploitation Tracking System:
These articles mention that CETS is based on MS SQL Server (for the database) and some bits of MS SharePoint (for the web portal). Also, the system uses .NET and web services (SOAP/XML) for exchanging data so it should be possible to integrate this with non-Microsoft systems (in theory).
What is not mentioned in any of the articles is whether the system is really open-source, as claimed in the headline of this Slashdot story and the related MSNBC article. The only statements that I found about this said that Microsoft Canada will "make [CETS] available free of charge to any law enforcement agency that wants to use it." But no mention of any Open Source license.
-Raphaël
WTF does Homeland Security have to do with this?
Funny how a week ago, this story would have made perfect sense.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
Look! Open Source, good! Protect the children against those bad child pornographers, good! Now, how about looking at what they're actually doing besides their cover story, bad.
This is the second time in about a week that we're seeing Microsoft doing something that puts it up against a greater evil. And to make it even more boggling, they're doing it open-source.
Did Microsoft hire someone new? Or did they take a look at their image and try to make amends? As much as I know my view of them is biased both by my history as a mac fan and the rants I've seen of others complaining and complaining about problems with microsoft (note I'm not trying to start an argument here, just pointing out that my view is biased); I know that Gates has funded new CompSci departments for universities like Cambridge (UK) - it's just a surprise to see what has seemed such a stereotypical corporation taking these steps against something in this way. Gates' view that open source is evil has been overtaken by the view that child porn is worse. I completely agree, and as strange as it is to say it - good work, Microsoft.
Browsing with +2 to insightful posts and a higher threshold makes the average post seen seem a lot more ingenious
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Gee... I guess that couldn't be since the number of internet users has grown since 1996? Nah...
The Official Steve Ballmer Webpage
Microsoft writes open source child porn buster
Next weeks news item: Microsoft claims open source supports child porn
How open source can it be?
1. I can't find the license anywhere.
2. I can't find where to download the binaries.
3. I can't find where to download the source code.
4. It's available for free only to law enforcement.
Has anyone actually located 1, 2, or 3? Please post if you do...
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
Oh, that's what it is! One of the local headline writers made it sound a little different.
You probably shouldn't click this.
TFA doesn't seem to have any clue what "open source" means. This isn't open source at all. It was liscences to several MS server technologies donated to the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre in Ottawa. It gives Canadian police a central database for notes, evidence collected, and existing tracking databases. It then uses standard data mining to tease out connections. It will do the same for other jurisdictions. It's "free as in beer" if your a national law enforcement agency, but certainly not "free as in speech"
Free MacMini
include/asm-alpha/errno.h, include/asm-arm/errno.h, include/asm-cris/errno.h, include/asm-i386/errno.h, include/asm-ia64/errno.h, include/asm-m68k/errno.h, include/asm-mips/errno.h, include/asm-mips64/errno.h, include/asm-parisc/errno.h, include/asm-ppc/errno.h, include/asm-ppc64/errno.h, include/asm-s390/errno.h, include/asm-s390x/errno.h, include/asm-sh/errno.h, include/asm-sparc/errno.h, include/asm-sparc64/errno.h, include/asm-x86_64/errno.h, include/asm-alpha/signal.h, include/asm-arm/signal.h, include/asm-cris/signal.h, include/asm-i386/signal.h, include/asm-ia64/signal.h, include/asm-m68k/signal.h, include/asm-mips/signal.h, include/asm-mips64/signal.h, include/asm-parisc/signal.h, include/asm-ppc/signal.h, include/asm-ppc64/signal.h, include/asm-s390/signal.h, include/asm-s390x/signal.h, include/asm-sh/signal.h, include/asm-sparc/signal.h, include/asm-sparc64/signal.h, include/asm-x86_64/signal.h, include/linux/stat.h, include/linux/ctype.h, lib/ctype.c, include/asm-alpha/ioctl.h, include/asm-alpha/ioctls.h, include/asm-arm/ioctl.h, include/asm-cris/ioctl.h, include/asm-i386/ioctl.h, include/asm-ia64/ioctl.h, include/asm-m68k/ioctl.h, include/asm-mips/ioctl.h, include/asm-mips64/ioctl.h, include/asm-mips64/ioctls.h, include/asm-parisc/ioctl.h, include/asm-parisc/ioctls.h, include/asm-ppc/ioctl.h, include/asm-ppc/ioctls.h, include/asm-ppc64/ioctl.h, include/asm-ppc64/ioctls.h, include/asm-s390/ioctl.h, include/asm-s390x/ioctl.h, include/asm-sh/ioctl.h, include/asm-sh/ioctls.h, include/asm-sparc/ioctl.h, include/asm-sparc/ioctls.h, include/asm-sparc64/ioctl.h, include/asm-sparc64/ioctls.h, include/asm-x86_64/ioctl.h, include/linux/ipc.h, include/linux/acct.h, include/asm-sparc/a.out.h, include/linux/a.out.h, arch/mips/boot/ecoff.h, include/asm-sparc/bsderrno.h, include/asm-sparc/solerrno.h, include/asm-sparc64/bsderrno.h, and include/asm-sparc64/solerrno.h
Then it said that I could get a license for untainted versions of the files for something like $700 as a special limited-time offer...Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
Trying to tie this issue to 1st amendment rights shows how little you know about the issue and how little you know about the 1st amendment.
Children are bought and sold, gang-raped, and forced to have sex with each other. Acts which absolutely destroy a child. This isn't some victimless crime.
But, continue on with your ignorant anti-american ways. I'm sure it somehow makes you feel better about yourself.
Similar stats could probably be cited for any kind of image found on the Internet, including cars, sunsets, weddings, houses, and generic boob-n-beaver shots of consenting college students. News flash: the Internet (especially the Web) has grown a lot in the past decade!
I'm not saying that child sexual abuse isn't a problem (it is, and has been since long before ARPAnet, and the perps should be beaten with rubber hoses), but this statement in the article implies a kind of exponentially-exploding disaster that it doesn't actually demonstrate.
Common mistake - open source does not mean that 1, 2 or 3 have to be fulfilled to the general public, indeed I can opensource a project of mine and supply the binary and code to my one sole customer, it would still be open source. There is nothing in any of the GNU licenses or the OSI opproved licenses that says 'you must supply this to the general public for it to be an opensource project', you can keep an entire GPLed codebase within a tight group of people, so long as the binary isnt distributed outside that group.
Opensource does not mean you have immediate rights to 1, 2 or 3.
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".
Common mistake - open source does not mean that 1, 2 or 3 have to be fulfilled to the general public, indeed I can opensource a project of mine and supply the binary and code to my one sole customer, it would still be open source.
That would make virtually every large scale engineering or realtime control system for the past three decades "open source". And that's just stupid... our product ships in source code form, but it's sure as heck not described as, thought of as, or considered "open source". It's a proprietary product that comes with a source distribution.
There is nothing in any of the GNU licenses or the OSI opproved licenses that says 'you must supply this to the general public for it to be an opensource project',
That's true, it's perfectly possible to violate the spirit of open source while complying with the letter of any license. That's not "open source", that's "gaming the system".
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
I missed the part of the 1st Amendment that gave people the right to violate and abuse children.
No keyboard detected. Press any key to continue.
The US Constitution was written a long time ago. In those days, if you wanted a private conversation, you could just go off into the woods somewhere, prod the undergrowth with a stick to make sure nobody was hiding in a bush, and have your private conversation. There were no such things as video cameras, tape recorders or computers, and no reason to suppose such things would ever be invented. The right to privacy was obvious, and that's why it was taken for granted.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Now I in no way condone child pornography, but producing statistics w/o context for comparison is ridiculous:
"The FBI has seen a 2,000 percent increase in the number of child pornography images on the Internet since 1996"
What's the percentage increase in non-child porn on the internet since 1996? The percentage increase in pictures period? 2,000 percent seems like it could be a lower bound, but who really knows?
That quote makes it sound like the world is under a deluge of child porn, when in fact one could argue that the internet is just getting bigger.
The Canadian child pornography law covers purely fictional material. Draw a picture of a child being raped, from imagination, without any real child being harmed, and that is just as illegal in Canada as if it were a photo from life. One recent widely-reported case had a man in Edmonton arrested and prosecuted for possession of fictional Japanese comic books. They are also working hard on expanding the law to also cover text. That is, words, made up from imagination, without any pictures. The current effort is almost entirely directed at writing a law to convict one man - Robin Sharpe - who was acquitted of child pornography possession because the "child pornography" in question was fictional text and the Supreme Court said (correctly) that that was victimless and couldn't be prosecuted. The Religious Right is pressing to rewrite the law - damn the Constitution - in order to have a way to convict people like Sharpe. (The law actually already does cover text, but they want to make it a lot broader.)
This isn't about children "bought and sold, gang-raped, and forced to have sex with each other". It is sometimes, and in the most important and highest-profile actual Canadian case, a truly victimless crime.
Do you really believe that purely imaginary words should ever be illegal? I don't.
1. you don't have a universal deluxe right to privacy, it's a myth.
The idea that you don't have a right because it's not in the Constitution is the exact opposite of how the framers intended things to work. The point of the Bill of Rights was to say 'You have all the rights that are not explicitly taken away, and here are some that can never be taken away'. There was a big fight amongst the founders because some of them thought people might come to interpret the Bill of Rights as a list of all the rights you have, rather than the rights that can't be taken away. The rest of the founders thought nobody would be that stupid but that's the way everyone has come to look at things now. It's a complete inversion of the idea of the Bill. I have a right to privacy because it's not taken away in the Constitution, not the other way around.
No, they've already done much worse than that. Like turning those records over to federal law-enforcement.
That was true fifty years ago. Now everyone is a potential drug user or anti-globalization activist or copyright violator or terrorist or something the state doesn't like; and data surveillance is cheap and easy. The easier it gets, the more the question moves from "Why should we bother watching this guy?" to "Why not?"
Surveillance is moving to an opt-out model, rather than an opt-in.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Are you afraid that someone is going to track down your Super-Private online goings-on and share your secret with others? For example... is Safeway (grocery chain) going to track down all your online purchases of ass ailment treatments, and then, in their store, announce over the loud speaker, John Doe, We're currently featuring 10 cents off Assinol Plus with the purchase of Roidwipes2000? No. Could they? Perhaps. Would they? No. Their legal department would forbid it, for fear of frivolous lawsuits such as the one you'd hit them with 10 minutes later.
Nit #1. I wouldn't call that lawsuit frivilous. I think people have a pretty good expectation of not being made a spectacle of in the middle of a store due to medical conditions.
Nit #2. The Constitution does not define the rights we have. Just because it's not explicitly stated in the Constitution means absolutely nothing at all.
There are, however, reasonble limits to invasion and protection of privacy. I fear that unreasonable people are taking control of what those limits are, though.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
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.
lus3r:= whois(userdoman)
case lus3r
microsoft.com: execute goodguys
apple.com: execute sick-em
redhat.com: execute sick-em
*torvald*: execute kill-em
end case
sub sick-em
execute upload michael_jackson_home_movies
execute call_Homeland_security
end sub
sub kill-em
execute upload gates_kids_home_movies
execute call_interpol
end sub
sub goodguys
execute grant_more_stock_options
execute ballmer_happy_dance
end sub
You are one confused guy.
First, privacy and anonymity "only within your own 4 walls" is stupid, pointless and something that nobody but a Bush-brain could come up with. For one, who would I be anonymous to in my home? It's not like there'd be many people there who don't know me. Besides, my name's right on the bell sign.
It's exactly when you leave your home that anonymity enters the picture.
Now, anonymity is not, though there are some of the same letters in both words, the same as invisibility. Seing someone (walking down the streets or committing a crime, doesn't matter, any kind of seing someone) does not in any way touch their anonymity. In fact, seing someone and not knowing who they are is exactly what anonymity is all about.
Then the old "what are you afraid of?" strawman, aka "honest people have nothing to hide".
Man, I do have a whole bunch of perfectly legal things to hide. In fact, I'd rather confess that I broke into that server thing some years ago than publishing some of the totally legal things I do.
Do I have something to hide? Well, if you want to call it that, yes. I prefer to call it it's none of your damn business.
And that's what privacy is about. Keeping the things private that I want to have kept private. It includes the right to not having to justify why I want to keep them private.
Now we've come a long way from anonymity (which is one way to secure privacy, pseudonimity is one other and there are more). I hope I haven't lost you somewhere on the road.
And then the "nobody cares, you're not important, relax" argument.
I have 20 pounds of legal papers to prove that some asshole in California cares what I post on my website in Germany. I have a hundred or so people in my social circle who care - many of whom don't need to know about the details of my love life or other private information.
Someone, somewhere, always cares about you. If that's not true for you then you should really ask yourself some very serious questions.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
There is no "show". In my opine, the problem is exactly the fact that so many are content to sit on their arse, and watch frigging television.
Want a superhero? Someone to fight for your rights? I actually know where to find one!
Go to your nearest mirror, and take a close look. (Cape is optional.) Hmmm, now who would expect that ugly mug to be the face of a freedom fighter?
The way it works is, you, and every other mothers son has to stand up, put down the budweiser or moosehead, turn off the damn glowing boxen, and march your self down to the local city hall, or other local government office and make a damn pest of yourself, by actually being involved with what goes on.
I will lay odds that 99.5% of slashdot readers, for all their bullshit political raving, don't actually _do_ anything. (A simple test, do your city councilmen know your face and name?)
My city council sure as hell does not like to see my face in any council meeting, and they all certainly know my name, because they know that I am ever ready to challenge any bullshit they routinely try to pull. I have caused overly restrictive ordinance changes to be sent back to committee, for extreme modification, because they knew that I would take it to the voters for referendum. To quote the city manager... "That's the last thing we want."
So, If the will of the voters is the last thing they want, and ONE PERSON can cause this to go back for a more resonable approach to the problem, then how many freedoms have been lost in this country because people would rather sit home watching the damn glowing box than watching their local government in action, and standing up to them to keep the freedom destroyers in check.... Same in the state and federal level.
Look, these guys are mostly cowards... Most of them will fold under public scrutiny and political pressure...
But, if it appears that there is little or no resistance, then many will do whatever is expediant, and the hell with your freedoms.
Freedoms are usually not won in small increments, but they are lost or kept that way.
So, to all the readers. Don't bitch about it on slash-dot only. Get your butt involved in local, state and federal politics.
I will yeild the soap box to the next person now...
NOW, what did I do with that beer?
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
I hadn't had my coffee yet and first read this as "Microsoft Writes Open Source Child Porn Cluster" and thought they must really be going out of their way to discredit OSS now. Heh heh "Join the Microsoft Open Source Kiddie Porn Ring!" Yow! Well I guess I'd best go make my coffee now...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
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.
M$ seem to mean well; they're also working against phishing. Almost certainly this could be misused, but so can many useful things. I don't think they're as evil as they're protrayed to be.
:-)
But I still think Linux is better, and it's still fun to laugh at them