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.
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.
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
It's not all that strange, really...it's a PR coup on two fronts: M$ likes OSS, and M$ is tough on kiddie porn.
It's difficult to take a stand against an entity after they've declared war on kiddie porn.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Win-win? As opposed to *nix-*nix?
I'll be here all night...please tip your waitresses!It's all right. They can still enjoy licensing Microsoft SQL Server, among other required back end products, while receiving the benefits of positive press.
Do you like German cars?
WTF does Homeland Security have to do with this?
Correction - they cry about how evil OSS when applied to a commercial environment (i.e. "viral" licences, putting developers out of work, making support and ultimate responsiblity in limbo). In this case they don't seem to consider their police assisting child porn buster as being in the commercial realm - instead it's more along the line of some of their developer tools that are used to indirectly strengthen their platform. In this case they are trying to strengthen the Microsoft name brand among worldwide law enforcement. Since the software in question doesn't reveal the inner workings of their other software, and doesn't give up any competitive secrets, there is no need to keep it closed source.
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.
Is saying "good job" too much to ask for? What does MS need to do to earn a thank you from all the nay-sayers.
MS doesn't like OSS in the retail/commerical industry - which this is not.
They did a good thing, appreciate it. It is not FUD, I am sorry to say that in this case the FUD is from you at first post.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
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
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.
Actually, it's harder than you think. Allow the Open Source Players to demonstrate:
The Open Source Players present "You're a bad man!", by TripMaster Monkey.
So, as you can see, it's indeed not wise to take a stand against M$, especially since they've so firmly established themselves in the Camp of Good.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
i agree: this is a good thing, but i think there's a gotcha. did anybody notice what exactly this app does? from the article: "by enabling authorities for the first time to link information such as credit card purchases, internet chat room messages and arrest records."
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?
ed
Actually, Microsoft has never said that open source is bad for commercial work. They have consistently said that BSD type licenses are fine but GPL is bad. The problem that they have with the GPL is that they feel that it can pollute other projects that touch it. (I like to think of this as the "clingy" theory of the GPL.)
Microsoft is right about what the GPL does, but they are wrong to think that it kills business. ALthough, it might put a dent into their business model.
If you want to argue with Microsoft you have to at least understand what they are saying and why. Otherwise it just comes down to two separate hissy fits....
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.
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OSSG:See this wookie? He is from Endor. Does that make any sense? No. It doesn't!
AJ:Oh, my bad.
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!
You want MS to create OSS software to give out for free, but do it anonymously? Ok, then how are we supposed to give credit to MS for doing this generous thing? You are falling into a circle here: 1) MS publicizes the good they did and they get crap for "FUD", 2) MS does the work anon. and gets no credit. Under your model there is no way for MS to get credit for their work - which is not only publicity but a tax write-off which they are entitled too.
And who says that MS has to donate a certain amount of money? If they want to spend 10 mil on a 100k donation - that is their choice - we should thank them for the 100k donation and we should thank them for putting 10 mil back into the economy and lining someone elses pockets.
But you are right about one thing - many people will never trust MS no matter what they do - which I think is just plain old shameful since we forgive people who do a lot more graver of sins.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
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
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?
If I put a sign on my lemon tree that says "free lemons" it is not stealing to take some lemons, even if you strip the tree bare and set up a stand nearby to sell them for 5 cents each.
Microsoft can use BSD licensed code in their closed source products, and the author who released the code under the BSD license is/was/should be aware that this is the whole point of choosing to release code under the BSD license over the GPL.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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
If it's "Open Source", then where can I get the source?
/. summary, for those who don't read the articles.)
The article headline says "Open Source", but the text of the article just says that the software is free to police forces. Since it was also developed with the help of a couple of police forces, that makes sense, however, "Free for police" and "Open source" aren't the same thing.
Since most news stories have a different person writing the headline than writes the article itself, I'd assume that the headline writer is confused about what open source is (or didn't read the article carefully) and this software isn't "Open Source" at all.
(Yes, I'm referring to the linked article and headline itself, not the
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.