Viewing Files on the Web Considered Possession?

Packet Pusher writes "A Georgia lawyer is taking a case to appeals court to prove that the mere act of viewing a website does not constitute possession of the materials that were automatically cached on your hard drive." While the case in question involves pornographic photos, the implications of such a declaration could reach far further.

Comments

You ARE kidding, right? Images can be hidden.

[WidescreenFreak]

Apparently, you need to learn a bit about HTML. You could have a 1,600 x 1,200 image of some pervert doing a kid. If the image source reference in HTML explicitly stated "height=1 width=1" the image would be a single blip on the browser screen but the full image would still have been downloaded. And in the world of broadband, that image could have taken 1/2 second to download or less, meaning that the viewer would probably not have noticed.

Anyone who wants to be a real jerk could easily hide hi-res porn images on a site this way. And if the person was duped to visiting a web site that appears to be legitimate, he might never know what kind if images just ended up on his system. We often see this same type of thing on /. by those incompetent jackasses who like to link supposedly valid pictures that end up being tubgirl or lemon party. Well, guess what's then in our cache even though we probably don't want it there.

And the vast majority of people don't even know what a cache is, let alone how to clean it out regularly, so the argument about "They should know to clean it out regularly" doesn't work.

Re:Holely Cheese

[yuri benjamin]

Here's a possible solution:

rm -rf ~/.mozilla/{randomstring}/Cache
rm -rf ~/.mozilla/{randomstring}/history.dat
rm -rf ~/.mozilla/{randomstring}/cookies.txt
dd if=/dev/urandom of=bigfile #this will create a file filling all empty space

Wait for Device Full error.

rm bigfile

Repeat the last two commands. Might want to script it for a few hundred repetitions.

Theoretically it is still possible to recover the undelying data that was over-written. In practice it is very expensive and not 100% guaranteed.

Re:20 years, not hours

[VidEdit]

I think we are going to disagree on this issue. I'm more interested in the principle than the individual in this case.

The principle is that Walker County can charge you with possession even if you have never requested the images or viewed them. The images could be preloads, popups, or even downloaded via mal-ware. They don't care. They will charge you with a count for every image that your computer viewed--and pop-ups or mal-ware could download images for four hours.

Given that the Bush Administration believes that even pr0n that features consenting adults is illegal, this prosecution should be seen as extremely dangerous to your civil rights. It won't take vile child porn to get you thrown in jail--just anything the Administration doesn't approve of. It is guilt by association. Guilt for seeing. Guilty knowledge. And we are talking big time jail.

You are very impressed that he viewed the images for four hours. If that is what impresses you so, then the law should just state that viewing the images is illegal rather than possession. But laws don't do that because we know that we shouldn't throw people in jail for having seen something--hence the reason we require possession. If he had seen the images on TV we wouldn't be talking right now, but web browsers keep a temporary cache that is meant to be *temporary* and should not be considered possession anymore than the fact you could type in a URL and get the images should be considered possession.

Mind you, child molesters need to go to jail, but thought crimes and laws that presume guilt are a danger to us all.

PS, Orwellian *is* capitalized since it is based on Orwell's name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwellian

Re:Newsgroups

[amliebsch]

No, that is incorrect. They only must show knowledge of possession, not intent. 18 USC 2252A (excerpted):

(a) Any person who -

(5) either - (A) in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or on any land or building owned by, leased to, or otherwise used by or under the control of the United States Government, or in the Indian country (as defined in section 1151), knowingly possesses any book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, computer disk, or any other material that contains an image of child pornography; or

(B) knowingly possesses any book, magazine, periodical, film, videotape, computer disk, or any other material that contains an image of child pornography that has been mailed, or shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer, or that was produced using materials that have been mailed, or shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).

Interestingly, the statute explicitly provides an affirmative defense once the possession becomes knowingly:

(d) Affirmative Defense. - It shall be an affirmative defense to a charge of violating subsection (a)(5) that the defendant -

(1) possessed less than three images of child pornography; and

(2) promptly and in good faith, and without retaining or allowing any person, other than a law enforcement agency, to access any image or copy thereof -

(A) took reasonable steps to destroy each such image; or

(B) reported the matter to a law enforcement agency and afforded that agency access to each such image.

The way I read that, if you immediately take "reasonable" (note does not have to be absoultely effective) steps to destroy any images you receive as soon as you become aware of them, this is an affirmative defense. If you let them sit around on your hard drive without even trying to delete them, and you knew about them, then you have a problem.