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ISPs to Create Database to Combat Child Porn
BlueCup writes to tell us that several media companies are banding together to create a database of child pornography images to help law enforcement officials combat distribution of questionable material. In addition to the database several tools and new technologies are also planned but most notable is what some perceive as a willingness to cooperate which critics say has been lacking in the past. From the article: "Each company will set its own procedures on how it uses the database, but executives say the partnership will let companies exchange their best ideas — ultimately developing tools for preventing child-porn distribution instead of simply catching violations."
This is a great idea. With a couple of tiny issues.
ISPs have long said that they are just carriers and are not responsible for the content they provide access to. As soon as the technological solution for implementing a "content filter" is there, RIAA and friends will _require_ ISPs to use it for that purpose as well.
This is completely ignoring the technical stupidity of trying to "fingerprint" media that is _not_ going to be transferred in plaintext.
...stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons by creating a massive stockpile?
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Child porn is the darkest side of the internet. Its the thing all net users should be on guard for, and the argument invoked against the internet by countless alarmists.
However, I don't agree with this database. Keeping these images, even for law enforcement purposes, is a violation of the privacy of children who have already been subjected to a horrific violation. Leave them alone already.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
What exactly is different between Company A (ISP) and Company B (Offshore Freakshow) amassing a huge database of child porn? Company B is probably even in a jurisdiction where having it is legal by local laws, but Company A is certainly not. We have zero tolerance laws so strict they ruin people's lives for a banner ad containing a legal model that simply wasn't documented properly. So how come it doesn't apply here?
~Rebecca
how many ways can these pictures be hidden?
zip, rar, and other compression formats
encrpyted
hidden inside other files (stenography)
the list goes on...
these people should learn, you cant fight the internet
AOL, for instance, plans to check e-mail attachments that are already being scanned for viruses. If child porn is detected, AOL would refer the case to the missing-children's center for further investigation, as service providers are required to do under federal law.
Sounds like one of those 'good on paper' ideas that later spins itself into a slavering monster that eats half the internet. What's to say they don't start scanning for other things? Is the RIAA going to be knocking on my door because I sent an AOL member a Metallica MP3?
from tfa: "the goal is to ultimately develop techniques for checking other distribution techniques as well, such as instant messaging or Web uploads"
so they will be scanning our web traffic in real-time to determin if we are sharing child porn?
anyone else see this and think something along the lines of "this is just a 'think of the children' excuse to implement advanced monitoring systems, which in due time the govt. will take over 'in the public interest'"?
I tend to frequent said image board, and, while the posting of child pornography is rare, it happens.
So actually, you are not for the children, but against child porn (even fake) consumers. Interesting..
As a "regular user" of 4chan, you'd know how incredibly common it is to find kiddie porn there. It may tend to stay on the Random board and is usually only posted as a shock image, but it still appears on a daily basis.
I thought the same thing while watching some news report about child porn on television recently. A cop was sitting at his computer doing some clicking as he viewed child porn (obviously the camera didn't show the screen), and he talked about his war against distributors. Something just wasn't right about the way he talked about child porn, almost as if it took effort to disparage it and I got the sneaking suspicion that he had been compromised by it in some way. It made me wonder how much of a risk there is of a police officer developing an addiction to the matter he's sworn to defend against, a la Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly One wonders why cops are allowed to work on this on their own, seems to me it would make much more sense to allow people access to the material only in teams, perhaps mixed-gender.
...those who speak up against this incredibly stupid idea are just latent child porn users. Voila, more people you can potentially detain if you see fit.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
I don't think this scheme is intended to catch all child porn traffickers. Just the easy-to-catch idiots. And there are plenty of them out there. Think of all the dudes you read about who get busted because they brought their laptop to CompUSA for repair and the techs found a folder titled 'young' on the hard drive.
Don't get me wrong.. I'm 100% opposed to this system.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
The subject is really complicated, here you have a conjunction action from the top ISP companies, but there are some things we must know.
This means that if "somebody" sends to me an image that triggers the filter I'm gonna be a "suspect" (at least for a while) so AOL refer the case and 1 minute later i have an investigation running on my private emails.
BTW... i don't want to sound paranoid, but this is a "way to start", then the database can include another kind of images (who knows?). Or just filter anything they want. The comparison with the Antivirus system (intentionally and not so technical related) put me more alert.
I don't want to sound liberal, I'm against child pornography, but i think that this is not the way to fight against it. If some sick-man (A) have a picture of some-more-sick-asshole(B) doing nasty things with a child, he(A) is a sick person but not a criminal, the asshole(B) must go to jail because he abuse (mental and physical) the boy (the other guy(A) must go to a doctor).
Another idea could be the "infection" of some images/files/videos and leave in the wild (this pedophiles bastards are not technical specialist, the majority of them are teachers, fathers or military related). So we keep track of the files all over, and figured out "sources" where they upload this files not a "single email address" i mean where a lot of files converge from different places. Then, security experts with some legal support, 0wn the server and monitors everything... and the investigation continues.
Also the P2P networks has a LOT of "pedophilic" shares, but you can't run after every sick people, you must go to the source and condemn the one who abuse the child.
I don't like the idea of "monitors everything -> searching for something". I think it must be like i said before... its a HUGE difference.
Rock and Roll
I am wondering how would the system differentiate between me uploading my lil bro in his swimwear and some other almost naked pic of a kid meant for some sick bastard in some dingy corner. Wait till u see the feds knocking on your door for no apparant reason. I bet false positives will be enormous.. Far too much to outweigh the advantages of the system. Also as another dude pointed out earlier obfuscation of this type of contect isnt really difficult. The entire system is flawed and makes me think .. could google/yahoo be of any help in combating child porn??
This'll be different in what way from the massive database and set of image search tools that Interpol already maintains? It's not like every signatory agency (including those in the US) doesn't already have access to it, and it's been running for years.
/ PR2005/PR200536.asp
http://www.interpol.int/Public/ICPO/PressReleases
I've met some of the guys running it, and while I really admire their dedication and achievements, I can honestly say there's no job on earth I'd less like to have.
So because some asshole posts offensive images, he gets the whole site banned? Once that policy becomes established, think how easy it would be for any determined person to get just about any site blacklisted. Just post some kiddie porn every day for a week, reporting the site immediately after before it can be removed.
For that matter, how are they verifying their copy? Obviously if its a 6 year old getting raped you'd flag it and add the hash, but what if its just a girl taking a picture for her boyfriend that leaks out? Especially if its a 16 year old that looks like shes 18? or a 18 year old that looks like shes 16? What about Art? Family photograph from a country where theyre open about nudity(okay, would still be illegal here, but you get what I'm getting at).
Theres a lot of gray area, and a huge list of hashes isn't going to be very descriptive. While we're at it, they're just flagging files transfered.. What if someone sets up a relayer in a country where its legal and uses it to send kiddieporn to you via email? Click a message, commit a crime and go to jail. Or if someone defaces a site and puts up CP, or if someone just ups random CP to a public site(4chan), or any number of other ways.
Going after real pedophiles hurting real people would be great, but this isn't going to help and passing this kind of tech off as "for the children" is downright offensive.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Wanna bet that some slimey police exec is helping himself with those images?
I'd open a book on it, but only at 1/33.
Just like the Catholic Church is full of pedophiles and pederasts, no doubt "internet" law enforcement is filled with closet perverts who delight in ammassing volumes upon volumes of illicit data. It's probably also filled with those who get their thrills from snooping on other people's emails.
Let's put it this way. Where's the best place for a criminal to hide. A position of authority.
May the Maths Be with you!
There is NO way a NORMAL adult will be compromised... really!
... besides, who at /. believes in the validity of the term "NORMAL" being used as a moral beacon? Everybody can be corrupted. Thankfully not everybody has the same tastes in vices as pedophiles.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
Hypothetical scenario 1:
I piss off the wrong person. This person has access to material of this kind, and a zombie botnet. He arranges for this botnet to spam me with pictures of kiddy porn. The emails are caught by this system and flagged, and suddenly I'm the subject of an investigation. The way that sort of thing works here in the UK, I'm likely to be splashed all over the papers before my innocence is proved (which won't make nearly as large headlines, of course). Even if I am cleared, my reputation may well be shot to hell; people over here aren't too picky when it comes to this sort of thing. A few years ago a tabloid paper raised hell about paedophiles having been released into the community after serving their sentence. Some of the resulting protests saw a paediatrician being hounded from her home - people saw "paed" and thought "paedo". Rationality often takes a back seat where kids are concerned; this could be a very cheap and easy way to utterly ruin someone.
Hypothetical scenario 2:
I go on holiday with my family. I take photographs. I email some of these photographs to my friends and parents. Some of them contain shots of my 6 year old daughter in her swimming costume. An overzealous automated process tags this as a false positive, and suddenly we're all under investigation.
To be honest, scenario 2 doesn't worry me so much; it should be obvious to even the most rabid "think of the children" zealot that the photos are perfectly innocent. It's the first one that gives me grave cause for concern. It would potentially take some effort to prove ones innocence, during which time you're very likely to have been utterly pilloried in the press. If you have kids yourself, they may even have been taken into care for the duration, and are likely to have been teased or bullied about it at school.
I appreciate that measures do need to be taken to fight against child porn, but given the highly sensitive nature of the subject, I have conerns about implementing any sort of automated system.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
In the long run, all filtering schemes will only make distribution systems stronger. Child porn is already distributed in password protected rar files in certain places, and anonymous p2p networks have hundreds of gigabytes of the material in circulation. Technology isn't the problem here, the problem are the people who distribute the material. Any attacks on technology will fail as long as the people and their interests remain.
Essentially, any filtering mechanism depends on ability to detect the illegal act. If you prevent every method of distribution possible, the only channels left for child porn distributions are ones which are currently impossible to detect. Thus, in the long run this will only make it safer and more secure for people to download child porn. With filtering in place, the end users will know that if they're able to get the material, it means it probably cannot be traced.
If you want real solutions to the child porn problem, you should attack the people involved. "Divide and conquer" is the basic strategy, the different groups have to be isolated from each others and dismantled. Currently there are large anonymous p2p networks which are mainly run by people who want to share files, namely to perform copyright infringement. The child porn distributors use the same networks. If you want to eliminate child porn, you need to isolate these two groups from each others by giving them different goals. Currently, they both want to hide what they're doing from the authorities. One straightforward solution would be to allow filesharing for non-commercial purposes and encourage it to be done in plain sight and moderated networks, so child porn distributors couldn't piggyback in warez networks. Not going to happen anytime soon, eh, so does anyone else have any other ideas?
-- Matti Nikki
Wouldn't it make more sense to arrest people if and when they actually harm a child?
..... but so what? The kids in the pictures aren't getting any worse just because other people are looking at them. The harm was already done when the pictures were taken, and it isn't going to be undone.
I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with people who just want to look at pictures. Yes, they may well be pictures documenting a crime that was committed
I say let people jack off into a box of tissues as much as they damn well like. At least once they've spent their pocket money, they're no danger to anyone for a couple of hours. If they're doing more than look at pictures, then by all means go after them. But what a person does within the privacy of their own imagination is nobody else's business.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Are you trying to say Nietzsche was a normal human being? I think not :-)
Anyway, I wasn't using the word "normal" in a moral sense. I meant normal as in the vast majority who have the instincts to nurture and protect children.
To illustrate my point: Theoretically, someone with malformed instincts might be able to supress the actions or even thoughts that accompany this flaw through their morals. Just because they have a moral stance against what their diseased instincts are telling them, doesn't mean that they are *not* normal.
Or, to put it another way: A NORMAL adolescent male (I use male 'cos it's much more pronounced in males) wants sex as often as possible - he's not interested in children because they don't trigger his instincts. He doesn't try to rape every female who comes his way because he has NORMAL morals (and/or a normal understanding of what will happen to him if he's caught). In this case the instinct is normal, but it doesn't *necessarily* result in moral behaviour.
Err... does that make sense?
If scanning email/web traffic for sigs/hash patterns doesn't catch many people out just check their credit card bill. Known offenders are going have their details passed to banks and have their credit cards revoked, presumably so they can't re-offend. At least until they get a new credit card - UK banks keep giving them out to everyone like some kind of disease.
"The order relates specifically to offences relating to child pornography and allows the authorities to inform a credit card issuer of the identity of someone who has used one of its cards to commit a child pornography offence." From here
Pretty soon this will turn into "Big Brother can check anyones bank account and take action against pretty much any online transaction just in case its kiddy porn with a false transaction reference". This would result in so many "plain brown packages" in bank accounts that we won't be able to identify legitimate transactions and thus be more open to fraud. Unless banks change their rules to conform with the goverments crazy ideas. And everyone else changes to accomodate for this change. Bla bla bla...
Sharing of child pornography leads to more child pornography.
Sharing of copyrighted music leads to less copyrighted music.
Find the anomaly.
In fact, to follow the "think of the children" idea, I believe that such a database would lead with more CP production, as you would have to "replace" the material censored (assuming this measure would be efficient) leading to profits for pornographer producer.
Just a thought
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Literally EVERY parent I know have lots of pictures of their kids naked. Kids run around naked on the beach in pretty much all of Europe and small children simply enjoy taking their clothes off and running around the house and garden, sometimes to the embarrassment of their parents.
While I find it mildly weird to put family photos with naked kids on Flickr or your own family picture site, I can see no reason why this should be illegal. But isn't there a chance of these pictures finding their way into the kiddie porn database? If so, isn't there a decent chance someone may end up being tracked as a pedophile simply for proudly posting family pictures on the Internet?
Differentiating between kiddie porn and legal pictures of kids is probably hard enough when you do it manually and individually, but doing this on a massive scale just sounds incredibly hard and possibly dangerous.
While we're at it, they're just flagging files transfered.. What if someone sets up a relayer in a country where its legal and uses it to send kiddieporn to you via email? Click a message, commit a crime and go to jail. Or if someone defaces a site and puts up CP, or if someone just ups random CP to a public site(4chan), or any number of other ways.
This is what worries me about the "it's illegal to view $foo" laws - it's entirely possible that you don't know you're about to view $foo until it's too late and you've broken the law. Is there a need to go after people who have simply downloaded something dodgy since they may not have intentionally done so? Better to concentrate on people who are *paying* for content since by paying they are financially supporting the continuation of the crime (the people who haven't paid are not supporting the real criminals).
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Currently, occasionally CP traders are found out. Because A was getting it off filesharing tools from B, and either of them got busted during a "mundane" sting op and on the PC they found the trace to the other one.
That's pretty much it.
Now, when A can't get his pictues from B anymore the "normal" way, what will happen? Will they stop trading?
Would you stop getting music from the 'net if the RIAA (who do I fool, that should read "when", not "if") buys the corresponding law to apply this technology to music?
What will happen is that the ways to transfer those items become more obscured. Hashes are worthless as soon as you change a single byte. Both ends agree on an encryption scheme and the transfer is possible again. What automatically fails is any kind of tracking possibility.
Currently, when those files can pass, CP traders might be carelessly using traditional means to transfer their material. Because "it works". When it doesn't "work" anymore, they won't stop, they will turn to technologies that can not be stopped.
Those can't be tracked as easily either, though.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So what this database is telling the producers of kiddie porn is: if you distribute the stuff we already know about, there's a higher chance you'll get busted, so be safe and only produce/distribute fresh new material?
I don't think anybody is against the idea of nailing the kiddie pornographers and getting their "customers" into therapy or whatever they need, but I think this particular idea is a bad misfire.
-- http://frobnosticate.com
How is this legal? ISPs aren't law enforcement, and I don't think (but ianal) possession of ANY child porn is legal.
And how is this supposed to cut it down? It's just going to get more children molested on camera if what's there goes away.
The software can't possibly tell whether it's a picture of a child unless a human has tagged it. Methinks somebody at AOL and Yahoo and Microsoft wants to watch child porn legally! Fucking perverts.
Plus, different states have different legal ages. In Illinois it's 17, in some states it's 18, in Arkansas it's 13. So a movie of two fifteen year olds its legal in Arkansas but not Illinois.
Redd Foxx once asked "what looks like sex but isn't? Fidel Castro eating a bananna!
If the computer can tel Castro from oral sex, how can it tell a 16 year old from a 17 year old? Hell, at my age the thirty year olds look like children! If a human can't tell, how can a machine?
</on topic>
<-1 off topic>
It's bad enough when the New York Times stubbornly insists on being illiterate, but this is allegedly a nerd site.
If "ISP's" is plural for "ISP" then what is the possessive? What is the plural posessive?
ISP - a single ISP
ISPs - more than one ISP
ISP's - singular ossessive; "the first ISP's routers were down"
ISPs' - plural possessive, "the next two ISPs' routers were down"
The Times says ISP is a contraction, but it isn't. Its an acronym. Just because the New York Times editors are illiterate morons doesn't mean slashdot has to be, to.
You learned this is the fourth grad, guys. Stop embarrassing me.
</off topic>
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
So, the ISP's put this system in place, the GOV hires a bunch of spammers (all under the table of course) to email low grade kiddy porn to everbody who looks like the next terrorist and VOILA instant access to all your information: digital and physical. A kiddy porn investigation gets the judges to write out all kinds of warrants for the FBI and you are powerless to stop it.
Some asshat senator mad at your company for opposing one of his bills? Send some kiddy porn to you, and start an investigation. Even if they don't find anything, you'll most likely lose half of your cusotmers and most of your respect.
I'm scared.If O2 is good, O3 must be 1.5 times better!
This is a commonly held belief. wonmder though why it only applies to sexual fantasy (again, FANTASY, not real ) about children? Look for instance at the NY Times list of best-selling books. Currently the top 5 are:
- THE HUSBAND, by Dean Koontz
- BEACH ROAD, by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge
- AT RISK, by Patricia Cornwell
- THE BOOK OF THE DEAD, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
- TERRORIST, by John Updike
I think at least 4 of the top 5 are about murder, some presenting killing and rape in great, loving detail. Why then do not the millions of readers of these books find their appetites for murder and rape whetted? Why is it perfectly acceptable for maiden aunts to read Hannibal on a bus? Do any of them go home and crack open someone's skull to eat fresh brains?Here this "whetting" argument is often riduculed when Jack Thomson comes out with another vilification of video games.
Children know that cartoons are not real. They don't think they can fall off cliffs and survive like Wile E Coyote. People can indulge themselves in all kinds of horrible fantasies, and then close the book and live in the real world.
How did this get moderated up? I'll find you the anomaly: No company in the world has a legitimate market in online pornography. The rationale is that illicit/illegal downloading leads to more illicit/illegal downloading in the cases of both child pornography and copyrighted music.
The damage (theorized by the RIAA) to legitimate music markets by illegal downloading cannot happen to the market for child pornography because there is no market of child pornography to harm.
blog
are now collectors and warehouses of child pron? I'm just curious, when is it legal to obtain, retain, collect and warehouse something illegal? Oh ya, when you are the law. Only then can you break the law.
My 25 year old little brother has a life ambition of have a personal mirror of all the porn on the internet. His collection is *massive*. Having a look at this collection I have concluded a few things. There are a lot of young people making porn (college kids filming themselves fucking each other). There is sort of an arms race of weird, naughty, and taboo topics going on with the semi-pro crowd. There is a tendency to falsely label porn usually having to do with the age of the participants or weather or not the event was staged. There is a tendency to re-edit and re-label what was produced in a single event, eventually creating hundreds of versions of what was a unique filming event. So of the zillions of petabytes of porn zooming around the internet who knows how much is really 'illegal' or unique (ignoring the pictures someone takes of themselves to send to a specific person)?
Now child abuse is the second most abused fear in the American meme. Politicians create stupid ineffectual laws using this fear. Prosecutors create headlines and positive self images misusing this fear. And now this scheme comes along with another way to spy on me using this fear. There is no mention of a method to protect a falsely prosecuted person in this scheme. This scheme does not actually protect children.
So in summary all of this money is spent, a few people will have their lives ruined because of mailing or receiving some objectionable images, perhaps even a few who are actually abusing children will be caught, but in the end the real criminals learn how circumvent it and we all lose a little more of our privacy. I don't think it worth it, at all.
I think if we are going to spent money and effort protect children form sexual abuse we should spend it on the people who work with actual children detecting and preventing this sort of crime... like educators, sociologists, healthcare workers, etc... Creating the kiddie porn version of Total Information Awareness or Carnivore won't help.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Yes, REAL child porn does necessarily in its manufacture.
I will argue that quasi child porn is similar enough to real child porn that there is no substantial difference between a child porn consumer and a quasi child porn consumer.
That's not an "argument", it's just expressing distaste.
I'll again pose the challenge, what is the difference between real child porn, photo-realistic child porn with a model, and photo realistic child porn without a model? Now what is the difference between photo-realistic porn and more stylized child porn?
Challenge? The first is criminal and involves abuse, the second maybe or maybe not, depending on the age of the model and the jurisdiction; the last is just art (or just porn), but not hurting anyone.
You are an inhuman monster. It's not bad enough that a child has been mistreated, you think they should kill themself to spare you the inconvenience of being aware of their pain. If someone has been abused as a child they will have a hard time ever living a normal life, but they are just as deserving of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" as anyone else even if it's more difficult for them than others. As long as they don't allow their pain to lead them to cause harm to others they are just as deserving of equal rights as anyone else, no matter what psychological harm they've suffered.
What I want to know, is how prevalent is kid porn or what the hell it is? To me, I'm only interested in girls once they get signs of being able to breed.
...which means you're interested in 16 year olds, and the occasional 15, 14, and maybe even 13 year old. Welcome to the club, you pervert, and thank you for confessing. The FBI will be at your house shortly to sieze your computer and take you to a re-education camp. If it turns out you don't have any incriminating evidence on your computer, some will be provided for you.
Yeah sure we need to have a database with child porn in the hands of opensource,,,yeah great idea.
They dont need to have a database, it's pretty damn stupid to have one,,,,,,it's just a matter of time until someone from the inside makes cd's a makes money out of it, they should only ban and arrest those responsible and then use the materials to find missing children or other pedophile but like drugs,,,dispose of it by burning everything.
Anything that gets on a hard disk somewhere is potentially reusable by a twisted human being.
Come now and let us reason together.
- Isaiah 1:18
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
human sexauality is a continum, most of us find the opposite sex attractive, most prefer the same age and discriminate based on things like hair color, body shape ect, fewer are attracted to the same sex but same age; some are farther out on the fringe, it's the way we are born.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Whatever happened to the idea of a search warrant? The Postal Service isn't allowed to open my mail and check it for illegal or subversive material without a warrant. An ISP has no business scanning my email or web requests for questionable material.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
>>It is socially less acceptable to fantasize about child molestation than murder. To tell you the truth I don't really have a problem with that. ..I'm not following your logic, I don't think. Or I hope not..
...poses a threat to all humans, because, as we all know, violent video games & films 'undemonize' murder and antecedent copycat behavior by teens.
..involves child exploition.
..involves child exploition.
..doesn't involve child exploition.
So - in your opinion, it would be morally preferable for one to kill a child than molest her?
>>watching Kill Bill, or playing GTA...
(Excuse my lack of evidence, but can't we criminalize simulated murder on my word? I put several minutes into forming this opinion.)
>>quasi-child porn breaches the barrier to real child porn.
You lost me.
Are you trying to say that checking out lolikon (drawn pictures of young girls) will lead someone to look at real kiddie porn?
Without any evidence? I'd like to see it, since all the anecdotes I've encountered suggest otherwise - most even that "quasi-child porn" acts as a substitute for real CP and helps them keep away from that shit.
>>quasi child porn is similar enough to real child porn that there is no substantial difference between a child porn consumer and a quasi child porn consumer.
Real child porn hurts children - its creation innately requires the exploition of (meatspace) children. "Quasi-child porn" doesn't, 'cuz it's just motherfucking ink on paper. 'No children were harmed in the making of this porn.'
>>The offence that kiddie porn consumers commits isn't the molestation itself it is the creation of a market that hinges on abused children. If you get your rocks off looking at quasi porn you are creating the exact same market as if you were looking at real porn.
Good God...
THE MARKET OF "QUASI-CHILD PORN:" PEOPLE DRAWING.
THE MARKET OF CHILD PORN: PEOPLE RAPING LITTLE KIDS.
"Exact same market," my ass.
>>I'll again pose the challenge, what is the difference between..
>>real child porn..
>>photo-realistic child porn with a model..
>>and photo realistic child porn without a model?
>>Now what is the difference between photo-realistic porn and more stylized child porn?
One involves child exploition - one doesn't. Do we really even need to explain this stuff, man?
BTW - it's good that lolikon can 'whet' a paederotic individual's appetite. Starving people who love children sexually *until* they snap isn't a great way to prevent child molestation, IMHO.
the point is NOT about the KIND of content. that's just a way to get popular soccer-moms (etc) up in arms and mobilized on your side.
what is REALLY shocking is that this opens the door for ISPs to get their 'fingers on the bits' (its a data comm term - sorry about the double ententre).
so far, it has not been 'ok' to let ISPs scan for content and make judgements on it. most ISPs have drawn the line to say that we are just a carrier of bits and we are not RESPONSIBLE for what the user includes in the payload.
the music and film industry has tried to get ISPs to do their spying. with mixed success.
but scream 'CP' and you can't publicly NOT support that (and still keep your job). "have you stopped beating your wife yet?" goes the old joke. there's no safe way to answer that. if you publicly oppose such a politically charged idea, you are a boogeyman and an evil person. if you support it, you will pass under the suspicion-radar and will more or less be left alone.
this is a power grab to OFFICIALLY define an isp's job as net-nanny. first they claim to be protecting the citizenry - but its really far more devious than that. once the gov and the isp's convince joe sixpack that its in their 'benefit' for the net-nannies to read all your content ahead of you, you will NEVER get that level of privacy back again.
this is a sham. whenever someone says "won't you please think of the children!" you can bet that there are alterior motives going on.
remember: those in power just want to keep and increase their control level. fingers on the datacomm bits is one thing they've been after for a long time!
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
They are probably amassing a collection of MD5 sums or some other fingerprints. These of course would be derived from the collections previously seized. Then the ISPs would use somthing like Carvnivore to watch for these fingerprints on the wire. No different than the NSA tapping all the phone lines listening for key words. Oh wait, that was illegal too.
RI** has already proposed fingerprinting their songs and then pressuring the ISP to allow them to monitor key internet streams for their songs being traded. This is truly a 1984 Big Brother kinda thing to do. "You're under arrest sir, your ISP reported you downloading nude images of Gary Coleman!"
"Malformed instincts". That's an interesting phrase. Just as interesting as bringing instinct into this. Could it be stated that civilized society is to blame for this? After all, the main thing society has done, at least for the US culture (I'm still traveling elsewhere, honest), is teach us that all instinctually based urges are bad unless it involves acts that'd make good human interest stories on the news. Of course, I think it's important to clarify that "child pornography" includes young children and "jailbait". While I might argue about an instinct to protect and nurture young children, "jailbait" is notorious for setting of an adult's reproductive instincts.
Err, that's getting offtopic, sorta. So what's going to happen when somebody sends a private nude pic to a significant other and it's hard to determine their age? I know women in their 30s and older that still get carded going into bars. What about porn sites and their customers? Will every image have to have that "18 at time of modeling" disclaimer have to be imbedded into the photos? What about when high school sweethearts, one just starting college and the other just becoming a senior send naughty pics or cyber via webcam? These are things that need to be considered. Improbable? Maybe, but not impossible. And once the term "child pornography" gets involved, the emotion and assumptions that come with it will overwhelm the truth. More than that, even if the person is declared 100% innocent, that word will be stuck to them for a long time. The media and a town's gossips rarely put as much effort into undoing damage as they do trying to get ratings. The way the government is going, that person might be stuck on a watch list for the rest of their life. That's wasted resources and an assumption of guilt. Bad, bad, bad.
What I really want to know is how prevelent this problem is. It's greater than none and maybe less than the hype being used to pass all of the laws, but who knows?
"Common sense will be the death of us all"
> Here's an idea. Remove all laws against copying, selling and downloading child porn, but keep the laws against things that actually involve the children - like statutory rape, child abuse, etc.
:-/ Let alone whatever poor sod ended up being one of the most popular child pornstars.
:-/
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want the pictures of my abuse all over the internet were I so unfortunate as to be one of those kids
That's the rationale the Supreme Court has for blocking it: that a child is abused again every time someone looks at it, because on some level it's like defamation (even though it's true).
Don't get me wrong: I'm all for neutering pedophiles with a hammer, but I fear that the government will do nothing but make this into a massive spy operation that will do little, if anything, to actually protect children. Far more effective, IMHO, would be to *educate* those kids about not giving out personal information online unless absolutely necessary and to have a *central point of contact* for reporting child porn. Oh, and I should mention something I found out when reading the actual, federal laws on CP: there's a limited safe-harbor for people who come across it accidentally. IIRC, you must not tell anyone else or show anyone else (except law enforcement) and you must destroy the file ASAP (although you may be allowed to make a copy for law enforcement). I wouldn't suggest going around and looking for it, though. But that's just about wide enough for anyone who accidentally comes across the filth to pass it along to some anonymous police contact so that they can bust whoever is spreading it.
Those two things alone would probably be about a billion times as effective as storing a database of hashes of CP. Haven't they learned *anything* from all the hash-busting spam we get!? I don't seriously believe that they can find a hash of the image that cannot be busted by trivial things like cropping the image, adding JPG comments, randomising the less signficant bits, changing the compression, etc.
Oh, right, they're legislating without a clue. That should be a crime, but who would pass that law?