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."

Comments

This can be a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

This can be problematic and annoying for users when the databases aren't correctly updated. A case in point: the Internet Watch Foundation maintains a database of child porn / other obscene URLs so that ISPs can take that list (hashed, so the URLs are not revealed) and block them.

Recently, a popular imageboard at http://img.4chan.org/b/imgboard.html has been added to that list for reasons unknown. Several UK ISPs, including BT Internet and NTL, have blocked that URL. Complaints to either the ISPs or the IWF from both the users and the site admin have gone unanswered. I am personally quite annoyed by this as I'm a regular user of that board.

It's this sort of unaccountable censorship of the Internet that makes me suspicious of such 'helpful' databases.

Re:This can be a problem

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Yup, pedos are terrible oppressed, every hates them, wahwahwah.

Many pedophiles were themselves sexually abused as children, and it has affected them for life. Many are filled with self loathing. Some have never once abused as child. Yet unlike violent murders, drug abusers, "adult" rapists, thieves, psychotics, necrophiliacs and even zoophiles, these people will never be able to get help, even if they wanted to. They are the modern untermensch, who are either expected to commit a crime so they can be summarily incarcerated or quietly commit suicide.

In either event, their flaws will sell newspapers.

Re:The big problem

[neomage86]

Fine, they won't keep the actual images in their databases, but instead keep a hash/signature of images.

Use a signature generation method like http://vision.unige.ch/publications/postscript/98/ MilaneseCherbuliezPun_icapr98.pdf or even more flexible (kind of like a visual version of musicbrainz) so the signature would be invariant to minor changes in the image. Not really my field, but it seems relatively trivial.

Re:The big problem

[jesuscyborg]

"Bullshit. In the 10 years I've been using the Internet, I've come accross child porn one (1) time, and even that looked more like two kids playing doctor than any pedophilic photo setup. If that's the "darkest side of the Internet", then the Net's brighter than the surface of the Sun."

I think you've been spending too much time on Slashdot.

I've been using the interweb since 1998 when I was 13, and I have been exposed to child pornography since day one. I remember logging in to Microsoft Chat (which was bundled with Windows) and all the rooms were devoted to kid porn... I also remember the channel listings on DALnet just being filled with stuff like, "!!!!!!!!!!!!11LolIta-_OMG-filesrvr" although these channels tended to be pure smoke.

On a more interesting point, a few years ago, I was paid to go through a list of about 10,000 randomly selected international websites and categorize them by hand for a search engine. For every thousand or so, I would see at least a couple child pornography sites.