Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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.
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
We can't let the ISPs have a monopoly on child porn databases and filtering. We need an open-source child porn database, using open standards and free from DRM, and freely available to the public, so that everyone can access all the world's child porn and thereby protect themselves against it.
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'"?
Fine, they won't keep the actual images in their databases, but instead keep a hash/signature of images.
/ 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.
Use a signature generation method like http://vision.unige.ch/publications/postscript/98
Yes! Exactly!
Think of the children!!
Er, wait, that's the problem to begin with . . .
(It's an oldie but a goodie, folks!)
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Anyway, it's just another case of "think of the children!!1"
If anything, I think the point is to NOT think of the children. At all. STOP IT SCUMBAG.
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.
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.
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"
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.
No, what's happening here is simply another censorship / surveillance system being built with the mantra "think of the children". And the makers do think of the children - they think of those children in the future, all grown up and in chains and get a hardon from that.
So no, all the Net's users should not be on guard for the infinitesimally small chance that they happen upon CP by accident, anymore than all the people in Real Life should be on guard for the infinitesimally small chance that the guy passing you on the street happens to be a terrorist. Yeah, it's possible, but even if it happened, what the heck are you going to do - you sick pervert looked at the picture, so by law you should go to prison, since such pictures incite people to such acts, so you can't now be trusted anymore, right ? And what were you doing on a netsite where pedophiles hang out at, anyway ? You must be one too !
Every time I hear "think of the children", I think of the future of those children and want to cry. Well, actually I want to protect those children by beating the living crap out of whoever it is trying to enslave them this time, but crying is more socially accepted.
Do you honestly think that those who are building this censorship & surveillance system are doing it for the childrens sake ? No, it is something that will be used to put those children into chains, once they grow up.
Don't be fooled by their lies; these people care nothing for the children, or anyone else for that matter; they only care about power.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
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!
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.
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
"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.
This is why the child pornography filters employed by most Danish ISPs now will only redirect the user to an "Oops, you do know that this stuff is illegal, right?" page.
Then again, our filters are made mostly to protect the innocent from being subjected to CP by accident (and yes, it'll stop a few from ever getting into the stuff), not so much prevent someone who really wants it from getting it - they'll always find a way...