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MySpace Predator Caught By Code
An anonymous reader writes, "Wired News editor and former hacker Kevin Poulsen wrote a
1,000-line Perl script that checked MySpace for registered sex offenders. Sifting through the results, he manually confirmed over 700 offenders, including a serial child molester in New York actively trying to hook up with underage boys on the site, and who has now been arrested as a result. MySpace told Congress last June that it didn't have this capability." Wired News says they will publish Poulsen's code under an open-source license later this week.
Thus spake the article:
No amount of rummaging through any database is going to detect someone who registers under a false name, so no MySpace will NEVER really have the ability to find all the sex offenders, unless they can somehow verify that people are who they say they are when they sign up. Though they do now have the ability to catch the really stupid ones it seems.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
And then there is Jacob, one of the kids this 39 year old had "friended":
So Jacob's parents can't be bothered to, you know, go see wtf this kid is doing on MySpace? The earlier comment snippet makes it seem like the parents of this kid are totally off the hook here, but guess what? Wether your kid is hanging out at the local corner or someplace online, you really need to know where they are and what they are doing. And then there is the whole issue about not talking to stangers in the first place; apparently his parents have completely missed the boat in that area. Scary.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
MySpace needs to be whacked, hard. Harder.
The lazy, lying bastards should be shut down, made an example of. At the least, they're now liable because someone showed it could be done, and because they were too lazy to do it themselves, they now have a liability exposure for any child that was preyed upon through their web site.
Best regards.
Now why is that, exactly?
We know that child molestation has occurred for untold eons. Humans are therefore resilient, resistant to such things, for the sake of survival. And at the risk of getting flamed, I want to point out the evidence that most victims of such mistreatment do in fact go on to lead normal lives. Natural selection sternly requires it.
So. Why is child molestation such an obviously hideous evil?
Is it just because we in the West are presently obsessed with sex?
I swear I am not trolling. I myself am actually a victim, from age 8, but I seem to be fine (although my level of slashdotting may be a sign of a deep malfunction). Ever since I realized that I survived unscathed, I have been wondering for a long time why this subject gets an automatic "OMG teh molestation!!!11!" response, when it is actually such a commonplacde in human history.
It almost -- ALMOST -- smells like we are protesting too much.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
The only thing that worries me about this is 'authenticity'. What's to stop a vigilante group creating Myspace accounts in the names of registered sex offenders, and then reporting said accounts to the police? Sure, it's traceable with a bit of effort - but you just know that there'll be slips made, especially when you connect the words "sex offender", "children", "myspace", "police", and "media" in the same sentence.
Yes, children are resilient, but another instinct that is supposedly hardwired into us is protection of our offspring. This (perhaps more than the "I want government to raise our kids" thing) is a big factor in heightened reactions to crimes against children. Add in the more rational sympathy for living beings that can't protect themselves like adults can, and you can end up with people overreacting to, and often overestimating the frequency of, these crimes.
My personal feeling on this specific issue is that I don't think MySpace has any true responsibility to monitor this, any more than other social networking programs/websites (like the many IM programs). The only real recourse society has in this case (barring violation of MySpace's rights) would be to legislate them into things like requiring credit cards for access (thus supposedly proving adult status), boycotting the service or going "vigilante," rooting out the pedophiles Dateline style.
If a reporter sees a crime on the street and reports it, that's good citizenship. If a reporter goes crime-hunting to fabricate a story, that endangers every other reporter out there trying to act as an independent observer.
I hope that addresses your false dichotomy.
Kevin's release conditions aren't any different from any other felon. He's not on supervision, and doesn't have to report crimes he witnesses. As should be obvious from his prior reporting.
Hope this helps.
-- Adrian
Setting aside issues of what is a "sex offender" vs what I think the public perception of one is, are all "sex offenders" not allowed to use MySpace?
This is a little like cross referencing a list of library card holders and comparing it to the list of "sex offenders" and waxing hysterical that there are "sex offenders" in the library. Do the same with Blockbuster cards, or the phone book. Geee gads, there are "sex offenders" in the city...
Yes, there are young people on MySpace, but not all MySpace users are young. Some people are well into their 30s and 40s and use it to connect with other 30 and 40 year olds.
The mere presence of "sex offenders" should not be cause for concern anymore then if they were in a library, Wal-Mart, mall, grocery store, etc. This is reinforced with the fact that many "sex offenders" really aren't-people who were 18 and their partner was 15, public urinators, that guy that grabbed that girl to yell at her for jaywalking or whatever, etc.
The single biggest problem, in my opinion, is that you can't be sure. Just because a person has registered with a certain name doesn't mean they are that ONE person. I've got the same name as a black minor league hockey player. But I'm not.
This is why it's not as simple as searching for string a in string b. You'll end up with half a million names, and not only do you have to monitor those half a million users to see what they're up to, you have to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Dougy is the infamous sex offender, and not an 11 year old trying to pick up 16 year olds.
It's been a long time.
Make anything personal and you'll care a lot more. It doesn't change the statistics. If you've got fifty million idiots congregated at one place, many of whom are always-horny teenagers, you'd expect more than a handful of predators to try to take advantage of the system. Sure, it's still unfortunate, but considering the numbers we've seen in other situations, it seems remarkably low.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Make that little girl that he targets your daughter and we'll see how your "perspective" changes.
You're absolutely right, that sort of thing is enough to change anybody's perspective and turn just about anybody into somebody who would suddenly support torture and summary execution.
That is, perhaps, the best reason of them all that it should be impartial parties who administer justice and decide the punishments for these sorts of things. Child sexual abuse is just one prime example. Replace it with "terrorism" and you have another one playing out each day before our very eyes.
Often times it is best to leave the emotion at the doorstep and debate things logically and dispassionately. Pretty much any issue with as much emotion behind it as this one is going to be one of those cases.
Another thing to consider with these "lock them up forever!" attitudes toward some crimes: You run the risk of making things worse. Somebody sexually abusing a child is bad. Somebody sexually abusing a child and then killing him/her because, in terms of their sentence, it is essentially free--that is worse. I'd rather get my child back and the offender get out of jail than have him/her killed and see the offender locked away forever. No contest.
You do realize that "registered sex offender" could mean you mooned a couple of cops, right?