MySpace, U.S. Address Sex Offenders Online

TitusC3v5 writes "According to BBC News, MySpace is attempting to block sex offenders by way a custom database that utilizes state sex offender registries. Sentinel Safe will let MySpace search US state and federal databases to seek out and delete MySpace profiles of registered sex offenders." From the article: "The company said the new service will be the first national database that brings together about 46 US state sex offender registers ... It will be available in the next 30 days. MySpace has not released information on its plans for tackling sex offenders using the service in other countries." This is on the heels of proposed legislation that would require sex offenders to keep their email on file. The addresses would presumably be used to restrict former criminals from accessing online community sites, but in an the era of easily obtainable email addresses it's hard to see how this would be effective.

Comments

Wired News Supplied the code

[jmagar.com]

Kevin Poulsen broke this story wide open by developing the scripts and tools to parse the sex offender registry, and compare the MySpace members. He supplied his work to the cops and the rest is today's news.

The finest Mashup I've seen to date. Worthy of some sort of prize... Is there a "Mashup Awards Banquet"?

Re:Wired News Supplied the code

[Thansal]

yup, that was the big one.

The key things involved are that the sex ofenders (for reasons known only to them selfs) still register with their REAL info. Why? No clue!

It will stop some offenders I hope, but I doubt it will do much.

The biggest problem is that you just outright block them bassed on email then that enourages them to get an email and not register it.

Armbands

[Omnifarious]

I think we are in the process of creating a bunch of second class citizens with sex offender registration laws. People can become sex offenders for a wide variety of reasons, but everybody treats all sex offenders as if each and every single one were an evil predator lurking and waiting for even a glimmer of a chance to prey on a child.

For people convicted of kidnapping children and coercing them into child porn, this might very well be reasonable. But for the 25 yr old convicted of statutory rape of the 17yr old, this is quite questionable. Or the father who molests his daughter (and has never touched another child), or any number of other situations that are significantly milder.

Most people who have to register do not deserve to be treated the same as the worst of the class.

I'm waiting for the laws that strip custody of children from registered sex offenders or prohibit them from participating in school events with their children, or any number of other laws passed by well-meaning people that create a large class (probably nearly a million people in the US) of people who are denied some fairly basic things for no particularly good reason.

Re:Armbands

[Pojut]

I always felt the "rape" part in "statutory rape" to be unbelievably mislabled. I think at the age of 16 someone knows if they want to fuck or not. They may not be responsible enough to handle what happens if they get pregnant, that much is true. However, in the words of Dave Chappelle, "16 is old enough to know if you want to be pissed on."

Re:Armbands

[AK Marc]

For all the people that are replying about the abuse of a family member, think of it this way:

A guy breaks into your house, kills your wife, and is running away from the house when you chase him down and beat to death. You are convicted of murder. Someone else takes to sniping people in VA. If both were released, who is more likely to kill again, the person that only did it once in a specific situation, of the person that killed strangers multiple times?

A father that molests his own children is not a threat to "society" in the same way a person that preys on strangers is. Independent of the damage to the child, the danger of another occurrance is significantly different, and so it should be reflected.

There are places where pissing in the alley is a sex offence. Any list that considers a weak bladder and poor judgement to be equal to kidnapping, raping and killing 20 random children does not seem to be extremely useful. There are people sitting on the list right now that had sex with someone when both were under-age (and it was legal), then one of them got older, and it became "rape." Perhaps if the list had a rating of 1-5 for severity and liklyhood of recividism, or separate the violent from non-violent offenders, or something like that it would become more relevant.

Re:Armbands

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine, when he was sixteen, was accused by his then-girlfriend of raping her. On the advice of his lawyer, though he was innocent, he pleaded guilty and got both a reduced sentance and the entire ordeal over with. In theory. A few months later she confessed to him that she accused him because she wanted attention, and now she wanted to get back together with him.

Ten years later or so, when the Registery of Sex Offenders here in Massachusetts was created, he was told that as a registered sex offender he had to register. Now, he can't leave the state without telling everyone and their brother, he's had several visits from the local police officers, and his name is readily available in his town as a Sex Offender.

But, thank heavens we're protected from dangerous predators like him.

Re:Armbands

[Anonymous Coward]

Recidivism is much much higher for those who molest/rape random strangers than those who victimize those who they know.

If you'd rather be warned about the molesting father, you're simply irrational, because he poses the lesser threat.

Re:Armbands

[ruiner13]

People can become sex offenders for a wide variety of reasons

This is very true. Some states you can get put on the SO registry for simply getting caught peeing in some bushes behind a bar after doing some drinking. That person clearly isn't a threat to anyone, and isn't likely to hurt anyone, but would be on the SO lists never-the-less. This usually causes them to be treated as outcasts and in some cases can be beaten by people who don't care about the details, just know they are a sex offender. Some of these laws are getting way out of hand.

Re:Armbands

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an astonishing abuse of trust on the part of the father. It's not milder at all, he's broken one of the basic rules of being a human being (or indeed a member of most animal species) - he's harmed one of his children.

Well, I would certainly agree that evolution and societal progress have brought about many basic human instincts - one of which is that one shall not harm another, and one will protect his/her offspring.

However, (despite the legal verbiage) he may or may not have harmed one of his children. In the US, for sure many would consider it harmful. In other places in the world that are less religious, sex and love are not seen as inherently harmful. They CAN be (and if it was physically forced it would surely be), but stating unequivocably that all cases are harmful seems a little arrogant, don't you think?

This is AWEFULL, its going to make things worse

[visionsofmcskill]

by deleting or overtly damaging their accounts, you effectivly alert them to take more proactive actions in hiding their trails.

Instead, this data should be used to covertly keep an eye on their account and account use, indeed, once these predators have been identified anyone contacted by them or looking at their page should get an alert with a warning about who that person is. Or simply make it ipossible for that account to contact or be contacted by children et al.

A passive approach will keep more of the predators unaware that they have been compromised, which means better tracking and better protection of children in subtler ways.

If we outright remove their accounts, they will know theyve been found out, and they will compensate accordingly, making them that much harder to find.

Re:Of course it isn't perfect

[aliendisaster]

Actually, it may be a set in the wrong direction. After everyone realizes "Hey, they can just go get a free yahoo address and work around this system.", the idiots will try and force EVERYONE to register their email address and all companies that provide email address's will have to remove any address that is not associated with a real life person. This could be the beginning of the end of the anonymous internet and the beginning of a time in which if you have someone's email, you know their name, street address, date of birth, etc. This could be the beginning of a stalkers dream.

Re:Of course it isn't perfect

[SatanicPuppy]

Why? I think it just allows parents to feel complacent.

The first and last line of defense is giving a crap about what your kid is doing online. Period. End. Of. Story. There is no magical fairy dust fix that is going to make that any less the case, so why bother?

The Risk-Averse Life

[adavies42]

If you believe it is appropriate for the government to permanently the restrict the activities of anyone, whatever they've done, merely out of concern for what they might do, you are part of the problem. Life is dangerous and it's not the government's job to protect you from it. Deal.

plausible deniability

[rucs_hack]

I agree. The measures in place to stop terrorists travelling presume that they will travel with valid papers and real names. The end result being everyone else gets inconvenienced and it doesn't work on the people it's meant to hit. Just the same as with drm.

This is for one reason only, to give them plausible deniability if someone gets attacked and initial contact is traced to their service.

We have a problem in england at the moment of sex offenders who are being traced/monitored dissapearing from view because they don't play nice. By problems I mean murders and assaults.

Re:Of course it isn't perfect

[joshetc]

Parent really deserves to be modded up for that insightful comment.

Also, I'm not siding with the sex offenders but comon. Either they are guilty enough to still be in jail or they should be allowed to use internet communication websites freely. Maybe instead of banning sex offenders we should ban or force monitoring on minors that use those services. Some other kind of limitation would work the same too.

If they served their time they should be free. If they should not be free there is a problem with sentencing of the criminals and not how websites are monitored.

Why stop there?

[gillbates]

Why not just link to the DHS terrorist database and prevent them from registering as well?

And, while we're at it, why not extend this to anyone who has ever, in their entire life, done something wrong. Contact the school board! (Given the antagonistic nature toward students, I'm sure most school boards would be more than willing to provide a list of names of "troublemakers").

The notion of a convict settling his debt to society with prison time is quickly becoming antiquated. How long before "Once a criminal, always a criminal" becomes the slogan of law enforcement? How long before forgiveness is a de facto criminal act?

I understand the intentions are good. But people do change. And some "sex offenders" are little more than drunks who got convicted of public urination, or streaking, etc...

And of course, *no one* would think of registering with a fake name. NEVER!

Re:Better question is, why are sex offenders

[Frogbert]

Perhaps because these lists don't really differentiate between the two. For all we know all those really bad sex offenders could be in gaol and it's only the "18 year olds that have sex with their 17 year old girlfriends".

None of that really matters to the linch mob though.

Umm, okay

[man_ls]

I am not a sex offender, nor do I have inklings that would lead me to become one, but I also don't register my MySpace under my real name simply because I don't want people to be able to search for me.

It's not going to do any good to prevent people from registering under alternate e-mail addresses and psuedonyms to get on the site.

The libertarian in me also doesn't believe in sex-offender registries or blacklists such as this one -- the person most likely already went to prison and has a record that will follow them the rest of their life, why not give them a legitimate chance to actually be rehabilitated? Surely the stigmatization of being labeled and tracked the rest of their lives can't help them recover and not re-offend, after all. And if they do it again, well, lock them up for longer or forever.

Re:Better question is, why are sex offenders

[Dipster]

What worries me is that every time you hear about a new "think-of-the-children" law, the language (at least in the media) always says "sex offender". Not child sex offender, not violent sex offender, just "sex offender".

Would someone explain to me why a married couple having sex in a public place should be banned from living close to a school? Someone tell me why a person who repeatedly walks home drunk from a bar and stops to urinate in an alley shouldn't be allowed on MySpace. Why does the drunken frat kid who streaked across campus a few times deserve to be labeled a threat to society?

There is a huge an ever-growing number of "offenses" that gets someone put on sex "offender" lists. The fact that they often get lumped together is pure bullshit.

Re:Better question is, why are sex offenders

[mattOzan]

I am not talking about 18 year olds that have sex with their 17 year old girlfriends, I am talking the 30 year olds having sex with 13 year olds, 40 year olds that rape 8 year olds, and so on.

The main problem with the currently-fashionable "sex offender registries" is that they do not discriminate. As you have shown, we realize there is a continuum: 18 vs. 17 yro statutory cases are at one end, and serial pedophiles are on the other end. But laws like the one just passed here in California this November stamp them all with the big "Pervert" stamp.

It is ridiculous to make a law saying that a 45 year old man, for instance, who was convicted more than two decades ago of having consensual sex with his 17 year old girlfriend, cannot live within a half-mile of an elementary school. And if that man doesn't re-register EVERY YEAR within one week of his birthday, or within one week of a move, a WARRANT goes out for his arrest, and it's a FELONY!

No, I'm not a 45 year old sex offender. I just think we need to be a bit more granular. If he's a serial pedophile, lock him in a treatment program. If he had the wrong kind of sex as a teenager 20 years ago, and has paid his restitution to society, let him go. And don't keep hassling him with punitive registries and requirements that weren't even laws when the crime was committed!

This is a bit far

[nurb432]

If a sex offender ( or any other criminal for that matter ) has served his ( or her ) time, i dont see why he ( or she ) should be restricted from online activites. They already have to register with the state, they already are restricted in where they can go physically, and they have lost several of their rights ( like ever being president or working for the government ) so who cares if they cruse some lame 'community site' to kill off boredom?

What ever happend to 'serving your time and paying your debt to society for your mistake'. When did that become a life long repayment?

Re:Risk and consequence

[fyngyrz]

For crying out loud... "sex offender" is not a synonym for "fucking children."

It means everything from peeing on a bush outside to having consensual sex with a consenting partner of reasonable age who decided later to use it against you to having taken completely innocent photos of your own kid. And it does include people who prey on children, I'll grant you, but the point is the brush is now too broad because legislators are idiots; if they go with the email thing you'll have learned nothing useful except how to jitter and freak out about a bunch of people who are likely to be absolutely zero threat to you and any children, anywhere.

Control your legislators, people. Come on. And think!

Re:Statutory "rape" and music "theft"

[nightfire-unique]

They're not having sex without our permission, they're raping each other.

They're not a militia, they're terrorists.

They're not a government, they're a regime.

They're not citizens defending their homes, they're enemy combatants.

It's not a sovereign nation, it's a rogue country.

It's not a protest, it's a tax evasion.

You're not a public urinator when drunk coming home from a bar, you're a sex offender.

Drunk drivers, abortionists, and food companies are murderers.
Cigarettes kill everyone.
The plague could strike your family.
Osama Bin Laden wants to kill you.
Christianity is better than Islam.
Criminals, birth control, and science are bad. Evolution is unholy.

Drugs are bad, except caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, etc. But especially marijuana, stevia are bad.

Ugh. Make it stop. :(