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Fighting Porn Vs. Ruining Innocent Lives
After news of the conviction of a substitute teacher for endangering minors — because porn popups, possibly initiated by adware, had appeared on her computer during class — comes the even sadder story of 16-year-old Matt Bandy. His family's life was turned upside-down when he was charged in Arizona with possession of child pornography, even though the family computer was riddled with spyware and Trojans. After the intervention of ABC's 20/20, Matt finally was allowed to plead to a lesser charge (namely, sharing a Playboy magazine with friends) and just barely escaped being labeled a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Oh here's my personal favorite quote from TFA:
Admittedly the prosecution's behavior in this case is excessive, especially the part about pleading to an obscenity charge for a Playboy magazine, but it doesn't have to be another excuse to spread FUD about the evil "here there be dragons" internets.
Making you think you're crazy is a billion dollar industry.
I believe that the catch is, while it's technically not illegal for a minor to read Playboy, it's not legal to GIVE a minor a playboy ("corrupting a minor" or some such nonsense.) Even though the kid was a minor himself, it's still technically illegal for him to give the Playboy to another minor. Similarly, if two 16 year olds have sex, they can both be charged with statutory rape, though typically either they are only threatened with arrest, or only the boy is arrested.
Note that I'm not DEFENDING this bullshit--just explaining it.
Yes, Absolutely! In fact, according to one study cited on Wikipedia, the age group most charged for Child Pornography offenses is young males aged 15-20. Note that the law makes absolutely no distinction between pictures depicting an 8 year old, and pictures depicting a 16 year old. Both are "Child" Porn, both get you convictions resulting in registered sex offender list for life. Which, yes indeed, means that two 16 year olds (who may very well be consenting depending on jurisdiction) can have sex with each other, and thats fine, but if they videotape it, or take pictures, they can end up with felony Child pornography convictions.
That would be correct, however root exploits are a little harder to achieve on a Mac. Harder, not impossible. The Mac, BY DEFAULT has you type your password every time you want to install software. The Mac, BY DEFAULT has the root login disabled. The Mac, by default has a better infrastructure then Windows....period...and I am not a fan boy. I'll put up Linux, the Mac or any UNIX based system against the swiss cheese that is Windows XP any day. Yes, even Mac OS X and Linux are vulnerable, but the time to patch at least on Linux is very fast compared to Windows XP and the architecture is different and more secure....BY DEFAULT. They are all what Windows should have been.
Gorkman
You don't read very well do you, it wasn't spyware and/or popups, it was trojans and/or rootkits.
...
From the Article:
[For that answer, they turned to computer forensic expert Tammi Loehrs.
Loehrs went into the Bandys' computer and what she found could frighten any parent -- more than 200 infected files, so-called backdoors that allowed hackers to access the family computer from remote locations, no where near Matthew's house.]
With the proliferation of rootkits, and lack security on most home computers, I wouldn't be the least suprised if most perverts use hacked computers to access child porn these days.
I seem to remember there was a case in Texas similar to this about 8 months ago, where a man was arrested and charged with possessing child porn on his computer. Luckily for him, the local police department's computer forensics people were actually clueful and found the rootkit used to control the computer.
Not to mention the well documented use of open wireless networks to access illegal content.
The problem with computer security these days, is that it requires to far too much expertise and vigilance to keep your computer secure, even if you are an experienced professional, much less the proverbial hapless grandma.
When you have to spend hundreds of dollars a year, and 5 hours a week keeping your computer clean and updated, and then never open emails the look like they came from your grandkids, or from your quilting circle web-ring. All the supposed productivity benefits of using a computer rapidly disappear.
my old sig is obsolete, and I haven't come up with a stupid enough new one yet
We Canadians take "American" to mean a citizen of the USA; not of Canada, Mexico, Brazil or Argentina.
Just to be complete: in lots of states there's a provision in the statutory rape law that says if both parties are "old enough" (usually 16-ish), and close in age (usually 2 years), then it's not a crime. This appears to be the new and trendy way to modify the statutory rape laws.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, yadda yadda yadda, check your local laws before trolling for jailbait.
Indeed, it appears to be the modern day McCarthyism! The whole concept to stopping whatever your country decides are children from experimenting with each other is ludicrous! Obviously, there's a problem with predatory adults (and sad to say usually males!), but to apply those same rules to 16 year olds is crazy!
Age of Consent by country (some examples from the page) :-
UK - 16
USA - up to 18 (differs by state!)
Spain - 13
Madagascar - 21
Spain seems low to me, but I guess I am just used to the UK's 16. 18 seems high, and who'd want to grow up in Madagascar!
Maybe the issue is just when there's a large age range between the (otherwise) consenting parties? There was a case recently in the UK of a substitute teacher who the school governers discovered had a previous sex offence with a 15 year old when he was 30-something. A big to-do in the papers (Daily Mail!) about it. He lost his job - probably never worked again as a teacher, which is all well and good you might say - serves him right! Turns out, they married a year or so later and are still married now! Perhaps he really did love her?
Rules are (usually) good, but the blanket application of rules will pretty much ALWAYS come across cases where the rules should be flexible or there will be injustices.
If these childporn hackers are looking for PCs why don't the authorities setup some honey-trap PCs without firewalls etc, and catch the people who use them - spammers, pornographers, whatever! Surely that would be the sensible thing. The pornographers are seeding (potentially!) innocent people's PCs with illegal pictures to try and grey the concept of guilt, why not fight back with honey-trap PCs so the hackers have a grey area to ponder on about whether this really is a safe PC for them to take over!
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk