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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.
If you don't keep your security stuff up to date, especially on a Windows machine, you have no idea what it's being used for.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
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.
Now let's figure ruining your life into into that total cost of ownership.
Got Code?
"If you have an Internet connection, high speed, through, let's say, your cable company, or through the phone company, that computer is always on, and basically you have an open doorway to the outside," said Tammi Loehrs."So the home user has no idea who's coming into their computer."
Call me crazy, but can't this last issue be fixed by locking your door? If you keep your doors locked, then it's really not too hard to figure out who's coming into your computer. Although, I've got to say that coming into one's computer gives new meaning to Intarweb porn. Maybe she should teach her son that there are safer places to come.
Not very good that when the prosecutors couldn't convict him for the porn they still wanted to stick some conviction on him! What's the idea that someone handing copies of playboy to their friends be convicted of a crime? There's nothing illegal in that magazine. The US have some weird attitudes to tits and nudity (playboy ain't really porn).
As for computers, things like this show why we need better education. Make sure people know to keep things updated. Tell them about Firefox, suggest that they get a Mac next time. They're not going to be 100% safe this way, but at least when you add it together with common sense safety measures then they're going to be significantly safer. Like it or not, the fact is all these people who get computers have been given the impression that it's so easy but they get the least secure system out of the box. People need educating about the dangers plus knowledge of the alternative choices.
lesser charge (namely, sharing a Playboy magazine with friends)
Wow. You USAians really live in a fucked up country if you can be charged with showing your mates a playboy.
Seems common sense is abscent.
popups, spyware, viruses, trojans & worms are all part of the microsoft windows experience...
they blame everything but the vulnerable system that propagate this kludge...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
If you are an average non-techy person, especially one prone to getting spyware and so on, you simply cannot afford to use Windows. Hell, if it's still too much money, and 2 years of your life, the rumours, the 'no smoke without fire' retardo simpleminded shit, the stress and the upset is still too much to bear then at least do yourself a favour and install Firefox ... if you are going to visit the type of website that gets you overloaded with this type of spyware then you need to give yourself some sort of protection!
Conversely, if you are a fan of kiddy fiddling pictures, you surely must use a Windows machine without any anti-spyware applications. And IE6.
Ignorance or uneducated? You're son is on the computer in the den collecting child porn. Do you all avoid the Den? Do you not know the simplest ways to check cookies and history files to see whats there or if they are missing?
I mean, I'm 22 now. When I was 16 was able to surf porn but my mom barely knew the keyboard from the mouse. My friend on the other had had a school teacher for a mom who spent time setting up browser and firewall so Jimmy could only play Jedi Knights online and surf a few special sites. Not to mention doing random *jpg searches on the hard drive just to see what shows up.
I feel the Teacher was treated unfairly and the Kid was also not treated fairly. That kid is 16, he knew what he was looking at and doing.
[J]
But hey, Obedience to The Law is all that matters.*
*Excepting the Bush Administration.
Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
It appears, as in most cases like this, the prosecutor was trying to make an example of this boy. The judge actually suggested that the boy's family appeal the decision, as the judge could not believe why the prosecutor wanted to keep the "Sex offender" charge even though he had dropped the child pornography offense. This boy finally cleared his name, but not without horrendous legal wrangling. Sad, very sad.
has become nothing more than part of the Prison-industrial complex. The concept of justice is no longer in the picture and just gets in the way of the profits.
What?
WHen a Windows machine gets really infested with spyware, it's tough to sort out the chickens from the eggs.
Did a user to to a porn site that downloaded spyware that brought down kiddie porn, or did somebody intentionally go to a kiddie porn site?
I've never found pictures of kids on a customer's PC (thank God), but I have done some investigations on "porned" and infested PCs: it's hard enough for an IT pro to figure out which came first. When the cops are doing the investigating, I expect they'll come to whatever conclusion makes the suspect look guilty.
this wouldn't be an issue. There are ways to determine (using system logs, install logs, and the vast information available in the system registry) when content arrived and by what method. When it was determined that the system was being remote-controlled, the boy was spared a lifetime of embarrassment.
It' sad to think that the prosecutor was more interested in the conviction than the truth.
As a forensic computer examiner, I'm not always given the opportunity to come to the correct conclusions based on evidence because that's not what I'm asked to do (and if I go beyond what I was asked to do, the client just won't pay for the extra work.) The legal system in this country rewards those who win, who are not always those who tell the truth.
"Lame" - Galaxar
Funny, but noboby gets labeled a "murderer" for life. Murderers are released from prison every day. In fact, hundreds of them. They serve their sentence and move on. No reporting themselves to their neighbors. No exclusion zones. No "registered murderer" lists.
I'd actually rather live next door to sex offenders rather than next to convicted drunk drivers. Why am I not notified when a convicted drunk driver moves in next door? Probably a lot more dangerous to me and my kids. Right?
The really weird thing is that neither side of the political spectrum dare oppose the whole "sex offender" legal agenda thing. Its a bit like global warming. Groupthink.
"Think of the children!!" Wait, I didn't mean it THAT way.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
At my old University, they required everyone to buy a computer through them. So, every numb-nuts had a computer hooked up to the network. There was no default AV or firewall installed, or even Auto-updates, as this was early WinXP days (and Win2k and 98 the years before that).
Well, he of course got infected with ungodly amounts of crap. I ran Adaware on it once, and it came up with 500-600 pieces of garbage, with approximately 50 - 60 of those being actual installed software. As the school had on-campus service, I just told him to bring it to them, and they'd reinstall all the school software for him.
So, he brought it in, and they found "child pornography" on it. Now, this was absolute news to him, and everyone else. As this was at my old Fraternity house (owned by the school, network owned by the school, was run similarly to other school-owned residencies), they threatened everyone at the house, and God knows what else. Eventually they looked around the house, and to their surprise, did not find a projector and child porn laying around. Apparantly this is what they thought they were housing a child porn theater of some sort. Amazingly, they dropped the case right there, and were very nice about it all, considering what was involved.
As for the original poster, was it this student's fault anyway? He was forced to use this computer, was given inadequate software with no training, and was only using the services given to him. I realize he got away cleanly, with no lawyers involved, but can we really expect this to not be a problem? Many in law enforcement do not understand what's involved in these cases, nor do many in the field of law (though this is getting better as the younger generations are entering these fields.)
is 'fighting porn' aka 'mud wrestling'?
You know, maybe the Omish are on to something.
Table-ized A.I.
Come on folks, now that White Collar Crime, Terrorism, Murder and Political Corruption have been virtually eliminated from America, what do you expect Prosecutors to spend their time on?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
This is not isolated to porn (duh). When a prosecutor has it out for you, there isn't much that can be done. Often there is a willingness to make an example for others, or to appear tough on a specific kind of crime for political benefit.
Chris Soghoian knows what I mean. It has nothing to do with evidence - all that matters is the nature of the charges. The Duke lacrosse team knows too.
FairTax baby!
But is it plausible to convict a 16y old for child pornography?
Next they'll be prosecuting young mothers breastfeeding their kids on sexual molestation charges...
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
This zealot has an agenda and ambition that will stop at nothing. I only hope that Andrew Thomas, Maricopa County district attorney, won't seek any higher public office or any office for that matter.
Someone hates these cans.
Their PC is a black (beige) box which gives them an internet. They know nothing more than that.
And we sadists in our wisdom unleash Windows XP as the tool to use. In fact it's a shite solution for that 90%. The Network Computer or similar concept is much better. All they should have to do is plug their tv, a keyboard and mouse into a $30 router and then forget about it.
Deleted
How about not using Internet Explorer. Fixes just about everything dealing with spyware or adware. It is simple and loads better than IE.
Or we can prosecute companies that hijack your computer and then want you to buy their software to remove their crap.
BTW for the sub who got into trouble...that was really weak. Anyways, a lot of kids know about sexual stuff in junior high or even below. They may not understand completely but they know about it.
I'll just let my signature speak for me.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
200 infected files doesn't mean much to me. My father has McAfee Privacy Something on his computer and it lists every cookie as a "malicious program" or some such thing. Is that what this computer forensic expert for the defense did? Just run some commercial anti-spyware app and testify to the results?
It's great this kid passed a polygraph, but as is mentioned on Slashdot everytime polygraphs come up, they are bunk. I don't see any reason to think that this kid didn't download something illegal.
"when he was charged in Arizona with possession of child pornography, even though the family computer was riddled with spy-ware and Trojans."
I am currently taking a Data Forensics Course at Sheridan Institute, and the teacher of the course is a Peel Region Data Forensics officer. He told us in the last 5 years of him being there he has not once come across a machine where child porn was put on the machine by a popup, or spyware. He Said this does not happen, as it would be easily traced back to the company that advertised it. This is not a valid deference in child pornography cases
-EL
Would it still be that wrong? Why would a sixteen-year-old find a forty-year-old-woman attractive? At that age, you still develop an attraction to other 16 and 15 year old girls. But anyone featured in pornography under the age of 18 is considered child porn.
These things should be looked at with relativity. And some lawyers and politicians need to remember that they were kids once. Rediculous, "possession of a playboy." I can understand cigarettes or alcohol, but it's illegal to be curious now?
Just think of what terrorists could do with this sort of reaction?
Key people could be coerced or exploited simply out of fear of what the American judicial system would do should they be reported about stuff they don't even know about. I will readily admit in the gigabytes and gigabytes of data on my hard drives(s) there are some directories I have never been in - and I am a friggin programmer.
Huge swaths of people could be put through the grinder by so many "save the children" politician prosecutors that finally it would reach a point where people either ignore child porn or become disillusioned with the judicial system distressing innocents. Either way it is hard to support and trust such a government.
The idea of "don't help the man, all he will do is fuck you over for some shit you didn't do" and "so much for good intentions" will build up year over year throughout the population. Already there is an incredible distrust in government regarding taxes and intelligence gathering. What happens to our society when we begin to distrust law enforcement and the judicial system - become like east L.A.?
This kind of nonsense with unfriendly people in other countries could in quite a quiet manner - damage the society and fabric of the United States.
You simply cannot hold someone responsible for what is on their computer, especialy their browser cache. It's simple to defend most cases. When it comes time to defend a porn on computer case:
1) Wipe a computer, overwriting the HD several times.
2) Install a new OS - it could be Windows, Mac, Linux.
3) Ask the prosecutor to have it inspected by his forensics experts.
4) Get the computer back from the prosecutor with a clean bill of health - only have it handled at that point by the court with a clear chain of custody.
5) Have the computer delivered to the trial.
6) Have the judge or prosecutor go to an "innocent" website that's been crafted to defend the case.
7) On that website display some innocent content - maybe a news article on the case with some embedded links.
8) On that very same site, place hardcore porn images in 1x1 images - define this image size in the HTML as 1x1 but leave the image the regular size so they don't show on the page but hit the browser cache.
9) Also create some on-mouse over actions that load hidden frames on the page which go to hardcore sites - the sites with the images in the page.
10) After the judge or prosecutor finishes loading the page and mousing over a few links ask the court to hand the computer over to the prosecutors forensics experts.
11) They will find porn on the computer and proof that the judge or prosecutor liked a few of the images because they loaded them multiple times.
This works in all browsers! Linux aint going to save anyone from this. Of course this same stunt could be used for evil, say to frame neighbors, co-workers, police officers, etc. The problem is, every computing environment is too open. All computers, even those locked behind multiple firewalls, anti-spyware, and anti-virus programs should be considered public terminals in the eye of the law. Unless there's video-tape of the perp in action or a confession no one can be held accountable for what's on the HD- it's just that simple!
... priceless
Engineering is the art of compromise.
And yet I feed it anyway . . .
Ignorance or uneducated? You're son is on the computer in the den collecting child porn.
Perhaps you missed these paragraph from The Fine Article (emphasis added):
Kindly refrain from perpetuating the kind of insanity this kid has had to go through.
Remember that the average person can barely keep windows going, how in the hell are the going to install Linux?
No matter how great an OS and if Linux is installed on every PC, there will still be people installing SSH (because it is Secure!) and having root passwords like 12345.
Linux boxes get hacked all the time. They become another bot. Windows bots are nicely bundled with spyware.
Microsoft needs to bundle in a anti-spyware,anti-virus and a real firewall with Windows. Wait, they tried and third party software developers threatened to sue. Don't want them to have a monopoly on tools that can secure their OS.
Half of writing history is hiding the truth.
and everyone becomes a criminal. Criminals have fewer rights then 'citizens', and are easier to monitor and control.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Nudity and sex are Evil, but blowing someone up because they live near someone we think is bad is Good.
All research on the subject says quite clearly that seeing sex and nudity isn't harmful to kids. Until very very recently, most children were conceived while their siblings were in the same room. The vast majority of children in the world see their first female breast within about 5 minutes of birth. Kids don't make a big deal about it, it's adults for whom its a big deal. Laws against showing porn to minors are really to protect adults from the idea that their kids might understand sex, not to protect kids.
The problem is that lots of people who understand these things, but no one has the balls to stand up and say in a political campaign that they're fine with children seeing adults and other children naked.
I am officially gone from
Here http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2791529&page=1 is an interview with the DA of this case.
...that he did it.
Very interesting read.
Quote:
"JIM AVILA: So there was a huge amount of evidence that in fact, this kid was not involved in a sex crime. And yet, your office and
you yourself continue to believe and put him through two years of hell, because you continue to believe despite lie detector
tests, court psychiatrist reports, a report from the computer expert who said it could have come from anywhere...you
continue to say..."
NDREW THOMAS: (Overlap) Well...
JIM AVILA:
ANDREW THOMAS: Well, I...again, I...I'm not sure that that's totally right. But you gotta...
JIM AVILA: (Overlap) Halfway right?
"
Round and round we go.
We Canadians take "American" to mean a citizen of the USA; not of Canada, Mexico, Brazil or Argentina.
Most people have very little reason to be connected to the internet all the time, or have their computer on all the time. Save the environment: turn off that computer!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
That's simply not true. Your instructor is full of shit. It would be trivial to write a small app that would remain memory resident and would periodically launch popups containing illicit content downloaded from various dubious web servers well outside US jurisdiction. The app could be easily installed without the users knowledge using any number of IE exploits. If you can't see this, then please do the rest of us a favor and get out of computer forensics. Your ignorance is dangerous and, as a forensics technician, it could cost people their freedom and their good name.
Remember, the US is still a very young nation. It's history as a country only goes back 350 years or so. Even then, present American culture only really took off after World War II. So it hasn't even been 70 years since what we consider "American society" took root. Compared to the history of even just European society, for instance, that's virtually nothing.
So it's no wonder that they still have an aversion to boobies. It's something they'll grow out of, likely once the first generation of people exposed to the Internet for virtually their entire lives start to become politicians and hold office. They'll realize that a bouncy pair of titties are a wonderous sight, and some vulva now and then is good for the health.
I hope this story will teach people that security is the number one thing they should worry about when the buy a computer. Flashy interfaces, cool programs must come later in the scale of priorities. Be conscious regarding the OS you are running is VERY important. Windows is known to be very unreliable if patches are not applied. Mac and Linux are inherently more secure, but could also be vulnerable if not patched. So as a parent, I would start thinking more about the instrument I am allowing my kids to use. Is the computer safely patched? Do safer programs exist? Once parents will take personal care in making sure their PCs will be safe, then they could educate their kids to do so, as well as good Internet practices. If you expect your computer to be safe at all times without doing nothing to it, well, you are ingenuous, and waiting for troubles. Did anybody look at how well secured Matt's computer was? In other words, would leave your kid drive the family car if you knew the brakes were not working? Matt's story reminds me of that.
Maybe you could if 90% of the locks in the world couldn't be reliably locked by about 75% of their owners.
I am not a crackpot.
Yes, because children (or people in general) are completely incapable of learning how to use Linux.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
But couldn't one equate fighting porn with ruining lives?
Hey, what if you were faced with this predicament? Should I go around advocating your imprisonment or criminalization?
well said!
... how about applying all the necessary patches to your PC? How many people runs their computer "stock" which means totally unpatched? What if Matt's computer was still running Win XP SP1, with no patches? Why everybody is saying: "it could happen to you!" and not instead saying: "how safely patched was Matt's computer?". Win XP is not built safely, but I know lot's of people that use it with no spyware properly. Properly patched PCs, safer browsers, some anti-virus-spyware, firewalls, are all tools available (most of them free) to make your internet experience safer. Saying that it could happen to you, is very irresponsible. It's like saying: you could die in the car because cars have no airbags, belts, etc. Sorry, cars have these tools. You're irresponsible if you don't use them and more irresponsible as a parent if you don't force your kids to do the same.
"OMG little Johnny saw a boobie! Armageddon is upon us!"
/.ers like myself), and it's just stupid to be so repressed about the whole deal.
We crazy-ass Americans have such bizarre hangups about sex... Jesus, folks, get over it. We all think about it, most of us do it fairly often (/.ers excepted, especially those of us old married
The liquor laws piss me off enough (whaddaya mean it's a dry county?), but all the puritanical sexually-repressive moral crap that's in law has just got to go.
The solution to this problem, and to virtually all of the problems that are associated with computer ownership, is simple and inevitable. Do away with the personal computer.
For most people it is completely unnecessary. For most people all they need is a graphical display terminal with a rich user interface environment that is attached to the Internet and software which is streamed at them, whether in a browser or, as in the case of X, served up to their graphical display terminal.
No hard drive to worry about, nothing police can find in your possession to investigate, charge, prosecute and punish you for, no viruses, no spyware, no adware, no trojan software.
Nobody every got in trouble for watching the most raw, stimulating, raunchy porn on TV and nobody will ever get in trouble for watching what is streamed to their graphics display terminal. After its viewed it just goes right off into the great void. Any software that the average person needs in the future will be streamed directly to their graphics display terminal which is connected directly to the Internet without the need for a local operating system, storage, massive bank of RAM or local copies of application programs.
Users can go anywhere in the world, walk up to any graphics display terminal and have the same software experience regardless of who they are, where they are. No need to download songs or movies, just stream them right to you, just like Television. You don't need a PC to have a TV, you don't need a PC to have a phone, you don't need a PC to receive streaming software. You just need a graphical display terminal. No mess, no fuss. The PC, for the average person, is an unnecessary, expendible component of the software experience in the era of ubiquitous access to the Internet and versatile graphical display terminals.
Yes.
Maybe not
Wouldn't the case be that his ip would be recorded as visiting the offending yahoo site but the actual file would only reside on the hard drive of the computer that is using him as a proxy?
This kind of thing makes me want to vomit. Leave aside all the technical stuff for once. Personally I would really like to know what the hell is going on with the judges in these court rooms? I'll admit to far too much ignorance on the powers of a judge but surely they have some? Don't they have SOME sort of book to throw at these low life prosecutors?
We've already gone down the "slippery slope" of making analogies between Real Life and Digital Life, and trying to make them legal precedent. I think we all know that, although there are parallels, the analogy is not usually that direct.
Example 1: in the case where you've locked your door, someone breaks into your house and injures themselves when leaving by slipping on your icy walk, and then sues you because they injured themselves on your property. Jury finds that you should have shoveled your walk. Yes, some juries have actually awarded money to burglars in personal injury suits.
Example 2: Same scenario, but you left your door unlocked. Jury finds that you should have locked your door.
Example 3: Kids from next door walk into your yard when you're not home, fall into your swimming pool and drown. Jury finds that you should have put up a fence.
Example 4: Neighbor climbs your fence, ignores your no tresspassing sign, and goes ice-skating on your pond, then falls through the ice and dies. The parents sue you. They lose. Jury decides that your fence and sign were enough to tell a reasonable person that they shouldn't have been there.
An analogy in the Digital World that many people have been drawing lately is Open Wi-Fi. (Which I agree with, BTW.) This says that Wi-Fi piggy-backing should be legal because if you don't want people using it, you can secure it, put up a digital "No Tresspassing" sign, etc.
Is there an analogy here? If your computer isn't secured, according to the standards of a "reasonable" person? I think it depends on who these "reasonable" people are. Does the average person know how to secure their computer at a bare minimum? Probably not. But are average people reasonable?
I don't know how to fix my car. But I, and I would presume other reasonable people, as well, know that your car should be checked regularly to make sure that it is in safe driving condition. I also know that I'm supposed to get regular checkups to make sure that I'm healthy.
If I got sick from something at work, didn't go to the doctor for 6 years, found out 6 years later that I was sick and tried to sue my job, the court, at least in my state, I wouldn't get anything. Why? Because the statute of limitations says that I have 2 years from the date that I got sick OR 2 years from the time that a "reasonable person" in the same situation should have known that they were sick. Because reasonable people are supposed to go to the doctor on a regular, I would be unreasonable for waiting 6 years.
Should reasonable people have their computers checked for malware? Yes they should.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Mohandas Gandhi
The DA sounds as over-zealous as the Duke Rape DA. Perhaps that DA might be trotting down the same path as Nifong: http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/61-01152007 -1053408.html
-b.
Really?
Give me one example of this. One case of an end user's linux install being compromised.
Just one...
Go to trial with a lawyer who apprises the jurors of their lawful duty (in quite a few states anyway) to judge the law as well as the defendant. Then sue the prosecutor and all others involved for frivolous prosecution (which is a civil as well as a criminal offense) and make sure they'll never work again. Two can play at malice.
-b.
as someone that has gone through this system on this.
Many moons ago I went out to meet this gal I met online, I knew she was under 18 but I was early 20s and stupid so I went out to meet her and I got busted as I walked in the door, tossed in jail and got a lawyer and got out on probation.
5 years, 2 lie detector tests, 2 years of mandatory therapy, tens of thousands of dollars spent out of mine and my families pocket, 1 career, 1 fiancee all lost along the way because I never really did anything but I thought with my love whistle insetad of the head on my shoulders.
So now I'm labeled a pure hardcore sex offender. I'm on the website here in my state, my glorious picture is up there, they put posters all around my white color suburbanite neighborhood, my neighbors who knew me couldn't believe it, the ones who didn't' saw me and pulled their kids aside like I was going to eat them alive when it was the farthest thing from the truth. I've had people spit upon my father who has a lawn business, mom who gets harrassed at her school from other teachers cause of it, my friends got hassled and dropped me like the plague. I got to see who my true friends and people were. People who were still there, still loyal, looked past my stupid mistake and realized "Hey, he did something really dumb, but he didn't rape some kid or kidnap a school bus full of girl scouts."
So here I sit here after I got all my ducks in a row, got a consulting job because companies hire business' not people so no background check, going to school out of state because they don't require registration or signup stating that some kiddy raper is attending their school, I live in a place that's in a decent area but the county is trying to squeeze people like me out because the community thinks we are all 'horrible representations of society' or some nonsense. I had to grow up alot along the way and I learned alot about the legal and criminal system and know there are thousands upon thousands of guys like me that are out there that really won't be able to be 'themselves' for 20yrs or so until it's all cleared up in the system and maybe a pardon for the governator.
I'm sorry for what I did to my family, to my friends, and to that lil child whom when I saw her in court I would've never done a thing to as she looked like my lil 12 yr old sister.
Do I feel my debt to society has been repaid? You be the judge on that. I'll let you know in 10 more years.
Where are my mod points when I need them!
Eventually it was discovered
That God
Did not want us to be
All the same
This was
BAD NEWS
For the Governments of The World
As it seemed contrary
To the doctrine of
Portion Controlled Servings
Mankind must be made more uniformly
If THE FUTURE
Was going to work
Various ways were sought
To bind us all together
But, alas SAMENESS was unenforceable
It was about this time
That someone
Came up with the idea of TOTAL CRIMINALIZATION
Based on the principle that
If we were ALL crooks
We could at last be uniform
To some degree
In the eyes of THE LAW
Shrewdly our legislators calculated
That most people were
Too lazy to perform a
REAL CRIME
So new laws were manufactured
Making it possible for anyone
To violate them any time of the day or night,
And
Once we had all broken some kind of law
We'd all be in the same big happy club
Right up there with the President,
The most exalted industrialists,
And the clerical big shots
Of all your favorite religions
TOTAL CRIMINALIZATION
Was the greatest idea of its time
And was vastly popular
Except with those people
Who didn't want to be crooks or outlaws,
So, of course, they had to be TRICKED INTO IT...
Which is one of the reasons why
Music
Was eventually made
Illegal
http://www.lyricsdomain.com/6/frank_zappa/scrutin
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Good God, are you that clueless? Linux gets hacked all the time. http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/Linux_ha cked_more_often_than_Windows/0,130061733,139116229 ,00.htm
I'll have to try that line of defence some time!
"Your honour, I know that the officers who raided my house managed to find 500 kilos of cocaine, 20lbs of RDX, two surface to air missiles, and a gaggle of Tainwanese sex slaves, however, I left my door unlocked when I went to volunteer at the soup kitchen down the street. CLEARLY someone is trying to frame me!"
Why are the child porn types writing software that magically puts child porn on random people's computers? I'm really not clear about what they're accomplishing there, other than potentially hurting their business by bringing child pornography into the spotlight.
A computer that is owned, has been cracked and is used remotely, is ideal for many scumbags. They are able to avoid having dirt on their own computers. Also commanding someone else's computer that's always on, has abroadband collection, can be used as a server.
The way some of these stories and comments are written, it sounds like someone examining the computer found dozens of pictures of kiddie porn on there, and the explanation is "the virus did it!"...but I don't see the motive in writing a virus to do that...a popup or two, yes, but not dozens of images.
Again the computer might be being used as a server. The same techniques are used for DDOS attacks.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I have seen a lot of computers infected with a lot of crap...here is some news...I have never seen any that are distributing child porn. I have watched Dateline NBC though...perv's into underage kids are everywhere...it's even less surprising to find underage kids into underage kids. What would you do if you where caught with porn? When I was at University and got caught using bit-torrent less than morally 3 times, what do you think I did? Fess up and get sued? Loose my internet access? Blame ignorance and a Kazza install and get away scot free? What would you do? Perhaps the kid was innocent...ever visited yahoo user made chat rooms...doesn't look like too many innocent kids chilling there (I think and hope they have finally been shut down or cleaned up)...
The first of my friends to try installing linux didn't realize the particular distribution came with FTP installed with an anonymous account. After spending a few hours trying to figure out why the internet was so slow, he discovered someone was using his machine to distribute porn, some of which was of questionable legality.
This was back in probably 95 or 96, so i'm sure in the intervening decade distributors have got much better at it. Using a network of hijacked computers to sell your "product" would probably make reasonable sense - you certainly dont want to host it on your colo account.
This unfortunately leads us to one of two conclusions
1) spyware is a legitimate out for child porn charges
2) people should be responsible for anything that shows up on their computers
I'm sure people here will argue 2 all the way, but when it comes down to it we all make configuration mistakes. I had a disk error once result in our sendmail.cf file being truncated at 1024 bytes, which was just enough to leave it working but turn it into an open relay. I've never had random files appear on my boxes, but i'm sure part of that is luck since i'm not really obsessive about monitoring logs etc... yet i'm probably 10x better than your average computer user.
In the end we need our investigators and prosecutors to have a high degree of technical knowledge, so they can seperate out the victims from the perpatrators. Is that too much to ask?
WebTV was actually a success with a million subscribers. It was rapidly purchased by Microsoft, before declining. I wonder why...
WebTV had 8mb of Ram, no local storage, a 33kbs modem and ordinary TV display. But frankly something similar would be ideal for the family mentioned in the article.
Today we can actually make use of an HDTV, add an ipod or similar usb storage device as local storage, plenty of RAM to run an OS and ADSL or cable. Linux, Firefox on 500Mb flash storage. It could probably be done for $50 by a volume manufacturer.
Deleted
He's thinking of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa county. He has prisoners dress in pink underwear and live in tents on the prison grounds. No, I'm not making this up, Google for "sheriff joe" and you'll get plenty of information on this disgrace to our legal system.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Well that's a good point, but they know that what they are downloading is bootlegged, stolen goods. So yes, they don't want to buy a CD or movie but they'll take it if they can. That's greedy.
Where does downloading bootlegged material come from?
FalconShould there be a Law?
If I had a username irc.goatse.cx troll, the last thing I would be worried about is what people thought of me.
Anyone has any info on that?
The article says Yahoo had reported child porn was uploaded from the computer into some chat rooms.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The point is that it doesn't matter how insecure your software is, it's the legal system that is broken here. There will always be vulnerabilities in software. There will always be users who execute unknown binaries and click on unknown attachments. There will always be users who have their antivirus' license expired and don't receive latest definitions and feel falsely safe. Yes, you can install Linux or Firefox or whatever, and it would most likely reduce the possibility of your machine being compromised. But it is like trying to cure effects of the disease, not the source of the disease. I use to think of myself as an experienced computer user, but I will never be able to guarantee that my machine cannot be compromised. Never say never, and the situation in TFA can happen to everybody. That's why laws need to be rethought of instead of blaming insecure software.
Not going to happen for technical reasons: People complain that their desktops are slow enough as it is - Now we're going to replace the latency and speed of their hdd/memory with that of an internet connection? Forget it. I've run remote X apps on my home 100m ethernet (Konqueror, gaim, ethereal). The experience was acceptable, mainly because those apps were not present where I wanted them to be. They were entirely lacking the snappy response we all expect from a desktop, especially when there was no choice but to bitmap stuff (ie web pages). I have yet (thanks be to the Gods) been spared Konqueror-over-adsl. I'll consider giving this up when I my internet connection runs at 3gigabits per second rather than 3mbps, enough to play full-resolution full-screen games (well, today's games) with a bit left over for other uses. Seriously - Compare getting on a school's web page from the school's intranet vs home. The only time the site is remotely desktop-like is from the local intranet.
Not going to happen for privacy reasons: You don't forsee any issues regarding a single monolithic entity (not yourself) that has access to all your data, all the time, and can do anything it wants with it? At least when AT&T tries to give the NSA a warrantless tap to everyone's information, you can use SSL. If all your information sits on one mainframe, look forward to the NSA, FBI, MAFIAA (music amd film industry association of America) demanding access. Look forward to some providers doing whatever those groups want without telling you. Look forward to DRM succeeding because you don't control the hardware or the software anymore. Look forward to your MP3s and MPEGs disappearing. "No hard drive to worry about, nothing police can find in your possession to investigate, charge, prosecute and punish you for, no viruses, no spyware, no adware, no trojan software." Sorry, but LOL!
Not going to happen because central bureaucracies are incompetent: Personal computers took off and timeshare systems died because I know what I want, and the geek running the 360 doesn't. My PC isn't arbitrarily given resource limits, and I don't need to bribe the sysadmin to give my system more RAM or a new video card because the idiots in accounting lost the last 5 requests.
There's a reason that dial-in timeshare systems died as shortly after it was practical to make a computer that fits unobtrusively in one's home. People will allocate given resources to get what they want, centralized systems will try and in comparison fail horribly. And one last thing, "Any software that the average person needs in the future will be streamed directly to their graphics display terminal..." So what about those of us who aren't content to just suck up whatever TermCo offers?
...by mentioning his full name in the article, /. made sure that any searches for + "sex offender" will turn up hits for decades to come. Nice work.
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
A two year old article is all you can do?
And, straight from the article, "The mi2g study concentrated on 'overt digital attacks' and didn't include more general forms of attack such as viruses and worms." So even the (pitiful) evidence you've provided doesn't include the most common forms of attack. The mi2g study was on manual forms of attack. Pop quiz... which is more likely to happen: a hacker sitting down at your computer, or a remote attack through your internet connection?
I swear. Microsoft apologists are getting weaker every day.
The family made the mistake of talking to the police before they talked to a lawyer and once the kid admitted looking at "Playboy"-type images the cops donned their blinders and got their Nancy Grace on.
Nancy Grace does get a hardon about prosecuting someone before enough investigation is done and info is released to decide innocence or guilt. Then again her fiance was murdered. If I recall right originally she wanted to be a actor but when he was murdered she switched her major to law.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I've said it before and I'll say it again: the worst thing for a legal system to do is to convict innocents.
Let's think about the purpose of the legal system for a while. Why do we want laws at all? Why, we want to make sure people can just live their lives, without being robbed, killed, raped, and whatnot. So we make robbery, rape, murder, etc. illegal. Now we have two categories of people: innocents and criminals. The innocents are the people we want to protect, the criminals are who we want to protect the innocents from. So we must arrest and convict the criminals. A legal system that does not result in criminals getting caught is useless. But a system that results in innocents getting punished is worse than useless, because it does exactly what it was intended to prevent: harm innocent people.
From what I've heard, the whole crackdown on child pornography is mostly punishing (severely!) a lot of people who are not harming anyone, while the people who do harm others (the criminals _and_ the law enforcers) mostly run free. That can't be good.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
What really rots your socks is he could have had a picture of a girl 17 and older than him, flashing her tits, and not only would it be child porn, but they could easily try the 16 year old as an adult!
That's the problem with statutory rape laws, a 15 year old boy can have consentual sex with a 17 year old girl and he can be charged with statutory rape.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I'm surprised no one else is interested in knowing how the authorities discovered this child porn.
Property is theft.
If they are not dangerous, leave them alone. Otherwise... why in Hell are these people running free?
What, we aren't too sure? We'll wait to see how many people they attack? Lovely. I so look forward to being the victim who gets to prove that yes indeed, inmate #5254352 should go back to jail.
It seems to me that the problem with over-zealous prosecutors could be that they are elected in many places. They need to get a certain number of convictions for certain crimes to show that they're "tough on kiddie porn/drugs/terrorism/jay-walking".
This means, of course, that there will almost inevitably be abuses of the prosecution process, with people like this 15 year-old the victims.
The long-term solution could be to stop electing the prosecutors.
Be sure to drop the prosecutor a note whenever you come across some questionable material:l
http://www.maricopacountyattorney.org/contact.htm
That way you can be sure they will take care of the problem and put our tax dollars to good use.
Interactive Visual Medical Dictionary
Why are the child porn types writing software that magically puts child porn on random people's computers? I'm really not clear about what they're accomplishing there, other than potentially hurting their business by bringing child pornography into the spotlight.
I can take a guess, and come up with two possibilities just off the top of my head:
1) Maybe (as one user already pointed out) their malware is parasitizing the system as a server.
but more likely:
2) Law enforcement is currently able to obtain child porn convictions based on simple possession, if they find a file (even a deleted one) on the accused's machine. By spreading malware that drops such files on a large number of innocent people's machines, they may hope to get a judgement that mere possession of the files is not evidence of a crime and/or get the laws on simple possession repealed - perhaps after major pressure from improperly prosecuted innocents (as we're seeing now).
This would force the prosecutors to actually prove the accused person hunted down and downloaded, or solicited the transmission of, the files, rather than just that the files were on his machine. That's a much tougher job for the prosecutors.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
(c) a Federal requirement that states require a grand jury before going to trial on any felony.
I think grand juries are BS!!! One person cotrols the grand jury, the prosecutor. A defendent isn't even allowed an attorney in hearings, not without permission of the prosecutor. Yet too many people get the idea that if a grand jury indicts someone they must be guilty.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Wow. You USAians really live in a fucked up country if you can be charged with showing your mates a playboy.
Unfortunately this is all too true. With the way things are, if a parent were to do what my mother did while I was growing up she'd be prosecuted for child abuse, child endangerment, or indescency to a minor. What did she do? She gave me "Playboys" and alcoholic drinks. The parents I saw and met in Germany when I was there would be prosecuted today with these charges. What did they do? A parent would get a glass of wine for their child when eating at a restaurant.
FalconShould there be a Law?
The real point that I take away from this is that laws against child pornography ARE the problem. The solution is to legalize it. These laws create enormous problems. They provide a basis for invasions of privacy that would otherwise not take place, and they result in ordeals like this one for far too many innocent people. In addition to the problem that innocent people can easily end up with child porn on their computers inadvertently, there is also the problem that child porn is ill-defined. People have been prosecuted for taking pictures of their kids naked at the beach or in the back yard.
The evidence that viewing child porn encourages child molestation is weak at best. However repulsive it may seem to most of us, the policy reasons for banning child pornography are minimal. The harm that these laws do is far greater. This isn't to say that child molestation is acceptable. People who molest children, and that includes those who make child pornography involving real children (yes, people have been prosecuted for "child porn" consisting of purely imaginary drawings) should prosecuted, but the laws against child porn should be repealed.
The part I don't get about this kind of issues is that the explanation is always the same: there was spyware (or whatever) on his computer, so he didn't do it! How do you make that mental leap? Is there solid evidence behind it? Are there really trojans that litter a computer with child pr0n? Or is it just about deniability?
Sure it's enough to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, but how common is it to get your computer infected with child pr0on or other unacceptable material? I don't know anyone who this would've happened to. Are they just too unlucky to both get infected with the brand of malware that spreads that kind of material, and get caught about it before figuring it out themselves?
I mean, if you compare it to the doping scandals, we hear the standard lines again and again. "I got cold and took an aspirin, the growth hormone must've come from there". Maybe I'm just a bit cynical.
Do you have a reference for that girl getting charged with molesting herself?
People from the United States of America = Americans
Another lesson:
Citizens of the United States of America = Unites States of America citizens.
Or put another way America is not a country, it is the continents of North America and South America together. Someone from Brazil is just as American as someone from the USA.
FalconShould there be a Law?
It's a shame Thomas didn't finish his statement in an honest way. It would have sounded something like this:
"Well, I...again, I...I'm not sure that that's totally right. But you gotta... you know, get ahead. If you have to ruin some innocent boy's life for your own political gain, then so be it. What, you think this is about justice?"
When a prosecutor has it out for you, there isn't much that can be done.
Not only the prosecutor, but anybody with the power of the law. When I was about 14, I made the mistake of walking home just before curfew (11:00pM). A stolen car had been found about a block from my location. Sure enough, a cop stopped me and accused me of the theft. He kept me for questioning for about two hours. When he couldn't pin the crime on me (I didn't even know how to drive yet), he ticketed me for being out past curfew. The only reason I was out past curfew was because he had me locked in a car.
As for fighting it in court, it was my word against his as to when he picked me up. The judge didn't believe a kid.
Request a Linux Shockwave player here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/email/wishform/
they're not stupid, they know not to actually host the kiddie porn on a machine traceable to them, so botnets are the perfect cover... being as IRC and Usenet are starting to get smarter every year to push them out.
I watched the 20/20 segment about Matt on ABC. If I heard correctly, I believe they said that the family computer was using Windows 98. I don't really know how well Windows 98 can or can't be secured, but it was not Windows XP with Service Pack II. Does Microsoft still provide security patches for Windows 98? If so were they applied?
A family that is still using Windows 98 does not sound like they are serious computer users. These are probably clueless computers users who don't know the first thing about computer security. I couldn't help but instantly picture this computer that was probably full of spyware and perhaps even a root kit, open ports, unpatched security flaws and who knows what else.
The 20/20 segment also mentioned that Matt agreed to take a lie detector test and passed the test. Even after he passed the polygraph exam the prosecutor continued to press charges.
Their lawyer eventually had computer expert Tammi Loehrs look at the hard drive. On the ABC website, it says that she found "... more than 200 infected files, so-called backdoors that allowed hackers to access the family computer from remote locations ... ." On the show someone suggested that someone may have preferred to stash those files on the Bandy family computer instead of storing it on his own.
By the way, according to a recent New York Times article, an estimated 11 percent of all computers are zombie computers that are part botnets spewing out spam. So law enforcement and prosecutors should start with always asking who else might be controlling the computer.
I mostly use my Linux box at home and do my best to try to keep it sure. I download the latest security updates regularly, I keep all TCP/IP ports closed and fully stealth. We also have a Windows XP SP II laptop that connects to the wireless router with 802.11g, but we do use WPA encryption with a very long non-random password. Both computers use the latest version of Mike's Ad Blocking Hosts file to block advertising URLs. Some people think I am too paranoid, but after seeing the 20/20 segment on ABC, I can't help thinking, "I hope I haven't missed anything."
If someone ever wants to frame or discredit someone, now we know, all they need to do is send a few child porn photos to that person's less than perfectly secured computer and then somehow tip off law enforcement.
I couldn't agree more. I have my cable modem, wireless router, stereo, and laptop power cord all plugged into the same power strip at home. For the 18-23 hours a day when I'm not using my computer, the laptop is sleeping and the power strip is off. This simple action cuts the power usage down to nothing (other than the
All it takes is a single flick of the switch - how much easier do people need it to be?
"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." barely escaped being labeled a sex offender for the rest of his life? if you read carefully: FTA: "While the prosecution deal offered no jail time for Matthew, he would still be labeled a sex offender."
I'm not going to allow such uncontrolled events as described in the post to happen, if I can help it. The only way I can help it is to have an OS running in my home that can be secured. That means MacOS or Linux. That and a hefty firewall. :)
There is a good firewall for Windows, ZoneAlarm. Unfortunately it doesn't work with Firefox or Netscape newer than 4.x. Now, only if I could find a firewall like it for OSX and Linux. Sure there are some for them but I haven't found one that allows the user to block javascript, Java, or other objects by website, ie allow some websites to use these but block others from using them.
FalconShould there be a Law?
- Drug dealer (convicted felon) says you have guns and tips DEA (possibly to lessen a charge against themselves..so they can later make money).
- Criminal (Ibid) puts malware out on the internet (possibly just to make money).
- Homeowner leaves for work
- Computer owner leaves for work with computer on
- District Attorney has no clue but proceeds with warrant
- Ibid
- See the article (RTFA)
- Agents surveil the house, wait till you leave, serve a "no-knock" and pull the front door off the house. Dog/cats are taken to the pound, house is ransacked and left in shambles, and your perfectly legal and $4,000 gunsafe is destroyed in the process of getting inside.
-Countless legal battles to
A: Figure out what the hell just happened
B: Clear yourself of the charges
- Ibid
The first one is the article I just read, the second happened to a neighbor two blocks away.
I've had a computer since 1983, using a TRS computer and a Hayes Smartmodem (300 baud, course) and I've got Sun certified in running hundreds of Solaris systems. I went most of those 23 years without a virus-scanner (just being very careful and patching), but still got bit. YouTube bit me. 23 years experience and a protected/patched system was still defeated. Never downloaded a wallpaper or any attachment for that matter. I played with the malware a little before fixing the system, and it was interesting watching the malware disable and render the AV software inept. In one case, it sat there by itself, just feeding, until I wacked it. A few moments later it re-spawned and this time protected itself from whacking. The other mal-ware blocked the port for updating the AV software...seems ironic the virus is smarter (remapped URLs to localhost) than the AV.
Oh well....after reading this it's just one more reason to switch over to the Mac when I have the $$$ (yeah, it's still vulnerable....but a lot less attractive to malware).
So what's my point? Even with all the knowledge and training, you will still get infected. You can scoff at YouTube, or MySpace, but you will eventually get bit. The upside: You'll figure it out quick and patch (hopefully).
I'll likely get modded as flamebait but to be blunt: You're just as naive as those you scorn if you think the average person is capable of stopping it and "got it from downloading screensavers." I don't think there's a single computer I've seen in the last 5 years that wasn't a Windows OS-installed screensaver. Wallpapers? Yeah, I see those on occasion...
So what's the solution? We've got democracy, and now we're trying to spread it. What would you suggest be done?
One, stuff like this needs to be fought against. And two, we need to become more aware of what's going on. Unfortunately for too many in the US, there's not enough tyme and it's not worth it to spend what tyme there is on learing about something. It only becomes worth it when it bites them in the ass.
Now I'm not saying it's all the voters' fault, afterall John and Sue Jones need to feed thier kids, but people really need to consciously decide what is more important.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I have no problem with letting kids use a Windows PC. Providing all networking hardware is physically disabled.
This book goes into a lot of depth about child porn and the laws surrounding it. It essentially says that we have lost the "war on KP" as it is both readily and cheaplily available to anyone who wants some.
There are 11 types of people, those who know unary and those who don't.
The number one reason you get hacked is through weak security. You can every gizmo installed but one weak password and a decent brute force attack and you are done.
A properly conifured Windows box is just as secure as a properly configured Linux box. Linux suffers from port-scans, SSH attacks, irc bots, brute force attacks, etc. Windows has virues and worms.
I am no windows fan-boy and I use linux servers. I won't say that Linux is not headache free and that I don't have to worry about security. Expecting average joe to be able to set-up and maintain a secure linux enviroment is not going to happen.
Half of writing history is hiding the truth.
Here's the basic script for you - hope to see it on youtube shortly!
Mac guy:
"Whoa, what's happening to you?"
PC guy:
"I don't know, I was busy trying to run my virus scanner when the FBI broke in and arrested me for Child Porn!"
Mac guy:
"Wow, good thing the virus didn't load you up with terrorist plans too!"
Just then Jack Bauer breaks the door down....
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
Well,... it kind of reminds me of the 'olden' days where horse porn was used as a form of 'WTF' factor.
They say there were 9 images of child porn on the computer. The kid got nervous and fessed up about the playboy porn and unknowingly took the rap for one of the parents who had intentionally downloaded the kiddie porn. Just a theory, but quite plausible.
Tough in general but there's often some bit of data that points one way or another.
If a whole bunch of URLs get hit half a second apart it's pretty safe to assume malware did it. On the other hand, malware doesn't seem likely to spell the name of a site wrong and then get it right fifteen seconds later. (Note to prosecuting attorneys: that is NOT beyond reasonable doubt).
There's also a key in the registry that distinguishes between what sites got visited via the address bar and which were visited by following links.
(I hate getting called in on these. All you porn surfers out there, use your %^&@! home machine).
they would come off the lot with no locks and a big read "ON" button, and we'd be charged for crimes that car thieves commit.
When the country falls into chaos, politicians talk about 'patriotism'. Lao-Tzu
However, I would note there's a big difference between leeching some images and actually abusing children or paying money for images of minors, providing a demand for the continued abuse of children.
There is also a difference in what different people concern is porn. There have been cases of parents being accused of child porngraphy for taking photos of their child(ren), babies and older children, taking a bath. Heck such things were accepted as being part of a family album while I was growing up, but now it's porn. Ya now, as a photographer there are things I automatically think about twice before taking a photo when just 20 years ago I didn't have to worry I'd be accused of being a child pornographer or a terrorist. Several years ago while I was taking a photography class we discussed a case then going on about how another student was arrested for taking photos at a chemical plant while working on an assignment for one of his classes. He was accused of being a terrorist and photographing potential terrorist targets.
FalconShould there be a Law?
a FELONY?
the more articles like this scare joe and jane sixpack off of the internet, the sooner it can stop being a means for all people to connect and share data of all kinds and revert back to it's intended purpose: a place for nerds to argue about star trek.
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
And it could be like a gang standing around a murder victim. Someone pulled the trigger, but who? You just convict them all is the only way to deal with it.
Unlike you but like Thomas Jefferson, I'd rather let ten guilty go free than to falsely convict one innocent. Some may, I don't know if you might be one, say "but they must of done something bad anyway". Well if so then find it and charge them with it.
FalconShould there be a Law?
In fact, you are wrong. Latino-Americans do feel "American", and I've met more than one (mainly from Argentina and Brazil) who are a bit pissed off at the appropriation of a continent name by a single country. They are and feel American, and so there can be confusion. Just ask them. You should listen to one of the most famous song by brazilian singer Gilberto Gil, it's in spanish and portuguese, and it is called "Soy loco por ti, America" ("I'm crazy about you, America"). He talks about the whole continent, not the USA. Nobody is going to die over this naming problem, but it really does exist. I try to use "people of the USA" instead of "American", to try to be precise, without pissing off anybody. Sometimes you don't need it, depending on the context. But sometimes there really is confusion.
"Box[ing]" refers to using a device called a colored "box" (eg. redbox, bluebox, etc) to trick the phone system into (usually) giving you free phone service
Captain Crunch's whistle anyone? How about 2600?
FalconShould there be a Law?
Yes! Now go turn yourself in!
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
what we can't be sure of, is was this kid looking at pictures at all
Fixed that for you.
I mean, the guy has an internet connection and gigs of pr0n, and he goes out and gets a Playboy? Nuff said.
Actually he admits to looking at legal porn:
Nevertheless, Matthew did have an embarrassing confession. He had been sneaking peaks at adult erotic photos on the family computer. "I got the Web site from a bunch of friends at school. [It was] just adult pornography...Playboy-like images."
FalconShould there be a Law?
I know we're mostly fashionably secular/atheistic here on Slashdot, but I've spent some time recently reading on Wikipedia about a particular Hindu Goddess who among other things, apparently reminds people to be willing to work through their dark sides, and I'm assuming looking at pornography would fall within that category.
One of the things I've noticed about the so-called "guardians of morality," is that they almost always tend to actually be doing worse things behind closed doors than the people they persecute...the only difference is that they're very secretive about it, and because of that, they can have a much harder time than others controlling it. The sorts of people I'm talking about are politicians who do such things as taking bribes/holding orgies or bucks parties with a heap of prostitutes, etc...and try very hard to make sure that nobody ever finds out about them doing it, while at the same time condemning and punishing people who openly do the same.
The bottom line is that a dark side is something we *all* have, every last one of us...and you're either intimate with it, know its' dimensions, allow it expression in controlled ways, and thus are able to stay on top of it...or you try to deny its' existence, repress it, stuff it underground, and condemn others who express theirs...and reap the negative consequences of doing so.
They're most definitely trying to paint him as a sucker, I mean, when have you ever seen an interview that transcribes every 'uh' the man says?
---
"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
Don't make it into a pissing contest.
Any country where you can get prosecuted for showing an issue of Playboy to your friends have serious problems, be it North Korea, Saudi-Arabia or USA.
We here farther east take American to mean someone from America (rather logically!). If we want to be specific, we say "north american" or even "yankee". Which I think is a perfect term for someone from USA.
No, the odds are good if you're using IE and/or Outlook Express.
shin phantomflanflinger
As a US citizen living abroad I sympathise with other residents of the Americas taking umbrage with our appropriation of an entire continent's name. However, there isn't really any sensible replacement. USAian looks and sounds stupid, so you will never get 300+ million people adopting it, no matter how sympathetic they are to your point. Every other identifier for folks from the US, from "yank" to "gringo" has derogatory connotations, so you won't see us stampeding to change our label to that either.
The fact is that we've been called Americans for over two hundred years, and the etymology of the word stems quite clearly from the name of the country "United States of America." Since Unitidians and Statsians are too generic, American is the term that evolved.
I suppose we could start calling ourselves "Americans of US citizenship" or some other stupid, ungainly term, but anyone doing so would be trivially identified as a politically correct dogmatist of gargantuan proportions, and probably laughed at almost as much as those who use USian, or other inane terms like "Sie" as a singular gender neutral pronoun ("their" may be grammatically wrong, but at least it doesn't sound utterly contrived--but I digress.).
So, if someone can come up with a sensible replacement for "American" that doesn't sound like PC newspeak or involve multiple words, and isn't derogatory, I will entertain the notion of adopting it. But until that happens, I will consider calling myself American, with due apologies to the other residents of America who also happen to be able to call themselves Belizian/Brazilian/Mexican/etc., and don't have 300+ million Americans demanding they should change their centuries-old national identifier.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
US has a problem with sex, one of the, if not the, major human drives, to the point of charging people for showing pictures of the human body.
Many European countries have a problem with harboring or being occupied by an ideology that is probably the most widely recognized symbol of evil, that caused the major war of the last century, and millions to be killed in either battle or by outright murder. Older Europeans lived through it. As a result of these still open wounds, depicting few arcane symbol have been outlawed, as well as denying a specific (albeit important) historic event.
Both are limitations to the personal freedom, but I don't see how the second in any way is comparable or justify the first.
<ochlocrat>
Ooggwwwaaaahhhhh!!! Lucky! Lucky!??! He wuz a PEDOPHILE!!!!! PEEED-O-FIIIILEE!!!! We. Have. To. Protect. Our. Children!!!!!
'anging to good fo' 'im!!!! But Hang 'im anyway!!!!!!
</ochlocrat>
May the Maths Be with you!
Isn't that the biggest heap of FUD you've ever come across? Charge someone with child pornography whith a possible 90 years and then offer them a plea bargain of showing a Penthouse?
I am so glad that the justice system in my country doesn't work that way.
What happens when lots of politicians and lawyers and respectable people get infected?
Will they be treated nicely, because they have nice $500/hr lawyers?
Or is this maybe a fbi bait and trap trick?
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Please correct the grave injustice that has been done to the parent post. Thank you for your cooperation.
If the pentagon goonies can crack down terror cells in an instant, why cannot they analyse all the bots
in the world and their traffic logs and figure out who makes and distros them out so they can go out with
some navy seals to take out the authors.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I always assumed that when someone got busted on a child pornography charge, it was clear that the photo subjects were under 18 because they looked *much* younger than 18. Is this the case, or is there something more I should know?
I know that people marketing legal porn have to keep records so that they can prove that their girls are of age, but what about the average teenage guy with a folder full of jpgs and mpgs from kazaa?
I have seen a good deal of porn that would seem to be of 15-16 year old girls, if not for its conspicuous placement on high-traffic websites.
How can I make sure that the porn that I keep intentionally is not going to get me in trouble?
You encrypt your partitions.
No serious, the answer to your question solely depends on where you live. This case here happened in America, so all bets are off anyways. If you live there best try to avoid having images of women on your computer at all. Dressed or not.
No. We, in spanish, say 'estado-unidenses'. And I am proud to belong to one of the few languages that have a name for... well, the United-Staters :-)
:-)
I will add that, in many languages, the concept of United-Staters is getting root. I've seen it, among others, in French newspapers (états-uniens).
I find surprising to see that a country do not have a name for themselves, and that they have the arrogance to take the name of the continent they live in.
Of course, this might upset the United States of Mexico (Estados Unidos Mexicanos), as they are, also, a union of States. But we can not make everybody happy
It IS a country built by Puritans, people so uptight that the British kicked them out.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Ha! Great link... all I could think of after visiting that site is: "OH, THE FELIDITY!"
What's the betting you'd change your tune if someone decided to plant "a bunch of drugs" in your apartment?
"It's the nature of software."
No, it's not the nature of software. It is the inferior programming languages used for making the software. If software was built with something like ADA or Haskell, then there would be much less problems.
Personally I would sue everyone using C/C++ or any other unsafe language...and Microsoft would get a really big lawsuit for putting out a dangerous product.
(mostly because I don't see the original AC respond to their questions)...
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
Old news in US...
e /2004-03-29-child-self-porn_x.htm :
From URL http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlif
> PITTSBURGH (AP) -- A 15-year-old girl has been arrested for taking nude photographs of her self
> and posting them on the Internet, police said.
(Found via the English Wikipedia article on Child Pornography, found via Google.)
I suspect they don't take this approach because they have limited abilities and legal powers to track and locate the users of the compromised machines, since those connections will be re-routed through various computers, networks, and jurisdictions. Having said that, various botnets have been cracked through analysis and tracing. Its not technical impossible, but its not particularly feasible.
31 And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth:
32Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.
33And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.
34And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.
35And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.
36Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.
37And the first born bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day.
38And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Benammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.
It won't mean anything anymore. I mean when everyone in the country with a computer is branded a sex offender and can't work or live anywhere then it will officially no longer be relevant. I'm hoping that day comes soon.
OBVIOUSLY if they make it always available on everyones computers like torrent seeds, and the person has no knowledge of it, guess what you are a pedophile too, and when they bust in on the 15000th person who didnt know anything about it, the judicial system will have to relax their laws from having too many false positives popping up.
I always said the best hackers were in the porn industry!
If you must punish someone, then why not punish those taking the photos instead of those who download them?
Society is retarded.
There have been a bunch of comments already and no one has mentioned WebeWeb? I find that strange. I'm at work and filtered, so I can't google for links, but look for "Pierson" (the photographer) and "WebeWeb" (the umbrella site). It seems that the U.S. govt now believes that photographs of clothed children *not* engaged in sexual acts are now child porn. All I can do is shake my head, wonder, and start looking for some sensible place to migrate to when I retire in a few years.
This is insane, and would have been funny if I was not in this country. Spyware, popups and all are all used in insecure and inferior Windows & Internet Explorer. Why don't people get rid of both, and why don't the retarded lawyers get this. You can get nasty obscene popups even if you go to a news site. Why won't the regulators control that. Its not a hidden fact who advertises throught these popups. Go after the roots and have a policy in place to safeguard the end-user.
Vote for Bob.
Mayor Quimby supports revolving door prisons.
Mayor Quimby even released Sideshow Bob -- a man twice convicted
of attempted murder.
Can you trust a man like Mayor Quimby?
Vote Sideshow Bob for mayor.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
I've dealt with this particular family for a few years and the mother always let her teenage son download all sorts of porn, even though he's under 18, and laughed about it. She called me last week to fix her laptop and I found a ton of child porn on it. I brought it to the local PD and awaiting the outcome.
I've been doing house calls and such for about 5 years and have never had this happen. I've seen some bizarre shit on people's machines, but nothing illegal before this. I have a baby daughter and I asked myself "Knowing what I know now about this kid, would I ever want him near my daughter? No. If he's searching for this shit, I don't want to let this go and then read 5 years down the road he molested somebody and I didn't do anything about it."
I'm just glad I didn't spend much time working on the computer, because I'm pretty sure they aren't paying me now!
since I don't know this kid from Adam. And neither do any of you.
But the ABC story never explained WHY the police showed up on his doorstep with a search warrant. Judges generally have to have a good reason to give those things out. What evidence did they have that prompted the investigation?
Keep in mind that these shows on ABC and CBS, they look for stories where they can be the silver knight riding in on the white horse to save the day. They're selling a program, not justice. So, that may mean that a few facts get swept under the rug in order to tell their story they way they want it to be told, to completely suck the viewer in.
I'm not saying that the kid is guilty, here. But the ABC story doesn't convince me that he's innocent, either.
we can all expect the inquisition to assume guilt and punish quickly, damn the facts, damn the humans
it's the price of using Microsoft. meet the new tax
With all these legal cases brought for this sort of thing, maybe people should think more of security.
Trojans and Spyware shouldn't get onto computers. The fact that the do shouldn't be acceptable. Many people, in my opinion, don't take a serious enough view of computer security. Yes, things might get though, but then again, people may break into your house, or steal your car. Just because it is a computer shouldn't make it not important.
If people don't lock their house, open up all the doors and windows with valuables on display, it isn't surprising that you might come home and find yourself a little poorer, and someone might (unlikely, but it's just an example) have planted a dead body in your kitchen. Similarly, if someone opens up their computer on the Internet, things may well happen, and those things may well be incriminating for the owner. If people run a secure OS (Not windows), a secure browser (not IE), a good firewall, an up to date anti virus, and take as many security measures that are reasonable, then you don't get stuff like this. I fit does pop up, but your system should rapidly detect it and remove it.
My point: People should do more about computer security if they don't want bad things to happen.
Just my £0.02
Dave.
P.S. I also feel this is a terrible miscarriage of justice, even what he was charged with, but the above still stands.
Actually, yes. There have been cases of a teen taking pictures of themselves naked, and sending them to a boy/girl friend, and getting charged with trafficking in child pornography.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
In many US states, ex-felons are not allowed to vote, no. And most of the sex offender laws of the class being discussed here are, in fact, felonies.
Say what you will about the source of the quote, but it's true: Governments have no power over law-abiding citizens, only those who break the law. So, to gain power, governments create more and more restrictive laws, until eventually everybody is guilty of something. When that point is reached, the government can do whatever it wants, since it will have the means to lock up and silence anyone who dissents.
Even if you're not overtly guilty of anything, it creates an atmosphere of fear, where people will avoid speaking up against the very government that claims to protect their right to free speech, simply because the government now has the ability to make up laws as it sees fit. If what you're doing isn't illegal, they'll simply make it illegal.
Ruling by fear. There's another word for that, based on a synonym for fear, that's been tossed around a lot lately. Am I saying that the USA is in control of (domestic) terrorists? No...not yet. But I can't help but think it's headed that way.
--
"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
It's more likely that Matt was having a little online fling with a few "MySpace hos", kids from school, xanga, amihotornot... whatever. It is quite prevalent. I think Mom, Dad, and the androgynous horde that is Slashdot needs to wake up a bit.
I remember doing it like 8 years ago, when webcameras were new and expensive. Getting that digital cameras for christmas a GODSEND because you didn't have to chance developing the film after documenting your escapades.
Poor kid. Needed a BIT more computer savvy. And never burn the stuff to CDs without obfuscating or mixing in with more mundane stuff (multi-session audio CDs with no autorun in the data section were good choices... and they doubled as mood music mix CDs)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Your suggestion is contradictory to your first statement. You complain that powering off a machine puts mechanical stress on fans, hard drives and components, but what low power mode are you using that doesn't power down the hard drive and most of the fans, and allow the CPU and motherboard to cool by not using them? By your logic, the machine should be up and running in full power mode at all times. If you put it to sleep, it's not going to stress it any worse to power it off.
Still, I'm with you in that the machine doesn't need to be powered off. I switch off the monitor, and for safety from the outside world I put the firewall on a power strip. Turn that strip off, and the local machines are cut off from the world at large, but not each other in the house (and it's all hard-wired, so there's no remote exposure for wireless devices). Flip it on, and in seconds I'm on the 'Net.
Virg
This is normally a bullshit argument since we could use it to make literally any claim, but this is a unique situation since some of the malware out there is quite sophisticated (e.g., using private digital certificates on control channels) and the idea of a combination VPN/P2P network to host illegal material is fairly obvious to anyone with a technical background. Sufficiently motivated people (e.g., people facing decades in prison) will make the effort to contact the malware producers who can provide secure channels.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I'm puzzled about something here. According to this there were two users logged into Yahoo! on the same computer at the same tyme. Yet neither I nor anyone else I know has been able to do this,
Run two different browsers (Firefox and Opera for example) and you're done. It's not a very mighty hack.
Uhm, I hadn't thought of that. Thanks.
FalconShould there be a Law?
No, I've been a member for several years.
FalconShould there be a Law?
I have a friend who is the president of a photography club in CT. He's been arrested twice for refusing to turn over his rolls of film - with pictures of local WPA bridges & Buildings.
Unfortunately stuff like this is getting to be more and more common in the new police state of the USA. People can and do fight it but most don't want the inconvenience of being arrested so they'll just hand over their film docilely. For those who want to fight this there's a pdf handbook that can be downloaded, Legal Rights of Photographers. It goes into detail explaining what a photographer should do if approached by law enforcement. Actually I think, I don't recall for sure, I may of first heard of it here when someone else posted a link to it a few years back in another thread. It was either here or Photo.net.
FalconShould there be a Law?
ANDREW THOMAS: Well, in...initially, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children uh, came into contact with the Phoenix police department. They...as a result of that tip, and evidence uh, linking that computer to a yahoo web site were able to work with our office, obtain search warrants. And uh, they went in and uh, conducted that uh, uh...that investigation.
ANDREW THOMAS: They then spoke to the uh...the juvenile who made uh, certain admissions. Uh, while he denied accessing adult uh, pornography, he did admit to being a part of uh, accessing uh, adult pornography and... (OFF-MIKE)
Then that's what you should've done.
That child needed a stern talking to and perhaps grounding. You got him a lifetime in prison.
I guess my first question is how the kid can be in trouble if he isn't even an adult yet...
So, what happens when you get a spam email with a dirty picture sent to you? It's not like you can filter out all spam before you download them from the pop server.
Hit send/receive and you can instantly become a child pornographer. Sweet. The law is on our side.
I don't see that thermal stress is a practical consideration in most domestic environments.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
Google for it. In a nutshell:
Planned Change: Create a conflict. Then create opposition to conflict; eg, fear, panic, hysteria. Then offer the solution to the problem created by step one. Change, which would have been impossible without the proper conditioning (steps one and two), is achieved.
So what are 'they' trying to achieve?
remember to loot and pillage before you burn!
> Why are the child porn types writing software that magically ...
> puts child porn on random people's computers?
> I'm really not clear about what they're accomplishing there,
And why do spammers send spam advertising whatever to "random people"?
The point you (and most everyone) doesn't understand is that spammers (advertisers of porn and child porn included) do not send their advertising to "people" at all. Spammers that "advertise" petty stock are advertising to a tiny percantage of email users and their method of reaching those mailboxes is issuing all the email routing instructions they know. Advertisers of child porn are trying to reach a tiny fraction of the population that is willing to pay for their "offering" and their method is using software inserted into hundreds of thousands of hijacked PCs that shows popup ads (probably not just of child porn). Haven't you seen TV commercials directed at much less than half the watching audience?
The point is that the advertiser cares only about the relevant audience: potential paying customers. The rest of the targets is a side effect of the method of market research. Since it is much more expensive (or impossible) to find out in advance exactly how to reach your potential audience, you use a method that would bring your "message" to a wider audience that would include your desired audience. The ones who want the info would come to you. The rest of them would ignore it, or perhaps would be annoyed or appaled, but what do you care: they're not potential customers of yours anyway!
TV comercials are expensive, so advertisers at least invest in finding audiences that have higher percentage of their desired audience (relative to cost of advertising). Email and popup and other spam costs next to nothing, so the most cost effective method of "market research" here is to just send to as many "random targets" as possible. Some of them would turn out to be paying customers. The rest of them are not interesting. The spammer doesn't care what they think.
So this is the explanation of their motive: they didn't really know if you or your windows based server is a consumer child pornography. Since it cost them nothing to install their software on your machine they did it anyway "just in case".
Some consequences:
Ratio of customers/spam served is imaterial. Spammers would send as much as they can and take as much business as they get.
Therefore blocking spam to uninterested parties does not hurt the spammer's business model. It helps the spammer, since the spammer's business model is tto let the market research itself by having uninterested parties not respond to spam.
Spammers are not interested in "removing" email addresses. sending does not cost them as much as maintaining "clean lists". They only handle whoever is responding and paying for their stuff. They don't and cannot handle the rest of us. There are too many of us and dealing with us produces no income to the spammer.
Finally: spamers (including popup spammers that sell anything, including child porn) are not equipped to handle masses of responds that don't lead to income. Not responding to them helps them keep their businesses running. If people start responding, making them act on the response but producing no income their business model would collapse.
So if you want to hurt child pornography business the way to act would be to let them popup their ads, erspond to them, feed in fake info and fake CC number and order some of their stuff. Eventually they would find out the info is fake, possibly after paying for the processing of the fake order. If enough people do it they would not be able to find someone to process their order.
Unfortunately if you do try to interfere with their business you might go to jail for the child pronography they displayed on your PC, so its best to let them have it their way and let the law enforcement agencies handle this themselves.
It's still legal to spam other spammers (i.e. overload them with real fake responses. responses of real people that are indistinguishable from responses by real customers without human effort).
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Oh. Well, then. Separate browsers, or multiple copies of Firefox with different profiles. I've used the later to log in with two different accounts on some websites, and it wasn't that difficult to set up with FF 2. The only irritating part about it was that I couldn't just click on links in IRC or such, but had to copy and paste them.
Yea, someone else mentioned different browsers could be used, it's something I hadn't thought of. You've used different copies of Firefox? What did you do, install more than one version, or install the same version in different places? If you do this, either one, do they keep thier own settings or do they share the same ones? I'd like to be able to install different versions on the same computer but keep them separated so I could test websites in the different versions.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Here's another scathing story about the Bandy case, published January 25. Others are archived on the Justice For Matt website. http://www.justice4matt.com/ Doubting Thomas By Sarah Fenske County prosecutors charged a teenager with looking at kiddy porn. Turns out they hadn't done their homework http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/Issues/2007-01-25/n ews/news_print.html
Thanks,
The Bandy Team