Man Accuses Cat of Downloading Child Porn

bruce_the_loon writes "They have blamed viruses. They have blamed neighbors. They have accused police of planting it. In rare cases, they have admitted downloading it. This is the first time someone has accused a cat of downloading child porn onto their computer. This seems like a defense almost too stupid to be made up."

Comments

I Sympathise with the Cat

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't we all want to see 12 year old pussy every once in a while?

Re:I Sympathise with the Cat

[Shakrai]

You realize that's 65 years old after you convert it into human years, right? ;) GILF?

Re:I Sympathise with the Cat

[Boinger69]

Or the guy(cat?) could have been browsing /b/ for a few days. That's sure to load your browser cache with CP thumbnails...

Re:I Sympathise with the Cat

[yabos]

That's why they invented browser porn mode.

This happens a lot

[BadAnalogyGuy]

You shouldn't let your cat surf the web unattended. Without proper supervision, they will start downloading kitty porn to your hard drive.

Re:This happens a lot

[sadness203]

You should see what my cat download on my computer.
I fear to check the cache *shrug*

Re:This happens a lot

[drpimp]

Catz0r3d

Re:This happens a lot

[e9th]

Ceiling cat wanted to know what the big deal was.

Re:This happens a lot

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

First time I ever heard about "kiddy porn", I misheard it for "kitty porn".

For quite a while, I assumed a lot of people were getting steamed up about some weird pink anime thing, or some kind of playboy performers.

Re:This happens a lot

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially if your cat is a purrvert.

Re:This happens a lot

[Dogtanian]

Ceiling cat wanted to know what the big deal was.

Now I *know* ceiling cat has supernatural powers- an image hosted by Ebaumsworld that hasn't been illegally watermarked by them.

It's such a shame how they've gone downhill since that thieving, dishonest piece of shit Eric Bauman sold the company.

Re:This happens a lot

[snspdaarf]

Wow. You must have Fat Freddie's cat!

Re:This happens a lot

[davidsyes]

Ask the cat (to the tune of the cat food commercial):

"What's NEW, PUSSYcat (not pussyCAT)"

"Chaow--chaowww-chaoowwww"

Deprive the cat of pussy flix and it my shit a cataleptic fit.

Re:This happens a lot

[Brigadier]

just hope the cops don'e buy that feLINE .....

Re:This happens a lot

[dkh2]

That's Fat Freddy Scat to YOU mister! Now, where's that stash!?

Re:This happens a lot

[davidsyes]

Can i get a moderator (or rescuer) here? I am marked 0, redundant, and i cannot find a single post prior to 1136 that preceded my comment so as to make mine redundant.

Curious/Interestingly, there are TWO posts "kitty-porn" and neither is marked redundant.

Seems to me /. needs a tag for "report abuse". Seems i have been hit again by a foe.

Anyone care to remode me to just nothing instead of redundant? And, be on the lookout for abuses of others?

Re:This happens a lot

[rve]

I might have expected this from a dog, terrible, immoral creatures as they are, but a sweet, fluffy cat? Never!

Re:This happens a lot

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus H. Christ. Want some cheese to go with that whine?

Re:This happens a lot

[craash420]

"He could give a lickin' to a chicken' or a razzin' to a rat, nobody messes with Fat Freddie's cat!"

Re:This happens a lot

[Somegeek]

"and it my shit a cataleptic fit."

WTF?? I think you should be content with redundant and be glad there are no -1 Idiotic or -1 Disgusting mods.

Re:This happens a lot

[easyTree]

So, the guy's computer is loaded down with pictures of kittens. Why are the police involved?

Re:This happens a lot

[davidsyes]

Fuck it. There is some SERIOUS assholery here. FUCK karma. I'm burning some, aiming flames whatever bast-itches targeting me.

i think you mean

[loafula]

kitty porn. bad, i know. lol

Re:i think you mean

[Ouchie]

You're joke is a bit late. My local paper ran that one as it's headline for this article on Friday.

Re:i think you mean

[Etrias]

oh hai! I am on ur puter, downlodings ur pr0n.

Re:i think you mean

[Anonymous Coward]

My dogs love downloading kitty porn.

PedoCat?

[Faryshta]

Everyone knows cats only get internet for twitter and upload pics of themselves. Bears on the other hand are to be take care of.

Re:PedoCat?

[sa1lnr]

12 cat years would make it granny porn.

Re:PedoCat?

[vintagepc]

Everyone knows cats only get internet for icanhascheezburger and upload pics of themselves. Bears on the other hand are to be take care of.

There... fixed that for you.

The purrrrrrrrfect ...

[neonprimetime]

...alibi

Re:The purrrrrrrrfect ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dogs eat homework
Cats download porn
everyone knows this

Re:The purrrrrrrrfect ...

[illm]

I am sorry but this is not funny. Jokes like that reminds me all too well about the abomination that is Bubsy the Bobcat. "Accolade: Games with Purrsonality" ... *cringe*

Re:The purrrrrrrrfect ...

[Anonymous Coward]

How about this alibi from a few months back. My cat agreed to the EULA, my cat downloaded the child porn, my cat killed the neighbors children, ate them, and kept their bones in the freezer.

Coulda been worse

[beagle72]

At least he didn't blame his child for downloading kitty porn.

http://www.livenudecats.com/lnc.php?page=allnude/specialdelivery

Never trust a petophile.

There is software to protect against this...

[sean_nestor]

No kidding

When cats walk or climb on your keyboard, they can enter random commands and data, damage your files, and even crash your computer. This can happen whether you are near the computer or have suddenly been called away from it.

PawSense is a software utility that helps protect your computer from cats. It quickly detects and blocks cat typing, and also helps train your cat to stay off the computer keyboard.

Re:There is software to protect against this...

[Anonymous Coward]

That has to be one smart filter to detect the difference between a normal vi or emacs command stream and cat steps.

ESC W - CTRL-A :.-3,.+4s/a/z/g

Re:There is software to protect against this...

[i_liek_turtles]

I've learned that leaving your cat unattended with your keyboard can lead to interesting consequences. --Dexter Douglas

Re:There is software to protect against this...

[swanzilla]

bitboost.com's PawSense is available for Windows 95/98/ME, NT, 2000, XP, and Vista....I guess that pretty much eliminates everyone here.

Re:There is software to protect against this...

[muyla]

From the software FAQ:

Q: My cat is deaf. Can you help me?

        A: PawSense detects the paws of even deaf cats. Even if a cat is deaf, PawSense blocks cat typing once detected. This makes it harder for the cat to mess up your programs, data files, and operating system.

        However, PawSense does not include a miracle cure for deafness.

1 - How stupid can a person be before he is legally considered handicaped?
2 - I wonder how much they charge extra for the deluxe package with miracle cure included!

Re:There is software to protect against this...

[Ifni]

I'm guessing that the question is in regards to the deterrence feature, which is likely some loud noise or pre-recorded cat-hiss, that the program emits when it detects a cat on your keyboard. From the linked page: If a cat gets on the keyboard, PawSense makes a sound that annoys cats. This teaches your cat that getting on the keyboard is bad even if humans aren't watching.

Re:There is software to protect against this...

[HTH NE1]

When cats walk or climb on your keyboard, they can enter random commands and data, damage your files, and even crash your computer. This can happen whether you are near the computer or have suddenly been called away from it.

And if you're not careful, attempting to delete it can turn you into a Freakazoid!

@[=g3,8d]\&fbb=-q]/hk%fg

Re:There is software to protect against this...

[w0mprat]

Cats may indeed have leet scripting skill, so far they've been undetected in their pwnership of the internets. with the exception of the webcam shots they send each other with lolspeak captions. All your base will belong to kitty.

they can enter random commands and data, damage your files

Er not on windows. If you have a shell open you plausibly could end up with rm -rf [wildcard] or [anycommand] > /dev/sda (ouch!)

Re:There is software to protect against this...

[TheThiefMaster]

I'm pretty sure they could manage to press the delete key and then enter on your important documents (shift-delete if they're really good).

Or hold backspace on your open word document (quite a few people don't know that "undo" also works for deletions, surprisingly).

Re:There is software to protect against this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Er not on windows.

It is possible to open explorer with keyboard commands. It is also possible to delete files with just your keyboard in explorer.

Re:There is software to protect against this...

[bentcd]

This teaches your cat that getting on the keyboard is bad even if humans aren't watching.

Or more likely, given that this is cats we're talking, it trains your cat to walk on your keyboard in patterns that won't be caught by the software.

Re:There is software to protect against this...

[Anonymous Coward]

We have that, bought it a while ago, well worth the money. It would have been easy enough to write a similar thing myself, but it does just what we want so they deserve thr money.

It runs in the background and watches the keyboard for multiple key presses, the sort you'd get by an animal walking over the keyboard or a child hitting it. When detected the screen locks, and asks for a password before it clears. And if you set it in the configuration then it'll play a sound, you can pick one of your own files or one of their supplied ones.

Re:There is software to protect against this...

[Kidbro]

1 - How stupid can a person be before he is legally considered handicaped?

I know you jest, but if you actually happen to be interested it is - grossly simplified - at an IQ of about 70. IQ far from tells the entire picture, but at least where I live (Sweden), the state (and other state related functions) is obliged by law to provide certain extra help to people with an IQ sub 70. The tests are usually (possibly always?) administered by a psychologist that also weighs in their professional opinion about the person's capability of functioning normally.

I was about to make some snide remark about how suited such people were to own cats and handle computers, but it struck me that having a cat might very well be a good level responsibility (when greater responsibilities are out of the question) and a computer could help keep up to date and in touch with the world when other means are unavailable/limited.

Re:There is software to protect against this...

[InikOfDoom]

I usually just add a

//Cat-Code
//...

and continue.

Re:There is software to protect against this...

[Anonymous Coward]

"No kidding" or is it "No Kittying"?

Man Accuses Cat of Downloading Child Porn

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking Pussy.

Re:Man Accuses Cat of Downloading Child Porn

[javamann]

As opposed to?

Re:Man Accuses Cat of Downloading Child Porn

[Anonymous Coward]

Eating it, I guess...

Appropriate comic

[HEbGb]

http://lol-comics.livejournal.com/63218.html

Re:Appropriate comic

[Anonymous Coward]

The Current Mood when they posted that was "horny".

Must be a cat.

Re:Appropriate comic

[HEbGb]

He's "horny" in every single one of his posts.

lol cat

[ExE122]

I can haz blame?

Re:lol cat

[Anonymous Coward]

No, lolcats are fine, it's the loli-cat that did it.

Chris Hansen should interview the cat

[Anonymous Coward]

He'll get to the bottom of this.

  "You walk in here on all fours naked making strange noises and rubbing against my leg..who knows what would have happened if I hadn't been here"

Testing

[Anonymous Coward]

1 2 3

Re:Testing

[palegray.net]

FAIL

This is why I don't own a cat

[JoshuaZ]

The article doesn't mention that the cat left a note for the man warning him of dire consequences if it didn't get fresh fish more frequently.

Re:This is why I don't own a cat

[d0rp]

Cats want cheeseburgers, not fish!

Florida

[NeverTheMachine]

I live there, in that town. It seems like a ton of retarded news stories come from not only here, but Florida in general.

I feel embarrassed saying I'm from Florida sometimes.

Re:Florida

[cashman73]

I live there, in that town. It seems like a ton of retarded news stories come from not only here, but Florida in general. I feel embarrassed saying I'm from Florida sometimes.

Yep,... that's why the state has it's own Fark tag,... =)

Re:Florida

[kannibal_klown]

Is it possible? I guess. Just dropping something on my keyboard I've had improbable keystrokes take place, and that only triggered 2-3 "clicks." A cat could generate a LOT of clicks, a bunch of it could be valid input (enter, spacebar, mouseclick, tab, mouse move, etc).

As a juror, would I buy it? No. Though it does raise a doubt, I wouldn't feel it a reasonable one. It's too improbable, and I doubt they would be able to replicate the scenario in a court room.

But to play devil's advocate...

The guy could've had a Search Engine up, perhaps searching for ordinary/legal trash. He walks away and the cat jumps on desk and initiates a click-action on one of the bad links that can come up in the search-noise. Perhaps while taking a number of steps on the keyboard, or perhaps lying down on the thing and mashing keys. The resulting actions click on the bad link on the search results, click another link for images (perhaps a zip of a sampler"), and the next thing you know it's on his computer. And if it happened while a P2P client was up, then it's probably more possible as it might've clicked into a remote user's folders and did a download-all.

Again, I don't buy it. But random things can happen to cause an undesired effect.

Re:Florida

[Anonymous Coward]

It could easily happen. Running IE and ending up on the wrong site by chance can lead to pop-up hell. As these pop-up mad sites tend to be porn spam, you could end up with hundreds of dodgy images on your machine within a minute, depending on you connection.

The obvious question the dweebs here are missing, is how were the files organized? Are they sorted into folders, or just a huge collection in the browsers cache?

Re:Florida

[TheCarp]

Of course, then reality sets in. The best refutation I can think of is the amounts. If the car downloaded thousands of kiddie porn images, then there should be lots of other kinds of images (perhaps 100s of thousands) along with them.

Now, I have downloaded a fair amount of porn myself since I was 16 and first got online (15 years now! wow...) anyway.... in that time, how many times, looking for porn or not, did I stumble on child porn.

The answer: Once. While on usenet and doing the old "download multiple messages and string them together" on my Apple 2 GS which took about 5 minutes to render a JPG in black and white online... well...

I built up a collection in those days... and one of those pictures it turned out was child porn (which wasn't evident until it was viewed on a more powerful machine with much better resolution, and in color years later)

So one, out of, several thousand images over 15 years, was child porn. It turned up on usenet.... which nobody really uses for porn anymore as far as I know.

I MIGHT believe this guy if a handful... 2 or 3 or something images were downloaded. I might even believe he did it himself accidentally. However.... this argument just doesn't fit the evidence.

The only other way it would make sense is if it was taken from the cache of a freenet node he was running. However, I would think a specific case like that would be mentioned in the article, and would not necessitate the "cat story"
.
-Steve

Re:Florida

[Anonymous Coward]

WHAT?? Nobody uses Usenet for porn any more? That's the single largest archive of porn available for free. I wouldn't go anywhere else. No web-page log ins, no pop up ads, no different sites for different moods -- just pure, unadulterated smut. These days, most of the major news server companies actively filter for child porn, but there's always miscellaneous spam/malware posts that try to entice people with pics claiming to be underage...

If anyone else isn't clued in to the porn smorgasbord, consider yourself enlightened -- get a fast usenet connection and go wild!

Re:Florida

[Anonymous Coward]

You really shouda posted that as Anonymous

And not signed it with your real name

Re:Florida

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Admit to crime on slashdot
2) ...
3) Jail?

Re:Florida

[Anonymous Coward]

yes but you got to remember that not only are pictures of naked 6 year old child porn so are naked pictures of 17 year olds and they are much harder to tell apart from their over 18 look alike and even one day can make the difference between legal and not. and on the flip side not all pictures of naked children are illegal somehow it is legal for parents to torment their children with childhood pictures of them in the bath. just depends on what the prosecutors office thinks you are thinking.

Re:Florida

[Anonymous Coward]

4. Video of you being prisonraped uploaded to interwebs.

Your cat will find this as well.

Re:Florida

[TheCarp]

Believe me, if this had been something that happened within the past several years, I probably wouldn't have. However, I haven't used Usenet to download porn since I was 16 and on an Apple 2 GS. Given that I am over 30 now, and the only evidence that it ever happened is well... me telling a story about something that happened so many years ago.... while I was a minor myself.... well....

Lets just say, I am not terribly worried. Should it end up requiring me to dig out an OLD GS, and display some jpegs on it to show people exactly how horrendous the image quality was (would you like 640x200 in 4 shades of grey or 320x200 in 16?) then... I guess I could even do that. Actually, after 15 years, I am not even sure that it supported both video modes. (and yes, 320x200@256 was possible by a really funky assembly routine, but the JPEG software couldn't really support that since just drawing the screen that way took 90% of the CPU time just to push pallets ahead of the scan line... leaving precious little for JPEG decoding which already took forever at just a few shades of gray)

And of course, to top it all off, Its not like it said "kiddie porn" anywhere. For all I know, it was a very young looking 18 year old model. It wouldn't be the first time. However, I was convinced enough to be a bit sick to my stomach and delete it immediately.

Any DA wishing to use these statements against me is going to have a real fight on his hands, and I promise to bring public opinion to bear on that one. If anything, they should call me as an expert witness against this asshole :) I would happily state, unequivocally that there is no way a cat or other random event input downloaded that much kiddie porn from the internet. There just isn't that much out there that is publicly available. If there was, I am pretty sure I would have stumbled on more of it by now.

-Steve

Re:Florida

[Anonymous Coward]

haha.. Google the comic Doug Stanhope (??) about this very topic. He says pretty much the same thing.. That he found one-legged midget porn, everything else, but no child porn.

Re:Florida

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in stuart, just down the road. Now I recently bought a cat from a lady in jensen beach, but so far it hasn't downloaded any porn...I think I got a defective one

Re:Florida

[PachmanP]

As a juror, would I buy it? No. Though it does raise a doubt, I wouldn't feel it a reasonable one. It's too improbable, and I doubt they would be able to replicate the scenario in a court room.
But to play devil's advocate...
The guy could've had a Search Engine up, perhaps searching for ordinary/legal trash. He walks away and the cat jumps on desk and initiates a click-action on one of the bad links that can come up in the search-noise. Perhaps while taking a number of steps on the keyboard, or perhaps lying down on the thing and mashing keys. The resulting actions click on the bad link on the search results, click another link for images (perhaps a zip of a sampler"), and the next thing you know it's on his computer. And if it happened while a P2P client was up, then it's probably more possible as it might've clicked into a remote user's folders and did a download-all.

That gives me an idea...
Let this guy get aquitted on the basis of his cat.
All child porn fans would then get cats.
Then we arrest everyone with a cat because they must be downloading child porn!

Re:Florida

[Anonymous Coward]

You viewed porn rendered in four shades of grey... wow.

Re:Florida

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously didn't spend much time on LimeWire.

Re:Florida

[TheCarp]

man when you are 16 you make do with what you have. Its kinda like being a kid and watching the scrambled playboy channel because every once in a while, the screen isn't so messed up and you can see some titty.

Admittedly that was around the time someone did make a VGA card for the GS, but... I didn't even know about it until later, and I certainly couldn't afford it.

-Steve

Re:Florida

[TheCarp]

Actually thats true. In fact, I am one of those weirdos who decided he didn't like downloading music back when napster was new... not for any moral reason... just that the quality was so variable and I am a bit of a zealot about how my music is organized.

I also don't watch that many movies. However, I still have to imagine that a cat is a random input. A random input should cause downloads of various types of things based on the relative ratios of whats found online in general.

So essentially, thousands of pieces of child porn, would only make sense if it was interspersed amongst an absolute mess of other things, including hundreds of thousands or millions of pieces of adult porn.

There is another possibility. My lack of use of file downloading means I have missed out on the fact that the majority of files for download on the internet are actually child porn.

Since that being the case would tend to require that a substantial portion of the net, and thus the people using, are involved in child porn. If thats the case, then I am disgusted to be associated with you people.

-Steve

Re:Florida

[TheCarp]

You do have a real point there. Look at Tracy Lords. She lied about her age and was in a whole series of hardcore movies... then turned 18, revealed her real age, and did one more movie. You almost have to wonder if it was planned that way!

Of course, when you are talking images on the net, there is always the problem of well... what is what?
How often is there even exif data? Most are not named in any identifiable way. Unless the model in the photo is known from something else, how would you know who she is?

But that goes both ways. If you can't identify the girl and the year it was taken, you can't show her age one way or the other unless shes REALLY young. Even then, I have seen legitimate 25 year olds that don't look a day over 14.

Then the fatty diet that people are raised on these days, well, any biologist can tell you that a human female becomes fertile as soon as her body develops enough body fat. Thats increasingly become younger and younger (good work parents, raising your kids on McDonalds!) which skews age determination by erasing some of the clues as to how mature they are.

I do wonder if this actually protects them from pedofiles who, by definition, are turned on by pre-pubecents. Of course, thats kind of like protecting yourself from the cold by jumping on a frying pan, since theres a lot less pedofiles than guys attracted to "mature" girls (I obviously mean physically mature)

I think this is a general problem I have with the laws, they try to do the right thing. I mean, I don't WANT child pornographers and their ilk abusing kids. However, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Its fine to say we need rules but, its so hard to make rules that are truely fair. That is, rules that stop bad behaviour without punishing people who, really, were not bad and just acting in a perfectly reasonable manner.

-Steve

Are Amazon patents a bad idea...?

[MessyBlob]

Imagine the chaos that a cat could cause if one-click ordering is enabled.

Re:Are Amazon patents a bad idea...?

[stewbee]

Imagine the chaos that a cat could cause if one-lick ordering is enabled.

fixed that for you....Thank you, thank you very much. I will be here all week. Don't forget to tip the waitstaff..

sadly enough

[jaydebard]

the sad part is that this guy will probably get off with a slap on the wrist (no pun intended).

Re:sadly enough

[webheaded]

Nobody cares if your puns were intended.

Possibly the greatest story ever told.

[BlueKitties]

The funny is so greatly epic I blew a LOLfuze and can no longer laugh.

Worse than children downloading

[wiredog]

kitty porn?

Not a new problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Steve Martin had problems with his cat's criminal nature. The guy should feel lucky it could have been much worse.

"Okay! Hey, does anybody know where I can get some cat handcuffs? I've gotta get a pair of cat handcuffs. Either two little ones like this, to go around the little paws.. or a big one that hooks onto my arm and then hooks onto the cat. I found out my cat was embezzling from me, so I've gotta get a little pair.. of cat handcuffs, so.. Well, I found out that when I'm away, he goes to the mailbox, picks up the checks, take them down to the bank and cashes them. The way I caught him, I went out to his little house, where he sleeps at night, and there was like $3,000 worth of cat toys out there. And you can't return them, because they have spit all over them.

Re:Not a new problem

[jameskojiro]

I head that Toonces was the get-away driver....

This proves it!

[travdaddy]

Dogs As Intelligent As Average Two-Year-Old Children.

But a cat is capable of using the Internet (not to mention framing his owner). Sorry, dog owners, cats are clearly smarter!

Re:This proves it!

[igny]

Apparently, dogs know better than to send the hand that feeds them to jail.

And for sure he used..

[ctrl-alt-canc]

netcat.

Infinite Porn Theorem

[sweetking]

A kitty hitting keys at random on a keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely download 10,000 child porn images.

Note to self

[Anonymous Coward]

Note to self -- get a cat.

Idle?

[Haxzaw]

I thought we weren't supposed to visit Idle - ever.

Re:Idle?

[daremonai]

I didn't - it was my cat who clicked on this!

Makes jury duty attractive

[smchris]

If counties were smart, they'd have a "serve one, get a second silly one" deal.

a cat

[luther349]

theirs no way a cat can download 1,000s of images by walking on the keyboard. the commands sent would be random at best and to get all that you would need to be actively looking for it. god at least the vires defence has some merit being there is botnets out there. and becides if by some act of god a cat could download all that why did he not delete them.

Re:a cat

[Anonymous Coward]

You should definitely offer your services to the prosecution. They need your insightful mind.

Re:a cat

[Theoboley]

He most likely didn't delete them because he didn't know they were there. Hence his defense...

Re:a cat

[hoggoth]

> theirs no way a cat can download 1,000s of images by walking on the keyboard

There is if the guy left his browser on the download page of a site with child porn.

Re:a cat

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean to tell me the guy's been ... lying?

That Darn Cat!

[Gresyth]

For you youngsters who are confused. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059793/

Re:That Darn Cat!

[kayditty]

the youngsters aren't confused.

Uh oh...

[bughunter]

I have over 1 Quadrillion pornographic images on my computer.

Yes, I'm a Petaphile.

Re:Uh oh...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have digital photos of people downloading pornographic images. Does this make me a Metaphile?

Re:Uh oh...

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you download porn images that aren't quite finished yet then you are a betaphile.

The cat must have a great lawyer...

[Doug52392]

It's really hard to get child porn charges dropped these days, with the whole "pedo witch hunt" in full swing these days. I'm surprised the cat was cleared of it's charges. It's lawyer must be brilliant!

CD Behind radiator

[shadowknot]

Working in digital forensics you hear all the ridiculous defenses dreamed up by crazy suspects and defense lawyers but this one is pretty out there! One case a colleague of mine involved the usual defense of "a trojan did it" but this was his defense for how a CD-R marked "best stuff" had gotten from the spindle on his desk, into his machine, appropriated a copy of the illicit images on his computer (which he then moved to the recycle bin!) and then hidden itself behind a radiator in a jewel case. Amazing what a little knowledge (and I do mean a very can do!

Re:CD Behind radiator

[jbeaupre]

Those damn USC graduates! Worse than cats.

Re:CD Behind radiator

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes me feel safer knowing that you and your ilk are helping to put people that look at pictures in prison.

Oh wait... no it doesn't.

Re:CD Behind radiator

[Jeremi]

One case a colleague of mine involved the usual defense of "a trojan did it"

I'm rather surprised trojans don't do it more often. It seems like a pretty viable extortion scheme:

1. Infect victim's PC
2. Download loads of kiddy porn to various places on the PC
3. Email the victim: "ILLEGAL CHILD PORNOGRAPHY DETECTED ON YOUR PC at C:\WINDOWS\KIDDYPORN AND OTHER LOCATIONS. Send us $100 to purchase cleanup tool within 5 days, or the police will be notified"
4. Wait 5 days, collect money from victim, or if no money, send an 'anonymous tip' to the police
5. Evil profit!

Re:CD Behind radiator

[Lord Ender]

I would like to get into computer forensics, but I'm afraid I would be spending all my time going after dirty old men, rather than prosecuting real crimes with real victims and damages. Worse than that, I'm afraid I would be forced to attempt to make cases against people who had no intention of downloading illegal content at all (does a 17year 11month old girl look any different from an 18 year old?).

So as someone who has worked in the industry, I ask you: is modern computer Forensics at all about prosecuting serious crime, or is it just playing porno police? What is your caseload like? The idea of having a hand in ruining someones life for looking at a picture of a sexually mature female just seems immoral to me, and I would want no hand in it.

Re:CD Behind radiator

[Theoboley]

Don't give them any ideas....

Re:CD Behind radiator

[Anonymous Coward]

Pictures of indecent images of children. Oh, and you're welcome :)

Re:CD Behind radiator

[shadowknot]

I would like to get into computer forensics, but I'm afraid I would be spending all my time going after dirty old men, rather than prosecuting real crimes with real victims and damages. Worse than that, I'm afraid I would be forced to attempt to make cases against people who had no intention of downloading illegal content at all (does a 17year 11month old girl look any different from an 18 year old?).

So as someone who has worked in the industry, I ask you: is modern computer Forensics at all about prosecuting serious crime, or is it just playing porno police? What is your caseload like? The idea of having a hand in ruining someones life for looking at a picture of a sexually mature female just seems immoral to me, and I would want no hand in it.

That's a damn fine question and there are cases where it is very borderline but those cases either don't make it to court or there is a plea bargain struck where some kind of community service is involved (generally not with children!). Also, though I would say about 70% of the work the company I work for gets is Indecent Images related there is work involving differing crimes including fraud, drugs, rape, murder and people smuggling. I will not lie and say I agree with the dragnet approach our customers (mostly Police forces) seize computers and often there are many hundreds of superfluous hours of analysis poured into a case that has no merit (I had a case with 70ish exhibits in that took months of processing and ended up completely negative) but, if you can handle trawling through gigs of porn, it is a rewarding career. I would advise you not do an academic qualification in the field but get some (or use your existing) real-world computing experience and build your analytical and written skills then apply for a trainee post if you can find one. Learn the tools if you can afford it (EnCase and FTK are both hellishly expensive but the individual training courses (CF1 and CF2 for EnCase) are fairly affordable and useful for a noob). I wish you luck in your future career should you get into the industry!

Re:CD Behind radiator

[shadowknot]

Oh man, you're not my boss are you? If he ever saw that plan he'd learn to code pretty fast!

Re:CD Behind radiator

[shadowknot]

It makes me feel safer knowing that you and your ilk are helping to put people that look at pictures OF CHILDREN BEING ABUSED in prison. Oh wait... no it doesn't.

FTFY. Oh... and you're welcome pal!

Re:CD Behind radiator

[Anonymous Coward]

Or just send the emails.

Re:CD Behind radiator

[Anonymous Coward]

> but, if you can handle trawling through gigs of porn, it is a rewarding career.

(Insert applicable joke here.)

That aside, suppose among the gigs of pictures of adult females, there happen to be 3-4 of some 14-16 year olds' web cam self-shots, or some Traci Lords video of her at age 17? Among a hundred thousand Ok photos and four hundred videos involving 2000+ hours?

While one might question the packrat nature of this "collector", would the police consider that some kind of "pervert child porn downloader"?

Re:CD Behind radiator

[Anonymous Coward]

ZOMG! Pictures OF CHILDREN BEING ABUSED.

You mean sexually abused, right? Because pictures of good old fashioned child beating isn't illegal.

And in any case, no matter how many capitalized and bold letters you use, they're still just pictures.

Re:CD Behind radiator

[QCompson]

That aside, suppose among the gigs of pictures of adult females, there happen to be 3-4 of some 14-16 year olds' web cam self-shots, or some Traci Lords video of her at age 17? Among a hundred thousand Ok photos and four hundred videos involving 2000+ hours? While one might question the packrat nature of this "collector", would the police consider that some kind of "pervert child porn downloader"?

Absolutely. Just look at recent child pornography busts in the news. If prosecutors feel justified in arresting teenagers for taking pictures of themselves they sure as hell will go after your "collector" example.

Police/prosecutors only care about their arrest and conviction numbers, and they get little negative feedback from busting borderline cases because most of the public is all CHILD PORN OMG KILL THEM.

Re:CD Behind radiator

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you'd have to be REALLY careful how you distributed that trojan...

Re:CD Behind radiator

[totally bogus dude]

Probably no need to actually notify the police in the event of non-payment. Maybe better having it randomly flash up an image with a reminder they need to pay for the "cleaning software". I think a lot of people would pay to make THAT stop.

However the main problem is that receiving money from people is hard to do without being traceable by the police.

And this kind of trojan would get you charged with unlawful use of a computer as well as distribution of child pornography images.

Probably the potential reward is far lower than the actual risk.

Re:CD Behind radiator

[Cal27]

Because we all know that downloading something contributes to its production.

Re:CD Behind radiator

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Re:CD Behind radiator

[irish_spic]

for some statistics from where I work: (unofficial)
- about 30% child sexual abuse
- 30% organized crime - gangs
- 20% counterfeit/extortion
the rest is murder and others.
At least where I work, the police know better than trying to go after someone with a few borderline pics. We would be after the guys that trade in pics that are obviously of a child (+/-10yrs old and younger). So, yes, serious crimes; and no, here we don't try to ruin peoples lives - we try to prevent the ruining of peoples lives by those sick bastards that produce this stuff and the ones that create a market for it - as well as by other crimes.

cheers

Re:CD Behind radiator

[irish_spic]

I guess it depends on jurisdiction.
Here in Canada is not that bad.

Re:CD Behind radiator

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on where you live. I'm sure there's countries where you could do it from, either through lack of laws against it or through corrupt law enforcers who can be bribed.

Re:CD Behind radiator

[Lord Ender]

Good to hear. It sounds like you work for a decent employer. I will surely look for a place like yours.

So when cats masturbate...

[Radtastic]

What species of baby does god kill?

Re:So when cats masturbate...

[jameskojiro]

Human Babies, that is why God hasn't stopped abortion, it makes his job easier when dealing with Cat Masturbation.

He just subtracts the number of abortions from the cat M-count, then tops off the rest the children from third world countries.

Damn cats, they are colluding with God in an effort to remove the human race.

New RIAA filesharing defense?

[electricprof]

I smell a new defense against downloading copyrighted material! It's those damn cats! (I suspect a few weasels may be involved as well.) First, and infinite number of them got in a room and developed P2P filesharing, next they distributed said product with a clever cat-based GUI that closely resembles a human-oriented GUI. What will they do next after they have destroyed the foundation of intellectual property? ... *shiver* ... will they ... *gasp* ... start investment banks? ... run for Congress? ...

Plausible deniability

[NonUniqueNickname]

If this isn't Plausible deniability, I don't know what is.

Re:Plausible deniability

[devotedlhasa]

Pawsable deniability

I AM IN YUR COMPUTER

[jameskojiro]

DOWNLOADING YUR PR0N....

So quoth the Almighty LOL-Cat

The downloading I can maybe believe...

[thewils]

..but did his cat also drop the pr0n into folders classified by sub-genre?

Re:The downloading I can maybe believe...

[St.Creed]

Must have been a Siamese cat. Those are both smart and vicious.

Reminds me of this Slashdot post

[nielsslein]

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/18/1817221

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Also ...

[Anonymous Coward]

.. to stupid to post on /.

Ditto here

[aepervius]

I downloaded a lot of porn , and I stumbled onto once on a bulletin board on an attachment which read "12eat12!". That is it. I read somewhere there is next to no child porn on publicly available internet web page. In reality they are mostly transported physically (hard drive, CD, USB , laptop...) or on darknet and similar.

It was all true

[hesaigo999ca]

The cat being intelligent as it is, was quite finished with his current master, having set him up to take the fall, he had inserted some hidden p0rn and anonymously contacted the feds. He is now surfing the web at his leisure...

In other news, there has been a new type of post on Craigslist getting attention, Cats Looking For New Masters....picture included!

Pun Intended...

[No-Cool-Nickname]

Kitty Porn?

I can haz...

[Spydeh]

I can haz kitteh porn???

If the cat is found guilty...

[malchus6]

...will he be sentenced in Cat years?

Obligatory...

[FatRichie]

Play him off, keyboard cat...

encryption

[Anonymous Coward]

why people don't encrypt their illicit stuff ?

Re:encryption

[dotgain]

See: Rubber Hose Cryptanalysis.

Re:encryption

[Skapare]

why people don't teach kitty to encrypt their illicit stuff ?

Need a new cat

[SnarfQuest]

My cat only downloads articles from wikipedia. Mostly stuff on herbs and computer pointing devices. Guess I need a cat that hasn't been spayed.

It just goes to show...

[hasbeard]

you can leave an unattended mouse around a cat.

Time for the kitty song!

[BlueKitties]

Kitty kitty bug bug snug hug hug bug kitty kitty snug hug bug bug bug! Tewis pussy bug bug bug~ -- tewish howm howm SNUG SNUG SNUG! Ohewis push push howm snug bug! Tewish bug bug hug hug hug! It is kitty snug bug bug! Push push pussy bug hug hug hug!

Bring in the animal psychologist!

[Gutierrez]

"Meow, meow-meow mwar. Mwar!" ... He says he's very sad.

oops

[hasbeard]

You can't leave an unattended mouse around a cat.

Cat? What? Damn...

[Aphoxema]

Well, the burden of proof is on the prosecution!

Of course, it doesn't work quite that way, but it would be hilarious if we could see a Dirk Gentry-esque explanation to exactly how this could or couldn't have happened...

Re:Chewbacca defense

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he did. Maybe his cat's name is Chewbacca.

I wonder if he read Slashdot...

[HikingStick]

When I saw this guy's defense, I couldn't help but wonder if he read Slashdot when a post featured a device to let cats click your EULAs for you. http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/02/18/1817221/Dont-Like-EULAs-Get-Your-Cat-To-Agree-To-Them?art_pos=1

The real tragedy...

[tacarat]

His dog did the downloading and set the cat up to take the fall.

You think that's bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

The other day my cat accidentally shut down twitter.

The fix

[Skapare]

The fix is to change the operating system.

You can stop this activity

[Skapare]

Just take away his Fancy Feast.

that explains it!

[Fatalv]

I always wondered how some of the articles made it on slashdot!

Why 10 counts?

[Cousin Scuzzy]

The article says the man was charged with 10 counts of possession of child pornography, stemming from more than 1000 images of child pornography found on his computer. I have to wonder, how did they decide to charge this man with 10 counts? Why not 1000+? Why not one? Does Florida law have some guideline for prosecution where 100 images of child pornography equates to one count?

Re:Why 10 counts?

[Cal27]

The cat downloaded the other 990!

Re:Why 10 counts?

[bruce_the_loon]

Maybe there were 10 individual girls in the photos.

Talk about...

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Play him off, Keyboard Cat.

Sunshine State

[f1vlad]

I think this is a weekend story. But what upsets me is that most out there stories come from my favourite state :(

it had to be done

[tommeke100]

play him off keyboard cat!

Brilliant Defense!

[nani popoki]

If I download 10,000 pictures of naked, immature cats I may be ga-ga over kittens but it's not porn. Therefore, if my cat downloads 10,000 pictures of naked, immature humans then it can't be considered porn either. Now all I have to do is claim I never looked at the images. Purrfect defense.

You poor thing, do you work for Verizon?

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

or AntiSpyware2009?