Stalker Jailed For Planting Child Porn On a PC

An anonymous reader writes "An elaborate scheme to get the husband of a co-worker with whom he was obsessed jailed backfired on Ilkka Karttunen, 48, from Essex in the UK. His plan was to get the husband arrested so that he could have a go at a relationship with the woman. To do this he broke into the couple's home while they were sleeping, used their family computer to download child pornography, and then removed the hard drive and mailed it anonymously to the police, along with a note that identified the owner."

Comments

Geez.

[Pojut]

Hasn't this dude ever heard of 4chan? Or dating sims? Or sanity?

Re:Geez.

[Fluffeh]

He probably has, but he wants that 'special someone' that those sites can't provide as he has already found his 'special someone' in real life. Problem is that 'special someone' was taken already, so sociopath has tried to "release" that 'special someone' from their otherwise fulfilled life. Enter criminal act.

At least the good guys caught the bad guy here.

Re:Geez.

[sznupi]

At least the good guys caught the bad guy here.

And do you wonder already how many times that wasn't the case? Sure, this time the perpetrator was sloppy...but it's relatively trivial to frame people like that "properly"

A witch accusation of our times, it seems.

Re:Geez.

[tomhudson]

All he had to do was somehow get word to the wife that "your hubby is into child porn". But like all loser nerds, he had to go the overly-complicated route.

Re:Geez.

[MrShaggy]

Does it make us winner nerds then?

Re:Geez.

[Froboz23]

I guess telling the judge it was all just an elaborate April Fools joke didn't quite work as an effective defense.

Re:Geez.

[Austerity Empowers]

Since when are lobotomies considered minimally invasive?

Re:Geez.

[NotOverHere]

"There's nothing wrong with you that a little Prozac and a polo mallet can't cure." W. Allen

Re:Geez.

[dgatwood]

Well, he still had to plant evidence. Otherwise, the wife would just inspect the computer, find nothing, and conclude that this guy was even more of a screwball than she already probably thought he was.

That said, if he had been a little bit better with computers, he would have given the person a flash drive with a file called "pictures.ppt.exe" that replaces itself with a file called pictures.ppt and launches PowerPoint, then installs a piece of code that runs automatically at startup and connects to a server somewhere, allowing him to control the other person's PC. Most people would be fooled by that, and as long as it doesn't contain known virus code as a starting point, no virus scanner will ever detect it. Failing that, he could break into that person's house without causing any damage, install the virus, and sneak back out, leaving no evidence of consequence.

So once he had control over the guy's computer, he could have downloaded as much kiddie porn as he wanted to onto the other person's computer over the course of weeks. For the first several weeks, he would go for sources of content that don't leave a significant trail, using Tor or other techniques if necessary. This would ensure that he got truckloads of material. Then, for one week, he would go to lots of sites that have all the hallmarks of an FBI sting (or that of the equivalent body in the country in question), then would send an anonymous tip to the authorities, delete all traces of the bot, and sit back and watch.

Not saying that this would get him the girl---chances are, it would just wreck the family's life and he'd still end up alone---but it would be a highly effective and almost completely undetectable way to frame an innocent person. The scary thing is that for all we know, this may have already happened.

Re:Geez.

[temojen]

Problem with that is to know which site is which, you'd pretty much have to either be into kiddie porn yourself or be in law enforcement and assigned to KP patrol.

Re:Geez.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't become obsessed with my wife.

Re:Geez.

[LionMage]

Since when are lobotomies considered minimally invasive?

Well, in actuality, a lobotomy can be performed as an outpatient procedure -- and this was done quite a lot in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Basically, you insert a long, slender needle or other cutting instrument in through the ocular orbit (the bone is thin near the top of each socket), punch through the bone and tissue and then swipe the needle across the inside of the skull to sever the frontal lobe. Controlling the angle of insertion lets you control how far back you cut...

Re:Geez.

[dgatwood]

Depends on what you mean. If you mean that you couldn't identify a honeypot for the purposes of actually getting them caught, you're probably right, but there are many easier ways to solve that part. If you mean that an average geek couldn't avoid the honeypots for the first two weeks, I disagree. The patterns are rather obvious after you've seen eight or ten slashdot stories about kiddie porn stings; the techniques that law enforcement use tend to involve one of the following:

1. Using chat rooms and enticing people to do something illegal,
2. Using email and enticing people to do something illegal,
3. Issuing subpoenas for server logs, or
4. Looking for downloaders from web servers or connections through Wi-Fi access points that are honeypots.

The first two are taken care of by just not doing those things.

The other two are largely unimportant. It takes time to get a subpoena, time to collect evidence, and time to get a search warrant. It's not like the FBI is going to come knocking on the person's door the day after he/she hits a honeypot site. That said, if you really needed to avoid #3 and #4, you could:

• Use Tor to disguise the actual source of the request.
• Get the illegal content from a suitably encrypted P2P system with onion routing (e.g. FreeNet).
• Get the illegal content directly from a cache that has the content stored in it already. Query a Google image cache server (using carefully written HTTP queries), a random Squid proxy server (using ICP), a USENET server (using NNTP), etc.

None of those techniques are perfect---none would prevent detection by a determined enemy monitoring your every move---but they would keep your activity well outside the "low hanging fruit" territory that stings tend to go after, which should be sufficient to allow you to plant lots of evidence before you disclose the person to the authorities.

The hard part. of course, is figuring out a way to report it that will actually be successful in convincing people. One possibility would be to take over the person's email client and masquerade as that person, sending child porn out to a lot of people. Another possibility would be for your trojan to replace recently opened files on flash drives with custom versions of itself that contain the original files, much like the .ppt.exe file I suggested earlier. This could be very effective at compromising the target's work machine, which would allow you to plant evidence in more easily accessible places, making it far easier to drop an anonymous email message to an IT manager, for example.

Aren't you glad I'm not the sort of person who would try to frame someone? :-)

Re:Geez.

[Fumus]

There's tons of loli hentai porn available everywhere. That may or may not be illegal, but I'm sure that if you downloaded that and also added some photos of adult porn with heads edited out for little girls' heads she'd be convinced.

Out more than gaol time

[Mikkeles]

He's also out the postage to mail the hard drive.

This would have worked except for This mistake

[commodore64_love]

>>>"then removed the hard drive and mailed it anonymously to the police, along with a note that identified the owner."

You don't provide proof that you broke into a private house.

Instead you go home, wait a few weeks, and then send an anonymous tip that the homeowner has been asking for underage photos on the net, and you suspect he downloaded child porn too. Let the police take it from there. THEY will do the breaking-and-entering, remove the drive, and investigate.

Re:This would have worked except for This mistake

[sys.stdout.write]

Except the police aren't going to be able to get a warrant based on "some anonymous dude told us this guy was like totes harboring child pr0n"

I suppose I am assuming that they need warrants in the UK. They must, right?

Re:This would have worked except for This mistake

[Runaway1956]

AC does a lot of things that are strange, but he has just proved he is not very observant. Commodore64 may or may not be a wife, but I don't think she has a wife.

Or, was AC trying to make a pass at Commodore64?

Hmmmm - I couldn't hear the inflection of the keys being hit while he typed . . . .

Re:This would have worked except for This mistake

[stonewallred]

Not when the children are involved. A mere phone call, anonymously made in NC, is enough to get child welfare/SS, and/or the police knee deep into your ass, oops, life, if the phone call alleges child porn/sexual abuse. Unless of course it is a catholic priest being reported. As a licensed counselor you get to make a judgment call about a client threatening violence upon another person or suicide, but any mention of sexual exploitation/abuse of a child, even if it was 50 years ago, is a mandated report. Even if it is a 90 year old man saying when he was 20 years old he had sex with a 16 year old girl, who he later married and stayed with until she died at 75.

Re:This would have worked except for This mistake

[clone53421]

Except that they not only apparently did but they arrested the guy who was accused of doing it.

Re:This would have worked except for This mistake

[LWATCDR]

There are dozens of more effective ways to do this.
And after thinking about it I will list none of them.
This guy was really a nut case thank goodness he wasn't all that bright.

Re:This would have worked except for This mistake

[clone53421]

I’m guessing that’s why he did it anonymously? Apparently not as anonymously as he thought... but still, his basic plan was solid enough.

What I’m trying to figure out is how they got from here:

mailed it anonymously to the police, along with a note that identified the owner

to here:

a search of Karttunen's home revealed evidence about the real perpetrator of the crime

How’d they know whose house to search? Apparently they figured out who the “anonymous” tip came from, but there’s no mention of how exactly they deduced this... (and yeah, there are some obvious ways they might have known, if I cared to speculate)

Re:This would have worked except for This mistake

[TheRaven64]

Apparently I'm not observant either. I've seen lots of posts that demonstrate that commodore64_love is an idiot, but none that imply that he/she/it is a woman.

Re:This would have worked except for This mistake

[sjames]

Then I guess they'd have to confine themselves to making sure he wasn't producing child porn (easier to get evidence for that) and call it a day. Or they'd have to tell anonymous callers that they really can't do much unless they are willing to identify themselves and sign a statement so they can get a warrant.

Re:This would have worked except for This mistake

[PingSpike]

If I had to speculate, I'd said that when questioned the wife suggested that the creepy and moderately stupid coworker that seemed to be obsessed with her and had probably made a number of passes at her was a potential culprit.

Re:This would have worked except for This mistake

[clone53421]

Yeah, that’s actually about right; I found another story that gives more detail... chiefly,

Ilkka Karttunnen, 48, even broke into her house in Southend while she and her husband slept and fitted a bugging device to download the contents of their home computer.

Karttunnen collected a series of child porn images and sent them on a pen drive to police, along with a vindictive hand-written note, alleging the innocent man was a paedophile.

Note that it does not clarify whether or not he actually planted any of those pictures on the victim’s computer... only that he anonymously sent a thumb drive to the police claiming it came from the house. Nor does it say that he tried to plant personally identifying information on the thumb drive (which would have certainly made sense)... although they did say that they determined it had been plugged into the victim’s computer, and had been used to steal passwords and other personal information from it (Windows’ drivers would have told them this when they dug through the computer after they confiscated it, and they could have also recovered deleted files from the flash drive if he didn’t know to securely shred them).

And the giveaway:

Police became concerned about Karttunnen’s behaviour as he had showed up at his colleague’s home unannounced when her husband was at work.

Re:This would have worked except for This mistake

[plague3106]

Even if it is a 90 year old man saying when he was 20 years old he had sex with a 16 year old girl

Where do you live that has no statute of limitations?

Re:This would have worked except for This mistake

[hesaigo999ca]

I gotta say I agree with you, although he would have to have had it outside the temp IE cache as it has now become considered not par of the environment of the PC and owned solely by anonymous contributors, as I could hide a picture inlay with proper photo in a hidden iframe which then would pop up inside your cache, so technically for someone to get prosecuted they now have to be saving the images elsewhere on their hdd, an i think the guy thought the only way to ensure that the images stayed on the hdd, was to force them manually and then avoid the detection or deletion of the images by sending the hdd out right away....this plan was bound to fail at any rate....

I heard also that some kid sent a photo to her boyfriend and they were both under age, but the boy is being prosecuted for owning child p0rn as the school discovered he had the image on his phone, and is now setting a precedent as we speak in court over how to handle this situation.

It really has become a witch hunt, and i think that we do need to address the issue but have more specific means of determining how the images got their, and if there is no doubt that this person intended full well to keep without permission or distribute such materials, then they would be prosecuted for such.

Re:This would have worked except for This mistake

[plague3106]

Ya, because you're such a genius only you would think of more effective ways to do this.

Re:This would have worked except for This mistake

[LWATCDR]

No but an idiot that would try it might not think of the same solutions I would.
I am sure that I am not alone if figuring out better ways to do this but hopefully I am also not alone in being bright enough not do want to do it.

Re:This would have worked except for This mistake

[Anonymous Cowpat]

The UK?

Re:This would have worked except for This mistake

[gmanterry]

Even if it is a 90 year old man saying when he was 20 years old he had sex with a 16 year old girl

Where do you live that has no statute of limitations?

In the United States there is no statute of limitations on sex crimes. That said, the State has got seven years to act on the allegation. So there is a seven year statute of limitations but only after the alleged/crime has been reported to the authorities. Terry

Moral of the story. . .

[characterZer0]

The difference between for you getting put in jail and separated from your children for a week and you getting put in jail and separated from your children for a decade is the sloppiness of the guy framing you.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a forensic investigator and it terrifies me that most people I meet in my field don't seem to care who goes to jail as long as somebody goes to jail.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[Manip]

Exactly.
I bet almost everyone in Slashdot could frame someone in such a way so even a police "expert" (who basically looks at modified, accessed, and created dates) couldn't tell it was fake. I've watched some of the computer crime cases on the Crime Channel and to be honest I find it scary that people can be convicted on such easily faked evidence.

e.g. Boot into Linux, mount the NTFS partition, add illicit images, and child porn sites to "index.dat." Then manually change the dates on the files (very trivial with the drive mounted like this). If you're really good you could add shortcuts into recently viewed documents and create a fake IE history.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[characterZer0]

It is not even that hard.

1. Turn on computer.
2. Download illegal material.
3. Turn off computer.
4. Wait a few days.
5. Call police.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[digitalhermit]

Back in college we used to prank each other by sending in requests for magazines and advertisements. We sent in subscription cards to bondage and fetish magazines and had them delivered to the victim. Apparently this also gets you on a lot of lists because when the junk mail started arriving, it never abated. To this day there's probably some poor sot getting a weekly ad for "Chihuahas and the Men Who Love Them".

Nowadays these things are delivered via email so can't do that much anymore. Looking back though, it was an acute thrill to see your roommate start to dread the arrival of the mail carrier. I miss those days..

"Dude, your mail's here."
"F* you."
"I'm just saying."
"F* you."

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[zappepcs]

Not only that, but you could do it with a virus which is very picky about which computers it makes such changes to. Indeed, you could have a virus out in the wild today that is just waiting to find its way to your hard drive where it will find your name or some other piece of information before it begins doing what it was programmed to do. Since the virus is essentially a static file (non aggressive) on all other computers, the chance it would get wiped by antivirus software is much less.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[Angst Badger]

I am a forensic investigator and it terrifies me that most people I meet in my field don't seem to care who goes to jail as long as somebody goes to jail.

That matches my experience. A disturbingly large number of people in law enforcement seem to think that their job is to bust people, as opposed to busting the guilty and protecting the innocent. Nor is it necessarily born out of malice, though there's that, too; most of the time, it's just tunnel-vision and sloppy thinking.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[failedlogic]

Worse yet, to get around this situation and protect your Windows data, you could use an encrypted hard-drive. Now it won't prevent someone from adding a new hard-drive nor hacking your system from the Net. But a 'properly' secured system with an encrypted file system would leave you in a really bad position. You'd now have to reveal your password. And I'm willing to bet, they'll make an excuse of finding anything, simply because if you're using a password - then you must really be hiding something.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[Lumpy]

Yup I can easily fake a hard drive that will pin you to a desired time and even put in "old" history that even the best Computer forensics person would not be able to detect was fabricated. That's the cool part about computers, the clock can be set to ANYTHING.

It blows my mind that computer evidence is admissible because it is so easily faked by anyone.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[The Living Fractal]

Don't worry man, the media will rescue us! Just yesterday the self-proclaimed "geek" on Fox News was showing the world the new iPad and he mentioned that it's "so fast because it's all RAM". Then he said, "Yeah, RAM, Rapid Access Memory". I was on the treadmill and nearly fucking killed myself.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[Shotgun]

Exactly. So often, once an investigation is started there is a need to find a perpetrator somewhere...ANYWHERE...to justify beginning the investigation.

Even worse is juvenile court. They use the justification that the "record is wiped clean" when they turn 16. So suddenly a note from a principal somehow becomes "evidence", and is sufficient to sentence a child to 9 months of probation.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[jd2112]

I am a forensic investigator and it terrifies me that most people I meet in my field don't seem to care who goes to jail as long as somebody goes to jail.

If you are an elected official or have ambitions of becoming one you will be labeled as being "soft on criminals" unless someone goes to jail.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[bill_mcgonigle]

Maybe we should do away with the IQ caps for police?

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[Lloyd_Bryant]

That matches my experience. A disturbingly large number of people in law enforcement seem to think that their job is to bust people, as opposed to busting the guilty and protecting the innocent. Nor is it necessarily born out of malice, though there's that, too; most of the time, it's just tunnel-vision and sloppy thinking.

Tunnel vision, or training? Remember that there's no space on a cop's annual review form for "number of innocents cleared of wrongdoing", and police departments don't hand out commendations for proving that someone *didn't* commit a crime. So the police are *taught* that the way to do their job is to make busts that result in convictions, with little to no regard for actual guilt/innocence.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[SirGarlon]

I wonder whether that has to do with the incentive and reward system for the investigators. Presumably their success is measured by how many of their investigations lead to convictions, whereas in my opinion they should be measured by how often their evidence is upheld in court.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[Jesus_Corpse]

I work in forensics too, and I have somewhat the same experience with people in police forces. However, the place where I work is independent from the government, and only does the research. Law enforcement officers are regularly 'pissed off' that we can't do some facial recognition from 20x20 pixel faces, etc. However, the experts at our company always refrain from that practice

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[russotto]

It blows my mind that computer evidence is admissible because it is so easily faked by anyone.

The good news is there's a solution to this.

The bad news is that it's "Trusted Computing"

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[Adaeniel]

I believe you forgot the two most important steps:

??????
Profit.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

A disturbingly large number of people in law enforcement seem to think that their job is to bust people,

Well, according to most government targets on which law enforcement is assessed... that is their job.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[IronChef]

Straight to jail!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_iygNwIr-k

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[DriedClexler]

There are IQ caps for police? [citation needed]

If that's the case, we should probably do some kind of intelligence test for police, with a *minimum* (rather than maximum) threshold, but I'm bet dollars to dimes that some kind of "disparate impact" on minorities issue keeps them from doing that.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[sjames]

That is a huge problem. Even worse, it goes all the way up and down the chain. Police and prosecutors seem to have the same attitude. In spite of calling the field "forensic science", there is far too much science-like junk out there. There seems to be a serious failure to distinguish between conjecture, likely theory and proven fact.

When the FBI testified that they VOTE on the meaning of ambiguous results in the OJ trial, I lost all faith in the field. Scientifically, an ambiguous result is just exactly that, no more and no less. Science is not a democracy.

Unless and until they (and society) come to understand that their JOB is protecting the innocent and that catching and prosecuting bad guys is just a means to that end, the problem will continue.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[plague3106]

Worse, they take "most likely type of suspect" and focus soley on that type of suspect... even if some evidence is pointing to a statistically less likely suspect.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[Dragoniz3r]

Uh, no, a desire to have officers who are too stupid to question their instructions keeps them from doing that.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[random coward]

Citation here:

METRO NEWS BRIEFS: CONNECTICUT; Judge Rules That Police Can Bar High I.Q. Scores

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[MaskedSlacker]

In the US they're unconstitutional, or some such (banned by an appellate court for some reason at least, I forget what). Jobs that used to hire by IQ have replaced those with college degrees.

The IQ cap for cops thing isn't an actual IQ test, but they give applicants an assessment exam, and many (probably not all) departments will at least discourage applicants who score too highly on the reasoning that they will be dissatisfied with their job and unlikely to tow the line.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[MaskedSlacker]

Tell them to stop watching CSI. You'd think THEY would know that stuff isn't real.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[fredklein]

Google 'new london police IQ Jordan'.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/19/weekinreview/ideas-trends-help-wanted-invoking-the-not-too-high-iq-test.html?pagewanted=1
" In 1996 Mr. Jordan scored 33 out of 50 on the exam, ... He says he was curtly informed that he did not ''fit the profile,'' which litigation revealed was a score of 20 to 27.

''Bob Jordan is exactly the type of guy we would want to screen out,'' said William C. Gavitt, the deputy police chief"

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[blair1q]

LE don't have "guilt" as a rule of engagement.

They base their actions on "evidence," "probable cause," and "reasonable suspicion."

It's the job of the courts to determine if the suspect is guilty.

Too often, they all do it using muscle-memory rather than logic.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[treeves]

Too smart to be a cop? Anyone know what might be the rationale for such a criterion? I'm really curious about that.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[TheLink]

Hey it's Fox News, what do you expect?

If they actually provided clear accurate information, you'd fall off your chair in surprise, forget treadmills...

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[Anonymous Cowpat]

vis

The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[mayko]

The idea behind it is consistency and predictability. In police forces and basic military forces the officers aren't trained to think for themselves. They are trained to follow procedures, exactly. Not that a highly intelligent person cannot conform, but having outliers (stupid, or really smart people) make the group less uniform.

To be a bit cynical about it, they don't want someone who 'thinks' they know a better way to do something. They want someone who just does what they were trained to do without asking too many questions.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[ShakaUVM]

>>Back in college we used to prank each other by sending in requests for magazines and advertisements.

Heh, and I thought I was the only one that did that.

I also signed my roommate up for a lot of very spammy mailing lists in Chinese. He could never figure out how to unsubscribe to them, because they were Chinese, and this was back in the day before mail filters became common. He went nuts and ended up stealing my router.

Which was totally awesome.

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[innocent_white_lamb]

Many years ago I worked in an office along with an engineer who was a real macho he-man type. (Nice guy, though.)
 
Remember the flyers that used to come around for correspondence courses? "Learn a trade at home in your spare time" and that sort of thing.
 
One day a flyer came for a course in dressmaking so I sent it in with his name and the office address on it.
 
For at least a couple of years afterward, he received occasional mail from that outfit about how much he can save if he makes his own clothes, and how beautiful the fashions can be, and so on.
 
Nobody ever figured out why he got that stuff....

Re:Moral of the story. . .

[nobaloney]

So as long as I don't allow any black/white/red/green people into my restaurant, it's okay for me to discriminate?

The article wasn't clearly written...

[Cowclops]

The answer doesn't seem to be in the article, but why would they search Karttunen's house after arresting the guy he was trying to frame? I understand how he would have been implicated after they searched his computer, but how did they figure out that they needed to search his house in the first place?

Either way, guy is an idiot for copying the guy's hard drive to his own. And an idiot for trying the whole scheme in the first place. And an idiot for getting caught when it seems like it would be hard to trace that back to somebody.

Re:The article wasn't clearly written...

[Ron_Fitzgerald]

I wondered this as well, I am assuming that there was some previous action from Karttunen. This event seems a bit escalated so he had to have done something in the past.

Re:The article wasn't clearly written...

[Anonymous Coward]

The local newspaper for where the case was tried has some more information that contracicts TFA slightly -- they say it was a pen drive, not a hard drive that was stolen form the house and the Karttunen drew attention to himself by acting weirdly. Link

Stealing the HDD didn't ring true -- surely it took time for the police to receive and triage the disk, and in that time the victims would be wondering why their PC isn't working,

Re:The article wasn't clearly written...

[natet]

My guess? He left some physical evidence on the drive itself.

Re:The article wasn't clearly written...

[Culture20]

why would they search Karttunen's house after arresting the guy he was trying to frame?

The guy being framed probably filed a police report on the theft.
Even if he didn't, the police might have been suspicious by the anonymous delivery, and asked him if he had any enemies. "Well, there's this guy at my wife's work who gives me the evil-eye at her company picnics, and we sometimes see him walking in our neighborhood or when we're out to a restaurant."

Re:The article wasn't clearly written...

[jimicus]

why would they search Karttunen's house after arresting the guy he was trying to frame?

The guy being framed probably filed a police report on the theft.

If the guy being framed is anything like most computer users, he'll just think there's "something wrong" with the computer and it'll take him a few days - minimum - to get around to having someone look at it.

As long as Karttunen had the hard drive in the hands of the police within 24-48 hours of removing it, it's a fairly safe bet the police would get there first.

Re:The article wasn't clearly written...

[etherwhisp]

The guy was obviously an idiot. He probably put his return address on the anonymous package.

What an amazingly scary story

[HeckRuler]

I believe the only thing saving the family was the investigation of the stalkers house (and shed). Without that search warrant into a third-parties house, or without the retardedly self-incriminating evidence stored on his computer, the man accused would have been devastated.

Wait, this is UK, do they even need a warrant?

Re:What an amazingly scary story

[Lumpy]

This is true, they could have used their wonderful camera network and saw the perp break in and leave. Oh wait, their camera network really does not work and is ineffective.

Re:What an amazingly scary story

[bill_mcgonigle]

-- Home theater gear from Best Buy is low grade dog food.

You forgot 'premium-priced'. I fell over when I recently saw their price on a run-of-the-mill cable. I went home and ordered it online without the 600% mark-up.

Re:What an amazingly scary story

[jimicus]

Wait, this is UK, do they even need a warrant?

I'm pretty sure they do if they plan to break in and arrest you at 4 in the morning, but if they just knock and say they'd like to "ask a few questions", no.

That being said, how difficult do you imagine it would be to get a warrant when you've got a hard disk full of kiddie porn?

Re:What an amazingly scary story

[HeckRuler]

Stop all this fuckery and explain law and enforcement of that law pertaining to a specific action of the police for someone who is ignorant about it.

Oh wait, while you were fucking, Mr. Nurb explained it. Never mind. Bloody gits.

It is too easy!

[Ron_Fitzgerald]

It's too easy to have someone's life ruined. Even being cleared of charges this person will still have a stigma attached to them. Poor family. To be ripped away like that from your family, your home because some psycho wanted a go at your wife. Investigation wise, they didn't find the hard drive with the man or trace any wrong goings online directly back to him, yet they still charged him with the crime. This seems out of whack to me. Grey area to be sure but to just take the anonymous at their word seems scary.

Re:It is too easy!

[idontgno]

Investigation wise, they didn't find the hard drive with the man or trace any wrong goings online directly back to him, yet they still charged him with the crime. This seems out of whack to me.

You're not THINKING OF THE CHILDREN! Why haven't you turned off your critical thinking abilities yet, we're talking about kiddy pr0n here! KIDDY PR0N!

Now, less hyperbolically, it's a bad situation. If there's really child abuse involved, most sane commentators want the situation dealt with as soon as possible. That's what drives the impulse for a snap arrest, just to freeze the situation and "save the kids". But the urgency works against "innocent until proven guilty", and spills over in a policy sense into thinking that prevention is even better than rapid response. (Think "pre-crime".) I think that's the psychological basis for the push against simulated kiddy pr0n. "No real children are harmed, but who knows what real children WILL be harmed which Sicky Sickington decides to act on his perverted fantasies."

It's a bad deal, and the only bright spot is that loltard planting kpr0n on an innocent man's PC has earned the special wrath of The System, which really really hates it when you play It for a fool. And maybe someone can start the rumor in prison that he really is a kiddy-fiddler; I hear tell those guys get "extra special" treatment.

Re:It is too easy!

[Anonymous Coward]

This scenario is precisely why lawyers and due process rights are so, so, so important. And yet, most people think lawyers are the scum of the earth and that criminals don't get punished for crimes. But the truth about due process isn't necessarily the broad abstract principle that every man deserves a fair trial because that's fair, it's that every man deserves a fair trial because we're aware of how easy it is for something like this to happen.

Re:It is too easy!

[The Living Fractal]

Indeed. And the punishment should fit the crime. If you are convicted of something like this -- intentionally ruining someone's life -- then you should never see the light of day again. I'm tired of all this pansy treatment of criminals. We need to send a message: You want to mess up somebody's life? Go for it, but if you get caught, WE'RE GOING TO CUT OFF YOUR BALLS.

Re:It is too easy!

[MooUK]

Just a tiny bit of devil's advocacy: two 15-year-olds recording themselves is still, legally, child porn. Who's harmed?

Re:It is too easy!

[Lumpy]

You know stalker crazies need to just ask. My wife and I are so materialistic that we have a price for almost anything.... 1,000,000 pounds to sleep with my wife? Honey? Shure... no, no checks.... cash please.

Woo! we not have money for blackjack,hookers and blow!

Re:It is too easy!

[idontgno]

One: Real kids really are harmed in the making of this stuff. Granted, the kid was harmed yesterday, last week, last year, or whatever, and most likely the person with the clip did not do the harming; but at some point some real kid was harmed to make it.

I know it's a wall of text, and "tl;dr" is the Slashdot Way, but you missed a critical word in my original response: "simulated". You know, adult models morphed to look underage, or drawings/paintings etc. made up completely out of imagination with no model at all, that kind of thing. It happens, and kiddy pr0n laws were extended to cover them. When no actual harm has occurred. So, either it's (a) prophylactic: "we'll tamp it down before someone real gets hurt"; (b) lazy: "we can't tell the difference between real and pseudo, so we'll ban it all"; or (c) blue-nosed prudery finding the easy wedge for the slippery slope. As you can tell, I think (a) is the argument used most often in public discourse.

And as to your second major point: yeah, an arrest is not conviction-based, but the modern hysteria makes a public accusation of Offenses Against Children a peremptory conviction in the court of public opinion, from which there is never an acquittal. So the argument you're indirectly posing, "an arrest causes no actual harm", is demonstrably incorrect.

Which goes to show you, your life and good name are always one malicious thought away from complete destruction, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Re:It is too easy!

[Unkl_Shvelven]

He said simulated kiddy porn—think drawn pictures.

Re:It is too easy!

[AntiNazi]

In regards to your first point. I think you missed where he said simulated kiddy porn. I think any rational person would agree that actual kiddy porn harms an actual child, but a small 18 year old acting as a child doesn't, nor does a 3d rendering or other such simulations.

Re:It is too easy!

[natet]

Technically, he is the one who actually viewed the child pr0n. I think they'd have a pretty good case for that as well as the breaking and entering and theft charges.

Re:It is too easy!

[DrgnDancer]

I missed the "simulated" Sorry. That is definitely a gray line. As a purely practical matter, I wonder how many people have been arrested and/or convicted for possession of exclusively "simulated child porn". That's not the point, I know, but it's none-the-less an interesting question. Ironically you could pretty easily turn any answer to that question into an argument for either side of the larger question.

I never said that and arrest causes no actual harm. I merely said that arrest is not an indication of guilt. The fact that our society, or at least certain facets of our society, suck, and will persecute you anyway is immaterial to the point I was making. You said "innocent till proven guilty" I pointed that proven guilt is established at trial, not by the police before arrest. Does it suck? Yes. I can't think of a better way though. Alternative include: leaving potentially dangerous criminals on the loose to escape or possibly re-offend until they have their day in court, allowing the police to make determinations of what constitutes proof and guilt, or simply giving up on the concepts of law and justice.

The fact is that there was reasonable evidence that this man had committed a fairly serious crime. The police would have been remiss to simply ignore it because the circumstances seemed odd. The only thing they can do is act on the evidence, while simultaneously acting to determine what circumstances caused them to receive the evidence in such an unorthodox manner. That appears to be what they did, thankfully. I'm not saying it's right or fair. They did the best they could under the circumstances and it worked out this time.

Personally, I think arrest was overkill. They could have simply asked his wife to take the kids on a short holiday while they investigated the situation, since it seems obvious that something was up. As I said, I'm glad I wasn't the guy having to make the call. The whole situation sucked.

Re:It is too easy!

[Ecuador]

Take that people with beautiful wives! Go on living in fear, while slashdotters enjoy the safety of their mother's basement ;)

Re:It is too easy!

[clone53421]

Well, I think you missed the part where he said simulated kiddy pron. No children were harmed in the creation of a drawing unless you have solid reason to believe that it was drawn from a live model. But my real disagreement is with the validity of this claim:

That's the justification for making it illegal to possess

Yeah, that’s the stated justification, but it’s a bogus, feel-good reason that doesn’t hold water. Millions of crimes are photographed and shown on TV and in newspapers and it’s not illegal to posses those pictures.

The only reason that these crimes are “special” and merely possessing a picture of the crime is deemed illegal is simple: If you possess pictures of this crime, you probably want to commit it, and we’re going to throw you in jail for what is really nothing more than having naughty thoughts. And this reasoning makes it perfectly reasonable to also throw you in jail for having naughty drawings which no children were harmed in the making of.

It’s wrong and it needs to be changed. But nobody will change it because that would be “soft” on child pornographers and rapists and no legislator or judge is going to voluntarily take that stigma.

Re:It is too easy!

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

If there's really child abuse involved, most sane commentators want the situation dealt with as soon as possible.

I'm sane and I don't think that. Personally, I'm sick of hearing people moan on and on about child porn. If some guy has CP on his computer, I honestly couldn't care less at this point. I'm jaded of the hysteria past the point of cynicism.

I think people need to adopt this attitude if we are ever to get back the (relatively) sane and sober society of the 1990's where people's rights actually meant something.

Re:It is too easy!

[MaskedSlacker]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial

Things weren't so sane back then. The above was literally a witch hunt. As in, they were first accused of being witches and flying around at night on broomsticks by the schizophrenic mother of one of the children. Only later when she also claimed they were molesting her son did the police start doing anything.

Re:It is too easy!

[TheLink]

> two 15-year-olds recording themselves is still, legally, child porn. Who's harmed?

The 15 year olds, when they get arrested and jailed...

That'll scar them for life I bet, even if they are eventually acquitted.

Re:It is too easy!

[TheLink]

Yeah, and I suppose the fine print in your "sleep with your wife" contract would have the "does not include having sex with her, in whatever form".

Re:It is too easy!

[Thing 1]

If some guy has CP on his computer, I honestly couldn't care less at this point. I'm jaded of the hysteria past the point of cynicism.

Completely agree. If some guy has pictures of a bank robbery on his computer, I also couldn't care less -- even if he had a gun-and-money fetish.

(Just to make my point clear: both classes of images are of the class "evidence that a crime was committed"; and in any case, I believe that "possession of images" should not be a law enforcement matter.)

In "The Matrix", there was a line about the 90s being the height of our civilization.

I used to work with an ex-cop, who still had a few loose ends to tie up and had to go to court a few times, after he had started the new job. The issue was child porn, and honestly I never discussed it with him beyond that, because I'm sure that like a large percentage of other investigations, he was not pursuing someone who first-hand abused a child, but merely "someone who was in possession of some images." That's really sad, and completely the wrong way for our society to attack, but I liked my job so kept my mouth shut.

Not the end of the story...

[Manip]

Unfortunately in the UK they publish names of anyone accused of sex crimes in local newspapers so you can bet even with the husband in this case proved entirely innocent he might need to move house, have his car set alight, stones thrown through his windows, and have his name google-able to child porn charges. Plus the child services and new child protection scheme use just rumours to judge people so if he applied to, for example, because a football coach he might be denied (*you need a licence to talk to a child in the UK).

One question - Why was the wife or anyone else using the "family PC" not arrested? Or are only males arrested for child porn?

Re:Not the end of the story...

[Manip]

Love you too.

Re:Not the end of the story...

[Tim C]

Unfortunately in the UK they publish names of anyone accused of sex crimes in local newspapers

Really? I've not heard of or seen such a list - unless you mean in a "local man Joe Bloggs was arrested on Friday on suspicion of $crime" type story?

you need a licence to talk to a child in the UK

Bullshit. There have been controversial rules passed recently requiring anyone who has regular, official contact with children to register, yes - so a football coach teaching minors would indeed be affected. A licence to talk to a child though? Rubbish.

Re:Not the end of the story...

[Manip]

Those are exactly the type of stories I'm talking about. If Bob Smith is arrested for rape, then he is a rapist, even if he is entirely innocent. If John Smith is known as a kiddie fiddler then no amount of innocents will rub that off of him in a society obsessed by paedophilia and child safety.

A little bit of hyperbole to make my point (*I guess that doesn't translate on the internet) but, yes, you only need a licence if you want regular contact with kids. But frankly the way society is going we're getting closer and closer to the point when some man talks to kids in the park and is arrested as a direct result.

Do you think it is really reasonable to have to have a licence if you want to be a football coach? The statistics don't even really suggest it will help given that most assaults are conducted by family or friends.

Re:Not the end of the story...

[nurb432]

May never get a job again either.

Re:Not the end of the story...

[ottothecow]

Well, actually a story like this might be enough to clear him as the popular interest level is probably higher than the original case.

People will see it and think that the dude who actually planted the evidence is a sick bastard and feel bad for the victim.

Re:Not the end of the story...

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been controversial rules passed recently requiring anyone who has regular, official contact with children to register, yes - so a football coach teaching minors would indeed be affected. A licence to talk to a child though? Rubbish.

Jesus Christ, that's your rebuttal? That you only need a license if you have REGULAR contact with children? WTF has happened to the UK? (btw, PARENTS have regular contact with children. Do you need a license for that too?)

Re:Not the end of the story...

[Duradin]

"One question - Why was the wife or anyone else using the "family PC" not arrested? Or are only males arrested for child porn?"

Don't you know? Women can only be victims of sex crimes. A woman would *never* commit a sex crime against anyone.

Yes, that's sarcasm, but most people don't want to think of women (or children) as being capable of bad things (even though they are just as able as men).

Re:Not the end of the story...

[feepness]

he might need to move house, have his car set alight, stones thrown through his windows...

I can understand why he might need to move, but why would he need his car set alight or to break his windows?

Re:Not the end of the story...

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

If John Smith is known as a kiddie fiddler then no amount of innocents will rub that off of him

Nope. If anything, they would make it worse for the poor man by trying.

Re:Not the end of the story...

[hmar]

(btw, PARENTS have regular contact with children. Do you need a license for that too?)

I've often felt you should...

Re:Not the end of the story...

[DriedClexler]

If John Smith is known as a kiddie fiddler then no amount of innocents will rub that off of him in a society obsessed by paedophilia and child safety.

Um, if you're a kiddie fiddler, then your problem is the fact that "innocents" are "rubbing off on you".

*ducks*

Re:Not the end of the story...

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are exactly the type of stories I'm talking about. If Bob Smith is arrested for rape, then he is a rapist, even if he is entirely innocent. If John Smith is known as a kiddie fiddler then no amount of innocents will rub that off of him in a society obsessed by paedophilia and child safety.

Heh. That’s not even the full extent of it... I was locked in a psych ward for a week because I was accused of wanting to rape someone (which was utterly false to begin with). Thankfully no legal charges were filed because wanting to rape someone isn’t technically illegal... although the person could have easily gotten a restraining order if she had so chosen (I was inclined to stay away from the psycho after that, so she didn’t bother with it...).

Re:Not the end of the story...

[Jason Levine]

But frankly the way society is going we're getting closer and closer to the point when some man talks to kids in the park and is arrested as a direct result.

Closer and closer? We've passed that point. Now taking photos of your own fully clothed child in public is reason enough to suspect you of being a pedophile: "Dad Branded A Paedophile Over Pic Of Son"

Re:Not the end of the story...

[QuantumRiff]

More importantly, do you have to have a license to be a relative to a child? or a friend of the family? most sex abuse (I have read anywhere from 85-95%) is from close family members, and close family friends. Sure, the stuff with the catholic church sounds horrible, but it statistically very, very uncommon.

Re:Not the end of the story...

[TheRaven64]

Particularly ironic reasoning given that my RSS feed had three stories of women being convicted for abusing or killing children in the last few weeks (in the UK).

Re:Not the end of the story...

[Ron_Fitzgerald]

One question - Why was the wife or anyone else using the "family PC" not arrested? Or are only males arrested for child porn?

That is a good question. Why should one assume that the wife wasn't the one viewing the footage or more over that the children weren't viewing pornography of other children the same age as them?

Re:Not the end of the story...

[MaskedSlacker]

He accidentally the dependent clause.

Re:Not the end of the story...

[Duradin]

You don't need a dictatorship or a totalitarian regime to get laws like this.

You just need a population that only spends as long as it takes for their knee to jerk to think about something.

Re:Not the end of the story...

[jimicus]

I see people on here who try to claim that the UK isn't rapidly running to being a dictatorship, but bullshit laws like this are exactly what I'm talking about. Every time the US walks a yard towards totalitarianism, the UK sprints 100 yards closer to it.

50 years ago the different countries were racing to see who could be the best - now they're racing to see who can be the worst.

The problem is, our democracy is essentially an elected short-term dictatorship whereby those who are elected are spending much of their time trying to make their term as long as possible, by whatever means necessary.

Right now the government is trying to make as many government interactions as possible done over the Internet. You have to pay extra and meet tighter deadlines if you want to file a paper tax return, if you lose your job and need to claim benefits you are now being encouraged to do so online, and many jobcentres have been closed with a sign left on the door saying "Go to the website". Yet at the same time they want a "3 strikes and you're off the Internet. Without the benefit of being able to go in front of a judge."

AFAICT, we are rapidly reaching the point where having your Internet cut-off could easily render you a non-person within a couple of weeks - particularly if you work from home.

Re:Not the end of the story...

[MrCrassic]

But frankly the way society is going we're getting closer and closer to the point when some man talks to kids in the park and is arrested as a direct result.

Actually, here in NYC, it is apparently illegal for a male to be in a childrens' park alone and can very well be arrested for doing so.

Re:Not the end of the story...

[cerberusss]

Yes, that's sarcasm, but most people don't want to think of women (or children) as being capable of bad things

Let me support you by quoting wikipedia: "Due to the stereotype that pedophiles are always male, it has been difficult to determine the prevalence of female pedophiles; [...] range of 5% to 20% of child sexual abuse offenses are perpetrated by women."

If it was a Daily Mail article:

[celibate for life]

"Finnish Pedophile Immigrant Terrorist Threatens UK Citizen"

Loser

[smchris]

Unless jail goes down really hard, he isn't quite a Darwin -- and a little too convoluted for Leno's "Stupid Criminals."

I suppose if his jail mate has a crush on him, there could be some award for bad relationship choices.

Re:Loser

[jimicus]

AIUI, kiddie fiddlers and those associated with them aren't exactly popular in your average UK prison.

I wouldn't think job prospects are that good for people who get out, either:

"I see your CV ends abruptly two years ago. Can you explain what you've been doing in that time?"
"I've been in prison for trying to frame a man up for child porn."
"Cheerio."

Re:This would have worked...

[TheMeuge]

Exactly.

It's trivial to ruin someone's life at this point using child pornography. Cracking a WPA password isn't nearly that complicated.

Also, note how the guy he was trying to frame was still arrested, and still barred from seeing his children, after someone sent the police a hard drive they claimed belonged to the guy. Of all the obvious frame jobs, this was dead sloppy, and yet the victim was STILL victimized by the authorities. I'm surprised they aren't summarily castrating people without proof these days. After all, won't someone think of the children...

FYI the guy is niot necessarily a brit

[Kiuas]

Although this is slightly off-topic, I'd just like to point out to all /. readers who might be wondering about his name: Ilkka Karttunen is actually a Finnish name. I have no idea if the guy has moved into the UK from Finland or if his parents/relatives have come from here. Well, idiots like him are pretty evenly split between nations anyway, so his nationality doesn't really make a difference. But I know there are people out there who went "What kind kind of name is that for a guy from Essex O.o?".

Re:FYI the guy is niot necessarily a brit

[nomadic]

Although this is slightly off-topic, I'd just like to point out to all /. readers who might be wondering about his name: Ilkka Karttunen is actually a Finnish name.

Yes, we already knew that.

Re:FYI the guy is niot necessarily a brit

[Xunker]

Most of us are Americans(TM) anyway, and have no idea where this "Essex" or "Finnish" you speak of is located. Likely they're both next to other countries we don't know the location of, like Myanmar, Quebec and Idaho.

Re:FYI the guy is niot necessarily a brit

[stonewallred]

Idaho is west somewhere. Near where the people with the bones through their noses and lions and tigers live. Quebec is in French.

Re:FYI the guy is niot necessarily a brit

[Anomalyst]

Quebec is in French

I don't think they have enough history of surrendering to actually qualify as being in French.

Re:FYI the guy is niot necessarily a brit

[Blakey Rat]

But I know there are people out there who went "What kind kind of name is that for a guy from Essex O.o?".

Are Brits really so racist that they make big-O-period-little-O faces over learning that somebody living in one of their cities has a name that's *gasp* NOT British? Seriously?

Or are you just so enthusiastic to portray yourself as a heroic non-racist that you invent some strawman that you "know" is making stupid smilies over this so that you can valiantly slay their flawed horrible thoughts?

Either way, WTF man.

Re:FYI the guy is niot necessarily a brit

[stonewallred]

WOOOSH!!!!

Wait..

[Renraku]

It is probably just a matter of time before the stalked gets thrown in jail for possessing child pornography as well. After all, we can never be too hard on people with child pornography, right? It's okay to murder people that have been accused of it, right? No? What's that? You're in favor of leniency for awful child rapists?

Re:Can I do that to Rush Limbaugh?

[Lunix Nutcase]

Just leave him a giant package of oxycontin. He'll just off himself.

Strict Liability

[Low Ranked Craig]

Since the UK has "strict liability" laws (which IMO are exceptionally unfair and should be changed) he should have left the hard drive in the system and tipped of the police anonymously. In the UK, simply being in possession of child porn or a gun is enough for a conviction regardless of how it came to be in your possession.

Re:Strict Liability

[Tim C]

Not true. Strict liability means you can be prosecuted for the result of your actions, etc, even if you did not intend for any harm to be done. It does not mean that someone can frame you and you have no defence, and there have been cases in the UK where people have beaten a charge of being in possession of child porn by demonstrating that it was downloaded by a virus without their knowledge or consent.

Of course, IANAL, this is not legal advice, etc.

Re:Strict Liability

[Low Ranked Craig]

IANAL either, but these guys are:

Prosecuting, Brian Stalk, explained to the jury that possession of a firearm was a "strict liability" charge – therefore Mr Clarke's allegedly honest intent was irrelevant.

Just by having the gun in his possession he was guilty of the charge, and has no defence in law against it, he added.

Judge Christopher Critchlow said: "This is an unusual case, but in law there is no dispute that Mr Clarke has no defence to this charge.

emphasis mine

My understanding that possession of child porn is basically the same as possession of a shotgun - For the most part you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent, and there are very few, if any, defenses.

Re:Strict Liability

[SydShamino]

The parts you quotes have no relevance at all to this situation.

Prosecuting, Brian Stalk, explained to the jury that possession of a firearm was a "strict liability" charge – therefore Mr Clarke's allegedly honest intent was irrelevant.

Did he know he had the gun, but his honest intent was to turn it in to the police tomorrow? Irrelevant.

Was the gun plastered into a wall of his house, and had been there since a construction crew did renovations several years ago, until a member of that crew "tipped off" the police? I don't think the story you quoted would have even used the words "honest intent" in that situation, as he had no intent whatsoever. And that analogy is much closer to the events in the topic story.

Re:Strict Liability

[Low Ranked Craig]

The point is, that possession of child porn is a strict liability charge, which I am against. The problem with these types of laws, to me anyway, is that they shift the burden from the state needing to prove guilt to the charged needing to prove innocence. By removing the intent from the law they create a situation where it is extremely easy to frame other people. Unfortunately the US is adopting more and more "zero tolerance" laws and policies all the time.

Re:Strict Liability

[rahvin112]

One of those defenses is someone put that gun there to frame me and I didn't know it was there. The honest intent thing is that he had no malice in possessing it but the mere possession was illegal. If you could realistically convict someone in the UK simply by planting an illegal item, even if it was obvious it was planted then your country is in a WORLD of hurt. It would be ridiculously easy to go around and get an entire city thrown in jail simply by planting illegal items, hell you could go house to house and clear out entire neighborhoods. No sane Jurist is going to let innocent people be convicted where it's clear the evidence was planted. The family likely has had their live ruined but the guy isn't going to jail now that their clear evidence of a frame job.

Re:Strict Liability

[BlueParrot]

My understanding that possession of child porn is basically the same as possession of a shotgun - For the most part you are guilty until you prove yourself innocent, and there are very few, if any, defenses.

I imagine it is only a question of time until this one kicks in:

Article 6 - Right to a fair trial

In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law. Judgment shall be pronounced publicly but the press and public may be excluded from all or part of the trial in the interests of morals, public order or national security in a democratic society, where the interests of juveniles or the protection of the private life of the parties so require, or to the extent strictly necessary in the opinion of the court in special circumstances where publicity would prejudice the interests of justice.

Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.(emphasis mine)

Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights:
a.to be informed promptly, in a language which he understands and in detail, of the nature and cause of the accusation against him;
b.to have adequate time and facilities for the preparation of his defence;
c.to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing or, if he has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance, to be given it free when the interests of justice so require;
d.to examine or have examined witnesses against him and to obtain the attendance and examination of witnesses on his behalf under the same conditions as witnesses against him;
e.to have the free assistance of an interpreter if he cannot understand or speak the language used in court.

Britain may be fucked up, but if they start completely pissing over the ECHR they will eventually get burned, especially since the Lisbon Treaty makes it legally binding. Only problem is that because it is tedious to get a case heard there it may be a while and many will be hurt in the meantime.

Re:Strict Liability

[ejasons]

One of those defenses is someone put that gun there to frame me and I didn't know it was there. The honest intent thing is that he had no malice in possessing it but the mere possession was illegal. If you could realistically convict someone in the UK simply by planting an illegal item, even if it was obvious it was planted then your country is in a WORLD of hurt. It would be ridiculously easy to go around and get an entire city thrown in jail simply by planting illegal items, hell you could go house to house and clear out entire neighborhoods. No sane Jurist is going to let innocent people be convicted where it's clear the evidence was planted. The family likely has had their live ruined but the guy isn't going to jail now that their clear evidence of a frame job.

Sadly, you're giving the juries too much credit.

The way that the juries are currently being instructed (coincidentally, they just showed a judge saying this on the news last night), the judge is saying that he/she is the "decider of the law", while the juries are the "decider of the facts".

Therefore, in the cases we're discussing, where possession is enough for a conviction, the only duty/privilege for the jury is "was the defendant in possession of the item in question". Since the answer to this question is "yes", then, according to the judge, the juries must find for guilt.

This gets to the whole argument about the removal of "jury nullification"...

There was a recent discussion on Slashdot recently, relating to a man who, after being beat up by a customs officer, was arrested for "assault", because, while being dazed after just having been punched, he didn't follow the officer's instructions to lie down quickly enough. THis, according to the law, is grounds for an assault charge ("not following an officer's orders" or some such). After finding him guilty, the jury mentioned that they were sick about having to convict him, but, since it was clear that he didn't follow the instruction immediately, they felt that they had to find him guilty.

People who hear about the Salem witch trials will usually laugh about the ignorance of the citizens involved, not realizing that the current situation is earily similar...

too little risk for breaking into a home in the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying that sort of thing in the US is quite likely to get one's hide peppered with lead.

What crazy people do in the name of disparity

[adosch]

So this crazy dude goes to extreme lengths to get a husband put behind bars to have an adulterous relationship with the fellas wife? One of the big flaws was taking the hard drive out of the PC and mailing to the authorities. I think an anonymous tip would have been just fine.

Regardless, it's really amazing what mental states people can put themselves into and trick their own mind into thinking their crazy actions are somehow good in nature and worth pursuing. However, I can't help but realize the wife's involvement in this? Something she did or may have innocently done caused this guy to think there was something there... or maybe there was some under-the-table stuff happening. Too many fish in the sea to be doing that, IMHO.

Re:What crazy people do in the name of disparity

[Improv]

Why would you assume the wife did anything at all? A lot of guys are just crazy and let wishful thinking go to extremes. Likewise, it's sometimes easy for people to misread a friendship as something else.

Given that this guy was nuts enough to try a scheme like this and the woman is married, I'd assume that the guy is entirely in the wrong.

Re:What crazy people do in the name of disparity

[Sir_Lewk]

Yes, no doubt she was 'Asking For It'(TM)...
[/sarcasm]

Re:What crazy people do in the name of disparity

[Grygus]

My way of thinking about this is that if the wife was open to an adulterous relationship in the first place, he didn't really need to frame the husband to start that. His actions only make sense if she spurned his advances and he was trying to remove a real barrier: not her husband, but her love for her husband. He didn't murder the guy or set him up as a thief; he set him up as something a wife might reasonably be shocked into rejecting completely. To me, she seems very likely to be blameless.

Re:1st April

[Tim C]

The Article was dated 1st April - so we don't really know it's true.

Which is part of the reason why I object to serious news outlets participating in April Fool's jokes.

Seen something similar happen

[Rastl]

Nasty divorce going on and the wife used the husband's work e-mail to sign up for all kinds of unsavory web sites. We ended up having to change his address and it didn't work out like the wife hoped.

People are complicated. It will be scary when they get bright AND complicated.

Possession laws are stupid for this reason.

[elucido]

If someone does not like you, whether they be informant, stalker, or corrupt law enforcement, they can plant the gun, the drugs, the child porn into your possession and then arrest you for possession. This is why all laws which involve possession of an object, are fundamentally flawed because it does not make a difference is the possession is voluntary or involuntary.

Re:Possession laws are stupid for this reason.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually not strictly true, the federal law against gun possession by a convicted felon actually says that the possessor has to knowingly and willingly possess a firearm, meaning that he has to understand that the item in question is a functioning firearm and know that he actually has the item and to have done both willingly.

Furthermore, possession itself is legally defined as having control and dominion over an item. Fleeting contact (such as simply touching an item someone else has) is not considered possession. Also, simply being in the same premises as the forbidden item is not considered possession.

FYI though, IANAL

Re:Possession laws are stupid for this reason.

[Dragonslicer]

Slightly OT, but just out of interest, "Also, simply being in the same premises as the forbidden item is not considered possession." - how does that work with drug busts, or similar? - "What, that? - thats not *my* 10 kilos, it just sits there in the corner usually, honest Officer.."

Presumably, "simply being in the same premises" means you have no control and/or knowledge over the illegal item. If your roommate gets busted for having cocaine in his sock drawer, you haven't committed any crime. If your roommate gets busted for having cocaine sitting on his desk next to his keyboard, you might get in trouble for failing to report a crime, but you aren't in possession of cocaine just because you live in the same apartment.

Re:Possession laws are stupid for this reason.

[russotto]

Also, simply being in the same premises as the forbidden item is not considered possession.

Wrong. Look up the doctrine of "constructive possession".

Re:Possession laws are stupid for this reason.

[Enderreil]

At least in the US, I call bullshit! I had a brother-in-law who got charged with drug possession for accepting a ride into town from a guy who the cops suspected of drug-dealing. Turns out they were right when they pulled him over on a pretext on the way. Dude had weed stashed in his car (in the driver's side door slot no less). Unfortunately, they weren't confident enough with their case, so they went after my BiW in an attempt to coerce testimony against the other guy. In the end he buckled and told them what they wanted to hear because his public defender told him he was SOL. He got a year in jail for doing nothing worse then accepting a ride with the wrong guy. Possession means exactly possession because a jury is too stupid and public defenders too incompetent to understand the technicalities. Innocent until proven guilty doesn't offer even a fig leaf when justice is for sale and so expensive it's beyond the reach of some. I wanted single-payer justice much more then health care.

Re:Possession laws are stupid for this reason.

[Protoslo]

Even if we granted that all of those protections are fully effective, you are totally ignoring civil forfeiture. Thank you, "war on drugs."

Trojan instead

[nurb432]

So you write a Trojan, get the PC infected and have it do the downloading for you then report back. Then you leave an anonymous tip.

No breaking and entering at all.

Scary thing, is for revenge against people you don't like you can just drop those anonymous tips all over the place and have innocent people harassed and their stuff taken for review and their face all over the evening paper.. And if they just happen to have something they shouldn't, like say a MP3 they downloaded, they might get ruined financially..as a bonus.

Re:Trojan instead

[jimicus]

I thought that, actually. From what we see of the current state of malware being reported on here, I would think the whole "write a trojan" is utterly unnecessary - it wouldn't surprise me at all if someone were to reply to this confirming it's possible to get very cheap a remote-control trojan application which gets past most virus scanners for use against a single targeted individual.

Warrant?

[nurb432]

"I was walking my dog, and I heard some strange noise and when i looked up I saw a computer thru his window, and you cant believe what horror i saw"

That will get you your warrant.

Re:This would have worked...

[DrgnDancer]

It is a difficult situation for the police. On the one hand, it has "frame job" written all over it, on the other hand, what if it isn't? Arresting him was probably overkill, but limiting contact with children until the whole thing is cleared up makes some sense. The police clearly made more than a usual effort investigate at least, but still. I dunno what you'd call the "right" answer is here. (Except, obviously, don't have a sociopath break into your house and frame you for a difficult to defend against crime)

"Ilkka Karttunen"? Sound it out people!

[hmbcarol]

This is soooo clearly an April Fools joke. It's nowhere to be found except on blogs and only on April 1st. The name is clearly meant to be bad English for "I like cartoons", becomes "I lika cartoonen" becomes "Ilkka Karttunen".

Re:This would have worked...

[ckaminski]

Not sure about in the UK, but innocent until PROVEN guilty used to mean something across the pond.

It's just the dumb-ass media castrating police departments the world over. The media is all about front-page spreads ruining someone's life, but they're never about front-page spreads about what they printed ended up turning into blatent libel.

Fucking hypocrites.

Unless...

[leuk_he]

Suppose you have a password on the PC. You see, without that linux "hack" it would be impossible to to the downloading. And the timing would be off also, since the owner might be able to prove show he was not at home at the time of the downloading. Then there is always the point that you will have to make a reasonable gues who was behind the keyboard at the time of the offense.

Last point "call the police" is not anonymous as well, since the telephone company keeps log who called who (and in case of a cell phone: where).

Planting fake evidence is not as easy as it seems if you want to do it perfect. Watching CSI does not help because the reality is much more complex.

Re:Unless...

[stonewallred]

Duh. There is child porn on drive. Drive is the framed person's possession. You faked the date to show it was downloaded when suspect was at home, which is trivial as you can see he was home on "x" day and make the date/time match that. America, we don't have cameras at every phone booth and street corner. And there is child porn on computer. Grand slam conviction of a child molester. What DA is going to spend any time trying to discredit anonymous tip, and what jury is going to believe Mr.Computer Expert witness for the defense, when the cops' expert witness says it was the perp's, and the DA has splashed horrible pictures of children being violated sexually? Because no one with any sense is going to frame with a naked picture of a kid. They will use the hardest and most shocking crap they can find. This is America, innocent until proven guilty, unless it is child porn, and in that case, bend over and get ready for the reaming.

Re:Unless...

[TheRaven64]

Linux? Single-user mode

Don't you need a password to boot single user mode with Linux? With *BSD, you only get single user mode without entering the root password if the console is marked as secure. You can, of course, boot from another disk as long as the partition is not encrypted.

Re:Unless...

[operagost]

You need a password to boot into Windows safe mode, too. GP is wrong.

Re:Unless...

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Ever heard of Knoppix?
It has NTFS drivers as well.

Re:Unless...

[TheRaven64]

Ever heard of reading the post you're replying to?

It makes your comment more relevant.

Re:Unless...

[clone53421]

Unless there’s a hidden administrator account with no password that’s only visible when you boot into safe mode... which, I think, there was for a while (only in certain versions of Windows, like XP?) to rescue people who forgot the password to their administrator account.

Still, I don’t think that would work on Vista or 7.

Re:Unless...

[sjames]

Although payphones are harder to find, they do still exist.

Re:Unless...

[s0litaire]

in the UK all you would need to do is place an encrypted volume on the system and the software on the machine (don't need to worry about a weak or strong password.) or it's contents:

1) The police ask him for the password.
2) He refuses because he does not know the password and asks for a Solicitor.
3) Police think he's lying due to CP allegations
4) ???
5) Police charge him with withholding passwords
6) He spends up to 2 years in jail...
7) Stalker wins :D

Re:Unless...

[MaskedSlacker]

They still have call boxes on the sides of the freeway.

Re:Unless...

[Shotgun]

The fallacy is that you think it will need to be "perfect" to win a conviction.

Time for a reality check. Justice does not exist unless you have the money or notoriety to have a very influential legal team.

Once you are "in the system", the goal of the system operators is NOT to find justice. The goal is to feed the system. Convictions, and a plea bargain counts as a conviction, must be maintained so that someone looks good on a spreadsheet somewhere. So, if there is ever the slightest bit of evidence that you might be have been guilty of something, you are in the system. Barring some political clout to get you out, you will stay in the system until you are convicted or cop a plea bargain to make the pain stop.

A case in point, accusers can call the courthouse and beg off an appearance. You, as the accused, are not allowed to do that. The accusers can do it multiple times. You have to show up at the courthouse with your attorney every time. It is not exactly conducive to holding a job...unless you are the attorney.

Re:Unless...

[bcmm]

Don't you need a password to boot single user mode with Linux?

Not with most distro's default grub config, which lets you edit the kernel parameters before boot. You can just add "init=/bin/sh", causing it to drop you to a shell instead of running init. From there, it's trivial to do whichever of init's tasks you need (remount the disk read-write, start networking, etc.), and then mess with the system as you see fit.

I presume the reason distros don't fix this is that there is no real security against somebody with physical access anyway, and it is tremendously useful for fixing all kinds of problems.

./ link label

[Rhaban]

Anyone else think it's weird when you see a story on /. front page title "Stalker Jailed For Planting Child Porn On a PC", to have to click a link labelled "View picture"?

This story is broken

[glebaron]

He stole the hard drive and the family didn't notice that it was missing and report a burglary?

Re:This story is broken

[LordKronos]

A number of people I know have a desktop computer, later bought a laptop, and from then on only use the desktop occasionally. The story seems completely plausible to me. Also, the article doesn't say that it was a boot drive. It could have been an external USB connected drive used for backups or something, and the computer would have functioned perfectly fine until someone tried to access it.

Re:This story is broken

[geekoid]

Maybe they did?

OTOH, who do you report it to? Officer, my HD is missing, please send someone right round. Thank you.

Re:This story is broken

[glebaron]

"only use the desktop occasionally..." possible
"could have been an external USB..." possible but again the family didn't notice before the police arrived?
broke in while family was sleeping, downloaded porn, stole drive, left without the family noticing... possible
police searched shed of wife's co-worker for no apparent reason... possible

posted by a British newspaper the day before April1... suspicious
not covered by even one other major news source... suspicious
no sources mentioned in the Times article... suspicious

Sure it's possible but based on the story it seems pretty unlikely.

Re:This story is broken

[jimicus]

Assuming he really did take the computer apart and remove the hard disk (rather than the entire PC), it's entirely plausible the owner would think their computer was broken and might take a while to get around to having someone look at it. Longer than it would take for the police to come knocking, at least.

Re:This story is broken

[AmberBlackCat]

Computer error messages are terrible. The average person, with a stolen hard drive, will see a message that says "operating system not found" and have no idea their hard drive is specifically what is not found.

Re:"Ilkka Karttunen"? Sound it out people!

[diskofish]

The original story was actually dated March 31st..

Re:This would have worked...

[Migraineman]

Arresting him was probably overkill, but limiting contact with children until the whole thing is cleared up makes some sense.

So let me get this straight - if someone broke into your house and swiped your car keys, then sent them along with an empty whiskey bottle to the cops, accusing you of DUI, you'd be just fine with having your driving privileges suspended while the cops investigate? I mean, after all, this completely circumstantial evidence *might* be true, right?

Law Enforcement's "chain of custody" is a tremendously important concept. The "evidence" the police received is horribly tainted, and shouldn't have merited more than a knock on the door and a conversation with the man being joe-jobbed.

View Picture

[Anonymous Coward]

I noticed that all the other articles on the front page say Read More..., except this one which links to View Picture...
At first I thought it might be a link to a picture of the wife, who this guy was committing crimes for. Then I thought it might be a link to the pictures the guy was sent to jail for, which having downloaded would land anyone who clicked on them in jail.
I decided to risk it, but I don't see any pictures at all when I click. This must be some kind of psychological experiment.

Re:View Picture

[TheLink]

> I decided to risk it, but I don't see any pictures at all when I click.

Maybe you just downloaded child porn that had image height and width set to 1 or 2.

That's how you get people in jail for possessing child porn. You don't do stupid stuff like break into houses.

It's amazing how many people simply click on stuff.

For instance, many people keep clicking on my sig link, it's not child porn but they should really learn to be more careful. If they keep clicking on random links, one day they might just click on child porn and end up in deep shit.

Re:"Ilkka Karttunen"? Sound it out people!

[Sir_Lewk]

The name is clearly meant to be bad English for "I like cartoons"

Yes, that is very clear. I'm smacking myself for not seeing that earlier. It is abundantly obvious his name isn't just in another language.

Re:This would have worked...

[Lumpy]

I'm surprised they aren't summarily castrating people without proof these days

They are working on that. They did not get it passed in the last Jobs bill...Next time though...

Re:too little risk for breaking into a home in the

[Lunix Nutcase]

Since they were sound asleep while this was happening who was going to be "peppering his hide with lead"? The gun fairy?

Re:This would have worked...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up for car analogy.

Re:"Ilkka Karttunen"? Sound it out people!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ilkka Karttunen is actually a perfectly normal Finnish name, so it's more likely he's a Finnish emigrant.

Give my regards to the Doctor

[Tetsujin]

Most of us are Americans(TM) anyway, and have no idea where this "Essex" or "Finnish" you speak of is located.

Essex? Oh, that's over by Manchester, Gloucester, and Ipswitch...

Re:Give my regards to the Doctor

[idontgno]

What's an "Ip", and why does it need a switch?

Re:Give my regards to the Doctor

[Tetsujin]

What's an "Ip", and why does it need a switch?

It's a historical mistake. The town founder was an electronics hobbyist, and very fond of dipswitches.

Re:why is Karttunen on a list for sex offenders?

[NotBornYesterday]

A) Because there's no list category for "malicious moron".
B) Because he actually did knowingly and wilfully download and possess it (d/l on victim's PC, copied HDD to his own PC). Whether he actually "enjoyed" the collection is a separate matter.

He is a risk to the rest of society. Framing someone for kiddie porn is not a victimless crime. He may or may not be a pedophile, but consider that he is well-informed enough to know where to find kiddy porn. I don't know how easy it is to find that sort of thing, but my guess is that LE efforts have increased the amount of work required for John Q. Public to stumble across it. Given the idiots that do manage to find it, it probably doesn't require a PhD either, but my guess is that it's more than a simple google away.

FAIL!

[Hurricane78]

Well, seems that if you don’t have the brains...

I would have made the guy a friend, and in a not watched moment, put a USB stick in the computer, waited a few seconds for autostart to plant the stuff, pull it out, and be done with it!

On the other hand, I wouldn’t have tried to get a women that way anyway! How delusional can one be?
You know what they say: The cure for one-itis, is FTAG(N): Fuck / Flirt with Ten Other Girls (NOW)! ^^*
Or in other words: She is not special! EVER! Period. :)

P.S.: Now you know what was meant, when someone said “Cthulhu FTAGN”! ^^

Re:FAIL!

[Adaeniel]

So how does the A in the acronym FTAG(N) stand for a word that begins with an O?

Re:This would have worked...

[Lumpy]

How about running a SECURE system at home? simply having the PC with logins and auto lock-out would have stopped this idiot sociopath in his tracks. Yes you can crack the passwords with physical access to the machine but I highly doubt the idiot had enough time to crack it without getting caught.

Better solution is to have drive encryption on and home security cameras that record.. Good luck getting access to the security hive or password files to start cracking a password before the owner wakes up. and you have nice video evidence to show the cops that someone broke in.

Re:This would have worked...

[MoonBuggy]

Not directly related, but another very interesting (if disappointing) article from the BBC today about knee-jerk media reaction forcing the hand of the justice system, this time in terms of the drug trade.

Choice quotes from the latest expert resigning from the government's drug advisory board:

"We had little or no discussion about how our recommendation to classify this drug would be likely to impact on young people's behaviour.

"Our decision was unduly based on media and political pressure."

He added: "As well as being extremely unhappy with how the ACMD operates, I am not prepared to continue to be part of a body which, as its main activity, works to facilitate the potential criminalisation of increasing numbers of young people."

Re:"Ilkka Karttunen"? Sound it out people!

[Theoboley]

or its legit, and the name is pronounced :

Ill-Ka Cart-you-nin

So deal with the passwords.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Several possibilities there:

• Sadly, there probably isn't a password. Most users can't be bothered.
• Install a physical keylogger, then come back the next day.
• Boot Linux, but use it to reset the password, so that you can boot Windows and use standard Windows tools to plant the evidence -- then boot Linux again and restore the password (by hash). I'm not sure the tools exist for that last step.
• Boot Linux, use it to remove the password. User probably won't notice. Then boot Windows and do all the same stuff.

Re:So deal with the passwords.

[Cro Magnon]

Or just enter "password" "pa$$word" or "12345". Those will unlock 99% of home users PCs.

Re:too little risk for breaking into a home in the

[tsstahl]

Hey, in the US the second amendment applies to gay people, too! Poor limey bass turds...

Re:This would have worked...

[DrgnDancer]

"Not sure about in the UK, but innocent until PROVEN guilty used to mean something across the pond."

As I've already said elsewhere, that axiom relates to conviction, not arrest (on either side of the pond). Always had, always will. Half the time evidence required for conviction isn't found until after arrest. You can be arrested on any strong suspicion backed by reasonable evidence (like a hard drive which is clearly yours and clearly full of kiddy porn). It's not the job of the police to convict you, it's their job to collect evidence and arrest you once a sufficient amount exists. Does it suck? Yes. You got a better idea? No arrests till after conviction should work very well I'm sure.

One of the big problems with the current system is the assumption by many people that arrest is the same as conviction. This leads to: 1) People like you assuming that people can't be arrested until they've been proven guilty and 2) People who have been arrested for crimes that they were later found innocent of or even found to have had no involvement in at all becoming social pariahs. That's a completely separate issue though, and not related to this story.

Re:This would have worked...

[Froboz23]

Child porn is small potatoes. If he really wanted to ruin his rival's life, he should have used the computer to download movies with BitTorrent.

Re:This would have worked...

[TigerTime]

But it can't be proven until it goes to court. To be arrested, you don't need proof. You only need probable cause. The judge is whom determines whether the evidence shows proof.

And there was probable cause at the beginning until more information came out, which put the evidence in complete doubt.

Re:This would have worked...

[troll8901]

Do you do such implementation on your own home computers? Does your family members like it?

Re:This would have worked...

[OhHellWithIt]

I'm not sure who exhibited more stupidity, the guy who mailed the hard drive, or the police, who didn't stop to ask who could have removed the hard drive in the first place before jumping on the husband.

The simplest course would have been to plant the photos and then give an anonymous tip to the wife.

Re:almost

[jedidiah]

It doesn't even have to be a "Trojan". Just install some "normal app" that acts like the Windows equivalent of wget + cron and let it chug away.

Some P2P app would probably do. You just need to mask it a little bit.

Then the victim will have a fun time of proving that it wasn't his.

It is prevalent throughout society.

[mosb1000]

This pattern of thoughtlessness is prevalent throughout society today, and is responsible for almost all of the terrible things we do to each other. It's just a whole lot more obvious how bad it is when you see it done by the police.

I think one of the key things we can do to avoid participating in it ourselves is avoiding busyness. Usually people are thoughtless just because they think they don't have the time to be thoughtful. That is certainly the case in police investigations where there is a lot of pressure to get a conviction.

Re:almost

[clone53421]

visits known blacklisted/flagged sites and downloads stuff

Known to whom? I certainly don’t know of any...

Re:This would have worked...

[AntiNazi]

Cracking a WPA password isn't nearly that complicated.

Well, it might not be that complicated, but only because brute force is the only method. If the key is of sufficient length and random you will likely never find it. Unless someone has actually fully cracked WPA in which case, please link it. I'm under the impression the current best attack is still the short length packet tkip thing. Maybe I missed something, I haven't really been following wifi security closely but I would think this would have been huge news.

Re:This would have worked...

[Jason Levine]

I don't want to downplay the financial threat that the MPAA (and other copyright enforcement organizations) could pose, but they're nothing compared to the threat a child porn lawsuit would pose. I'm a married man with two kids and a respectable job. If the MPAA accuses me falsely of downloading/uploading movies, the worst that can happen is that I need to declare bankruptcy. Yes, that's bad, but my family might be able to survive it.

If, however, I'm accused falsely of possession of child porn, my reputation would be ruined with friends/family, I'd likely be fired (and nobody else would hire me), I could be forbidden from seeing my kids, my wife might even divorce me (though I'd hope she'd believe I was innocent). And that's even before I'm convicted of anything!

If the MPAA realized their mistake, I might get legal fees back. Otherwise, I'd be out my own legal fees. A hefty bill, but not something insurmountable.

If the child porn charges were dropped, I'd have still lost months of time with my kids, my job may or may not rehire me and people in my community would still think of me as "that guy that had child porn" (regardless of my acquittal). In short, my life would be in shambles and I'd have to rebuild virtually from scratch.

Yes, the MPAA/RIAA/etc can do great financial harm, but they can only dream of the "whole life" harm that a child porn charge can carry.

Re:1st April

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

The Article was dated 1st April - so we don't really know it's true.

Which is part of the reason why I object to serious news outlets participating in April Fool's jokes.

The *real* article was dated 3/31. The blog entry in TFA was dated 4/1. Which is part of the reason why I object to slashdot accepting regurgative [poetic license #31825] blog posts.

Re:This would have worked...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure about in the UK, but innocent until PROVEN guilty used to mean something across the pond.

Yes, but that was before Reagan promised to "get the Government off the backs of the People" and made us all prove that we weren't drug-abusing illegal immigrants every time we applied for a job.

Re:This would have worked...

[DrgnDancer]

Now you're blaming the victim. *Should* they have run a more secure system? Probably, but that's neither here nor there. Running an insecure home system is not a crime. breaking into someone house to take advantage of that lack of security is. This is all completely incidental to whether they should have arrested him or not.

Re:This would have worked...

[Anomalyst]

How about running a SECURE system at home?

*Sigh* Physical Access == Pwnage.
The victims house was broken into!
Undetected access to any windows machine is trivial, you don't even have to bother cracking or overwriting an administrator password for something like this, boot a live CD, drop your incriminating files in a "hidden" directory and set the ownership of them to be the victim. Pop the circuit breaker before leaving with a paper clip for a plausible reason as to why the machine is off or prompting for a logon. Done and done, you are out the door and no one the wiser.
As for surveillance. How many homeowners
A) have a properly maintained video survellience sytem?
B) record the INTERIOR of the premises with a UPS capable of sustaining it for any appreciable amount of time.
Linux boxen are not much better. I would assume, since adopting Intel, a Mac is similarly trivial to suborn.
I would be just as vulnerable. Even with the above average expertise and knowledge I have in these matters, I have over half a dozen machines (windows server/xp/vista/7, CentOS, fedora, ubuntu, macbook, etc) most of which I have not bothered to install whole disk encryption, some have not been booted in YEARS and I would have no idea if someone managed to break in and Pwn one of those until the anonymous tip brought the LEO knocking on^W^W breaking down the door. The solution presented is not much practical use in the real world against a determined, slightly less inept, sociopath.

Re:This would have worked...

[demonlapin]

Hint: if the hard drive isn't in the suspect's computer, or even his house, when it's turned over to the police, that ought to be a HUGE red flag.

Re:"Ilkka Karttunen"? Sound it out people!

[adnonsense]

Nowhere to be found except for blogs and the not-yet paywalled Times of London, England.

Paranoia is sometimes best

[Shivetya]

because I am a single male living in a child heavy subdivision I have a good dose of paranoia. See I have dogs. Well the yard is fenced and what do kids always want to do. Play with the dogs. While I know most of the kids parents some will bring a friend whom I don't know. I let the kids play with the dogs in the fenced yard; its large; and I maintain a healthy distance, usually sitting on the back porch. I can then keep an eye on the dogs and kids without having to worry about someone wondering.

Re:This would have worked...

[natet]

The obvious right answer here is to never let your wife leave the house. If she's barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, no one will get obsessed with her and try to break into your house to plant evidence against you.

Re:This would have worked...

[Pentium100]

Also, even if that machine was secured, encrypted and such, the perp could take out the hard drive (it helps if the PC has more than one drive), format it with FAT32 (no ownership information), fill it up with kiddy porn (altering the file dates) and then send the drive to the police.

The police would still investigate, the guy would still be called a pervert until he managed to prove his innocence.

touch

[krischik]

cygwin has touch and I am sure you can find a tool to change data and time which is native windows as well.

Re:This would have worked...

[spire3661]

Physical access to the machine negates even the most powerful security. Pull the hard drive, mount on a USB interface, and BAM all security gone. Only full drive encryption is going to stop that, and quite frankly that is overkill for most everyday computing.

Re:almost

[TheRaven64]

Someone posted a list of FBI child porn sting sites on a previous Slashdot article. I'd imagine that using curl on a few of them with the user agent set to IE and the referrer URL set to some other child porn site[1] would do the trick of getting law enforcement to get your address from you ISP and visit the owner. The trick would be making sure that they trojan deleted itself after they spotted the IP but before they confiscated the computer.

[1] They can't be too difficult to find - politicians keep telling me that we need filters to stop people finding them accidentally, although, come to think of it, I've never come across child porn on the 'net, so I wonder what they are searching for that makes it so common...

Re:This would have worked...

[mh1997]

How about running a SECURE system at home? simply having the PC with logins and auto lock-out would have stopped this idiot sociopath in his tracks.

The house was locked; You can't really get much more secure than that. The lock-out procedure on the house failed, again, can't fault the owner.

Re:This would have worked...

[wurble]

Wireless alarms at all windows and doors. They are amazingly inexpensive and super easy to install. The only way to get in without tripping an alarm is break through a wall. My house is made of brick and stone so I imagine the noise that would cause would wake me up as well. For intruders that are not deterred by alarms or the homeowners being awake, I have some hollow point 357 rounds with their name on them and a Castle Doctrine which allows me to legally act with lethal force in the event of a home invasion. My wife and I both have a lot of range time with the Ruger to ensure we know how to use it in the event we have to (it's also a TON of fun).

Of course none of that matters if I'm not home. My primary concern is the safety of my family though, so the system I have takes care of that. In any event, the alarms are loud enough you can hear them a block away. It's quite deafening. The neighbors would be alerted in the event of a break-in and they're all the type that would call the police in that situation. We'd do the same for them.

The total cost of the alarms was under $100. That's total. The maintenance is the cost of batteries which have to be replaced once every couple years. It took about 30 minutes to set all of them up and required no technical knowledge. Heck, installing them was about as brainless as it gets. I'm surprised more people don't have a similar setup.

In any case, sadly England does not afford its citizens the same liberties to defend their house and home. I'm very glad to hear the police got the culprit. It could have ended much worse.

The Sucker Play

[westlake]

You don't provide proof that you broke into a private house.

Then you can't risk breaking into the house to download the porn.

You might be seen. You might be caught. Trip an alarm. Be confronted by his wife. His kids. His housekeeper. There is so much that can go wrong.

It's no surprise really when you make your departure in a body bag.

The geek as criminial is playing out of his league. Too clever by half. Arrogant as hell. Reckless beyond belief.

Re:The Sucker Play

[russotto]

Then you can't risk breaking into the house to download the porn.

And why would you? Just email the stuff to the victim, from a suitably anonymous location.

Re:This would have worked...

[sjames]

Barring him from seeing his children was absolutely NOT appropriate. Now, his children have had the trauma of seeing the police come and take their dad away for no reason (as far as they're concerned, after all, he didn't do anything wrong) and being kept from even seeing him after. They will never again feel as secure as they did before the incident.

As for the evidence, they did have cause for concern, but they also had nothing like an intact chain of evidence. They had a hard drive that was in the possession of an anonymous person for an unknown period of time. The fact that an anonymous person had the drive to mail proves that an unauthorized person had access to the computer and the home as well. They had perfect evidence of child porn (it was on there after all) but terrible evidence as to who downloaded it.

It was a difficult situation, but unless they want to be routinely used as a weapon against innocent people, they need to tread very lightly until they have solid evidence. Considering how insecure most people's PCs are and how rampant bots and spyware are, PC based evidence is particularly low quality anyway.

There have been a few incidents of anonymous "tips" about drugs being used in similar ways here in the U.S. The police have a habit of practically destroying a home when they search for drugs, so it is possible to cause someone a terrible trauma and many thousand in damages for the cost of a pay phone call. Innocent people have gotten killed due to false reports here.

Re:too little risk for breaking into a home in the

[TheRaven64]

No, they wouldn't have been able to get into the house at all. You see, owning a Gun(tm) in America(R) makes you Safe(tm) and Invulnerable(tm) because everyone is too scared to attack you because you have a Gun(tm) and can make them Eat Lead(R) if they do anything bad to you. It doesn't matter if they have the advantage of surprise, better tactical positioning, or are able to prevent you from getting at your Gun(tm), your Gun(tm) makes you Invulnerable(tm). Buy a Gun(tm) today: It's your Patriotic Duty(R).

Re:"Ilkka Karttunen"? Sound it out people!

[Theoboley]

No, I live amongst a large Finnish community. One family for example, last name is Nuutinen. Pronounces their last name, N-YOU-Tinen

Re:This would have worked...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Not sure about in the UK, but innocent until PROVEN guilty used to mean something across the pond.

In Britain, you're innocent until proven guilcup.

Re:This would have worked...

[russotto]

Wireless alarms at all windows and doors. They are amazingly inexpensive and super easy to install. The only way to get in without tripping an alarm is break through a wall.

Or to cut a window with a glass cutter. Or to jam the wireless sensors (they'll fault, but not alarm).

No, no no...

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys got it all wrong.

You see, the framer was framed. The supposed target faked the break-ins, and planted all the evidence (computer data, credit card and financial data, and photos) in Karttunen's garden shed computer (which was easy enough to do - it's in a garden shed for pete's sake!).
He then mailed the HD to authorities.
It's all so simple, really - poor Karttunen never knew what hit him.

OOooooh, I want the movie rights for this! =P

Re:This would have worked...

[JWSmythe]

    Evidence is a tricky thing. I'd have to say from what I know of the law (and IANAL), that drive is worthless as evidence, or even as a hint to start an investigation on anything but a B&E charge. The computer may have the guys personal information on it, but even that can be faked.

    The chain of custody isn't always quite so cut and dried. At one point, there was an investigation where I showed up to work where I found a man with a federal badge. He wanted to know about an incident that I honestly knew nothing about. I listened to what he had, and then followed it through to the source, and collected the appropriate information. The investigator told me "I can't ask you for this without a warrant, but if you give it to me it would make my job easier."

    At that point it's all in who did what, and who's getting screwed. In my case, there was a server of another client compromised and used to attempt breaking into a federal network. When the client discovered it had been compromised, they pulled the machine for evidence (or to be cleaned later), and restored the data from backups to a clean machine. They were absolutely willing to hand over the machine, as long as they'd get it back. The only person getting screwed would potentially be the person who broke into their server.

    While I didn't deal in physical evidence, it was hearsay, which wouldn't be admissible. If I had gone and picked up the machine, there wouldn't be a good chain of custody. With the client's permission I sent the investigator over to them.

Re:almost

[clone53421]

[1] They can't be too difficult to find - politicians keep telling me that we need filters to stop people finding them accidentally, although, come to think of it, I've never come across child porn on the 'net, so I wonder what they are searching for that makes it so common...

Politicians have been known to say lots of things to to give themselves more power... XD

Re:This would have worked...

[Reziac]

"I'm surprised they aren't summarily castrating people without proof these days. After all, won't someone think of the children..."

With that policy, there soon won't be any children to think of!!

Really, really, REALLY stupid.

[MarkvW]

He not only committed burglary. He not only possessed child porn. The stupid knave DISTRIBUTED child porn--in addition to perverting justice.

Hope he gets a few years to think about it!

Re:This would have worked...

[sheddd]

Agreed; easiest, safest way to ruin someone's life, and lots of different ways to do it.

Re:too little risk for breaking into a home in the

[spitzak]

Also that gun in your home always defeats the gun the perp has. It has something to do with ballistics, somehow the bullets can only fly away from your bedstand.

Re:1st April

[RapmasterT]

The Article was dated 1st April - so we don't really know it's true.

Which is part of the reason why I object to serious news outlets participating in April Fool's jokes.

No shit. I love how everyone says "oh just lighten up, it's only one day for jokes". Except that the Internet doesn't work that fucking way. Everything released into the wild on April 1 stays out there forever, it doesn't just evaporate on April 2.

Not to mention the fact that on April 1, you have no damn idea what stories are real, or just clever fakes.

Re:This would have worked...

[TheLink]

> Now, his children have had the trauma of seeing the police come and take their dad away for no reason

Yeah I find it ironic that a lot of this "protect the children" stuff often traumatizes or hurts the kids more.

Just like when they arrest kids for sending nude pictures of _themselves_. Or when some 15 year old's 17 year old boyfriend gets jailed for X years and she gets told what they did together (consensually) was child molestation...

IMO, children would even be less scarred if they happened to be exposed to some random pervert's genitals, than if they were exposed to the Government, especially at a tender age.

With the former, all the parents have to say is - that guy is sick, and there are such sick people in the world, just avoid them where possible, and most kids will take it OK.

Whereas, if the cops come and arrest your dad, and all sorts of bad things are said about him, it's bound to be more traumatizing. And if he actually loses his job, your family is going to have a rather different lifestyle.

Re:Pretty awful

[JoshuaZ]

That's pretty obviously a different case because an 18 year old has a much better chance fending for him/herself and can even they want to potentially consent. Underage children both have less ability to actively stop adults and cannot consent anyways. Now, the argument can be made that such restrictions shouldn't be in place until after a conviction or possibly not unless one has much stronger evidence. But the age distinction still matters.

Re:This would have worked...

[Gabrosin]

Interesting. We could pass a law requiring that any time a newspaper is forced to print a retraction (not a simply typo clarification, but a real retraction for cause), that it has to take the same amount of space on the same pages as the original story/stories. That might make them a little more careful about what they run.

Re:This would have worked...

[ShakaUVM]

>>They were absolutely willing to hand over the machine, as long as they'd get it back.

I had a friend whose computer was confiscated for an investigation. He got it back 4 years later.

This was in the 90s, when a 4 year old computer was completely unusable. At least he got some of his old source code back, I guess.

Re:This would have worked...

[Lumpy]

Unless its a crap alarm any sensor going offline (even jamming) will set off the alarm.

sorry, but your Hackers movie and all the 007 movies you have watched are not real.

Re:This would have worked...

[fredklein]

How about running a SECURE system at home? simply having the PC with logins and auto lock-out would have stopped this idiot sociopath in his tracks. Yes you can crack the passwords with physical access to the machine but I highly doubt the idiot had enough time to crack it without getting caught.

The article said he had "repeatedly" broken into their home. Plenty of chances to plant a hardware keystroke logged and get their passwords.

Re:This would have worked...

[cyphercell]

"People who have been arrested for crimes that they were later found innocent of or even found to have had no involvement in at all becoming social pariahs."

Have you got a favorite link or anything? I'm curious.

Re:This would have worked...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you got a favorite link or anything? I'm curious.

Here you go.

Re:This would have worked...

[TapeCutter]

"Not sure about in the UK, but innocent until PROVEN guilty used to mean something across the pond."

Please don't lecture the Brits about "innocent until PROVEN guilty". They were the ones who gave it to you, they were using it at least 1000yrs before the ink dried on the US bill of rights.

From what I have read the only person who abused his rights was the sociopath who framed him. It is not libelous to report the FACT he was arrested for possesing kiddie porn and any parent who puts their kids first will understand why the cops MUST act the way they did.

Re:This would have worked...

[Nyder]

Exactly.

It's trivial to ruin someone's life at this point using child pornography. Cracking a WPA password isn't nearly that complicated.

Also, note how the guy he was trying to frame was still arrested, and still barred from seeing his children, after someone sent the police a hard drive they claimed belonged to the guy. Of all the obvious frame jobs, this was dead sloppy, and yet the victim was STILL victimized by the authorities. I'm surprised they aren't summarily castrating people without proof these days. After all, won't someone think of the children...

I think someone was thinking of the children when they took the pictures and videos...

sorry, too soon?

Re:This would have worked...

[Ykant]

if someone broke into your house and swiped your car keys, then sent them along with an empty whiskey bottle to the cops, accusing you of DUI

How can I DUI? I don't have my car keys.

Re:This would have worked...

[gorzek]

Sure, they're permitted to use evidence gained through other means. The important thing to remember about ISP records is that the ISP is going to have data retention policies, procedures for accessing such data, security measures, etc. You can, at least, reasonably determine if the traffic logs you get from an ISP are legitimate.

But a hard drive sent anonymously through the mail, that someone only claims belongs to someone else? That's worth no more than an anonymous phone tip. It's completely unverifiable and you have no idea where it really came from.

Re:1st April

[jimicus]

Oh come on. The media are all sorts of things but even they would draw the line at something like this for an april fools' joke.

the simple answer...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no justice in the justice system. Even if you make it through without being found officially guilty your life will be, at best, severely damaged by the financial and social costs. In this new era of global persistent memory via the internet an arrest does not go away. The most obviously example: When this guy applies for a job his potential new employer will find out that he was once arrested for child pornography. Less obvious is that anyone he gets close to in any way will likely find out. He will start to become friends with someone, they'll google his name one night and bam: WTF he was arrested for kiddie porn?!?!
His life will never be the same.
I think most people discussing this post here aren't quite aware of just how things work in this regard. The guy who set up the frame no doubt was aware that it didn't have to be a perfect frame job. It just had to be good enough that he didn't get caught as the framer. He failed at that, but otherwise he completely succeeded in fucking this guy over.
What the justice system really is is an injustice system. There is not guilty, which is the minimal injustice of financial and social punishment, and then there is guilty which carries punishments that often do not match the crime (e.g. 15 years of being ass raped in hell for selling pot to a narc).
   

Re:This would have worked...

[mpe]

Also, note how the guy he was trying to frame was still arrested, and still barred from seeing his children, after someone sent the police a hard drive they claimed belonged to the guy. Of all the obvious frame jobs, this was dead sloppy, and yet the victim was STILL victimized by the authorities.

Quite likely the innocent victim still has a record of his arrest and biometric samples held by the police. Such records being very likely to misinterpretation by CRB/ISA.
There's also a rather obvious piece of sexism in the Times report, which refers only to the victim's wife as "the victim"...

Re:This would have worked...

[mpe]

It is a difficult situation for the police. On the one hand, it has "frame job" written all over it, on the other hand, what if it isn't?

Is being a police officer, especially a detective, ment to be easy in the first place?

The police clearly made more than a usual effort investigate at least, but still. I dunno what you'd call the "right" answer is here.

Sounds like the problem here is with the "more than a usual effort" part. Which implies that the police typically don't do their job properly.

Re:This would have worked...

[tftp]

The simplest course would have been to plant the photos and then give an anonymous tip to the wife.

Who the wife is going to believe, her husband or some anonymous caller?

Re:This would have worked...

[mpe]

Law Enforcement's "chain of custody" is a tremendously important concept. The "evidence" the police received is horribly tainted, and shouldn't have merited more than a knock on the door and a conversation with the man being joe-jobbed.

Especially if this was before they were aware of the rather strange burglary.

Re:This would have worked...

[Jesus_666]

Every responsible home computer owner should have no problem spending a few bucks to have a EAL7-certified system with full hard drive encryption built. Everything else is an invitation to hackers and getting sent to prison for having child porn is really your fault if you don't take your security seriously.

Of course that's just to defend from the people who somehow managed to penetrate the meter-thick bunker door to enter your house (superterranean homes are dangerously irresponsible) and evaded the multiply redundant security cameras, IR detectors and tripwires without waking you.


If your home and computer system can't withstand a concerted all-out attack by any combination of any agencies or armies on the planet you really deserve what you get.

Re:This would have worked...

[dissy]

How about running a SECURE system at home?

Not possible to do.

If you would have read the summary or article, the person broke into their home.
There is not a single computer system on the market that will prevent against a physical attack that is under $100k.

Even the expensive ones don't STOP physical attacks, just to slow one down with the idea that the armed guys with guns will show up before the attack succeeds.

If you can't afford armed guards and a fortified building to put it in, there is less than zero reasons to even bother with a physically secured computer (Since by definition at that point, it is not)

Not a single electronic security measure you listed or could list would stop this type of crime.
Maybe stop this one single act of this type of crime, because it seems this guy wasn't too bright, but it will do nothing for any other case.

Taking out the hard drive?

[krischik]

Yes by now I know it's true. But still: Taking out the hard-drive to send it to the police?

Re:This would have worked...

[ckaminski]

I understand that - I think my point was that the media then takes this arrest, parrots their latest "ZOMG child molestor" and when it turns out there's nothing there to substantiate the claims, they aren't forced to eat their words, while the victim (the original suspect) is now burdened with his name forever being linked to every google search on child pornographer.

I understand and support the arrest process, on reasonable suspicion, but there has to be suitable repercussions for people involved in fucking up.

Like the idiot police departments who shoot up grandma in a no-knock drug raid based on faulty intel. Those people need to do hard time. Personal responsibility is GONE when it comes to police departments and the media, and we as citizens are expected to have any? Okay, I know I digress, but you're right, except where you think I think people can't be arrested. I'm mostly arguing for your point #2.

Re:This would have worked...

[cyphercell]

Thanks, but how about this.

"In this sense, everyone was a victim of ... a system that in seeking to prevent abuse was shown capable of participating in and fostering a kind of abuse as damaging as the abuse it sought to prevent."

http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume2/j2_4_7.htm

Re:This would have worked...

[ckaminski]

Again, I don't blame the cops - I blame the court of public opinion. This guy is going to be stygmatized for life based on a crime he didn't commit. And like others have argued better than I can - the Great Google Memory hole will remember this guy.

Re:This would have worked...

[QRDeNameland]

Even for an AC, mod parent up.

The McMartins weren't the only ones.

Day care sex abuse hysteria

Never underestimate the willingness of ambitious prosecutors to railroad an innocent person if a case gets huge publicity. And never underestimate the American people's capacity for moral panic.

Re:This would have worked...

[fahrbot-bot]

they also had nothing like an intact chain of evidence

Furthermore, the disk in "evidence" is stolen property.

Re:1st April

[dreamer.redeemer]

I was sitting in my computer architecture class a few years ago when an article I remembered reading suddenly became relevant. I told the professor about how this article had said that modern processors have gotten so small and fast that they are now subject to a quantum phenomenon which causes an apparent slowdown in operational frequency over the course of a few years.

I generally hate broadcasting incorrect information, regardless of whether I or anyone else realizes it, so, feeling suspicious about what I had just said, I started googling. Eventually I found the article and saw that I had apparently remembered everything correctly, until I saw the date it was published: April 1st. Even then, at least several months and probably more than a year later, the only indication that the whole thing was a farce was the publish date. And a good thing I had my skepticism turned to 11, because April 1 or 4/1 is represented in my mind as a normal date, not a specific date in which the objective foundation of modern society is arbitrarily abandoned by sources otherwise regarded trustworthy.

Re:This would have worked...

[tftp]

Before or after she finds the CP on the computer?

It doesn't matter, it won't be believed before and after.

Re:This would have worked...

[TapeCutter]

"the Great Google Memory hole will remember this guy"

Yes, and it will also remeber he was framed. I'm all for educating the court of public opinion but what's the alternative to a free press reporting news about arrests, etc? - Censor everything the state does until it has come before a judge?

"This guy is going to be stygmatized for life based on a crime he didn't commit."

Natural justice is rare since most crimes can't be undone, someone paralised by a drunk driver will never get their life back. Sure some people will only remeber this guy was arrested for kiddie porn - it sucks to be a victim of a frame and that's why the framer is behind bars.

Re:This would have worked...

[JWSmythe]

    Well, in this case, they didn't care if they got it back or not. They had hundreds of machines. I believe that they got it back in about a week.

    My ex-mother-in-law had her computer taken by law enforcement because a roommate was under suspicion of some nasty things. She got it back the next day. I guess things have come a long way, and they realize that a block copied drive is pretty damned useful. :)

    I'd suspect if they sat on it for 4 years, they had a case against him, and didn't want him to have it back in case he was going to do something else with it.

    I knew someone who was in a gun related crime. Well, more of an accident. A girl shot herself in the face. I don't try to understand how it happened, but I know stuff like that happens all the time (people doing stupid things and hurting themselves). Her boyfriend, the gun owner, wasn't even home at the time. He came home to police cars an ambulance, and police tape around his house. It took quite a while for them to release it to him, even after his girlfriend was able to talk again, and explained what happened.

    Sometimes the process gets real slow, if they think it's in the best interest of the people involved. Their belief isn't always the way the rest of the world sees it.

    Out of curiosity, what was the charge, and was he convicted?

Re:This would have worked...

[Thing 1]

I'm surprised they aren't summarily castrating people without proof these days.

Well, they are summarily circumcising people. I mean, think about it: at birth, with no anesthetic (because that would mess the kid up, but this won't?), they unceremoniously deprive 40% of our children of their manhood! Ah, hell, there's only one person on here who agrees with such fervor, I keep seeing his sig. Yes, I'm bitter, I'll never have it back, nor the large amount of nerve cells that I also lost with that piece of flesh. And it wasn't even religion; it was "just what people did".

The other day I was thinking about drawing a picture of a child who had cut several of his fingers off, and was presenting his bloody hand to his mother, saying with pride, "See what I did mom? I'm helping my hands be more clean, too!" As a response to those idiots who believe that cutting pieces of your body off in non-medically-necessary surgery is a way to be more healthy.

And to bring this back to somewhat-on-topic:

After all, won't someone think of the children...

I believe that working to make non-consensual circumcision illegal does far more real "thinking of the children" and "helping the children" than any amount of "making it illegal to possess evidence of a crime" will ever do. (By "non-consensual" I mean one needs to be an adult in order to decide to remove parts of their body -- not that parents could consent for their children, as happesn now.)

Re:This would have worked...

[Thing 1]

It was a difficult situation, but unless they want to be routinely used as a weapon against innocent people, they need to tread very lightly until they have solid evidence.

I think that may be one of the "silver linings" of this event. Hopefully there will be more attempts like this that are discovered. If enough people hear about the damage being caused by a ridiculous law (possession of evidence that a crime was committed should not be illegal), perhaps that will either convince the legislators to fix the situation and repeal the law, and/or it may convince the police to tread more lightly when dealing with cases of such an ambiguous nature in the future (i.e., first person to investigate should be the person mailing the hard drive).

Of course, then I read the rest of your post about the drug "tips", and realize that we still have many legislative battles to overcome in order to be truly free. Which will likely never happen.

Re:This would have worked...

[ShakaUVM]

>>Out of curiosity, what was the charge, and was he convicted?

It had something to do with breaking into the white house. :)

Re:This would have worked...

[JWSmythe]

    Ya. Of all the places in the world to mess with, that's probably pretty high up on the list of "don't screw with these places".

    Then again, they seem entertained by my nightly prank calls (hint: 202-456-1414). "Is your refrigerator running? Then go catch it!"

      It was more entertaining during the Bush years. "We're going to catch you and send you to Gitmo!". Now it's actually civilized with the normal response of "Mr. Smythe, we already know it's you. Come up with some new ones and we'll even laugh." :)

   

Re:This would have worked...

[AliasMarlowe]

I'm surprised they aren't summarily castrating people without proof these days. After all, won't someone think of the children...

With that policy, there soon won't be any children to think of!!

Problem solved, then. Let the snipping begin!