Slashdot Mirror
Researchers Use Computer-Generated 10-Year-Old Girl To Catch Online Predators
mrspoonsi writes "Dutch researchers conducted a 10-week sting, using a life-like, computer-generated 10-year-old Filipino girl named 'Sweetie.' During this time, 20,000 men contacted her. 1,000 of these men offered money to remove clothing (254 were from the U.S., 110 from the U.K. and 103 from India). Charity organization Terre des Hommes launched a global campaign to stop 'webcam sex tourism.' It has 'handed over its findings to police and has said it will provide authorities with the technology it has developed."
The numbers there are roughly proportional to the number of internet users from each country(just under 1 per million). So... sick-fuckitude crosses all races and cultures.
Seems on awful lot like entrapment to me and could also give some people a defence, ie. "I thought she was one of those fake girls, I'd never think of asking a real child to do that!''
What are they charged with? "Molesting under age pixels"?
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Asking a 10 year old to get naked isn't a gray area, this isn't a case where a 16 or 17 (or even 15) year old "looked old enough"; this is absolutely a (virtual) child these turkeys are trying to use for their own thrills. More like this and fewer child porno cases against cartoons are what is needed.
*[13 today]:-O :==8
OH GOD IT'S ASCII CP ART! Quick, put me on the sex offenders' register!
Will these researchers be convicted for developing an under-age sex bot?
Or does it not count because they were giving paedos sexual titillation "for research purposes"?
I fucking hate child sex abuse. I'm one of those bleeding heart feminists. But this is NOT child sex abuse - and if the authorities spend one moment on it, they are deliberately redirecting resources away from catching criminals, i.e. choosing to take a path which will increase the number of abused children.
...21st century style!
You should try out for the Olympics, that's one hell of a leap.
A computer-generated, ten year-old goldfish would get thousands of propositioning messages.
What are they charged with? "Molesting under age pixels"?
No need to charge them with anything... publicizing their real names and locations would do as much damage as charging them with anything would. Of course, there lies the lynch mob....
The question is: is doing/seeing something in virtual reality actually a crime? I'm sure Christians would say "Yes, it's a sin" but legally you haven't 'hurt' anyone. As this stuff gets more realistic, how much of the criminals currently exploiting children will simply buy/rent a render farm and become a legitimate business? To put it very crudely: the render farms do not involve the cost and risk of kidnapping, transporting, exploiting and maintaining people (whether they be adult or not) and they can give the same experience without putting anyone either physically or legally at risk.
At that point (if you're "into" that stuff), doing this becomes merely thought crime. I haven't done the research into whether this increases or reduces the risk of actually physical incidents (I hope it would reduce the drive for gratification in the illegal ways drastically) but it could be a boon for a host of people and move a lot of law enforcement activity to other exploitation of humans.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
where the men are men, the women are men, and the 10-year-old girls are FBI agent-bots.
What are they charged with? "Molesting under age pixels"?
In many countries, including the U.S., it is unlawful to attempt to solicit sex or sexual activity from a minor, and it is not a defense if the target is in actuality not a minor, as long as the accused believes him or her to be such. Since it is impossible to prove a belief, a reasonable person test is usually employed: would a reasonable person, under those circumstances, believe they are communicating with a minor. This is how adult police, masquerading as children online, are able to conduct sting operations against potential predators. In this case, they merely substitute computers for police.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
> Does that mean when I buy a new game and rip off the cover, it's non-consensual rape?
Please that "wrapper" was practically see-through. That game was asking for it!
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
"The curious thing is that if you solicit sex from someone who a reasonable person would believe was not a minor, but actually is, I'm pretty sure that's still illegal, which is sort of a double standard."
Not necessarily. I know of at least one state in which if you are 14 years old or more, and represent yourself to be older, YOU are responsible for the outcome. In other words, if you deliberately fool an adult into thinking you are over 18 (which for some 14- or 15-year-olds is quite possible), the other party is not guilty of any crime.
Of course, establishing that someone misrepresented their age is not always easy. But sometimes it can be demonstrated. A record of a chat session, for example.
In that state, or any others with similar laws, if the "fake girl" were 14 or older rather than 10, someone on the other end would be committing no crime.
"My thought exactly. Isn't that, i don't know, victimless crime?"
It really is an interesting question.
A few years ago, in the United States, the Supreme Court ruled that in order for something to be prosecuted as child pornography, it had to [1] involve a real child (not just an artificial "depiction" of one), and [2] be real pornography... in other words, something that would be judged pornography even if it didn't involve a child.
Therefore, bathtub pictures of the kids playing don't qualify, for example. But before the Supreme Court ruled on it, there were some pretty outrageous claims and prosecutions in a few states.
So what about this? Is it soliciting from a minor if it isn't a real minor? Where is the line between an actual crime with an actual victim, and "thought crime"?
"DNA is the most accurate, with dependencies mostly occurring in attempts to tell twins apart from one another."
Common myth. Corrected: DNA can be the most accurate, but is often not.
The main problem with DNA evidence is that it is far too easily contaminated. Hell, strew some semen around a crime scene from a used condom, and it's "solid" evidence the guy did it, eh?
DNA can be very solid evidence, but only under very narrow and specific conditions. It would be ridiculously easy to kill somebody and leave some skin scrapings under a couple of fingernails, for example.
And witnesses are notoriously unreliable. In fact, in at least one study, police who were "trained witnesses" proved to be far less reliable at reporting incidents accurately than people off the street.
And IP addresses don't even necessarily track a culprit to "a residence". I maintain an open WiFi connection ("guest" network) as a public service. It has a good signal and it is available to my whole neighborhood, including people walking by with a cellphone and even cars driving through the area.
Your information is true, but incomplete and misleading.
Immediately after that Supreme Court ruling, the lawmakers rushed through a new law (worded a bit differently) making it all illegal again. And the new law was never challenged and still exists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_Act_of_2003
"Immediately after that Supreme Court ruling, the lawmakers rushed through a new law (worded a bit differently) making it all illegal again. And the new law was never challenged and still exists."
So I see:
"Prohibits computer-generated child pornography when "(B) such visual depiction is a computer image or computer-generated image that is, or appears virtually indistinguishable from that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; (as amended by 1466A for Section 2256(8)(B) of title 18, United States Code)."
So Congress subverted the Supreme Court's clear intent, and made "thought crime" a crime after all. Goddamned politicians.
This isn't the America I signed up for. I'm all for actually protecting actual children, but that provision has nothing to do with protecting children at all. It's "thought crime", pure and simple.
The Supreme Court case, as I recall, was over an artist and his "controversial" paintings.
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_Act_of_2003"
Holy crap. Take a look at this provision:
"Authorizes fines and/or imprisonment for up to 30 years for U.S. citizens or residents who engage in illicit sexual conduct abroad, with or without the intent of engaging in such sexual misconduct."
WTF? This makes it a felony for a U.S. citizen to engage in "illicit sexual conduct" while out of the country??? How outrageous can a law get?
Some countries have some pretty outrageous laws. This is in effect saying you can't engage in "illicit" conduct in any country, at any time, or you might face as much as 30 years in a U.S. jail, even if it's something legal in the U.S. but illegal in that other country!?!? Could the law possibly be more bizarre?
Just what is "illicit", anyway? Not just bizarre, but bizarrely vague.
That reminds me of the Federal law that makes it illegal to break the laws of any other country when importing goods. Some poor importer got put in prison because he accepted some lobster tails, which was perfectly legal, but the country he got them from had a law against exporting seafood in plastic bags.
Jesus. Some of these politicians should be taken out and shot. This is beyond ridiculous.