Google and Microsoft To Block Child-Abuse Search Terms

mrspoonsi writes "Leading search engine companies Google and Microsoft have agreed measures to make it harder to find child abuse images online. As many as 100,000 search terms will now return no results that find illegal material, and will trigger warnings that child abuse imagery is illegal. The Google chairman said he hired a 200-strong team to work out a solution over the last three months. Google's previous set of measures, which displayed a warning to people attempting to search for illegal material and caused a 20 percent drop in illicit activity."

Comments

Well, it's something.

[AltGrendel]

I imagine that this will work until the child abusers find a way around it.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Joining Yet Again]

It's something to INCREASE abuse by:

1) Redirecting resources away from finding abusers;

2) Giving the impression that "something is being done already" so resources don't need to be reviewed;

3) Misidentifying abuse as something which is caused by the availability of images of abuse, when in fact almost all child sex abuse occurs within families or thanks to trusted acquaintances for various complex reasons which require careful analysis rather than knee-jerk political reactions.

Re:Well, it's something.

[gweihir]

Actually it does not do anything about child abuse. It just hides the problem. People that look at such images are a minor side-issue. The real issue is people that abuse children, and even there those that document their crimes in images or video seem to be a small minority.

I think this is designed (like so many efforts by law enforcement) to give the appearance of doing something really valuable, while it is likely rather meaningless in reality and may even be counter-productive. If this effort went into preventing children from being harmed in the first place, it might actually accomplish something. Instead they go for an easy, but fake, win.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Pi1grim]

Exactly. Unfortunately this is tactics of sweeping the dirt under the rug. Shutting your eyes and pretending it's not happening. I don't understand why noone in their right mind thinks that hiding criminal activity reports will stop crime, but are sure that if we remove all child abuse pictures from the internet, then the problem will solve itself.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Anonymous Coward]

If this effort went into preventing children from being harmed in the first place, it might actually accomplish something.

I agree that this is idiotic, but how could you prevent children from being harmed in the first place? That seems rather difficult, and the usual 'solutions' seem to involve violating people's rights or privacy.

Re:Well, it's something.

[gweihir]

True, but there are leads you can follow up with traditional police work, e.g. trying to find people that make and sell this kind of material. Focusing on those that search for it just deviates resources from it for cheap, bombastic, but meaningless headlines. Example: In one of these operations in Germany, 3000 homes were searched. That made for grand headlines. Do you know how many people were actually charged? Less than 20! But the police got their headline and gave the impression of doing something. (So much for violating rights and privacy...)

I have the impression by now that they care far more about the appearance of doing something than actually doing something, because actually doing something worthwhile here is hard and gives far less impressive headlines. So they go the easy way, and all the abused children are just out of luck. That strikes me as incredibly unethical.

Re:Well, it's something.

[ArsenneLupin]

Protecting the children is not the point of this. It's done to give the powers that be just another arrow in their quiver to crush the little man if he ever dares to fight against one of their corrupt construction projects, or if he ever dares to do his job too well researching who planted bombs against utility poles in the eighties. At least, that's what it is used for here in Luxembourg.

Re:Well, it's something.

[ArsenneLupin]

hat seems rather difficult, and the usual 'solutions' seem to involve violating people's rights or privacy.

Just as if this witch-hunt against pictures wasn't invading people's privacy or violating their rights...

Re:Well, it's something.

[interkin3tic]

4) If pedophiles are prevented from getting this stuff virtually online, they might turn to doing it themselves and actually molest children.

I have no idea how plausible that hypothesis is, but it might give some of those knee-jerk political reactions a second thought.

Re:Well, it's something.

[JackieBrown]

I think the opposite is probably true. I know watching woman in pornographic videos increases my visualizing women in day to day interactions in similar roles.

One of the best things for my marriage was when we decided to quit watching these types of videos. It moved the focus of sex back to love instead of a sport.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Joining Yet Again]

You understand the difference between "visualising" and "raping", yes? Watching porn did not making you a rapist?

Re:Well, it's something.

[badfish99]

I don't imagine it will do anything about child abuse, but if I wanted to look for pictures of it all day long, there are now 200 more jobs that have been created, where I can do so without fear or being caught.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Xest]

Actually, I think it's done for no other reason than to shut Claire Perry and The Daily Mail with their "Stop online porn" campaign the fuck up - yes, that's a real thing.

Since she was elected this is the only issue she's focussed on, if I were Dave Cameron I'd be pretty sick of hearing her harp on about things she doesn't understand by now too and would probably do something useless and pointless just to get her off my back.

Not saying it'll work of course, and not defending it, but I can understand why someone would cave in to a multi-year barrage of whining from that silly cow.

Now we just need her to suffer the same fate as Jacqui Smith, the last MP who was as whiny and clueless as Claire Perry - her being caught charging her husband's porn to her expenses. Karma - it's great.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Joining Yet Again]

It is an executive issue if the police are picking+choosing which laws to enforce and when.

The legislative matter needs to be addressed additionally, not instead.

Re:Well, it's something.

[P-niiice]

I see the point you're trying to make, but changing a couple of search sites' reactions to certain search terms entered into them really isn't going to have a detrimental effect. All it's going to do is prevent abusers and non-abusing consumers if the content from getting to the product, which is a good thing and needed to happen anyway. People making incorrect judgements on this sort of thing were misinformed regardless, and anyone who bases their directing of resources based on what google and microsoft does in their search engine is an incompetant and probably wouldn't have their job for much longer.

Re:Well, it's something.

[jeffmflanagan]

It doesn't sound like the porn was the problem. Your reaction to it wasn't typical.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Anonymous Coward]

A healthy mind, even with tendencies toward socially unaccepted thoughts or occasional actions is still a healthy mind. It is much different than a mind that doesn't work correctly in the first place. Rape (toward anyone) and abusing children and/or child porn doesn't stem from a healthy mind. The healthy mind will look back and say, "this is wrong, I have to stop this." The unhealthy mind will continue to harbor fantasies and then eventually act on them. That's not saying they couldn't harbor fantasies for a very long time..but "not getting caught" leads to acting those fantasies out.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there are really dangerous people to arrest, like Jeremy Hammond

Re:Well, it's something.

[methano]

It seems that there is no problem so bad, that the coders don't think it can be solved by writing more code.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Gavagai80]

People that look at such images are the ones who make the crime profitable. Without the profit, the crime decreases -- obviously not as much as in the case of say drugs, since a lot of abusers do it for their own enjoyment, but there are still plenty who do it for profit who can be put out of business.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Anonymous Coward]

Protecting the children is not the point of this.

(In US) quite a bit of effort has gone into banning art drawings that may look to contain underage characters or actors that may look under-18 (regardless of whether they are underage or not). So I think it is fair to say that the actual children are long forgotten in this crusade.

Re:Well, it's something.

[N1AK]

Neither Google or Microsoft wanted to do this. They did it after they were threatened. If they hadn't done this then the British government intended to pass legislation requiring them to do something (which could, and likely would, have been even worse from a censorship perspective). I doubt either company has any expectation that this will 'solve' the issue of child pornography online.

Re:Well, it's something.

[realityimpaired]

If crime rates are going down, then why is my local police getting military grade equipment and gear?

Because people like you seem to think there's a need. They need military gear because they need military gear. Tautology, yes, but no less the truth in this case. Crime rates have been going down across the board since the 70's: lower rates of violent crime, less non-violent crime, less white collar crime, everything. The only reason you may get the impression it's happening more frequently is because channels like CNN didn't exist in the 70's.

Re:Well, it's something.

[poetmatt]

Actually all I hear is "we're bowing to political pressure" and "using either Google or Bing is a mistake" (and not just for child abuse).

Re:Well, it's something.

[gweihir]

That is a red herring. Those that _sell_ this stuff can easily be identified and shut down by a very classical police technique called "follow the money". And that, again, has the added benefit that it may actually help some of those getting abused. Just drying up public business will just drive them underground (remember the prohibition?) and do nothing to help any abuse victim at all.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Joining Yet Again]

in b4 half of 4chan infecting people with this malware "for lulz"

Re:Well, it's something.

[noh8rz10]

Protecting the children is not the point of this. It's done to give the powers that be just another arrow in their quiver to crush the little man if he ever dares to fight against one of their corrupt construction projects, or if he ever dares to do his job too well researching who planted bombs against utility poles in the eighties. At least, that's what it is used for here in Luxembourg.

lolwut? how does the article relate to your statement?

Re:Well, it's something.

[TheCarp]

If crime rates are going down, then why is my local police getting military grade equipment and gear? Cripes for the last sports event here they had M16 machine guns in the open and wearing full military armor.

These have nothing to do with eachother and everything to do with congress and homeland security money.

The problem is that what politicians like doing is creating big funds that need to be spent. So they hand money to the DHS and the DHS runs programs to distribute that money. The only reason you see the police getting all this new gear is....it costs them nothing. All they have to do is fill out some request forms and the new equipment comes showering in.

Of course it comes as equipment so, it can't be used for training, or salaries, or improving their ability to fight real crime in any way, all they can do is request new toys....so they do.

I mean if someone handed you a credit card, said it can only be used to buy guns and ammo, but you can pretty much use it as much as you want and you don't have to pay the bill.... can you really tell me shooting wont become your new favorite past-time? Would you really not want an APC and some body armor if you didn't even have to pay for the gas? How about some robots? Surely you would take those?

Re:Well, it's something.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you obviously aren't from NYC or you're a pig apologist.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/nyregion/10quotas.html?pagewanted=all

Also, the point was not that spitting on the sidewalk or smoking marijuana is illegal, the point was that you will get a ticket for smoking weed but if $2000 rims get stolen off a parked car it will end up categorized as a "petty theft" as if jacking up a car and stealing the fucking wheels off it is the same as stealing some candy from the corner store.

Re:Well, it's something.

[sixsixtysix]

If crime rates are going down, then why is my local police getting military grade equipment and gear? Cripes for the last sports event here they had M16 machine guns in the open and wearing full military armor.

Because whenever the government funds get doled about, everyone lines up to the trough, whether they actually need the stuff or not. Like right after 9/11, cities that were in no way threats on the same level as NYC all tried to get in on the newly allocated funds. It is government waste at its finest.

Re:Well, it's something.

[rioki]

THAT is exactly the point. With the stuff somewhat freely available almost nobody will pay for it. This is exactly what happened to porn once free porn sites started to pop up on the internet. The only revenue they get is though ads and most ad networks have provisions in place to prevent cash flow toward cp. (How well they work is a different issue.)

Once you severely restrict remove free access to the content, you reduce the total volume of consumption but the remaining users will actually pay a premium to get access to the material. This in turn makes it profitable to produce the stuff commercially. This defies the entire purpose and actually makes it worse.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Lumpy]

Really? I think they need it? where did I say that? I cant seem to find those words anywhere....Personally I think Cops should not even carry guns and should be required to be polite to people and actually do that "serve and protect" oath they take instead of being thugs.

They need to get off their lazy asses and WALK their patrol area and not just sit in a car playing angry birds.

Police have no right to have automatic weapons or military grade anything.

Re:Well, it's something.

[shilly]

It is ridiculous self-serving nonsense to imagine that there are two neat categories of mind, "healthy" and "unhealthy", and that a mind in one category is always in that category.

Re:Well, it's something.

[noh8rz10]

that would be awesome!!!

Re:Well, it's something.

[msobkow]

Sure it does something. Blocking all the slang terms will make it harder to find child porn.

Unfortunately it will also make it a lot harder to find perfectly innocent items like "chicken", too.

Re:Well, it's something.

[ShanghaiBill]

Really? I think they need it?

The GPP did not say you, but people like you: voters in your area. The place to change the militarization of our police is the ballot box. Get informed. Learn who on your city council supports more police, higher police budgets, and uses scare tactics about "rising crime" in their campaigns. Vote against them. A quick rule of thumb is to vote against anyone endorsed by the police union. Instead you should vote for candidates that support community policing and drug legalization.

Re: Well, it's something.

[PPH]

Not the same thing. Your 'seeing' mathematics may or may not have persuaded you to study it further. But even in a healthy mind, there is no programmed revulsion to drive you away.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Princeofcups]

If crime rates are going down, then why is my local police getting military grade equipment and gear?

Because people like you seem to think there's a need. They need military gear because they need military gear. Tautology, yes, but no less the truth in this case. Crime rates have been going down across the board since the 70's: lower rates of violent crime, less non-violent crime, less white collar crime, everything. The only reason you may get the impression it's happening more frequently is because channels like CNN didn't exist in the 70's.

A local suburban police force got an armored ram-car a few years back. They had no need for it. What they had was a bunch of federal "beef up the national police forces" money and nothing to spend it on. So they bought a tank. Some military contractor made a ton of money selling those things.

Re:Well, it's something.

[ShanghaiBill]

I think the opposite is probably true.

There is no evidence to support your belief. There have been many instances where the availability of pornography in a society changed, either by legal changes or technology (such as the spread of Internet porn). These changes are correlated with a decline in sexual violence. Here is an overview of the evidence.

I have known several guys that watched porn compulsively. They all had no relationships with women. The porn was a replacement for actual sex. I don't know if the same is true for pedophiles, but it seems to me that child porn is as likely to reduce molestation as it is to cause it. It seems reasonable to me to ban any porn depicting an actual child, but banning porn using adults posing as children, or animation, should not be done without clear evidence that it is harmful.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Anonymous Coward]

If crime rates are going down, then why is my local police getting military grade equipment and gear?

Because scared voters like you are giving them as much money as they can spend. You're letting them keep any funds they seize from drug crimes or things they claim might be money from drug crimes. Our biggest fear is fear itself and the police and prison system profit off your fear. They're doing very well.

Re:Well, it's something.

[bluefoxlucid]

The issue is massively complex.

We like the feel-good measures. We "rescued 380 children" last week by finding people associated with a nudist site that had pics of naked kids. The news articles collectively indicate that about 14 children in India were "identified" (not rescued), and that a bunch of teachers and such were removed from schools. In general, the conclusion by the online community is that 380 children were under the purview of teachers who might be into kiddy porn, and so "we rescued 380 children!" In other words: no actual children who were being abused have ceased being abused.

The actual act of censoring child pornography is highly disturbing in itself. If we're assuming that people who have an internal thought and interest in children sexually are a threat, and thus making child pornography illegal, then we have two problems. The first problem is we're trying to punish thought-crime: child pornography isn't illegal because it's harmful, but rather because we want to punish people for having these thoughts we find personally disturbing. The second problem is we're completely incapable of pursuing enforcement against persons who we've deemed dangerous (for their thoughts), until they take some kind of action.

That second problem is exacerbated by one questionable hypothesis: with the pornography outlet blocked by being as risky if not riskier than sex, will these people express by child abuse? If they're trying to find satiation and weighing risk, it's obvious that your Internet can be invisibly monitored (and thus is extremely risky) while you can at least manipulate and control children if you can get them to keep secrets (thus the spread of information is slow, if not controllable--and it's absolutely more controllable than the monitoring of your Internet activity). So it's much better to have actual sex with children than to search for child pornography at this point: it's safer.

The above hypothesis is questionable for two reasons. First: we know that exposure to pornography and other visual effects provides comfort. People start looking at perverse stuff online, then they start watching gay porn, they move to bath houses and start experimenting with homosexuality... it happens, it's a common pattern, and a lot of straight men (and women) have experimented with homosexuality or bondage or whatnot by the cycle of introduction (initial thought or suggestion), curiosity, exposure, and then action. Thus we have another questionable hypothesis: that watching child pornography may acclimate a person to action, leading to actual child sex interactions.

Another problem: action may come in different forms. Wired ran an article about online sex roleplay services, including everything from vanilla stuff to furry MUCKs (hilarity ensued: apparently a lot of not-furries got on furry sex mucks and were culture shocked). Common sexual exploration includes everything from furry fandom to group sex to, yes, underage roleplay. There are also real-world analogues of this: people actually roleplay scenarios, everything from teacher-student (college) to maids to rape play, up to and including finding young (18-20) and/or young-looking girls who can dress up as even younger girls. Schoolgirl roleplay is common; I've even known a number of girls who, in a nutshell, had the body of a thirteen year old when they were 25-ish--they could dress enough to look young-20s, but if you threw one in jeans and a t-shirt and tennis shoes you would swear she's got to be 12, *maybe* 13. That means there are many perfectly legal ways to act on these fantasies directly.

So we have a complicated net of censorship, inaction, thoughtcrime, opposing psychological theories on whether outlets help or lead to bigger crimes, and outlets that are physical but provide a harmless mechanism of action. We could also get into some social considerations like the abridged rights of minors and the philosophical concern of this whole age-of-majority thing: apparently minors don't

Re:Well, it's something.

[ColdWetDog]

Your local PD is getting outfitted like a SEAL team because it's trendy and fun and there is Federal "Homeland Security" money for same.

Would you rather wear some cheap polyester uniform or run around looking like you just found Bin Laden?

Re:Well, it's something.

[Anonymous Coward]

People that look at such images are the ones who make the crime profitable. Without the profit, the crime decreases

As I've been in the CP community for close to 20 years now, I think I feel qualified to answer this one. To my knowledge - and I've known quite a few producers over the years - not a single one of them started fucking kids because of the money. They were all fucking around with children first, either children they knew or child prostitutes. Many weren't producing anything, some were producing only for themselves, some were trading for other goodies and some were just sharing free with like-minded fellows. Then they got the "bright" idea to filming/photographing it and selling it for easy money, I put that in quotation marks as most of them had no clue what they're doing and the cops are really, really good at following the money. So in summary it's pretty much bullshit, unless you count secondary effects like inspiration.

Near as I can tell, the community goes through boom-bust cycles of boredom. Lots of new stuff appears and supply dries up, everyone is bored out of their skulls and a while later a bunch of new stuff shows up. Strange, right? The cops bust a big hub, shutting down trade and pat themselves on the back but honestly it doesn't stop anyone that's active in real life and it just creates a bunch of bored pedos who have nothing to watch, that way they create more real life activity instead of the other way around and we always find new ways to share. The cops are winning every battle and losing the war, just like when the MPAA/RIAA thump another pirate site. I've got more than a million pics, thousands of vids, close to 2TB worth and I'm *nothing special* in the community. Suck on that.

P.S. Obviously posting from behind seven proxies on a stolen WiFi, forget it.

Re:Well, it's something.

[jythie]

Historically, 'filter out kiddy porn' has been the foot in the door to start up other wide ranging filter types.

Re:Well, it's something.

[jythie]

The actual science generally supports this. It is kinda like the 'violent video game' issue, the studied reality is that most people find such games cathartic, but they are painted as increasing violence.

What disturbs me is that there are people who claim kiddy porn increases abuse rates and then are aghast at the idea pornography increases rape rates.

Re:Well, it's something.

[jythie]

Eh, it is a pretty classic response. Often people are extremely uncomfortable with the idea that they are not that dissimilar to people who do awful things and that there must be some fundamental difference between 'us' and 'them'.

The primary difference between a person who has raped another and one who has not is that one person has raped another while the other did not.

Re:Well, it's something.

[SuricouRaven]

Similar in the UK. We have a ban on 'extreme pornography' that had to include an exception for BBFC rated movies - otherwise, even by the writer's admission, a lot of the horror films coming out of Hollywood would meet the definition.

Re:Well, it's something.

[SuricouRaven]

Everyone has those socially unaccepted thoughts. I work Helldesk at a school - how many times each day do you imagine I wish I could just knee one of the little buggers in the stomach and kick 'em down the stairs? Most people are just very good at ignoring those impulses, and denying they have any such desire at all.

Re:Well, it's something.

[khallow]

Cripes for the last sports event here they had M16 machine guns in the open and wearing full military armor.

It takes a lot of firepower to stop a ball.

Re:Well, it's something.

[SuricouRaven]

Take a look at the 2012 CEOP report and you can see some of that feel-good in their dubious statistics.
http://ceop.police.uk/Documents/ceopdocs/CEOP_TACSEA2013_240613%20FINAL.pdf
For example, they claim to have identified 70,000 new 'IIOC' files. Except on closer reading, duplicate detections of the same image count more than once, so that figure may be several times higher than it really should be. And of those, 75% are on their 'least serious' scale, a level which includes things you'd find in the family photo album. And one-fifth of them were classified as 'self generated' - most of which are likely young people taking a naked picture for their boyfriend who then sends it to the wider internet.

My favorite part:
'The commercial distribution of IIOC on the open internet is estimated to account for a very small percentage of the transactions taking place. This low level is likely to be a result of the large volume of IIOC in free circulation.'
Yes... piracy is killing commercial child abuse!

"Schoolgirl roleplay is common"

Of course it is. For the majority of people, school was the time of sexual awakening and exploration. That's going to leave an impression, so it's no surprise many people want to re-live it.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Lumpy]

Therefore he is still wrong. because people LIKE me don't want the cops to have any lethal weapons at all.

Re:Well, it's something.

[AmiMoJo]

Wait, I checked the Daily Mail website and it seems to be peddling porn... Even child pornography. Are they trying to get themselves banned?!

Re:Well, it's something.

[SuricouRaven]

Actually, the CEOP 2012 report states that commercial distribution is almost non-existent.
http://ceop.police.uk/Documents/ceopdocs/CEOP_TACSEA2013_240613%20FINAL.pdf

It's all people swapping collections and images with friends.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Wootery]

If crime rates are going down, then why is my local police getting military grade equipment and gear?

I can't think of a clearer example of circular reasoning. It's no better than If there's no god, then why do I pray? The only difference is that rather than implicitly assuming your own infallibility, you're assuming infallibility of the US police.

Anyway, from what I've read, it seems the militiarisation of the police of the USA is indeed a real trend, and it's a worrying one. It may signify a number of things, but it's certainly not a reliable indication of increasing crime rates.

Re:Well, it's something.

[AmiMoJo]

How exactly do you run an illegal child porn web site and take Visa payments over the internet without getting caught?

Re:Well, it's something.

[triffid_98]

A local suburban police force got an armored ram-car a few years back. They had no need for it. What they had was a bunch of federal "beef up the national police forces" money and nothing to spend it on. So they bought a tank. Some military contractor made a ton of money selling those things.

If it's a Homeland Security grant (which is where the vast majority of this hardware comes from) your local suburban police didn't just 'get it', they specifically filled out paperwork asking for it.

If they had no need for it they shouldn't have asked for it. Unfortunately DHS grants were essentially rubber stamped, so there are lots of little towns with armored personnel carriers, grenade launchers, biohazard suits, and whatever else they could think of asking for.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now here's the crazy part: Apparently, when child pornography is legalized... child abuse goes down.

There's this study that says this in its abstract: "Of particular note is that [the Czech Republic], like Denmark and Japan, had a prolonged interval during which possession of child pornography was not illegal and, like those other countries, showed a significant decrease in the incidence of child sex abuse."

Re:Well, it's something.

[bluefoxlucid]

I was specifically pointing out schoolgirls who would be underaged. 19 year olds dressed up like 14 year olds. Oh, this is so naughty, don't tell my mother, blahblahblah... oh it's so big... should we really be doing this... etc etc. You won't tell daddy I didn't do my homework will you yadda yadda.

And yes, the statistics around this are a hell of a lot of "say something, anything" bullshit. The whole thing is so extremely taboo that you can't discuss the issue without people giving you looks, you can't comment on the statistics, or track the raids, or be interested in it as a cause; all you can do is join in the Two Minutes' Hate when Emmanual Childfuckstein shows up on the projection screen, then stop talking about him. It's not supposed to be an issue you seriously take a causal interest in.

Re:Well, it's something.

[gweihir]

Interesting. According to certain German politicians, this type of material is a "multi-million Euro industry" (then Secretary for Family Ursula v.d. Leyen, who is now secretary for labor). Seems these people were lying through their teeth. The question is _why_ they were lying. In Germany, the most plausible explanation is that they desperately want a censorship infrastructure for the Internet.

Re:Well, it's something.

[cheekyjohnson]

What disturbs me is that there are people who claim kiddy porn increases abuse rates and then are aghast at the idea pornography increases rape rates.

That's the 'for the children' crowd for you. When it comes to them (and similar groups), nothing surprises me.

Re:Well, it's something.

[cheekyjohnson]

Really? I somewhat doubt this is true in all but a minority of cases. The fact that you don't have porn doesn't mean you're going to go rape someone. Is everyone secretly a rapist or something? Pedophiles are not necessarily child molesters, and vice versa.

Re:Well, it's something.

[citizenr]

I absolutely agree. Instead of hiding these images, we should load them with malware so we can identify the sickos looking for these pictures then go to their houses and shatter their hands so they can never touch a child.

+1
lets do the same for all the people watching horror movies too, we cant let them running around with chainsaws killing people on Halloween!

Re:Well, it's something.

[gweihir]

Well, there is a strong indication that suppressing adult pornography does increase rape. By analogy, something along the lines you describe could be a real consequence. The problem is that nobody knows as no scientists wants to touch that hot potato and the topic is readily abused.

But without scientific facts, it is impossible to tell and the current efforts may well be counterproductive and may significantly increase the number of victims. Acting without knowing what the effects will be becomes highly unethical in the given context. Would not be the first time that the "cure" makes the disease worse. Would also not be the first political misdirection aimed at establishing and increasing censorship, surveillance, etc.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Cito]

As long as they don't block

r@ygold, babyshivid, hussyfan, pthc, I'll still be happy :-)

Re:Well, it's something.

[Teun]

Maybe it wasn't you but your lamentation further up sure sounded like a demand for tougher police action...

Re:Well, it's something.

[Flere Imsaho]

Why did this get modded into oblivion? I thought it was common knowledge that this sort of BS was going on in New York? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Schoolcraft

Re:Well, it's something.

[cayenne8]

It moved the focus of sex back to love...

What's love got to do with it? It is just sex.....something fun to be had with a consenting partner.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Teun]

Yes Cameron is big into this :)

I happen to visit the UK and 2 hrs ago I heard him on the radio, extolling how it was HE who 5 months ago had told 'the industry' to do something about this nasty stuff and how they had listened to him.

For the Daily Mail it's a bit different, they just want to get rid of the competition.

Re:Well, it's something.

[hairyfeet]

But I have to add we have years of brain scans showing...yep...sick minds don't function the same as a normal person's mind. Now there is still a debate as to whether its cause and effect or if the behavior changes the mind, for example there has been at least one study I'm aware of where they had actors with normal brains scans act out the symptoms of various mental illnesses and their brain scans ended up VERY different than when they started.

But no matter whether its one or the other the one thing one cannot argue with is the fact that you take a scan of a predator's brain, whether they hunt adults or children, and their brain scans are NOT like the average person.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Teun]

Yes and no.

The last big international raid on kiddi porn traffickers identified several hundred children that were abused for the photo's.

Let's not kid ourselves, kiddi porn via the net is similar to peddling stolen goods and we usually believe fencing is enabling and increasing the crime of theft.

Re:Well, it's something.

[sjames]

Because they have not yet developed mentally/emotionally beyond playing army in the back yard. They like the badass look and if a few beloved pets and children have to die as a result, so be it.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Teun]

And these 200 have made a list with 100,000 search terms that will lead to a dead end or a warning.

One Hundred Thousand! That's a reasonable dictionary in any language...

Or do they mean approximately 200 terms in 500 languages?

Re:Well, it's something.

[thegarbz]

Dear god is that what passes for a definition of "porn" these days? What next? Knee length skirts because anything else is too risqué to show in public? Labelling anyone who doesn't wear a one-piece to the beach a slut?

Re:Well, it's something.

[Teun]

Bitcoin.

Re:Well, it's something.

[thegarbz]

One of the best things for my marriage was when we decided to quit watching these types of videos. It moved the focus of sex back to love instead of a sport.

Why does sex need to be about love instead of sport? Social norms? The world is full of perfectly happy and loving couples who none the less go home at night, tie each other up and try to one-up the veracity of the event the night before.

Can't you find other ways to express love?

Re:Well, it's something.

[hairyfeet]

I don't know if its still up on Wikileaks but there was an actual CP producer who posted a "how to" as a way to give a big flying middle finger to the cops and its pretty fucking amazing how intricate and organized the shit is.

1.-They rent servers in bumfuckistan using stolen IDs and either stolen cards are something else hard/impossible to trace like bitcoins or those Walmart Visas. 2.- They set up encrypted VMs with a minimal Linux that just has a desktop and a folder, the folder is filled with CP. 3.- The encrypted VMs are then "rented" which is easy enough to cover with shell corps, after all how many "here today gone later today" cloud services have we seen the past few years? This has the added bonus that it gives them a front that shows up like a legit biz on the customer's CC, something like "XYZ data services" or the like. 4. The money laundering part is easy enough, you bounce it around the planet a few times, the drug lords have whole networks dedicated to this, see RBN as an example.

And there you go, you end up with a guy who can make boatloads of money doing any damn thing he wants while he sits in a place with the cops on his payroll like a little Baron or Duke from the feudal days. Those who are interested in the minds of criminals really should read it as the guy comes off as VERY sociopathic, he even laughs about how he'll pick some random schmuck that just has an infected PC (he has contacts in the malware scene) and dump some CP on his PC and point the cops to it just to waste the cops time and get off on being able to destroy some random nobody. You really get the feeling reading this guy's writing that he was the kind that threw cat's out of cars at 70MPH or dumped bricks off of overpasses just to see a wreck, a smart but REALLY twisted guy.

As a final note, for those that are for going after those that look at the pics? I have a friend that has been doing that for the past 7 years at the state crime lab and says its the biggest waste of time he has seen so far in law enforcement. he says the ones they catch in these "TV headline busts" are not only NOT molesters but are porn addicts that aren't a threat to anybody. He brings up one as a perfect example of what they get, some guy that hadn't left his house since the late 90s and had ZERO contact with the outside world, he had everything set up so he could pay it online or by slipping the check under the welcome mat. He said they had to tranc him like a wild animal to get him out of the house, he was so agoraphobic that even having somebody in his home caused him to howl like an animal and throw things. He is probably gonna cost the state a good 20 million plus for all the drugs and solitary for the next 50-70 years.

He'd love nothing more than to focus on the ones actually making it but since that would likely cross state and country borders which means the state prosecutors wouldn't have a soundbyte to use on their runs for gov? Not gonna happen. Needless to say he is looking for a way to get out of there, frustration being your daily diet isn't good for your health. he has tried to recruit me several times but fuck that noise, I have too big a mouth to take that much shit from superiors without telling them where they could go.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Xest]

You're overestimating The Daily Mail, they're not that smart, they really do just think that porn is evil because of their strong religious sentiment.

Their chief Paul Dacre genuinely believes it's his job to define the morals of society and to dictate them to the public at large, he has said this in almost those exact words in speeches in the past.

Which all wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so hypocritical (but isn't it always?) because whilst they dictate those morals they're acting as arguably the single most unethical media outlet in the UK other than perhaps The Sun.

Re:Well, it's something.

[JackieBrown]

You can do both. I was just stating my experience. I don't expect it to be everyone's.

Re:Well, it's something.

[Teun]

At least we didn't refer to them (Sun, Mail) as 'newspapers' :)

Re:Well, it's something.

[omnichad]

Layers. Laundering. There are payment services that don't really check into you before setting you up (mostly overseas services). It's probably still hard to do it without a trace. But law enforcement is interested in tracking down all the consumers of the web sites, too, which means they have to leave it up for a while.

Re:Well, it's something.

[jythie]

That is just it. While it is true that brain scans have shown differences in people who have trouble with violence, specifically in impulse control, these people only make up a certain group within crime, mostly people who are in and out of jail their entire life.

What makes sexual assault such an uncomfortable crime for people to ponder is most of those who do it have normal brain scans and do not even think they did anything wrong.

So yep, sick minds are different, but having a sick mind is not the dividing line between those who do these things and those who do not.

Re:Well, it's something.

[gatfirls]

Yea, as sad as it is they are just trying to get ahead of the ball here because the writing is on the wall that once again a 3rd party service provider is required to act as an agency of law enforcement.

Law enforcement should be saying "sure please leave those up so we can track down the actual criminals instead of sending them to another 1000 little 'dark webs'. But alas, the easiest and most public thing is to tell google how serious they are about the problem and require them to do something about it.

Google should not have to filter any website, ever. Regardless of the content if it meets the same selection and searching algorithms every other site does. That they are or do is playing censor at the governments behest and when they are doing that they have no longer any reason to be trusted no matter what you are searching for.

Re:Well, it's something.

[cffrost]

The NYPD has been doing for years under Mayor Bloomberg. They get to keep property values high for the Mayor's real estate developer buddies by pretending crime is going down. Things that would have been felonies get downgraded and written up as misdemeanors and misdemeanors get swept under the rug. Of course the NYPD is also on a strict quota system for giving out tickets in order to raise revenue for the city so if you smoke marijuana outside, ride a bike on the sidewalk or even (if it's the end of the month and the cop is desperate to make quota) a jay walk, expect a ticket.

Now somebody's trying to sweep your message under the rug. FYI moderators: These allegations have been made by NYPD cops themselves. Do your homework before you try to shut somebody up — or better yet, don't censor at all.

Re:Well, it's something.

[AK Marc]

Yes, and both of you didn't make a difference at the ballot box, so you got the government you deserve.

Re: Well, it's something.

[AK Marc]

Just like watching NASCAR made you a race car driver.

Re:Well, it's something.

[nctritech]

I watched a documentary about BBSes and there was a brief discussion about an "orchid lovers" BBS where "orchid" meant "child." Block all the vocabulary and you drive the terminology to co-opt less easily blocked terms, which has the double benefit of obfuscating what is being discussed. Think about how many terms exist for marijuana. It's not any different, and I doubt Google would block "Mary Jane" or "green" if this were about blocking drug search terms.

Friendly request to non-Brits

[Joining Yet Again]

Please search for and compile the list of 100,000 terms.

Which will inevitably all:
- Have double meanings;
- Be likely to be used by victims of abuse who are looking for help;
- Be useful for legitimate research;
- Be searched for by people looking for news or discussion on censorship;
- End up with a lot of political hot topics thrown in.

Thanks!

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[AmiMoJo]

For example, there is a popular French singer who does a song called "Lolita", presumably after the novel. For that matter the novel itself is perfectly legitimate.

Anyway, what kind of idiot googles for child pornography. Really, how many users are that dumb?

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[Joining Yet Again]

That's not the impression the BBC article gives me. Indeed, it says:

Typing "child pornography" in to Google's search engine now brings up a set of search results that include warnings that child abuse imagery is illegal.

The first three links are all related to reporting disturbing images or seeking help if you think you or someone you know has a problem with child porn.

The first link is an advert that links to a Google statement about protecting children from sexual abuse. The next link directs you to the Internet Watch Foundation, where you can report criminal online content, and a link to Stop it Now advises users how they can get help and advice.

The remaining search results are mainly news stories from around the world reporting on child pornography.

So Google are now engaging in government-directed manipulation of search results covering the discussion of child sex abuse images.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[Nemesisghost]

It seems that the filter is less aimed at general filtering of all websites & more towards just those that host the illicit images. The idea I got was that using these terms to search for images would return no results, but a general web search would still have results.
And since this is done by a set of companies, one would hope that politics would not come into play in how the list of terms is managed. But in this day & age, I highly doubt it.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[Your.Master]

It didn't say that 100k terms returned no results at all. It said that 100k terms returned no child abuse results.

It looks like what they're doing is removing the sites from their index, not really screwing around with the algorithms (which is why it's possible for Bing and Google to share their work here).

As such, none of the things you mentioned are particularly relevant, because none of them would be removed. In fact, by removing child porn from the results, they would be promoted. You could argue that some things will be removed with the excuse that they are child porn, but honestly, they don't need the child porn excuse to remove it and have you never even find out about it, so that is kind of a null worry.

Another argument is that something can legitimately be "on the fence", eg. something that's legal age in place A but illegal in place B because place B has an age of consent of 30 years old or somesuch thing.

Another one is a site like the old geocities that happens to host some child porn on arm A, and arm B on that site hosts no child porn, and A and B are unaware of each other.

But those problems aren't really particular to child porn. They are search optimization problems in general.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[Thanshin]

Really, how many users are that dumb?

The answer to that question should be clear* to anyone who uses the word "users" and has over one month or professional experience.

*: In this context, the word "clear" is to be interpreted as "painfully obvious. Crystalline as one of the axioms on which the universe stands; bright as the one truth all other truths are to be measured against.".

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a restaurant on the Danforth in Toronto called "Lolita's Lust".

Good luck googleing it now.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[Anonymous Coward]

The Catholic Church sighs with relief.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[Chrisq]

Please search for and compile the list of 100,000 terms.

Which will inevitably all:
- Have double meanings;
- Be likely to be used by victims of abuse who are looking for help;
- Be useful for legitimate research;
- Be searched for by people looking for news or discussion on censorship;
- End up with a lot of political hot topics thrown in.

Thanks!

Very true ..... for example I was thinking about searching about how this technology works but to do so would mean searching for dodgy things like "child abuse image filter"

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[gweihir]

I think nobody will be that dumb. But on the other side, people may be dumb enough to think that some searches were for such material. That all this has very little to do with children actually being abused seems to escape them as well, because most of the messed up people that abuse children will not document it and the few that do will not put that material online where Google can find it.

This is designed to give the appearance of "doing something" about child abuse, while it really accomplished nothing. It might be a test-run for a censorship list though.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[Joining Yet Again]

It didn't say that 100k terms returned no results at all. It said that 100k terms returned no child abuse results.

Wait... Google has EVER returned results with pictures of child sex abuse?!

I suppose I'm lucky in that for the past 15 years I've never accidentally entered the wrong terms, because I've never seen anything I'd regard as an image of child abuse.

Given this, my concern is what new things they are doing - particularly (see above) re manipulation of text results.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[Joining Yet Again]

"child abuse image filter"

Oh my! You were probably... trying to bypass it. Pedo!

Your name vill also go on ze list.

(To think we do with sincerity what we once saw as so wrong that we once mocked it...)

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[drinkypoo]

Anyway, what kind of idiot googles for child pornography. Really, how many users are that dumb?

Obligatory You Must Be New Here.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[fatphil]

Sites that discuss contentious issues often get dragged down by the same net.

There was a Finnish site called lapsiporno.info (= "kiddieporn") which was an freedom-of-speech advocate's site who was complaining about excessively wide (and anti-constitutional) governmental blocking of things which weren't actually the distribution of child pornography. His reward for his actions - being added to the blocked list himself.
http://www.effi.org/blog/kai-2008-02-18.html

But it's a small price to pay, because think of the chiiiiildren!

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[Millennium]

"Nobody will be that dumb" is one of the most dangerous bets a person can make, regardless of context. Someone will always be "that dumb".

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[Xest]

Non-Brits wont be able to help. According to the article I read this morning this is a global thing. Microsoft and Google are going to censor these terms right across the globe.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[Chelloveck]

Cue shift in pedo code words. "Anyone know where I can find a farm stand with underripe melons and bananas?" "Looking for a late model used car, less than 13 years old. Must have tiny headlights." "Need small pizza, smothered in sauce, no sausage."

Tom Lehrer said it best: "When correctly viewed, everything is lewd!"

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[gweihir]

And those few "that dumb" will easily be found. But they are certainly not the main target. Your point?

"Nobody" in this context does mean "almost nobody", or "only an insignificant number of people", quite obviously.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[david_thornley]

This won't stop code words from being used in communication between kiddie porn viewers. They probably already use similar phrases.. It will affect actual image searches. I don't know that allowing people to view child pornography will cut into child abuse, but I'm pretty certain that a picture of a pizza won't harm anything.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[noh8rz10]

"Need small pizza, smothered in sauce, no sausage."

Eww!

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[AmiMoJo]

I didn't say "no one could be that dumb", I asked how many would be. I assumed it would be non zero but too low to make much difference.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[swillden]

And those few "that dumb" will easily be found

Can you support that assertion? I don't think it's necessarily true.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[swillden]

Wait... Google has EVER returned results with pictures of child sex abuse?!

I doubt there's much of anything Google has never returned.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[gweihir]

Those "dumb enough" were those that can be found via Google...

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[TheCarp]

Doesn't work like that. Generally these sorts of codes work when the subject matter is already known. For example, I have seen many people talk to their pot dealer about "slices of pizza" or "cookies". With no prior negotiation of language, messages are passed, and usually, the correct ones.

OTOH I have seen people try to extend this sort of metaphor even a bit, and its much more hit or miss. Call the guy you always get pot from, and he can draw on that context to fill in a word mapping on the fly. Try to ask him about mushrooms though, and he needs more obvious/meaningful clues. And he may not even know who your "friend cid" is. (yes, he will take you for a ride in his air ship),

Problem comes when the subject matter strays or is even the least bit ambiguous. Like in this case, we have a context so all your references make sense. If you called me out of the blue, or I read an ad in the paper or on craigslist, these don't really work...and are likely to get more legitimate or confused inquires.

Now if they already have a community where they can talk freely, or they needed to be able to contact eachother in order to be active, that would be one thing. However, stigma and lack of need has them quite fragmented. Or at least, that is my perception, and interpretation of the busts of occasional rings of modest size, a few 10s or hundreds at most. If they did similar busts for drugs, litterally going after every user in the chain they could get their hand son.... busts would involve hundreds to thousands for modest rings.

So overall, they must be quite fragmented if there is any size to their community, but it also seems rather small in comparison too; which, I would predict, is a barrier to building a really useful cant.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[rioki]

I suppose I'm lucky in that for the past 15 years I've never accidentally entered the wrong terms, because I've never seen anything I'd regard as an image of child abuse.

That actually applies to all porn, the filtering works quite well. You used to only see porn with safe search disabled, now you need to enter obvious terms. And this is sort of good, if my children happen so search for "plug". On the other hand I am quite sure that if you searched for the right trigger term you would occasionally get results that not filtered.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[headcase88-2]

In other words, yes.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[P-niiice]

nowadys typing it on a forum and hitting submit is just as dumb as googling it if you consider where the data is going and what filters are active out there.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[SuricouRaven]

There was a report a while ago - either CEOP or NSPCC, not sure which - that said pedophiles were using secret codewords to communicate. But they wouldn't actually state what these codewords are.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[AmiMoJo]

Google used to return results containing child pornography if you typed the right thing in, e.g. "daily mail beyond her years bikini". I notice that they have now started to filter results for that search to block child porn on the Daily Mail website, which must make the Mail extremely happy.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[Bigby]

I don't think it is "government-directed". Did they not decide to do this on their own?

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[Joining Yet Again]

No pls pay attn to last year of Cameron threatening to make laws if they don't act "voluntarily".

This is as "doing it on your own" as "give me all your money or i'll shoot".

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[thegarbz]

Fortunately most sane countries still do not consider attempting to find child pornography a thought crime. But god help you if your browser ends up pre-fetching a link which contains such an image, because now you're done for possession.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[Teun]

Try to look at it on a Global scale.

Google and Microsoft have many localised search pages, several dozen if not more.

I'd be shocked if they didn't use localised versions of the banned terms lists and as good salesmen they must have included all these variations in the 100K number.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[UnknownSoldier]

This is a perfect example that proves why I say:

Only Cowards use Censorship.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[drinkypoo]

I assumed it would be non zero but too low to make much difference.

See my above comment.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[swillden]

Those "dumb enough" were those that can be found via Google...

Being able to find the images doesn't necessarily mean that you can find the person.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[gweihir]

Yes, it does. Or at least you can find an open forum with no logs and scare the hell out of the admin.

Re:Friendly request to non-Brits

[swillden]

Unless the admin lives somewhere that he doesn't care what you say. And even if you can scare the admin, that just means you can get that particular avenue shut down. Which isn't useless, but it doesn't mean you can actually get to the real target via a trail beginning with a Google search.

Well,

[Zanadou]

I guess children will have to search for abuse some other way, then.

Re:Well,

[couchslug]

No child should be violated without benefit of clergy.

Just the Start?

[mrspoonsi]

Fair enough, child abuse is universally against the law (unless there are a few countries without such laws on their statue), but by the same token murder is illegal the whole world over, and I do not see Google bringing up an "Illegal search" page if you were to type "how to murder someone", perhaps it will do one day...

Yesterday I was not allowed to take a single photograph of my daughter who was in a dance competition, to quote "in case it ends up on the internet". This memory (dance competition) will be lost now, because it was not recorded. There was even an announcement, make sure all Phones and iPads are kept in your pocket / bag, something seems very wrong with this endless search for the boogeyman.

Re:Just the Start?

[rioki]

How fitting, the current quote:

Do you guys know what you're doing, or are you just hacking?

Re:Just the Start?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair enough, child abuse is universally against the law (unless there are a few countries without such laws on their statue), [...]

Universally? There are countries where it's legal to wed a girl, then less than a year later demand the brideprice back because she died in labour... aged 11. So, no. Not by a long shot. That's just what prudish westerners like to think.

Moreover, I'd not say "fair enough", because it equates "looking at pictures of $crime" with "committing $crime". So, anyone who's looked at world press photos is now also guilty of war crimes then? No? Why the double standard?

[...] something seems very wrong with this endless search for the boogeyman.

At least we're thinking of the children.

Re:Just the Start?

[Anonymous Coward]

They did that at my niece's dance competition, but guess what? They had photographs and recordings that I could buy at some ridiculous price.

Re:Just the Start?

[Chrisq]

Fair enough, child abuse is universally against the law (unless there are a few countries without such laws on their statue)

Read most countries with sharia based law

Re:Just the Start?

[gweihir]

That sounds like people there are in hysterics and have lost all rationality. Even if it ends up on the Internet, so what?

Re:Just the Start?

[drinkypoo]

Yesterday I was not allowed to take a single photograph of my daughter who was in a dance competition, to quote "in case it ends up on the internet". This memory (dance competition) will be lost now, because it was not recorded.

Are you keeping a scrapbook? One fun thing to do would be to put a MEMORY REDACTED card in it for every event you're not permitted to photograph for some bullshit reason. Hopefully in 40 years you'll be permitted to look at it and shake your head.

Re:Just the Start?

[havana9]

There were 'official' photographers? I remember that on similar events the presence of a professional photographer implied that unofficial photographers weren't allowed, and one had to buy the official image. If I know in advance that there's a ban on phones, I'll buy a black and white 35 mm film and take my old '70s mechanical camera and its giant and noisy flash lamp. Just for trolling.

Re:Just the Start?

[mrspoonsi]

So a 4 year old will remember this when looking back 20 years? and I am sure I would not remember it in another 30 years, a photograph would jog the memory though.

Re:Just the Start?

[mrspoonsi]

Yes there were, outside of the dance hall at the entrance taking photos on a white background. I can do that at home (stood next to a white wall), instead I would have liked a photo of the actual dancing, in the event, during the moment.

Re:Just the Start?

[mrspoonsi]

Exactly, a picture of a child dancing in a leotard is not child abuse, except for when it is found on a pedophiles computer, then it is classed as such. That creates the problem because stigmatizes normal images of children and yes I class a photo of a child wearing a swimming costume or dance costume as normal, should I feel odd taking a photo of my child on a beach? a mother would not, but as a man I am open to suspicion.

Re:Just the Start?

[Xest]

So join or put a question to the PTA demanding the school answer why on earth it's preventing parents from saving memorable moments of their children's upbringing.

If no one questions it this shit will keep propagating, I'd wager you're not the only parent pissed off about this and given that the school wouldn't exist without the parents and their kids then it needs to be stamped out.

Re:Just the Start?

[RedBear]

Yesterday I was not allowed to take a single photograph of my daughter who was in a dance competition, to quote "in case it ends up on the internet". This memory (dance competition) will be lost now, because it was not recorded. There was even an announcement, make sure all Phones and iPads are kept in your pocket / bag, something seems very wrong with this endless search for the boogeyman.

That. Is. Certifiably. Insane.

I believe there is a step coming up shortly in this descent into madness where we will all be forced to pluck out our eyes, cut out our tongues, puncture our eardrums, surgically remove our genitalia and chop off our hands.

You know, to make the world safe.

For the children.

Re:Just the Start?

[N1AK]

Obvious troll is obvious.

The country with the 5th highest level of child brides is overwhelmingly Christian (80%). Two of the top 4 include a considerable Christian population which participate in child marriage. Child marriage is obviously a big issue in some Islamic countries, but only the ill-informed or racist, wouldn't be aware that child marriage has been common in many religions and is often present because it was common in countries prior to conversion to the worlds major religions.

Re:Just the Start?

[Chrisq]

Obvious troll is obvious.

Quite. Show me a Christian minister supporting child marriage and I will show you:

• Clerics at 18 mosques are caught agreeing to marry off girls of 14
• New Saudi Fatwa Defends Pedophilia as ‘Marriage’
• Nigeria: Senate Denies Child Marriage Wrongdoing, Says Law May Be Revisited (age limits to marriage deemed un-islamic)

Re:Just the Start?

[s.petry]

Your list is simply asinine, because none of those things are "child abuse". Your terming of school as "prison" is very telling. "School" is not mandatory 12 years, it's 13 years if you go K-12 (this is first grade math), and you can drop out of school at 16 without any measure of your eduction. Meaning that you could still be a first grader at 16 and drop out, though most people would consider you to be suffering from a form of mental retardation at that point.

I think you missed your medication this morning.

Re:Just the Start?

[SleazyRidr]

This kind of thing drives otherwise normal people a little insane. After Hallowe'en a friend of mine (who I thought to be fairly grounded) said that she didn't like a "creepy guy" who said that he son's costume was really cool, and asked if he could take a picture. I'm not sure if she thought he was going to go home and masturbate to a 10 year old boy dressed as Batman, but clearly she thought something untoward was going to happen.

Re:Just the Start?

[Anonymous Coward]

What, these are government functionaries you are talking about: you exist because of government, remember. You might think they care about enrollment for funding purposes, but school funding is not connected to delivery of services! They might even brag about their "small class sizes", and use it as a reason to construct a new school and increase staffing. Anyway you will be jailed by not sending them "your" kids, and while there may be some parental rights still recognized, the government shits on such rights, as you can see in the case where Obama is attempting to overrule a court so that Germany can extradite a family for the crime of homeschooling.

Re:Just the Start?

[bitt3n]

This memory (dance competition) will be lost now, because it was not recorded.

You think you have it bad, consider all those camera-less sad sacks who existed before the 19th century, who could never record any memories at all. I mean, I assume they couldn't. I guess nobody will ever know for sure.

Re:Just the Start?

[ColdWetDog]

Well, it may be more complex. "in case it ends up on the Internet" is clinically insane but may well be a poorly constructed argument by someone who doesn't really understand the issues or want to argue.

If it's a performance, there may well be reasons to limit photography ranging from the reasonable desire to have the production go on without 150 paparazzi parents standing up / using flash / tripods or RED1's in everyone elses face or they may be trying to capitalize on having one photog produce all the media so they can make some money on it.

Yes, there are better ways to handle this sort of thing but that doesn't require anybody to actually implement them.

Re:Just the Start?

[AmiMoJo]

The law in the UK states that an image is pornographic if it is intended to titillate. Ultimately in cases where there is some question it is up to a jury to decide, and in theory the decision has to be the same for everyone (you can't decide it was porn because a suspected paedophile had it, even if they might have been using it as such). Of course what juries actually think when considering these matters is often quite different. Also, the police can use it as an excuse to destroy you life even if you are eventually found innocent.

It's a problem with our current legal system. There was a prominent lawyer who took on and won several cases against the police who was then charged with having child pornography on his computer in retaliation. He was fortunately able to demonstrate that the image was of an adult and the jury accepted that, but not before his private life had been exposed to the world and in all the newspapers.

Re:Just the Start?

[Algae_94]

Universally? There are countries where it's legal to wed a girl, then less than a year later demand the brideprice back because she died in labour... aged 11. So, no. Not by a long shot. That's just what prudish westerners like to think.

Moreover, I'd not say "fair enough", because it equates "looking at pictures of $crime" with "committing $crime". So, anyone who's looked at world press photos is now also guilty of war crimes then? No? Why the double standard?

While I think these blocks are the wrong way of addressing this problem, your comparison is a very poor one.

Unlike child abuse images, people looking at world press photos doesn't create a market for war crimes.

How can you look at two categories of images and make two different logical conclusions about the market for those images? They either both create markets for those images or they don't. If child abuse pics continue the cycle of abuse, war crime photos would do the same. The average person cannot commit war crimes as they cannot create their own war, but they can certainly commit violence and murder based on imagery they've seen.

Considering how much violence there is in movies, televisions shows, news telecasts, etc. I would say that the market for war crimes is absolutely enourmous and any new war crime photos would be shown on every media outlet for weeks until we've soaked up every last bit of violent pleasure from it.

When you throw away all logic about a subject because the content is such that you are deeply troubled / offended, you are not making rational sane choices. You are just engaged in a witch hunt.

Re:Just the Start?

[Flere Imsaho]

Fair enough, child abuse is universally against the law....

Yeah, you might want to rethink that view.

"14 million girls under the age of 18 marry each year.

That’s around

        1,166,666 a month
        269230 a week
        38,461 a day
        27 every minute

Or, around one girl every two seconds.

One in every five girls in the developing world is married by the age of 18. One in nine marries before they reach the age of 15. In countries like Niger, Chad, Mali, Bangladesh, Guinea and the Central African Republic (CAR), the rate of early and forced marriage is 60 per cent and over. Child brides are particularly prevalent in South Asia (46 per cent) and in sub-Saharan Africa (38 per cent).

Countries with the highest rates of early and forced marriage in Europe include Georgia (17 per cent), Turkey (14 per cent) and Ukraine (10 per cent). At least 10 per cent of adolescents marry before the age of 18 in Britain and France."

http://www.stopvaw.org/forced_and_child_marriage

Re:Just the Start?

[cheekyjohnson]

Surely the pics alone might push them down a path of bad decisions and impulse control problems.

Like video games make people into murderers, or how 'normal' porn turns people into rapists. It seems ridiculously unlikely to me that porn of any sort could have such an effect on a person.

Re:Just the Start?

[cheekyjohnson]

I don't see the difference.

Re:Just the Start?

[odigity]

That's wonderful! I hope this becomes a trend.

Re:Just the Start?

[mrspoonsi]

Events have been recorded since cavemen, in pictorial form, there is a human desire to document events, with modern technology it is easy and high quality, yet these fools put us back into the stone-age in the name of protecting children.

Re:Just the Start?

[mrspoonsi]

They banned video also, no flashes on video. Or they could say, no flashes, not like a flash is of any use at 20 meters across a hall.

Re:Just the Start?

[thegarbz]

Yesterday I was not allowed to take a single photograph of my daughter who was in a dance competition, to quote "in case it ends up on the internet". This memory (dance competition) will be lost now, because it was not recorded. There was even an announcement, make sure all Phones and iPads are kept in your pocket / bag, something seems very wrong with this endless search for the boogeyman.

So you made a huge loud and public fuss right? I mean you didn't just shake your head and put your camera away surely because that would be a sign of accepting the social norms.

I saw a similar thing at a school swim meet once. I was just an innocent bystander but one of the parents wanted to photograph the event and was singled out because they had an SLR + big scary looking pedo lens. The resulting fuss that was kicked up was big enough that it almost started a riot with the school publicly apologising afterwards.

Accepting this absurdity is what signals society's approval of these actions.

Re:Just the Start?

[Teun]

There is no double standard.

Reporters publishing horrible shot's and stories from wars and their victims are generally not the instigators of or partakers in the war.

In the case of kiddi porn it is often quite different, the original posters are virtually always the ones that raped the child.

Re:Just the Start?

[mrspoonsi]

Here is the COPINE scale for images in the UK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COPINE_scale

One excerpt - Level 4: Deliberately posed pictures of children fully clothed, partially clothed or naked (where the amount, context and organisation suggests sexual interest).

A girl in a pink fairy costume, could be ordinary in a family environment (as ordinary as a boy dressed as Superman), could be of great sexual interest to a pedophile.

Re:Just the Start?

[mrspoonsi]

I was already out gunned by being only one of 3 men there (out of 200 women), I got out and I am here to tell the tale ;)

Re:Just the Start?

[omnichad]

Kiddy diddlers

Please - let's not use this term. It makes me think of Ned Flanders...doing things.

Re:Just the Start?

[Altus]

"Thou shalt not think any male over the age of 30 that plays with a child that is not their own is a paedophile. Some people are just nice."

--Thou Shall Always Kill, Dan LeSac vs Scroobius Pip

Re:Just the Start?

[s.petry]

With your claims that school is prison, raising a voice or spanking is "child abuse", and that all organized religion is child abuse? Absolutely. If your views are really so distorted, you are probably lacking more than just medication.

Why that sounds useful!:

[Hartree]

You could try to get a secret court order that Google wasn't allowed to talk about that made them add noted child pornography search terms like "Edward Snowden" to the list.

Depressing job

[dubdays]

I'm not going to comment on whether or not this is a good idea or not. However, I will say that 200 Google employees had to code and test this. That has to be one of the shittiest jobs I can think of. Maybe it could be rewarding in some way, but damn.

Re:Depressing job

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean much like this?

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/08/21/2028207/the-worst-job-at-google-a-year-of-watching-terrible-things-on-the-internet

Re:Depressing job

[akeeneye]

I think a shittier job would be doing computer forensics. You end up having to see this stuff as well as go testify about it in court. It would become part of your life, inescapable. I'd given some thought to going into forensics but the thought of that deterred me, I don't think I could hack it. I've heard it said that there's a great personal reward in locking up the pervs, but it seems to me it would come at a great personal price. I wonder what the suicide rate is in the profession?

Like tears in rain

[Anonymous Coward]

A little dramatic, but I'm glad I didn't grow up with the internet the way it is. As it stands most kids will have their life plastered all over the internet with no say to what is put on there.

Unintended consequences

[redelm]

How is keyword blocking going to help abuse victims find recovery resources? I thought most kiddie-pr0n was on the darknet.

Far more innocents will be hurt than the intended targets.

Re:Better Plan?

[Chrisq]

Instead of blocking the searches why don't they just forward the request to the State Police or FBI along with their IP addresses and any other pertinent details they can?

How do you know that they don't?

It's a mad mad mad mad world

[fatphil]

Where
    http://www.simpsoncrazy.com/content/pictures/family/HomerStranglesBart1.gif
is blocked, while
    http://www.manowar-collection.de/Manowar1984Poster.jpg
is considered safe.

20 years

[zakeria]

after using the Internet for 20 years, I have never come across images of child abuse? not once!... from my understanding 99% of this stuff in located on darknets.

Re:20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

For my next explanation you will have to understand the mentality of the skiddie. The particular skiddie in this case is a computer literate teen who can operate run-of-the-mill penetration toolkits which are freely available online. Now, why would the skiddie use SQL injection to plant 1px hidden <iframe>s on blogs and other "innocent" looking websites which will cause your browser to download child pornography? There is no money to be gained, so what possible motive could they have to cause your browsing meta data to resemble frequent regular browsing of child pornography?

Well, the skiddie is often filled with teen angst and just looking for some way to rebell. Sexting and other expressions of their budding sexuality are illegal. They make sure that you have some illegal 1's and 0's on your hard drive unbeknownst to you even if you clear your cache (protip: always use whole drive encryption) in order to protest the ridiculousness of pics of their girlfriend's & boyfriends being illegal. They do it to call attention to the ridiculous practice of thinking that nude children images cause more child abuse -- Violence on the Radio, on TV, in movies and games doesn't cause more violence in the viewers, right? They correctly assume the folks outlawing numbers to be destroying the country they will soon inherit. The skiddie is ensuring that any who shiver at the thought of unevidenced threats and attempt to trade freedom for a false blanket of security will receive neither as they deserve.

Mere possession of data is illegal even if you've never actually seen the images yourself. Of course you, "Have no idea how that got there", that's what all the paedophiles say. Well, it's not like you just accidentally Google searched it. Proitp: In a police state, everyone has broken the law; Many without even realizing it.

You see: The "child pornography" isn't on the darknet. It's in the hands of every tween and teen with a cell phone. This post isn't hypothetical. So, that's why you're enjoying a free ride in a black van.

Re:20 years

[affenhund]

I second that, and I have visited some fucked up corners of the internet in my time. The only time I saw something that could be classified as underage porn was on 4chan, go figure. That's the reason I don't visit this site and other *chans anymore, because I do not want to see images that show children in a sexual context. I simply do not want stuff like that in my subconsciousness. But nobody will stumble on child porn accidentally or by using Google/Bing, especially not in 2013. At best this is a publicity stunt, at worst it's salami-slice strategy to introduce more censorship.

Re:yes

[gweihir]

You realize there is a difference between people that harm children, and people that look at pictures of it, right? And that in order to protect children you have to find the first kind in time, and not the second one?

This while action just gives the appearance of doing something valuable, while it is pretty meaningless for actually stopping abuse.

won't they just use new words?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda like how people circumvent the great firewall of china by using homophones, even if they are complete nonsense

Over-reach Erasure

[Tommi Morre]

Vitally important as it is to protect children from sexual predators (which of course includes the market for child pornography), I'm concerned that including general child abuse in this will both silence child abuse survivors and make it more difficult for abused children to ask for help or advise anonymously online. I don't think differences in English usage across the world should override this.

NOT FAR ENOUGH!

[Charliemopps]

If they can do this, why not block anti-American speech while we're at it? I mean, those people are terrorists right?

Re:NOT FAR ENOUGH!

[Anonymous Coward]

If they can do this, why not block anti-American speech while we're at it? I mean, those people are terrorists right?

That's what is known in the business as "feature creep" and it will happen before you know it.

All of the useful idiots who support this kind of thing swallow the "won't somebody PLEASE think of the children!!!" thing hook, line, and sinker and they gleefully throw their basic human rights out the window.

Feel good move, nothing more

[kaizendojo]

The people who frequent in this kind of material aren't searching for it on the open internet; they're using TOR networks and hidden FTP sites. The real solution is good investigative work, but that requires resources and effort.

Re:Google under “child abuse” umbrella

[Buchenskjoll]

DuckDuckGo uses Bing data, so I don't think you'll have greater success using that.

Re:yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Children are harmed and continue to be harmed the moment a photo is snapped of them... they have to go through life not knowing what has become of the pictures. This is why viewing such images is illegal and must be stopped- because it is indeed an ongoing form of abuse, and courts have ruled this way.

Gonna get sued

[waspleg]

They're baiting the MPAA/RIAA by doing this. They're going to get sued by every agency that doesn't want something found be they torrents or unpopular political views. Slippery slope ready for action.

Stupid and shortsighted

[DrXym]

A vastly better idea would be to allow these search terms through, monitor which images / sites were subsequently clicked on and then provide this information allow with IP logs to the relevant law enforcement agencies. In other words, let these freaks hang themselves with their own rope. The most likely consequence of banning these terms is that child porn will be driven underground, into Tor servers and so forth where it is far more difficult to monitor.

Re:Stupid and shortsighted

[Gavagai80]

This is probably about the casual pedo who hasn't really gotten into it deeply and is exploring to see what's out there. A scary message can make them stop exploring by triggering guilt and fear. Most of them aren't technical enough for the underground.

Re:Stupid and shortsighted

[DrXym]

They aren't technical enough yet. Blocking search terms just incentivizes people to search for alternate sources of material.

1984...

[MrKaos]

Sex Crime!! Sex Crime!!

I predict that...^2

[J'raxis]

Wow, two for two today, eh?

I predict that this will be about as successful as all other attempts to censor information has been. But don't let that stop you. At least you look like you're "doing something" just like the fool politicians in the other story, right?

Statistics

[Walterk]

This is likely to be hugely ineffectual, as the actual numbers point to a rather different typical abuser:

In the United States, approximately 15% to 25% of women and 5% to 15% of men were sexually abused when they were children.[33][34][35][36][37] Most sexual abuse offenders are acquainted with their victims; approximately 30% are relatives of the child, most often brothers, fathers, mothers, uncles or cousins; around 60% are other acquaintances such as friends of the family, babysitters, or neighbours; strangers are the offenders in approximately 10% of child sexual abuse cases.[33] In over one-third of cases, the perpetrator is also a minor.[38]

From: Wikipedia

So what is this actually supposed to accomplish apart from censorship? What sort of "unsavoury" things are in this list of 100k search terms that are not even illegal? Snowden perhaps?

Re:Statistics

[Gavagai80]

Those stats don't say anything about how many of the acquaintances are motivated at least partially by profit from selling photos/videos. There's little reason to think they'd be any more or less likely than strangers to have that motive.

Re:Statistics

[N1AK]

But politicians have, and want, to been seen doing something. They can't invade the family/friend unit without doing something unpopular so they make a lot of noise, and show a lot of activity, regarding the small fraction that is left. I'm not going to spell out the social demographics but the chances of abuse in a household vary by orders of magnitude based on certain factors (I won't spell them out because I don't want this to become a debate about those factors). Offering more help in protecting children in the highest risk demographics would help far more children than this BS. But then so would treating child porn down-loaders as criminals and offering them support; though obviously as society has deemed them all to be monsters you'd get more support to throwing them into a pit with Lions than to monitoring there internet and offering them psychological help.

Re:Statistics

[PPH]

This may be the last time Google returns a link to that article.

Re:Statistics

[Walterk]

You are right, it doesn't. But it that relevant? There is a 90% chance that the child being abused knows it's victim. So why is everybody seemingly going after the 10% stranger danger?

For that 90%, it is debatable whether having accessibility to child pornography has any effect has any impact as they have direct access to the child. What do you think would attract a paedophile to a child? Pictures of a child or being in the presence of a child?

Crime is decreasing [Re:Well, it's something.]

[Geoffrey.landis]

You ask ANY of the guys that are actually in the streets, or people that live in edge neighborhoods... crime is going up and going up rapidly.

Perception of crime may be going up. Fear of crime may be going up. Actual crime is going down.

--this is probably, however, simply a function of the aging of the population rather than the effects of policies. The largest component of crime is teenagers and early twenties.

99% of what you hear from your local,state or federal government is 100% BS to simply calm you down.

Unfortunately, when you dismiss all data that disagrees with what you have already decided to believe, you can never learn anything.

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2012/june/crimes_061112/
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0524/US-crime-rate-is-down-six-key-reasons
http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/29/justice/us-violent-crime/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-dimond/crime-reduction_b_2878003.html

If crime rates are going down, then why is my local police getting military grade equipment and gear? Cripes for the last sports event here they had M16 machine guns in the open and wearing full military armor.

The equipment used by police departments has no relationship to the amount of crime.

Re:Crime is decreasing [Re:Well, it's something.]

[Connie_Lingus]

nail meet hammer.

Re:Crime is decreasing [Re:Well, it's something.]

[Wootery]

Indeed. Unless I'm mistaken, they're not even capable of automatic fire.

I presume three-shot-burst capability means it would count as an assault-weapon in the US legal definition (i.e. as far as civilian ownership goes).

Re:Crime is decreasing [Re:Well, it's something.]

[hairyfeet]

If the data came from the government I'd say its completely fucking worthless.

After all this is the same government whose AG tried to turn a minor op into a false flag with fast and furious and has lied repeatedly to congress under oath, where many of the crime stats are rigged by putting everyone that isn't African American down as white,and its the same government that has been fudging unemployment and inflation data so badly to make those figures nothing but fairy tales.

So I'm sorry but after all the shit we've been finding out about the government and data the only data I'd believe from the US gov is that they are monitoring you and I, everything is made politically correct before usage.

Re:Crime is decreasing [Re:Well, it's something.]

[TheCarp]

> I presume three-shot-burst capability means it would count as an assault-weapon in the US legal
> definition (i.e. as far as civilian ownership goes).

I am sure someone knows better than me, but, the assault weapon ban was hardly so straightforward. In fact, what defined an "assault rifle" was mostly cosmetic. For example, a firearm would qualify if it had both a pistol grip and a bayonet lug. Neither of which really have any bearing on the real issues.

Back when it was in effect I actually read the law, and instantly lost respect for all of its supporters. I mean, I am normally anti-gun control but, reading what it was that they thought so important removed any illusions about the gun control crowd even knowing what they are talking about.

fact is, more people are murdered with hammers than rifles in total. Guns that were available during the ban were just as deadly as the ones available now. The effective difference between the time of the ban and the time after the ban has been 100% a difference to collectors who are attached to a particular cosmetic style of gun.

That is.... only people who want guns that LOOK LIKE military guns either benefited or were harmed by the assault rifle ban.

Overall, its a stupid issue since, if you prevented every civilian death that was ever the result of another civilian using an assault rifle, you would have done very little indeed, since those are so exceedingly rare as to be worthless as a category of death.

Re:Crime is decreasing [Re:Well, it's something.]

[Jane Q. Public]

The equipment used by police departments has no relationship to the amount of crime.

Except for one single piece of equipment. And it isn't what you think it is.

There is a very strong correlation between higher crime, and the number of policemen in patrol cars (as opposed to walking street beats on foot).

As more and more policemen have been given cars, and have been separated from their ties to particular neighborhoods, crime goes up. This is a solid statistic based on lots of study, over decades.

The police car drives crime up. (Relative to walking a beat.)

Re:Crime is decreasing [Re:Well, it's something.]

[Jane Q. Public]

"If the data came from the government I'd say its completely fucking worthless."

Agree with the other person above. This data doesn't come from just the government statistics. Studies have found the same thing. And not just in America. Major crime has been going down in most of the Western world for the last 30 years. Major crimes -- including violent crimes... and including things like mass shootings and school shootings -- are half of what they were just 20 years ago.

Don't take anybody's word for it. Look it up yourself.

Re:Little Cuties

[turkeydance]

my darling clementines: http://www.sunpacific.com/cuties.html

Looks like something was overlooked ...

[jcochran]

Hmm... Seems to me that if google and bing have enough content indexed so as to be able to identify content as matching those 100,000 prohibited searches, then they ought to be able to automatically notify authorities about those web sites holding said prohibited content. Who can then take the appropriate legal actions. Which would target those who are making such content available, not the mere sick individuals seeking such content.

I've got to wonder why such wasn't mentioned.

Re:Looks like something was overlooked ...

[bussdriver]

Given the history of "intelligent" filtering software; I would NEVER trust it. You'd think anybody experienced in Computers would have heard of 1337 speak or are aware of the concepts. Filtering should NOT be allowed for any reason and apparently we need laws to enforce this before we become China.

Children, Religion and War justifications should ALWAYS get extra skepticism to compensate for all the blinding hate/fear associated with them.

Google and the others already monitor and track you. I am surprised they've moved away from tracking.... well maybe not-- they may not like the FBI and NSA forcing them to spy on us using those justifications... if they can filter out the people motivating... nah, there will always be an easy excuse. What should be done is instead of merely profiling you for marketing they should try to spot these people and when you rank high enough they can flag you for officials... silently, like an anonymous tipster. Nobody then knows how they drew attention to themselves. Oh, and don't think the police haven't done this for generations - they can legally start paying attention to you without ANY legal justification (including things dismissed in court or obtained illegally just because they can't touch you doesn't mean you are not on their radar.) Homeland security may have monitored you briefly as a follow up to something you said on the phone or at the airport - you wouldn't know and they are being so bad with freedom of information requests... you'll probably never know - especially those situations where a few board cops take an interest in you for an afternoon; it's nothing to report.

Re:yes

[cheekyjohnson]

This is why viewing such images is illegal and must be stopped

Because people believe in voodoo? I find such censorship and prosecutions to be futile, and more of an eyesore than the actual images themselves.

Re:yes

[gweihir]

Spoken like a true law-and-order fetishist that cares nothing about the actual victims. You seem to miss the little fact that focusing on the image-distribution aspect does nothing to prevent creation of such images and the child-abuse that comes with it. You also miss the little fact that you cannot practically remove stuff from the Internet, hence these victims will never know. This is just an instance of "the viewing of these images must be stopped", no matter of how many children get hurt in the process (because of misapplied limited resources) and no matter how much freedom it will cost the world. I find this highly unethical.

An ethical stance would be to demand that the acts that allow creation of such images must be stopped. But that is apparently a minor consideration today and I am pointing that out.

Re:yes

[gweihir]

Numbers (where available) indicate that most people that look for these images do not actually abuse children. Or otherwise law enforcement is to lazy to check. When actual child abuse (not just pictures) is involved, the press statements clearly point that out as in the recent Canadian case. This seems to indicate that in most cases, this going after the images is not helping any children at all, but hurts them by misapplying resources. In fact is looks more so that the primary interest of law enforcement and politics is to suppress these images instead of stopping or preventing child abuse. That is in line with this obvious censorship trial-run.

more of the same

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess there are idiots that will still start claiming that photographs of a crime lead to more crime or, more retardedly, abuse the kids a second time, like the lies about CP. In no case, ever, should possession of a photo/video of a crime, also be a crime, unless you do it wholly across the board. You know, beheading videos and such. I guess watching them is also just as bad as doing it yourself.

Why solve the problem?

[s.petry]

If it's true that Google has a 200 strong team, why not have that team actually looking for creators of child porn and working with law enforcement? They don't make enough profit annually to pay professionals to do this? MS could do the same with Bing, even without the Google market share, it just takes fewer people.

The basic problem with censorship is that it's a prohibition, not a "fix". What they are doing is covering up the problem, not trying to correct the problem. In society, the way to prevent illegal activities is to pursue and prosecute the people performing these illegal acts. That means going after the upper levels of these activities, not the end users. Kind of like going after the people processing poppy to make narcotics as opposed to the guy smoking opium or shooting smack.

Of course our law enforcement goes after the end user most of the time, and ignores or gives up on the producers. It's easier to get the guy downloading an image than it is to find the person creating the images. Fast headlines are not a resolution, but it does give the impression that we are doing something (even if it's the wrong thing). These are the same exact things we do with drugs.

It won't work, will waste money, and sets a precedent for censorship which is extremely dangerous.

Pr0n

[Princeofcups]

Of course there's no way around search term blocking.

Forensics

[phorm]

Yeah, I know a guy with a job like this. It seems to really get him down sometimes, but on the other hand he does seem to take great pleasure when he actually gets to the point of testifying against those SOB's in court...

Placebo Test Needed

[retroworks]

I'm open minded about restricting the search for child porn terminology. Will it make child pornography less readily accessible, and thereby reduce cultivation of users? Or will it trigger a slippery slope, where search engines are afraid NOT to block certain terms out of fear under this precedent?

The answer it seems is to test a placebo search term, such as "rutabaga salad" or "couch sniffing" and to monitor whether searches for the terms increase, decrease, or stay the same, and whether rutabaga sales flatten. Just the hypothesis that censorship of search terms will reduce crime related to those search terms should not be enough to trigger a censorship anti-delivery mechanism.

Child Abusers don't need the internet to abuse!

[Nyder]

Child abuse isn't new, hasn't sprung up since the 90's, so why is it a sudden concern that child abusers are using the internet to what, communicate? So what, now child abusers have websites they hang out at? That they brag about how they locked their kid in the closet for 10 hours?

Child abuse happens, it's not researched or studied, it's an anger issue.

So instead of actually stopping child abuse, or helping children that were abused, they rather do some grandstanding gesture that does nothing to stop child abuse.

Way to go Google & MS, fucking wankers.

Re:yes

[ILongForDarkness]

No the point is these pervs are probably not doing google searches to get their fix. They probably do like most people that want access to things better than 10s clips on sites filled with spy ware, banner ads and popups do: go to pirate bay and their equivalent. Or a fellow perv that has a stash, or ... pretty much anything but a bing image search.

It would be like Expedia saying they'll stop replying to searches about coffee ... great except no one in their right mind would use Expedia for this.

Re:yes

[Algae_94]

Children are harmed and continue to be harmed the moment a photo is snapped of them... they have to go through life not knowing what has become of the pictures. This is why viewing such images is illegal and must be stopped- because it is indeed an ongoing form of abuse, and courts have ruled this way.

I will not argue that these pictures and their continuing availability isn't prolonging the pain and suffering that these victims went through. I do believe that the more acute and traumatic harm comes from the actual acts that were photographed and not the images of it. Therefore, it would be far better to help abuse victims by stopping the real physical trauma and dealing with images of it secondarily.

Removing images from search results does very little to actually remove and scrub this content from the world and it does even less for children being tortured at this moment. This is a public relations stunt that will not help the people that need it most.

100,000 search terms blocked?

[fredrated]

I didn't know there were that many words in the English language. Are any left to search with?

Re:100,000 search terms blocked?

[jcochran]

I think they're looking for combinations of words, not individual words. For instance, the search
'child care' is quite innocent.
whereas
'child care after anal penetration' isn't innocent.

The BBC article linked describes PM Cameron's demand as,

He said they needed to ensure that searches which were unambiguously aimed at finding illegal images should return no results.

Mind, the above request is rather ... difficult ... to perform. It assumes natural language understand and it quite likely that any system short of a full up AI isn't going to be able to fulfill that request 100% of the time with no false positives or negatives. But a 90% solution ought to be possible. The unfortunate aspect is where the errors are going to be. Are they going to be false negatives where illegal material becomes searchable? Or false positives where people seeking help happen to have their searches rejected? Given the current legal environment, I strongly suspect that the balance will tilt strongly in the direction of false positives.

Re:100,000 search terms blocked?

[doesnothingwell]

Try searching for "using child porn for censorship" everyday, a few billion hits might send a message, if there's a working brain somewhere that can see it.

Re:yes

[Algae_94]

It only makes sense. No police force can stop these sorts of crimes completely without having complete control over society. In that situation, doing what you can to make the general population think that something isn't happening is enough. Ignorance is bliss for the electorate.

because words is evil

[Slugster]

A few years back a PC of mine got a virus. The main thing that the AV software said was that it had the signature of the "fuckyou" virus.

So I went looking online for info on how it might be removed, and found...... almost nothing. Because most forum software automatically censors the word "fuck", as well as any of its close variants. As did most of the antivirus company websites. One of them didn't--one of the bigger ones, Norton or McAfee. That was the only place that had any info on it.

So get ready for the "childporn" viruses. As soon as that word becomes unsearchable, there is no reason for malware writers not to use it to their own benefit.

mod parent up

[almechist]

If crime rates are going down, then why is my local police getting military grade equipment and gear?

Because scared voters like you are giving them as much money as they can spend. You're letting them keep any funds they seize from drug crimes or things they claim might be money from drug crimes. Our biggest fear is fear itself and the police and prison system profit off your fear. They're doing very well.

This. This exactly. Most of those fancy toys are paid for with seizure money, of which there will always be a steady supply as long as the War on Drugs continues and statutes like RICO are still on the books.

Damn mod points expired yesterday, it's like they only give them out when you don't need or want them... How does Slashdot do that?

If I had a Hammer [Re:Crime is decreasing]

[Geoffrey.landis]

fact is, more people are murdered with hammers than rifles in total.

Sorry, false.

Would be true if you said hammers, clubs, and other blunt objects.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022129264
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8

even then, it's a very narrowly crafted statistic, specific to rifles only, making sure you leave out shotguns and other kinds of guns.

And as mass-murders with hammers, well, they are pretty rare.

Re:If I had a Hammer [Re:Crime is decreasing]

[TheCarp]

> Would be true if you said hammers, clubs, and other blunt objects.

Good point, blunt objects.

> specific to rifles only, making sure you leave out shotguns and other kinds of guns.

I was not aware of any shotguns or "other kinds of guns" that are not rifles which are classified as assault rifles. Please, do educate me.

Why wouldn't I use a narrowly crafted statistic, specific to rifles....when...specifically talking about rifles or a class of rifles as opposed to other guns?

> And mass-murders, they are extremely rare.

FTFY

Faith-based political arguments [Re:Crime is d...]

[Geoffrey.landis]

About all I can do is repeat: once you have decided that you can dismiss any and all data that disagrees with you, you can never learn anything.

You've left the realm of facts, except the ones that you make up, and those can't be refuted.

Re:yes

[gweihir]

Unfortunately, I can only agree.

So what is next?

[nurb432]

So we hide child abuse words today ( regardless of who it might HELP ) So what words will be forbidden tomorrow? Drug terms? Firearms? Patriotism?

Now they are *actively* restricting, if they let one slip by, can i sue ?

How many are legitimate?

[Dereck1701]

I'm all for blocking obvious CP search terms, but 10,000? How many of those terms could also be for perfectly legitimate purposes? I know one time I was trying to look a certain kind of bridge type for something (biglegs? thicklegs? something like that) on one of the image search sites and I got a bunch of rear shots of scantly clad women. Anyone with a basic understanding of the English language knows that many words have two meanings, throw in abbreviations & slang and they can have 10, throw in various phrases and your hitting the hundreds.

What the could do as well.

[mtthwbrnd]

The largest internet companies could set up a non-profit organisation into which they donate funds to employs thousands of operators pretending to be children on-line. Operations such as this one (see youtube video aGmKmVvCzkw and watch "to catch a predator" and visit perverted-justice website) and start war against these ***********. They do have the resources to make a huge impact. It would raise their currently battered public image too. They could flood the internet with so many fakes that there are more fakes than real children. They could use their resources to provide high quality legal representation, counselling for victims and their families and in raising education and awareness. They will never be successful in censoring the internet. It is both technically impossible and philosophically undesirable. The best thing we can hope for is to Police it adequately.