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Google Spots Explicit Images of a Child In Man's Email, Tips Off Police
mrspoonsi writes with this story about a tip sent to police by Google after scanning a users email. A Houston man has been arrested after Google sent a tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children saying the man had explicit images of a child in his email, according to Houston police. The man was a registered sex offender, convicted of sexually assaulting a child in 1994, reports Tim Wetzel at KHOU Channel 11 News in Houston. "He was keeping it inside of his email. I can't see that information, I can't see that photo, but Google can," Detective David Nettles of the Houston Metro Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce told Channel 11. After Google reportedly tipped off the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Center alerted police, which used the information to get a warrant.
The great things google can offer, 1984 saves the children!
(Yes it's good that pedophiles get hurt - But there is a very very bad precedent here...)
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
This is chilling, not for pedophiles, fuck them, but for the average citizen. While, I absolutely believe it's google's job to report illegal activity they accidentally uncover to the police, this appears google is actively searching your e-mails for things to forward to the police, and that's a chilling thought for free speech, freedom, and prevention of abuse of power.
Lay your own cable to all your friends houses, then run your own encrypted email server.
Then learn to accept that the NSA installed a hardware backdoor in your router and is reading your emails (and now they are monitoring your for suspected terrorist activities), and China installed one in your computer hardware and are doing the same.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
With legal (or cracked) access to anyone's email account (sex offender or not) lets see how easy it is to plant evidence.
1. Access account, add a folder or label (preferably hidden buy being buried in default sort order or under another folder).
2. Set filter with obscure rule to automatically route certain emails to said folder.
3. Send "illicit" or "evidentiary" messages that match said filter. These can be sent from self or whatever generated entity seems appropriate.
4. Access account again from various public IP addresses (or from target's own wifi). Read already read email, plus messages in target folder.
5. Remove filter. Have Google 'find' the evidence. Arrest wrongdoer.
This is not that far fetched. The chain of evidence doe not prove that the target is guilty, but can be made to look enough like it to convince a judge or jury. From the vantage of Google or a jury, it looks as though the subject sent or had sent, expected, and read the messages.
Just about anyone here could do this with the creds to an account - which in most situations are not terribly hard to garner.
Before you say you would notice the folder in your account, think of this. I have over 100 folders in my email account, some rarely opened, and never all visible on the screen. I wouldn't have noticed - but I may have enough knowledge to fight - a little anyway. How about a novice, when a folder named 'Archived Messages' appears. Would he/she even think twice?
I did not RTFA, but I know google uses their image search algos for blocking known child porn sites. It is not a hard step to run that against email messages. How about when the NSA/CIA/FBI tells google (via a NSL) scan all messages for x terms. How about when said terms are sent to and from hacked accounts as a matter of course?
It is important to realize that absolutely no communication that is unencrypted is private, but how about whe forged open communications can make you a criminal?
Silence is a state of mime.
Yeah, I have absolutely no problem with this article. You don't want RandomCompany looking at your emails? Don't send your emails through RandomCompany servers.
Don't want your ISP looking at your emails? Encrypt your emails.
Don't have the ability to understand how to encrypt your emails and want someone to manage it for you because technology is all so hard but you still want to use it? Suck it up and learn, or pay someone to do it for you and stop whining about your own ignorance.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
They have an obligation to report child porn if they find it, but they don't have an obligation to look.
Actually, naive me was thinking that they have an obligation NOT TO LOOK.
I also have a storage room rental -- does that mean the owner is allowed to do random checks for stolen goods? Just in case?
They probably found a few thousand by automated scanning, and then selected one that actually had abused children 20 years in the past (and paid for it), because that will kill all reason in the general public. The aim, is rather obviously, to slowly break it to the public that all email content gets scanned. Of course it is in a good cause, like fighting illegal pixels and imaginary terrorists! (Can't do anything about people that actually hurt children, that would be far too expensive. And while the FBI has done its best to create "terrorists", they just cannot deliver enough...) Next, they will be going after people without priors, then anything "inappropriate" and finally, even badmouthing some politician in a private email will get you a visit from your friendly neighborhood SWAT team, after all you could be planning mass-murder.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
No, you don't have to prove innocence! The prosecution needs to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The fact that Google snooped brings up questions, so if this is the only evidence they have the guy will walk (assuming he goes to Jury trial and does not accept a plea).
The intent to distribute you just make up out of thin air, stop with the hand waiving and stick to the case.
Based on the arresting officers comments, they were tracking this guy because he was previously convicted. They were not able to catch him doing anything wrong, which should bring up even more questions about Google finding something when investigators could not. I don't believe it would have been difficult for a cop to get a warrant on the guy if there was actually suspicion.
If this was a random Google employee that was accidentally mailed the photo I may feel differently. I have been working on Servers for over 25 years, and I have never gone though people's mailboxes or files. I have complied with warrants and provided copies of data, but never gone though someone's crap. With no warrant, I think Google did wrong. I'm not biased, I think any company that volunteers your data to law enforcement without a warrant is at least violating the trust of their customers.
Before you "but but.. murder" how would you like to be arrested because you sent a still image from Saw2 to a friend (or any of the millions of murders depicted on tv or in movies, and a measurable percentage of those are children being murdered)? I personally am not into movies so don't worry too much about that one, but I know people that are.
Anyone that trusts a Government known for parallel construction (framing people) or Google (a company known to be handing 3 letter agencies private data) should have their head examined. On this site, I should not have to mention how easy it is to forge file ownership, date stamps on files, email, chat, and logs for the latter two. In case you are not a techie, it's pretty damn easy.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
And? I am sure there are people out there who would send child porn to registered sex offenders in order to frame them.
When corporations have abilities beyond what the government has, and act on behalf of the law, in a way that could not be foreseen by the lawmakers of the past, I think the only way to honor the intent of the constitution would be to apply the 4th amendment protections there too. Whether a search and seizure is committed by an algorithm or a person is irrelevant - if there was not enough suspicion to justify a search warrant, the evidence should be admissible. No matter how guilty the person is.
Remember: We are all guilty of something. Today they may go after possible child porn recipients, tomorrow they may go after speeders and use tax evaders, and one day after those who may oppose status quo. The opportunities for abuse are endless.
Give the devil a finger, and he takes the whole hand.