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Google Helps Police With Child Porn WebCrawler (siliconbeat.com)
The San Jose Mercury News is reporting that the Internet Watch Foundation, "an organization that works with police worldwide to remove images of child sexual abuse from the Internet, has credited Google with helping it develop a 'Web crawler' that finds child pornography." The pilot project makes it easier to identify and remove every copy of specific images online, and the group says "We look forward to the next phase of the Googler in Residence project in 2016." Last year Google also had an engineer working directly with the foundation, and the group's annual report says "This was just one part of the engineering support Google gave us in 2015." [PDF] Their report adds that the new technology "should block thousands of their illegal images from being viewed on the Internet."
Why not crawl peoples Android phones and Android tablets for illegal images?
Google already have access to the media folders on them via Google Play Services, so it trivial for them to take a look for other reasons.
Let's face it, Google loves oppression. Google helps China with censorship. Google helps US with the pedohunt. There isn't an oppressive government in the world that Google wouldn't help out, for the evils.
and everyone else loses: No child is better protected, but content policing is now a free-for-all.
Thanks, you Bwittish guise, you.
The IWB is a well-intentioned organisation, but they have no accountability whatsoever. They publish a list of links they claim are child abuse imagery, and ISPs block what's on the list - but the list, for obvious reasons, is super-secret. The processes by which the list is generated is also secret - even those who are put on the list are not informed that they are now on the list. Some (not all) ISPs actively try to prevent those who are censored from finding out by spoofing 404 error page rather than explaining that a deliberate block is in place - they certainly aren't going to contact the site operator. Even if someone wrongly blocked finds out (as happened with Wikipedia only because the block process inadvertently broke the site) there is no appeals process in place. That's a lot of power for an unaccountable and opaque organisation.
There's more to the Internet than just the web. If only there were some way of exchanging information without using the web. Oh right. Then no one would find it. Because the web is the entire Internet. According to idiots. Carry on then. Idiots.
Yes, all the problems you mention are indeed reasons why what they are doing is... problematic, and from that follow many implications that are every bit as problematic. But don't kid yourself that their "good intentions" are that. They aren't trying to protect, they're trying to sweep the evidence of child abuse under the rug.
Taking this up to philosophical levels, the IWF finger-waggers are more or less operating on the premise that as long as your (their) intentions are good, whatever you do, whatever its effect, is good too, or at least excusable. I happen to disagree: It's results that count. No, I'm not saying that results justify all means. I am saying that if the results are less than good then no amount of good intentions can make up for doing the things that got you those results, so stop doing that already. So I do think the IWF needs to go, along with the other two censorship mechanisms that popped up in Blighty in its wake.
Because no one would trust Android ever again after that. Its a death sentence for the OS. If the crawler finds public child pornography, its fair game. Unfortunately Child Pornography consumers don't make that stuff public.
1st Googletard: If anyone finds this there'll be big trouble.
2nd Googletard: I could say we were doing it as a hypothetical exercise or something.
3rd Googletard: Won't fly. The first thing they'll ask is why we didn't choose another subject. *Any* other subject.
1st Googletard: We, paleface? And why didn't you, by the way?
2nd Googletard: Ummmm....
3rd Googletard: How about ... we were doing it to help the police?
2nd Googletard: Froppwoppalattes all round!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
As a web developer with some sites that let users upload files, why can't I get access to the hash table that they're using? Obviously the big players like Google probably have access to a black box of confirmed real images supplied by whatever agency and are using their using their GIS algorithms to find resizes or crops/edits, but I'd be absolutely shocked if the police don't have a list of hash files that they use to scan suspects' hard drives to find any images.
I want access to that hash list so I can immediately block any uploaded images/videos that match the list and automatically report the upload to whatever agency. Yes, hash collisions exist, that's why reporting the upload would simply be evidence for someone else to look at and not an instant arrest. Hell, if it's a list of multiple hash methods along with an exact byte filesize, I'd be absolutely shocked if a multiple-collision could exist.
Orwell couldn't conceive that Winston would be automated out of a job. That may be the only part he got wrong.
Why is Snark Required?
Nobody puts kiddie porn on display, the only thing the IWB catches are model/nudist sites that operate legally in their own country because slutty dressed preteens in provocative poses or totally innocent nudes are now considered kiddie porn. Unless they're on Dance Moms or in movies, then they can be on national TV. See for example the songs Electricity or Red for the former and movies like the opening of The Baader Meinhof Complex for the latter. They just don't like it when someone makes a site dedicated to the best of it. The last time you could buy anything remotely like porn openly - if you can call no sex, no masturbation, no spread pussies just provokative nudes porn - was the LS series from Russia around 2001. Sure, there's been a few cases of apparently legitimate companies selling customs and specials to select customers but that has always been on a one-on-one top secret basis. And occasionally the odd underage porn pic shows up on legal sites because nobody can tell 14 from 18 particularly "barely legal" porn uses 18 year olds that often look more like 14yo than actual 14yos. But if you wanted to stop that good luck because teens are sexting and sites that take user content like motherless etc. will always end up with some illegal content but if it looks obviously underage it'll disappear quick. And going after people watching underage porn that look of legal age is a joke for the statistics.
If you want the real deal, it's not found openly. It's not stored openly:
1. Install TorBrowser
2. Disable Javascript (in case of exploits)
3. Go to topic links: http://es2adizg32j3kob5.onion/
4. Go to one of the boards and pick a topic
5. Download the links to encrypted files (over Tor still)
6. Open/decrypt with password from post
And there's fuck all IWB can do about that. Or the producer's circles, or the private sales or really anywhere else where 99.9% of it is created. What the IWB is doing is like trying to stop Game of Thrones from being pirated by finding all the copies, good luck with that.
No-one could be so stupid as to buy into the argument you are putting forward.
Google has access to public material that is on the net.
Google has access to material that is private to the user.
Google is assisting in crawling public material on the net for child porn.
Google is not crawling material private to the user for public consumption: only to allow searching by the user, and for selecting advertising to display.
The first is not a privacy violation.
If you consider the second a privacy violation, you should probably stop using Google's offerings.
and I find this action by Google to be reprehensible and unfair to bicyclists around the world-- what? Paedophiles?!? Yeah, fuck those people.
You live in a dream world.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
What a surprise that Slashdotters are defending child porn and by extension raping children
Adult women with small breasts is child porn in Australia. A cartoon child is child porn in the US. Child porn has nothing to do with child rape. Child rape is something different. That you dream of raping children every time someone mentions child porn doesn't mean anyone else does.
Learn to love Alaska
"Google is not crawling material private to the user for public consumption: only to allow searching by the user, and for selecting advertising to display."
But they've given themselves access to your private data, its not private anymore, its usually on their server, it even has a PRISM interface. How is that your private data?
You accepted that, perhaps you didn't realize it, but when you bought the phone, access to the Google store required giving Google permission to access your stuff. Perhaps you even tapped 'yes' when it pestered you to backup your phone for the fiftieths time. So they don't even need to actively go access the phone, the data's already there on their servers. Together with all sorts, like wifi passwords and social accounts to help the police arrest you.
They have this pedo scanner. They have your stuff. How is it they don't use one on the other?
"If you consider the second a privacy violation, you should probably stop using Google's offerings."
But I don't want to use Google's offerings. It just comes installed on the phones by contract with the handset makers. You can't uninstall it, or even disable it, without it uninstalling all your apps.
But given they've done this data grab of private data, shouldn't they scan it for pedos using their newly developed pedo scanner?
The privacy of private information that Google has access to needs to remain sacrosanct or there will be a huge pile of people walking away from Google.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Look, sure there needs to be safeguards.
The first thing I expect when illegal content is flagged on an Android phone is for a Google engineer to take a look and review it in person. Perhaps a committee to decide, so its not one person's opinion.
So my daughter might be taking nude selfies of herself on her phone, which Google flags as child porn. But its not a pedo, its a selfie. So the engineers should carefully review those selfies, decide the phone belongs to a child, and the pictures are likely her own. Perhaps check with Internet Watch Foundation to be sure. Take a few opinions, from a few social workers.
Safeguards.
I wouldn't want private data to be public data, just her, a few hundred Google engineers, a few charities and their employees, a collection of social workers etc. ...you know ... keep her private data private.
So today the data is available to Google, and the few thousand engineers within Google who have access to it already. And I'm suggesting adding Internet Watch Foundation, a few social worker departments, perhaps some sort of Ombudsman, maybe a selection of charities. Their managers, maybe HR needs access.
Safeguards are important! And surely if Google engineers can see your private media, then why not anti-pedo organizations.
It's not a slippery slope, nobody is going to demand Google use all that driving data it demands from car makers who install its 'Android car radio' panel to prosecute speeders. Although if you're involved in an accident, perhaps they should hand it over so the police can better prosecute you. Perhaps only if you hit a child while driving should they hand it over?
Maybe they should check your phone for pedo images if you're speeding? I mean they have one crime recorded, so you've already stepped outside of acceptable society, so then that would be ok to search all that private phone data they grabbed, with their pedo scanner in that situation?
Do you have Netflix? Or other access to the film 1971? The FBI under Hoover was just looking out for America, Hoover's America, decent people had nothing to worry about.
Why bother!? Pederast and kiddy porn enthusiasts are soon as acceptable as all the other sick people with severe mental disorder. For example - transgenders and ones confused about what sex they are.
If "progressive" (this word used to mean something positive) libtard perverts and SJW get what they want, every pervert can rape you, your kids and any animal you got. And it all will be just fine because it's so progressive and PC.
Pay attention! You can already see how acts of child molestation are downplayed by MSM. It's disgusting! This "everything is accepted" mentality crap creeps into our lives and becomes new normal before you realize what's happening.
"They have this pedo scanner. They have your stuff. How is it they don't use one on the other?"
Easily. They say "you know what, scanning people's own data will probably result in everyone shunning us. It makes bad business sense, so let's not do it".
"But I don't want to use Google's offerings. It just comes installed on the phones by contract with the handset makers. You can't uninstall it, or even disable it, without it uninstalling all your apps."
Then don't buy an Android phone that includes Google apps, or flash your phone with an OS version that doesn't have Google services.
That wasn't too hard, was it?
Apple could readily access the media on iPhones too, but do they trawl it?
Or Microsoft on Windows phones.
The privacy violation you are mentioning exists in your head only, unless you have evidence to the contrary...
Presumably, in order to work, this spider will cloak its user agent and ignore the Robots Exclusion Standard.
Which means that it'll probably end up listed on Project Honey Port as a likely spam scraper.
"They have this pedo scanner. They have your stuff. How is it they don't use one on the other?" Easily. They say "you know what, scanning people's own data will probably result in everyone shunning us. It makes bad business sense, so let's not do it".
Apple has aligned itself as the defender of customer privacy, so if Google let law enforcement into people's private data on their phones, you know there would be Apple ads everywhere letting everyone know about it. Surely, Google realizes this, too.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
> "you know what, scanning people's own data will probably result in everyone shunning us."
Why would you tell them? I bet very few people know about Google Play Services, or the contract with the handset makers. They probably don't know Google has full access to your phone, and that's even before you clicked 'OK' to the backup request.
So it's not like they've been told about Google's backdoor, why tell them about all the uses of that backdoor? Well why not put the backdoor to one more use, catching pedos. If you're going to use it to send adverts for little girls underwear, why not scan it for pedo images too?
Tip off the police, phone (officially) searched, pedo arrested, world a better place!
>"Then don't buy an Android phone that includes Google apps, or flash your phone with an OS version that doesn't have Google services."
That's fine for me, I know how to flash a phone with a new OS, Duh! Doesn't everyone! But hush! We shouldn't tell pedos, because then how can Google scan their media for pedo images?
Exactly! I'd be crazy for thinking Google would give itself access-permissions to the media on a phone in order to access the media on a phone! That's crazy talk!
Settings... General....Application Manager.... swipe across to the 'All' tab.... Google play services... permissions.....
Of course they never *use* those permissions they gave Google Play Services.... but perhaps they should.
Let IWF scan the phone for pedo images. If they find one, use the GPS permission to grab the pedos location. Read their contacts list to identify his/her pedo friends. Use the camera permission to snap their picture, use the microphone permission to listen in on them! And then use the phone permission to call the police and turn the pedo in on his own phone bill!
Or are you suggesting that Google would shield pedos from the law? What about terrorists? Are you suggesting that Google would protect ISIS?
You see the FBI suing Apple, repeatedly, but have you ever heard of the FBI suing Google for failing to provide access to someones private data? That's because Google realize the importance of protecting our freedom from the terrorists and pedos! Of course they give the FBI access to all our stuff whenever asked! And with this tool, they can give IWF the same access to check our stuff to confirm we're not pedos! Who, but a pedo, wouldn't want that??
"Their report adds that the new technology "should block thousands of their illegal images from being viewed on the Internet."
Thousands....out of what are probably millions if not billions of images?
Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely 100% against the sexual exploitation of children, but this seems like less than a drop in the bucket.
We routinely read about police finding people with tens or hundreds of thousands of child porn images on their computer, how does blocking a few thousand make any significant difference?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
ya know, if more people had access to child pornography, and could look at it without fear of punishment, they could see how horrible it is, and some may even recognize children or adults (are any adults identifiable in them? i wouldnt know, as i dont want to be arrested). perhaps laws would be tougher against perps due to public pressure and outrage, and enforced better. maybe the "forbidden fruit" aura would disappear, and some people would lose interest. and maybe we could accept that the image cannot be rationally made illegal, only the act, and that social pressure is the only remedy to cure bad speech.
how about a national database of child porn images, fully searchable, where hackers could test out facial recognition and track down kids and perps. sort of like the faces on milk cartons of missing children.
yeah, sounds horrible.
I'd like some of whatever medication you're on, but in a smaller dose.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
The production of child porn involves the rape of children.
"That you dream of raping children every time someone mentions child porn doesn't mean anyone else does."
This is pure projection.
And why did my original comment get modded -1 troll? I simply pointed out what is factually occuring on the site. Why are Slashdotters willing to say something but then rush to do damage control and suppression when someone calls them out for it? If you can't defend it then don't say it.
Close down each and every Catholic Church around the globe. It won't solve the problem but it would be a good start.
Because they do live in a fantasy world, the vast majority are still themselves children (a teenager is still not an adult).
The production of child porn involves the rape of children.
A female age 25 in Australia with small breasts making porn is making child porn. What child was harmed?
A cartoonist in the US that draws cartoon sex of a child has created child porn. What child was harmed?
Your repeated assertion that child porn is child rape is not true anymore.
And why did my original comment get modded -1 troll?
Because you insulted all Slashdotters that believe in freedoms from government oppression. The comment was a troll, and was modded as such.
This is pure projection.
Nope. Pure fact. You are the only one here the repeatedly states that child porn equals child rape. So you obviously make that connection when you hear child porn. If you can't defend it, don't say it.
Learn to love Alaska
You know real pedos are vanishingly rare, right? The only people who actually get turned on by kiddie porn are the Law Enforcers and their boot lickers who built a special search engine just so they could find some.
At smaller doses, the time keeper shows up and offers you two doors to go through.
Unfortunately he can't see past his own decisions. He can't, he's not programmed to. It's not his job.
If this, then that then
WhooooooyiÃoooooosh.
I wonder exactly what they use for matching. It's not like most pictures of a kid in a swimsuit are CP, nor even nude pictures. Most likely they're going from a database of existing and known images or possibly of "similar" images where they have flagged facial recognition etc etc.
Beyond that, I suppose something obvious like a "full spread" might allow matching of genitalia and a match against body size, skin pigment etc might yield some results, though it might also catch some odd stuff like midgets or just various false positives (somebody's lawn cherub, perhaps?).
What I really wonder is how they tune such things. Basically you have to look at it to do so. As somebody who had to work at a forums company and periodically assist reviewing "flagged" posts, that sounds like a good way to end up with bleeding eyeballs and a desire to jump off a cliff after some time at it...
Regarding the Australian thing, did that actually pass, and has it been contested in court?
Last I heard they had heavy opposition by women who didn't want to be considered "illegal" just for not having DD's
we must stop prison for profit or it will get worse in the next 4 years if bernie is not elected
A 25 year old woman is an adult and cartoons are only vaguely similar to real people (and indeed are not real at all). What the hell are you talking about?
That in Australia, a 25 year old woman can make what Australia defines as "child porn".
And in the US, a person has been convicted of possessing "child porn" from his collections of cartoons (Japanese Manga that contained some tentacle scenes).
Child porn prosecutions that don't involve children at all. That's why they aren't the same issue.
Not being able to distribute child porn is now "oppression"? Is it also oppression that you aren't allowed to rape and murder?
Is a picture of a rape illegal? No (unless child porn). Is a picture of a murder illegal? No. Those are separate legal issues. So why is it that the depiction of the crime is linked to the crime for one and only one crime?
Learn to love Alaska
If I were to be on a Jury deciding in a case on this subject, the verdict would in effect be: "Rights are rights. A person's constitutional rights including the right to be free of unreasonable search is the highest law in the land, and Google can't contract it's way around that law. All such provisions within that contract would be unconscionable, null and void from the moment of conception".
cartoons don't have anything to do with child porn. Stop bullshitting.
There was someone convicted of possession of child porn for his cartoons from Japan. That you don't like reality doesn't change it.
So you want all pictures of crimes to be illegal?
Not that you care about any of that since you're a fucking psychopath.
Yes, anyone who doesn't agree with you about everything must be a fucking psychopath. Someone who notes that drawings of children is illegal Child Porn is a fucking psychopath.
Learn to love Alaska
My biggest issue with groups or governments doing this is they are hiding evidence of a crime. This allows groups to sound outraged, pretend they are doing something about a problem and claim that they have reduced CP while safely ignoring that fact that they have done nothing to prevent child abuse and have quite possible made it worse.
Why does this sound like the same approach used for issues like prostitution vs rape and human trafficking or drug use vs mental health?
So my daughter might be taking nude selfies of herself on her phone, which Google flags as child porn. But its not a pedo, its a selfie. So the engineers should carefully review those selfies, decide the phone belongs to a child, and the pictures are likely her own.
Except it is pedo, she's guilty of manufacturing CP, distributing CP if it's been sent to her BF, and exploitation of a minor (herself).. and the authorities should handle it since criminal charges will teach her not to ruin her life, by ruining her life. At least that's what some police officers and prosecutors think, and judges don't seem to mind either. It's not theoretical either, kids have actually been hit with those charges, most commonly for sharing, but for possessing too-- that's right, a prosecutor in NC actually had the gall to charge a 17 year old and his gf with exploitation of a minor for possessing naked pictures of themselves (distinct from the various other charges for sending and having their partners pics), in just one example of this obscene abuse of the law. If you think that's crazy, the insanity didn't even stop there: the boy was charged as an adult!
This country has completely lost its shit over teenage sexuality since it's been combined with technology. Probably because childhood has been extended so far that people don't recognize the difference between 17 and 7, so are equally freaked out by sex with the two ages.
holy crap, what are you taking man.
and once is repeatedly?
ps the menu you referenced doesn't exist in 6.0.1
And it still isn't child porn.
He was convicted for it. That you find reality inconvenient doesn't change reality.
You are arguing in favor of raping children because of your supposed "rights."
Nope, I'm arguing against child rape. You are arguing that I'm not. Not sure how you know what I mean better than I do, but you assert it.
I said the exact opposite you dumbfuck. You're the one who keeps producing them as examples of "child porn."
They are defined as child porn by governments. You know, organizations with more respectability than you.
Learn to love Alaska
"He was convicted for it."
And it still fucking isn't child porn no matter what you say.
"Nope, I'm arguing against child rape."
Stop lying.
"They are defined as child porn by governments. You know, organizations with more respectability than you."
So now you're just blatantly appealing to authority.
The IWF are British.
The British consider drawings to be "child pornography."
I don't like this one bit...
Checksum isn't interchangeable with hash.
Checksums have a goal: verifying data integrity. Hashing is just a technique -- can be used in data structures, image identification, integrity checks, etc. It's not trivial to bypass the latter without knowing the reference points.