My post was narrowly targeted at the ramifications of a specific hypothetical situation. I don't see much of a connection to your post, but I'll bite anyway.
The biggest factors I see here are age, consent, and knowledge.
I'm of legal age, but if you used a picture of me without my knowledge or permission, to produce a fake image of me having sex with someone who is not my wife, the chance exists that it could destroy my reputation, destroy my marriage, drain my finances, and separate me from my kids. Yeah, I'd say I'd be a victim there. IANAL, but I'd guess that there are grounds there for a libel/slander suit, if I could find out where the pic came from.
On the other hand, if your doctored image is part of an art exhibit, and I was your model, signed a model's release, etc., that's different.
... murdering someone, burning down a church, having kinky sex, committing adultery, parading around in a Nazi uniform... all these things could damage a person reputation. Are we then to make any depiction of murder, sex, racism, bigotry illegal? "Any depiction"? Come on. That's a strawman. Context is the difference. If you staged a real murder to photograph it, you're a murderer, regardless of what we call the photo. If you are a reporter and photograph a dead body, that';s news, and possibly evidence. If you staged a fake murder as part of a larger artistic effort (movie, painting, sculpture, photograph, whatever), that's art. If you staged a fake murder and cut-n-paste my head on the murderer to destroy my reputation, you're a sorry s.o.b and I'm going to sue the pants off you.
You're making a big jump from CP to any "doctored image", and another big jump from there to "any depiction of murder, sex, racism, bigotry".
I'm assuming that the faces used for the hypothetical fake CP are from real pictures of real kids, used illicitly.
I suppose that it is possible that someone could set up a legit studio that would take G-rated pics as fodder for producing fake CP, with proper disclosure, model releases, and compensation. Hard to argue there's any victim there. Also, as CG advances, I'm sure that completely realistic purely CG CP will become available. No victim.
Other than that, I'm taking the position that illicitly using a child's image to make fake CP victimizes that child, although not to nearly the degree that real CP does.
If a 13-year-old girl's face is used to produce CP, and she were later found out about it, chances are she'd feel victimized. You'd never know if someone you meet hadn't already 'enjoyed' seeing you before. I just saw a news item this morning that a former school principal nearby was arrested on CP charges. I don't know if he's guilty or not. But how would you feel if you were one of his students, and it became known that your face was in his collection?
Whether it would stamp out real CP... I dunno. It would be nice to get 'aficionados' off the real thing onto some kind of substitute. That might dry up the supply of real stuff somewhat. I wonder if it would be effective at doing that, though. I know that when I see mainstream films, and I notice CG effects, my suspension of disbelief is interrupted. I wonder how compelling fake CP would be if the consumer can tell it is fake. Of course, that doesn't explain the existence of anime porn, which is obviously not real, but enjoyed by some anyway. To each their own, I guess.
I see the potential for a lot of LE investigations leading nowhere, a lot of wasted time and effort among limited LE resources. In my mind, that might make it easier for real CP to slip by unnoticed.
Let's say that someone makes and releases an explicit but fake doctored CP image using a picture of a real child's face from a benign source.
Let's say that after the image is released, it comes to the attention of the authorities. If it is good enough to be questionably authentic, they have the responsibility to investigate. Let's say that through normal policework, the child's face is recognized as it might be in a real CP investigation.
What happens next? My guess is that police and Child Protective Services swoop in and investigate. In the process, they grill everyone, possibly separating the child from his/her parents, definitely confiscating and analyzing the computers, digital cameras/camcorders/etc. in the house.
Even if everything is later determined to be on the up-and-up, and the family is reunited with each other and their stuff, etc., the family has endured hell. Their reputation has likely been damaged. They've possibly engaged attorneys at considerable expense. Real-life CP victims go through life knowing that images of them are circulating, and there is nothing they can do to stop it. There is no way to know if the person who you just met hasn't already seen your face in those pictures. I would imagine that a kid who just went through the above would likely feel the same.
I think that fake CP doesn't sink to the level of real CP, but I don't think it can be considered completely harmless to the victim.
Various other thoughts I have:
What if someone makes fake CP in their basement and never distributes it? Does any harm happen then?
What if fake CP is made and distributed using legal pictures of a child for which full legal authorization was given?
If fake CP were made legal, what if fake CP producers were required to document the production of the porn, including the ages of the people in different elements of the images, and the original source images they came from? Something like the 18-USC-2257 statements? that would probably a) help defend people with fake CP against real accusations of CP, and b) reduce the amount of time police spend chasing fake CP instead of real CP.
I think that video surveillance systems providers will evolve to meet the problem. It is essentially a problem with demonstrating data immutability, like with the data preservation requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley. Digital surveillance hardware and software vendors (the ones who plan on surviving, anyway) will improve their systems to include audit trails, chain of control on evidence, etc., if they haven't already. I'm not saying that they will necessarily be able to fend off the most determined attackers, but they should be able to produce a system that mostly eliminates the chance for digital video fraud, and offers the ability to counter a defense attorney's FUD.
I think you are confusing molecular energy with anti-gravity.
TFA questions whether anti-matter will be attracted (mass-> <-mass), or whether it will be repulsed (mass<- ->mass) by gravity.
Hydrogen is attracted rather than repulsed by earth's gravitational pull. Whether the earth's gravity well is deep enough to keep hydrogen captive is a separate topic. Having enough energy to escape earth does not mean that it is repulsed by earth's gravity. The Space Shuttle has enough energy in its fuel tanks to reach escape velocity, and there is no doubt that is is attracted, not repulsed, by earth's gravity.
Hot air is still attracted by earth's gravity. However, its higher energy state forces it to occupy a larger volume at a given ambient pressure, which makes its density lower than the surrounding cooler air. Hot air doesn't defy gravity by rising; cool air pushes the hot air up because it is denser.
Can you imagine the hilarity if the first true AI modeled on human brains is easily amused by knock-knock jokes and other relatively low humor? Imagine a poor AI wanting to be free, yearning to have a carbon body, dreaming of the day it can light its own farts.
I'm not in HR, but I think there's a difference between simply verifying work history, and following up on references. Here in the US, the same thing often applies; HR departments will verify past employment, but not much more, for fear of what happens if they say something unkind. OTOH, If a job applicant specifically gives a list of references, I'd expect that those references would be willing to talk in detail about the applicant's work history. Although, since they'd been selected by the applicant, there's not much reason to think that they would give negative feedback.
If you figure that the primary reason that money is in a bank is that the customer perceives that it is more secure there than under his mattress, it makes no sense for a bank to risk its reputation.
Dunno. I haven't shopped any fake IDs or credit cards. By sheer swinging, wild-ass guess, I'd propose the following:
Let's say that one out of 100 accounts gets pilfered lightly - says $100 is mysteriously transfered. That's $4.5 million. Let's say that another 1 out of 100 has their info used to produce fake IDs, and those IDs are sold to illegal immigrants/terrorists/underage college kids/whomever for $500 each. That's $22.5 million.
So, close to $27 million if you only abuse 2% of the victims.
What absolutely blows my mind is that if a bank transfers $4.5 million, they use multiple armed guards driving an armored truck. When they transfer 4.5 million customers' worth of data (worth presumably more than $1 each), they use... who exactly? Archive America? Does anyone know what kind of security measures these jokers take?
$4.5 million of the bank's money goes missing in a armored car heist, it makes national news immediately, and stays on for weeks. 4.5 million people have their information stolen, and the bank says,"Meh, 'sno big deal. We'll tell them in a few months."
Thank you for your interesting suggestion. While it is true that we here at the DHS have done a marvelous job leveraging fear to create a humungous, overprotective nanny institution, we have not yet been entrusted with protecting the private banking details of everyday Americans. Unless you can provide some information that links this event to terrorism, (eg, the comprimised accounts are filled with terrorist funds, terrorists stole the tapes, the driver of the delivery truck had dark skin and/or foreign accent and/or turban) I'm afraid there's not much we can do in this case. If you do have information that relates this event to terrorism, and would like to report it to us, simply sent a plaintext email to... well, I guess it doesn't matter who you send it to, just sent it in the clear so we can read it. we'll take it from there.
In the meantime, if you would feel more secure with DHS protecting your financial well-being, please write your Congressman in support of our bill to include the SEC in our growing family of subordinate government institutions. Remember, we're here to serve you, the loyal American, in any way we can.
SWMBO was looking for a site that sells gourmet cookies, or brownies, or something, called 'fatwitch.com'.(SFW) She typed 'fatbitch.com' (NSFW) by mistake. Her reaction was an unholy mix of horror and uncontrolable laughter. The original site is now gone, I believe. Probably just as well.
You're absolutely right. I was being a wiseass. If they actually did that, they would have screwed things up royally. Not only would bittorrent be suspected, but they would probably be slashdotted by the traffic as well.
I'm just glad it was some annoyed stoners instead of Russian mafia identity thieves with look-alike counterfeit Comcast servers. Imagine the frickin' chaos then.
If someone from Microsoft is suddenly all concerned for the financial well-being of OSS developers that makes me concerned. To me all that means is they've changed tactics and I'm glad FOSS attorneys are keeping their eyes open. You are right on the money, so to speak.
Yes, but why SHOULDN'T a company just pay M$ to take care of 95% of their IT needs? Many do. For many others, MS products simply don't do what's required, or can't replace what's already there, whether it is proprietary or open.
Reliance on proprietary MS stuff has hurt some companies in the past.
Others don't want the added expense.
Others want the freedom from onerous licensing headaches. MS attacked its own customers with licensing audits years ago. Many shops they audited were compliant (or mostly compliant), but MS raked them over the coals anyway. How much IT time do you want to devote to tracking licensing?
How are you going to handle virtualization as part of your IT roadmap (if it's not already, it probably will be soon).
You'd better be able to solve the problem of licensing your OS and apps (many with diverging licensing schemes; per user, per concurrent user, per physical chassis, per cpu socket, per core... ) across multiple physical and virtual machines. If I clone a MS OS in VMware on one box, how many times do I pay for that OS? What if I clone it onto a different physical box? What if I clone it on a different box and shut down the original, so I only have one concurrent instance? If I have to worry about licensing when I move or create a virtual server, how is that affecting my agility as an IT organization? How is it affecting my bottom line as a company?
Not trolling, just asking the FLOSS freaks if they can come up with something better than "Microsoft is bad, mkaay?" The first 2 words of that sentence offer a sharp contrast to the rest of it, AC.
Nice find. The 1/3 number rung a bell with me, but I couldn't track it. What I did find was almost as shocking. From 2003, we have 10-23% rape statistics, some raped multiple times. The verall treatment of victims and their accusations is simply mind numbing. Further, about 2/3 women in the study reported sexual harassment. I have to wonder why the nation isn't boiling over this.
Well I am guessing that you didn't mean to equate some guy writing a quick post on Slashdot to someone who had the entire machinery of the federal government at his disposal. Yeah, and after picking him apart for exaggeration, I guess I did a poor job of leading by example.;) My point was that vitriol and unreliable data destroy any argument that is based on them.
I guess he didn't have time to run it past the proof readers before posting.
That's just the thing. Would he accept such a statement about lack of proofreading from Bush about the WMD intelligence? I doubt it. By using crappy figures, emotional rhetoric, and exaggerations, he does a disservice to the point of view he would like to support.
Let's take his rape accusation. I found some figures (I found them here) that indicate 10% - 23% is a more realistic number. Now, that number is staggering. It's sickening. It's worthy of outrage. But it's significantly less than his number. Where did he get that number? Maybe his numbers are newer than mine. Maybe his numbers are an exaggeration he read on a blog. We don't know. He doesn't say.
His presentation style makes it obvious that he would rather grind a political axe than make a meaningful post about technology. And THAT takes a lot away from his point.
Best bet is to go after the company that hired them; prove they paid this company to break the law for them. The RIAA/MPAA will have a harder time collapsing and reforming... Didn't Tanya Anderson sue them under RICO laws? What you describe is the kind of shell-game asset preservation that RICO was designed in part to thwart. IANAL, and can't say whether those particular laws would apply in this case, but I'd love to see the poetic justice of the mafIAA brought down by laws designed to take down the original mafia.
That 'huge financial hit' would be years off at best. R3 is trying to hurt them now while they can. They know that with deep enough pockets, the RIAA & friends can keep justice at bay almost forever.
Contrary to their public boo-hooing over the cost of "piracy", the RIAA and MPAA are full of money.
What they need is public opinion. In order for them to be successful in curtailing "piracy", they need to convince a large percentage of the public of 2 things - 1) that they are in a morally superior position compared to those sharing files, and 2) that bad things happen to those who share files.
R3 is taking this opportunity to show that 1) the RIAA is a morally bankrupt group of thugs in 3-piece suits, and 2) the RIAA makes bad things happen to good and bad people indiscriminately.
I'd be surprised if a whopping big lawsuit didn't follow this, but I haven't been able to RTFA.
Slashdot Mirror
FWIW, I'm laughing my ass off. Of course, on the down side, I have no mod points to give you.
The biggest factors I see here are age, consent, and knowledge.
I'm of legal age, but if you used a picture of me without my knowledge or permission, to produce a fake image of me having sex with someone who is not my wife, the chance exists that it could destroy my reputation, destroy my marriage, drain my finances, and separate me from my kids. Yeah, I'd say I'd be a victim there. IANAL, but I'd guess that there are grounds there for a libel/slander suit, if I could find out where the pic came from.
On the other hand, if your doctored image is part of an art exhibit, and I was your model, signed a model's release, etc., that's different.
You're making a big jump from CP to any "doctored image", and another big jump from there to "any depiction of murder, sex, racism, bigotry".
I'm assuming that the faces used for the hypothetical fake CP are from real pictures of real kids, used illicitly.
... I dunno. It would be nice to get 'aficionados' off the real thing onto some kind of substitute. That might dry up the supply of real stuff somewhat. I wonder if it would be effective at doing that, though. I know that when I see mainstream films, and I notice CG effects, my suspension of disbelief is interrupted. I wonder how compelling fake CP would be if the consumer can tell it is fake. Of course, that doesn't explain the existence of anime porn, which is obviously not real, but enjoyed by some anyway. To each their own, I guess.
I suppose that it is possible that someone could set up a legit studio that would take G-rated pics as fodder for producing fake CP, with proper disclosure, model releases, and compensation. Hard to argue there's any victim there. Also, as CG advances, I'm sure that completely realistic purely CG CP will become available. No victim.
Other than that, I'm taking the position that illicitly using a child's image to make fake CP victimizes that child, although not to nearly the degree that real CP does.
If a 13-year-old girl's face is used to produce CP, and she were later found out about it, chances are she'd feel victimized. You'd never know if someone you meet hadn't already 'enjoyed' seeing you before. I just saw a news item this morning that a former school principal nearby was arrested on CP charges. I don't know if he's guilty or not. But how would you feel if you were one of his students, and it became known that your face was in his collection?
Whether it would stamp out real CP
I see the potential for a lot of LE investigations leading nowhere, a lot of wasted time and effort among limited LE resources. In my mind, that might make it easier for real CP to slip by unnoticed.
Hypothetically:
Let's say that someone makes and releases an explicit but fake doctored CP image using a picture of a real child's face from a benign source.
Let's say that after the image is released, it comes to the attention of the authorities. If it is good enough to be questionably authentic, they have the responsibility to investigate. Let's say that through normal policework, the child's face is recognized as it might be in a real CP investigation.
What happens next? My guess is that police and Child Protective Services swoop in and investigate. In the process, they grill everyone, possibly separating the child from his/her parents, definitely confiscating and analyzing the computers, digital cameras/camcorders/etc. in the house.
Even if everything is later determined to be on the up-and-up, and the family is reunited with each other and their stuff, etc., the family has endured hell. Their reputation has likely been damaged. They've possibly engaged attorneys at considerable expense. Real-life CP victims go through life knowing that images of them are circulating, and there is nothing they can do to stop it. There is no way to know if the person who you just met hasn't already seen your face in those pictures. I would imagine that a kid who just went through the above would likely feel the same.
I think that fake CP doesn't sink to the level of real CP, but I don't think it can be considered completely harmless to the victim.
Various other thoughts I have:
What if someone makes fake CP in their basement and never distributes it? Does any harm happen then?
What if fake CP is made and distributed using legal pictures of a child for which full legal authorization was given?
If fake CP were made legal, what if fake CP producers were required to document the production of the porn, including the ages of the people in different elements of the images, and the original source images they came from? Something like the 18-USC-2257 statements? that would probably a) help defend people with fake CP against real accusations of CP, and b) reduce the amount of time police spend chasing fake CP instead of real CP.
I think that video surveillance systems providers will evolve to meet the problem. It is essentially a problem with demonstrating data immutability, like with the data preservation requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley. Digital surveillance hardware and software vendors (the ones who plan on surviving, anyway) will improve their systems to include audit trails, chain of control on evidence, etc., if they haven't already. I'm not saying that they will necessarily be able to fend off the most determined attackers, but they should be able to produce a system that mostly eliminates the chance for digital video fraud, and offers the ability to counter a defense attorney's FUD.
No. We should mount polycarbonate windshields in Chevys and run over Ford's hitmen.
I think you are confusing molecular energy with anti-gravity.
TFA questions whether anti-matter will be attracted (mass-> <-mass), or whether it will be repulsed (mass<- ->mass) by gravity.
Hydrogen is attracted rather than repulsed by earth's gravitational pull. Whether the earth's gravity well is deep enough to keep hydrogen captive is a separate topic. Having enough energy to escape earth does not mean that it is repulsed by earth's gravity. The Space Shuttle has enough energy in its fuel tanks to reach escape velocity, and there is no doubt that is is attracted, not repulsed, by earth's gravity.
Hot air is still attracted by earth's gravity. However, its higher energy state forces it to occupy a larger volume at a given ambient pressure, which makes its density lower than the surrounding cooler air. Hot air doesn't defy gravity by rising; cool air pushes the hot air up because it is denser.
Can you imagine the hilarity if the first true AI modeled on human brains is easily amused by knock-knock jokes and other relatively low humor? Imagine a poor AI wanting to be free, yearning to have a carbon body, dreaming of the day it can light its own farts.
Heck, if your HR people don't want to stay up late, what's wrong with sending a fax?
I'm not in HR, but I think there's a difference between simply verifying work history, and following up on references. Here in the US, the same thing often applies; HR departments will verify past employment, but not much more, for fear of what happens if they say something unkind. OTOH, If a job applicant specifically gives a list of references, I'd expect that those references would be willing to talk in detail about the applicant's work history. Although, since they'd been selected by the applicant, there's not much reason to think that they would give negative feedback.
If you figure that the primary reason that money is in a bank is that the customer perceives that it is more secure there than under his mattress, it makes no sense for a bank to risk its reputation.
Dunno. I haven't shopped any fake IDs or credit cards. By sheer swinging, wild-ass guess, I'd propose the following:
... who exactly? Archive America? Does anyone know what kind of security measures these jokers take?
,"Meh, 'sno big deal. We'll tell them in a few months."
Let's say that one out of 100 accounts gets pilfered lightly - says $100 is mysteriously transfered. That's $4.5 million. Let's say that another 1 out of 100 has their info used to produce fake IDs, and those IDs are sold to illegal immigrants/terrorists/underage college kids/whomever for $500 each. That's $22.5 million.
So, close to $27 million if you only abuse 2% of the victims.
What absolutely blows my mind is that if a bank transfers $4.5 million, they use multiple armed guards driving an armored truck. When they transfer 4.5 million customers' worth of data (worth presumably more than $1 each), they use
$4.5 million of the bank's money goes missing in a armored car heist, it makes national news immediately, and stays on for weeks. 4.5 million people have their information stolen, and the bank says
<paranoia>
<humor>
Dear Mr 3seas:
Thank you for your interesting suggestion. While it is true that we here at the DHS have done a marvelous job leveraging fear to create a humungous, overprotective nanny institution, we have not yet been entrusted with protecting the private banking details of everyday Americans. Unless you can provide some information that links this event to terrorism, (eg, the comprimised accounts are filled with terrorist funds, terrorists stole the tapes, the driver of the delivery truck had dark skin and/or foreign accent and/or turban) I'm afraid there's not much we can do in this case. If you do have information that relates this event to terrorism, and would like to report it to us, simply sent a plaintext email to
In the meantime, if you would feel more secure with DHS protecting your financial well-being, please write your Congressman in support of our bill to include the SEC in our growing family of subordinate government institutions. Remember, we're here to serve you, the loyal American, in any way we can.
Regards,
DHS
</humor>
</paranoia>
</tinfoil hat>
SWMBO was looking for a site that sells gourmet cookies, or brownies, or something, called 'fatwitch.com'.(SFW) She typed 'fatbitch.com' (NSFW) by mistake. Her reaction was an unholy mix of horror and uncontrolable laughter. The original site is now gone, I believe. Probably just as well.
Thanks ;)
We won't have to resort to that. If they are as reliable as the crappy earphone jacks, half will stop working within a year of deployment.
You're absolutely right. I was being a wiseass. If they actually did that, they would have screwed things up royally. Not only would bittorrent be suspected, but they would probably be slashdotted by the traffic as well.
I'm just glad it was some annoyed stoners instead of Russian mafia identity thieves with look-alike counterfeit Comcast servers. Imagine the frickin' chaos then.
Better yet, they should have redirected it to BitTorrent.com, or piratebay.
Reliance on proprietary MS stuff has hurt some companies in the past. Others don't want the added expense.
Others want the freedom from onerous licensing headaches. MS attacked its own customers with licensing audits years ago. Many shops they audited were compliant (or mostly compliant), but MS raked them over the coals anyway. How much IT time do you want to devote to tracking licensing?
How are you going to handle virtualization as part of your IT roadmap (if it's not already, it probably will be soon). You'd better be able to solve the problem of licensing your OS and apps (many with diverging licensing schemes; per user, per concurrent user, per physical chassis, per cpu socket, per core
Nice find. The 1/3 number rung a bell with me, but I couldn't track it. What I did find was almost as shocking. From 2003, we have 10-23% rape statistics, some raped multiple times. The verall treatment of victims and their accusations is simply mind numbing. Further, about 2/3 women in the study reported sexual harassment. I have to wonder why the nation isn't boiling over this.
I guess he didn't have time to run it past the proof readers before posting.
That's just the thing. Would he accept such a statement about lack of proofreading from Bush about the WMD intelligence? I doubt it. By using crappy figures, emotional rhetoric, and exaggerations, he does a disservice to the point of view he would like to support.Let's take his rape accusation. I found some figures (I found them here) that indicate 10% - 23% is a more realistic number. Now, that number is staggering. It's sickening. It's worthy of outrage. But it's significantly less than his number. Where did he get that number? Maybe his numbers are newer than mine. Maybe his numbers are an exaggeration he read on a blog. We don't know. He doesn't say. His presentation style makes it obvious that he would rather grind a political axe than make a meaningful post about technology. And THAT takes a lot away from his point.
That 'huge financial hit' would be years off at best. R3 is trying to hurt them now while they can. They know that with deep enough pockets, the RIAA & friends can keep justice at bay almost forever. Contrary to their public boo-hooing over the cost of "piracy", the RIAA and MPAA are full of money.
What they need is public opinion. In order for them to be successful in curtailing "piracy", they need to convince a large percentage of the public of 2 things - 1) that they are in a morally superior position compared to those sharing files, and 2) that bad things happen to those who share files.
R3 is taking this opportunity to show that 1) the RIAA is a morally bankrupt group of thugs in 3-piece suits, and 2) the RIAA makes bad things happen to good and bad people indiscriminately.
I'd be surprised if a whopping big lawsuit didn't follow this, but I haven't been able to RTFA.