Malware Can Download Child Porn To Your Computer 586
2muchcoffeeman writes "The Associated Press tells the story of Michael Fiola, a former Massachusetts government employee who was arrested in 2007 after child porn was found on his state-issued laptop computer. He was eventually cleared of all charges after some digging by the defense found that the laptop was infected with malware that was 'programmed to visit as many as 40 child porn sites per minute — an inhuman feat. While Fiola and his wife were out to dinner one night, someone logged on to the computer and porn flowed in for an hour and a half. Prosecutors performed another test and confirmed the defense findings. The charge was dropped — 11 months after it was filed.' The article also discusses the technical aspects of how it could happen and about similar cases in the United Kingdom in 2003."
But the records are kept (Score:5, Insightful)
Wherever she goes, the police will be aware that she was once accused of something related to pedofilia.
Accused of course implies she was linked to it.
ok, i meant to make this longer and darker, but i'm just not really feeling that paranoid tonight =)
This guy was lucky. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lucky for this guy there was evidence to prove he didn't do it. A hacker could might have installed a remote access program, downloaded the files manually, and then uninstalled the remote access program. There wouldn't be much evidence to suggest that this guy didn't download the kiddie porn himself.
Great! He's cleared! (Score:5, Insightful)
A new name for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Frameware ? :-)
Legalise the posession of child porn already (Score:4, Insightful)
Criminalising mere possession only drives the stuff up in value, if there was more of it freely available no pervert would feel the need to hand their credit card details over to some lads in Thailand so they can pick more 5-year-olds off the street.
Re:This guy was lucky. (Score:3, Insightful)
The guy could also download some kiddie-porn-visiting malware, have a good time jacking off to cool pics and when finally caught, blame it all on teh viruses.
The Perfect Frame (Score:5, Insightful)
Think Fred might beat you to that promotion? Think your wife was a bit too friendly toward Bob at the party? Think Doctor Franzhaufer gave you an unfair grade? Don't like your new uppity neighbor?
Download child pornography to their computers. Sure, they'll whine about their "rights" and their "innocence", but who's going to believe a creepy pervert? Even if the faggy liberal court lets him off on some technicality, his career will be ruined, his friends will leave him, and he'll probably end up shooting himself.
You win, right? You showed him who's boss.
--
This country is losing all its marbles at once Among our other problems, we're engaging in a good old-fashioned witch hunt against child pornographers. No accusation is too specious, nor any policy too draconian. Never mind if due process rights are bulldozed, and people who've served out their sentences are branded for life and forced to live under overpasses. Never mind that the beachheld of practically all Internet censorship schemes has been combating child pornography. Never mind the culture of fear that can justify anything.
At least we're getting those evil-doers, right?
Re:Legalise the posession of child porn already (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Flying the false flag (Score:5, Insightful)
It's even funnier when you compare the stand on downloading kiddy porn and downloading movies/music/software for free.
1. Downloading copyrighted material illegally (not paying the authors when they ask for the payment) hurts the whole $content industry and will lead to less $content being produced, because nobody wants to work for free.
2. Downloading kiddy porn without paying for it helps the industry and will lead to more of it being produced = more children being abused.
Does this mean that the only true artists are the kiddy porn producers who appreciate that their product is being used and produce it just for the fun of it?
And yes, trojans like this are good. Now will somebody make one that also downloads music and software in addition to kiddy porn? Since most users don't find out about what various software does to their PCs until the PC starts acting up more than they can handle, it should DDoS the MAFIAA and child porn prosecutors. Except this time make it a worm, so it spreads without the user having to click on some link.
Re:A new name for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
The hysteria around child porn makes the ideal way to frame someone. Need to get rid of an enemy, a politician you don't like maybe ? Just break into their computer and load a single image on there. No one will look too closely, everyone will be scrambling to condemn you first to avoid looking guilt by association. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.
Re:Legalise the posession of child porn already (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's see:
1. Buying something that you know is stolen - the original owner should still be able to reclaim his property. Also, you are paying a thief for stealing, so he will steal more because he can live from it.
2. Hiding someone who has committed a crime - you are wasting time of the police officers who are searching for the criminal, also the criminal may commit another crime while running from the police and this time you will be an accomplice.
Now, downloading a picture of a crime. The picture is harmless, having it is also harmless (unless you have the only copy in which case you are holding evidence that could be used to put a criminal in jail). Pirating such picture does not pay money to the producer and so the producer will lose a lot of money (RIAA and MPAA both said that piracy hurts the industry).
I assume this virus is for getting revenge (Score:4, Insightful)
It's this sort of thing that will give governments an excuse to try and control the net even more and give companies a reason to close up their hardware and in the end most people end up with less freedom.
The net was nice before every tard was on it waiting to be exploited.
Re:Flying the false flag (Score:3, Insightful)
Secretly downloading porn to someones computer to create a cover is hardly moral.
Never said it was.
But life is not black and white, and all of your examples are either whacko (like the US government would be mad that we download secret information from their enemies) or totally missing the point of thought crimes (planting weapons).
Grain of salt. (Score:4, Insightful)
Whenever I hear about something like this, I'm always a little bit skeptical. What would a malware writer stand to gain by writing some malware that "accessed 40 child porn sites per minute" and installing it on some guy's computer? It's pretty absurd when you think about it.
Does anybody really believe that there's some spergy criminal mastermind out there who spends his nights optimizing his malware's CPSPM rate? One would assume that anybody with enough knowledge to even write the software is probably already connected to the people who produce that stuff, or else he wouldn't know where to get it in the first place (and so how could he write malware to do it for him?)
Glad this has happened to a politician (Score:5, Insightful)
While it's sad whenever someone is falsely accused and I have sympathy for him and his wife, I can't help but feel - it's wonderful that this has happened to a politician. Because this could happen to absolutely anybody and politicians will not relent in their fear mongering and ridiculous laws in this area until they become victims themselves.
While I strongly suspect if they weren't a) wealthy and b) in positions of power the governor would now be rotting in a cell, the fact of the case being overturned will help sanity prevail everywhere.
What if... (Score:1, Insightful)
the accused was just a really dedicated pedophile and downloaded a program from his buddies that allowed him to circumvent all the tedious typing and clicking. Turn your laptop on, do your other legitimate business of the day, and then enjoy the benefits of your application at your leisure. Unless I missed it, I didn't see where they mentioned finding duplicates of this program replicating itself across a network, or evidence of a security breach on that computer which coincided with the installation of that program.
I'm not saying he did it, but shouldn't we consider the possibility that he was just a technically literate pedophile? I open up Opera, click on all of my "Speed Dial" favorites and then go get a snack. When I come back I start browsing all my favorite blogs and online news sites and such. What if he's just one step ahead of people like me?
So now what (Score:5, Insightful)
So now the guy's sold his car, taken out a second mortgage, lost his job, 11 months of his life and most of his friends. He's a pariah with a mountain of debt.
Meanwhile, the prosecutor's off looking for the next big case without so much as an uncomfortable public statement or even an "I'm sorry". Business as usual.
It's a touch kinder and gentler than the days of the (Un)Holy Inquisition where if you drowned you were innocent and if you didn't they'd burn you, but it's no different in principle. The process of being tried does very nearly as much damage as being found guilty would. The accusation destroys your life one way or the other. Those who cause all the damage face no consequences whatsoever.
Re:A new name for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
People need witches. People need easy targets to vent the full fury of the legal system upon. Pedophiles are perfect, because unlike witches, they actually exist. The public delights in these show trials, and delights even more in being able to treat the accused and especially the convicted as the scum of the earth.
It's a kind of blood sport. It's a form of entertainment. It's completely shameful.
Frameware? More like Plausible Deniability (Score:1, Insightful)
So, someone got framed and is cleared of all charges. Which is good.
But, leaving the fun application of ruining peoples lifes forever using a simple piece of software aside: Personally, if I'd be a terribly evil fan of cp (which I'm not, dear FBI), I'd be searching the Internet for this exact piece of malware RIGHT NOW. Someone finds cp on your harddrive? Simple, "Yeh well, search my computer" and give your lawyer the "hint" that your PC might be infested with "malware" - get out of jail free card!
This exact case presents quite a good precedence for using this excuse.
Re:Grain of salt. (Score:5, Insightful)
It might be the case that the malware was designed to turn the computers into hosts for redistributing the material so that those hosting it wouldn't need to host their site on anything that could be traced back to them.
Re:Grain of salt. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A new name for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
When 1% of your population is in prison, you can be sure the vast majority are actually innocent. No culture is that wicked.
That's what happens when nonviolent victimless activities such as adult consentual personal drug use are made into crimes. That 1% would be a tiny fraction of a percentage if there were no such thing as the War on Drugs.
Re:Legalise the posession of child porn already (Score:2, Insightful)
The creation of those bits required the harming of a child, there's nothing crazy about wanting to outlaw those bits. Legalizing the ownership of abusive images will only result in MORE children being abused. If they get caugh/prosecuted more in the US, then they will simply outsource to abuse to some poorer country where child abuse isn't heavily prosecuted. All you've done is moved the abuse elsewhere, and made it easier for Americans to get their hands on some despicable material. Your suggestion is a very bad one.
Re:Flying the false flag (Score:4, Insightful)
You see nothing wrong with charging people with a crime, for viewing a picture? Or being in possession of one? It may not be thought crime, but it is persecution especially when you consider that we aren't just talking about actual child abuse either, where you would have an argument concerning actual crime taking place to produce the picture (which still doesn't justify throwing people in jail for possessing the picture), but CGI images have resulted in child porn prosecutions, as have drawings and comics.
This is at its core, prosecution and persecution targeted toward people the public does not like.
Re:Great! He's cleared! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Legalise the posession of child porn already (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This guy was lucky. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This guy was lucky. (Score:2, Insightful)
Lucky for this guy there was evidence to prove he didn't do it.
There is something about this sentence that worries me.
I just can't put my finger on it...
Re:Flying the false flag (Score:4, Insightful)
The act of possession means it is no longer a thought crime. It is a crime in the United States to even view an image of Child Pornography.
Uh yeah, what do you think a thought crime is - something that is not a crime?
There are ways to catch the manufacturer, but what other freedoms will be lost in the balance. Shall we have to provide ID to buy a Camera?
So, your argument is that because it is too hard to actually save any children from abuse, we should just fuck with people we think are gross?
Re:new? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't even know why this is illegal. First-off, nude images are not a crime, even if you're a 15-year-old taking pictures of yourself in the mirror and sending them to your boyfriend. Second, a photo of sex is not a crime, since it's considered free speech (hence the existence of Penthouse and other porn websites).
The only person who's committed a crime is the adult raping an underage child, and also the photographer (an accessory). They are the ones who should be arrested.
It's also a bit nuts when some Australian court can say, "Cartoons of children having sex is illegal." No victims; no crime.
Re:Shameful, how? (Score:5, Insightful)
As threats to society, people like you are far worse than pedophiles. People like you are why families get their lives derailed from something as innocent as a picture of their child in the bath. People like you are why a couple of teenagers sending nude pictures to each other gets them both charged with production and possession of child porn. People like you are why even after pedophiles have 'served their debt to society', their life is turned into a living hell by moralistic jerks, without a care for the fact that such abuse just increases recidivism rates. People like you are why even after being unambiguously acquitted of child porn charges, people continue to have the stigma of 'child-raping monster' on them. People like you are why a grown man has to seriously consider whether or not he should help a crying child, for fear of it being seen as him trying to abduct them. People like you are why parents are endlessly paranoid about some freak snatching their child off the street and raping and murdering them, oblivious to the fact that the vast majority of child abuse is perpetrated by friends and family. People like you are why the Internet continues to be censored in many places under the guise of 'protecting the children'. People like you are responsible for gladly handing over the rights of yourself and others to maintain the security theater that is the war on pedophilia.
You may not feel shame over your complete inability to rationally consider the situation, your lack of care for the harm you cause to society as a whole, your lack of care for the harm you cause to even the children you claim to be defending, and the fact that you're driven by nothing but hate and a desire to have a group to persecute and torture for your twisted amusement, but you sure as fuck should.
Re:Grain of salt. (Score:1, Insightful)
To use the victim's computer as a proxy or host (protecting the identity of the actual user)?
As a malicious prank or revenge attack?
Be as skeptical as you like, but this just exposes an enormous hole in CP prosecutions and people shouldn't have to prove their innocence - they're entitled to an assumption of it until the prosecution proves their case. If there is doubt that the defendant even knew about the content being downloaded, the case is a joke.
Sadly "think of the children" hysteria is often justified using arguments such as yours.
Re:This guy was lucky. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This guy was lucky. (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe. But ever heard of "innocent until proven guilty"? Being accused already ruined that guys life (and finances). It could be worse, his wife could have left him. He has little chance of gaining everything back, and there will always be that who-knows-cloud over his head.
Re:Legalise the posession of child porn already (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not all that strange logic though, whetehr you agree with it or not. Yes, at the outset it looks like a contradiction...
However; there is no legal way to download child porn (and I think it should continue to be illegal, if nothing else, to produce child porn). OK, so that means that if P2P is one of the major ways to download child porn, then P2P increases the ability (not sure about motivation) of pornographers. If there's a way to get it to the customer, that increases the ability....
The first statement; there is a legal way to produce and distribute media. Whether you like the way it works or not, there's a completely legal way to purchase music, movies, etc. I am not defending the *IAA and not defending the way publishers work, etc... but it remains a fact that there is a legal way to get access to those materials. It could logically follow, then, that having a "cheap" illegal way to get access to the same material could reduce income/ability/motiviation to produce new content.
Do either of those happen? I don't know. But you could, IMO, logically deduce both. They are not mutually exclusive.
Re:A new name for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
People who molest children, or partake in child porn, are the scum of the earth. I can't believe what I'm reading here. There are intelligent people who believe it shouldn't be a crime, or a big deal, to possess child porn, or molest children and record it?
The problem is you are putting at least 4 groups of people in the same category "pedophile" :
1) people who are aroused by pictures of (naked) children
2) people who molest children
3) people who record 2
4) people who distribute 3
Group 1 should probably not be criminalized because they are just people with psychological issues and there are no direct victims. Group 2 are criminals and might have psychological issues which may be cause for some leniency in a very few cases. The other 2 groups are the ones every sane person wants to string up by the balls from the highest tree. All these people can make our stomachs turn, but some deserve pity rather than jail.
Re:So now what (Score:1, Insightful)
Back in those days if someone tried to do that to me, the first thing I'd do is demand proof that this ritual works and demand the clergy to go first.
So the guy in chains with a dozen halberds pointed at him is making demands now, is he? Good luck with that!
Cleric: "Surely only a witch could be so brazen as to demand the drowning of good men of the cloth. Thou art a witch and shall burn!"
Re:A new name for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
And
5) People who download porn from dubious sites and get some 17 year old Russia girl who could entirely pass for an adult. (Can you magically tell the difference between a 17 year old and an 18 year old, or even a 16 year old and a 22 year old?)
6) People who don't download anything knowingly, just follow a bad link trying to get some warez or, hell, have a malware infection like this guy.
Seriously, the laws are idiotic.
Possession laws in general are dubious to start with, but at least with, for example, drugs, people aren't trying to buy sugar and ending up with heroin, or having people just wander by and stick five kilos of cocaine under the seat of their car.
Re:Legalise the posession of child porn already (Score:5, Insightful)
The creation of those bits required the harming of a child, there's nothing crazy about wanting to outlaw those bits.
But here's where that starts to bug me: What about crime scene photography? Rotten.com? War photography? Possession of pictures of crimes and brutality are not outlawed in any case except this one. Also, no one really argues that Rotten.com should be outlawed because it will result in more crimes/suicides/whatever being committed. Why? Because they're just pictures. We don't know why people are looking at them, and in many cases probably don't want to know.
The other thing is that these bits are just that: bits. Endlessly copyable, ethereal, and fundamentally removed from the event they are cobbled together to represent. They do not hurt children. The bastards who put them in that order hurt children, and those people are the ones we need to spend our time and energy finding.
It comes down to a real-crime vs. thoughtcrime problem for me. I care a great deal about stopping people from hurting children. But I don't care if other people whack off to the idea of hurting children. I don't. It's their business. The furor over CP is not about hurting children, it's about hunting down people with unpopular fantasies and treating them as though they hurt children. It doesn't make any sense.
Furthermore, I think it's a "low-hanging fruit" cop-out by law enforcement. Finding CP producers is very hard detective work, and successes are few and far between. That has got to be frustrating and disheartening. However, if you can declare that anyone possessing endlessly and anonymously copyable images of child abuse as being virtually the same as the producer, that makes things a hell of a lot easier, just by increasing the sheer number of people you're looking for. It's the same, I feel, as the security theater we have at airports now. Finding terrorists is hard work, but any $6/hr idiot can pull a half-empty water bottle out of a backpack. Let's do that instead. People then feel like if they don't bend over and let their rights and freedoms be trampled, they are somehow in favor of child rape or blowing up airplanes. It's a witch hunt, plain and simple.
Finally, I want to point out that your point of moving abuse offshore is actually more correct than you meant. Yes, that very well might happen, which would put CP on the same economic model as anything else. We in the developed world enjoy coffee and chocolate and cane sugar as basic commodities. Those are produced by slave labor. We just don't see it, so it allows us to feel good about ourselves. Those aren't the only products, though. Everything has slave labor tucked away in it somewhere. Moving our unhealthy obsessions out of sight is totally normal, and there isn't a single person who isn't guilty of exploiting it in developed countries. I'm sorry to be callous, but to that point, I can only respond with "...so?"
Just because something is reprehensible doesn't mean it should be abolished. There are cost/benefit balances to examine, and I, along with many people who usually post anon about this, just think the cost is way too high to go after people with CP on their hard drives. It violates the rights of all of us, goes against the philosophies of free societies, dilutes law enforcement resources better spent on the producers, and probably won't have any effect anyway.
Re:This guy was lucky. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think, if the U.S. discovers a photo of a Japanese girl being raped, the police should simply turn-over the evidence to our ally and let them track down the criminal.
Cracking down on child porn means cracking down on possession.
Okay. But what's the logic of making cartoons of children having sex illegal (as is the case in Aussieland). Where's the victim? Where's the crime? This is nothing more than morality enforcement except now instead of the Catholic church doing it, it's the government.
Your view also calls into question the existence of sites like this: http://clubseventeen.com/ [clubseventeen.com] (warning nudity). In that country, the Netherlands, 17 is the legal age of consent, so no crime has been committed in any of those photos. But am I going to get arrested in the US for a non-crime that never happened??? ----- Or what about American nudist sites? http://www.nude2000.com/Family_Pageant_Activities.htm [nude2000.com] (nudity again). Is daddy going to get arrested because he took a photo of his underage daughter or son???
How about we embrace that concept "land of the free" and just let people enjoy liberated speech without fear of jail time? Arrest the rapist, or the murderer, or the thief, not the guy who just happens to have the photo of the event.
Re:Flying the false flag (Score:2, Insightful)
I would say that rights and freedoms were already the baby tossed out with the bathwater when possession of "child porn" became illegal.
Re:This guy was lucky. (Score:4, Insightful)
So you think child rapists will stop molesting children if they're not getting paid?
There is no business model here. These people rape children because they're sick fucks. Not being able to sell a picture isn't going to change them. Thus taking away "demand" isn't going to do to anything. Nothing at all.
Re:A new name for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
the scandal would be enough to ruin their political career for life.
Good. Politics shouldn't be something you can do for a career anyway.
Re:new? (Score:3, Insightful)
P.S. I think it's rather stupid to criminalize God's creation (the body). Only a completely and total dipshit, also known as a politician, would find the Creator's work a perversion. It's sickening.
But then I've long thought Puritan americans have a mental aberration where they can see violence on television without concern (think 24), but fear nudity (like Janet Jackson's naked breast). That can't be normal.
Re:This guy was lucky. (Score:2, Insightful)
http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0001854/TweedeBoek/TitelXIV/Artikel240b/geldigheidsdatum_09-11-2009 [overheid.nl]
---------------
Met gevangenisstraf van ten hoogste vier jaren of geldboete van de vijfde categorie wordt gestraft degene die een afbeelding - of een gegevensdrager, bevattende een afbeelding - van een seksuele gedraging, waarbij iemand die kennelijk de leeftijd van achttien jaar nog niet heeft bereikt, is betrokken of schijnbaar is betrokken, verspreidt, openlijk tentoonstelt, vervaardigt, invoert, doorvoert, uitvoert of in bezit heeft.
---------------
Your turn.
Re:This guy was lucky. (Score:4, Insightful)
Except for the bit where the guy responsible lives in Thailand, or Rwanda, or Guatemala. Most probably you don't have a suspect at all--at most you have a picture of the victim.
You also have a money trail. Follow the money.
Cracking down on child porn means cracking down on possession.
No, it means cracking down on sales.
Generally speaking there is no practical way to find the initial distributor or the victim.
You just have to get close enough to cut off the money.
I still see no real reason why possession of the material itself should be a crime. That's a bit like suggesting mere possession of a Jihad video should be a crime, because it's difficult or impossible to track down the people who actually chopped some guy's head off with a sword.
Do you see how fucked up those priorities are? It isn't as though people will stop chopping people's heads off because no one watches the videos. And it isn't as though the child rape will stop, even if there's no market for the porn -- I hate to be cold, but there's still plenty of demand for the girls themselves.
Yes, it's hard. But it would also actually do some good.
How have the people who gave them money caused "actual harm" anymore than in the "simple possession" case?
Please think about that for more than two seconds, and see if you can really hold that position.
Simple possession does no harm. That's like claiming, again, that me watching a Jihad video is like me cutting someone's head off. Or how about the 9/11 attacks -- should the entire country be punished for watching the videos of those planes flying into buildings?
No, you punish the people who fly planes into buildings, the people who send them, and the people who finance them. And you do this not just for punishment's sake, but to prevent things like that from happening in the first place.
People who give the child rapists money are giving them a real, monetary incentive to keep doing what they're doing. It directly supports that act, much like "vote with your dollars" applies to anything.
People who don't, aren't really doing much other than stroking their egos, which they're doing already anyway.
If you're willing to punish the one you should be willing to punish the other.
I'm willing to punish anyone who actually gives money to Al Qaeda. I am not willing to punish people who watch the 9/11 videos, or visit Ground Zero.
Re:Shameful, how? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A new name for this? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're going to get into framing, you should at least have the decency to frame the entire lot of those crooks, from the most right-wing Republican to the most leftist Democrat. Clean the House, then the Senate. Repeat every 12 years until term limits and limits on lobbying are enacted.
Re:Shameful, how? (Score:2, Insightful)
So let's recap. Someone finishes their post with this:
It's a kind of blood sport. It's a form of entertainment. It's completely shameful.
You respond with this:
If ever the state needs a volunteer, I'll step up. I can do the needle, I can knot a rope, I can throw an electrical switch, I can pull a trigger, or I can swing an axe.
You get modded down and respond with this:
I can't help wondering what kind of lowlife modded me down. He probably lurks around the bathrooms at his local park, waiting to get a peek at the little boys and girls.
Your possession of the motor skills required to manipulate a needle, tie knots, swing an axe, or pull a trigger on command is not the problem. Your diction/presentation within the context of this conversation is the problem. To put this another way, you are presenting an argument using techniques commonly employed by fuck-tards.
If you are able to re-read your down mod'd posts without picking up on the fuck-tard aspects of those posts, then you might consider simply ignoring the moderation system altogether. Either way, this is /., so unless you take up sock-puppetry your fuck-tardish posts have simply joined the proud tradition of -1 fuck-tardary on this site, and it will all be forgotten by morning.
Best of luck navigating the world.
Re:Shameful, how? (Score:2, Insightful)
The distinction here (of which I see no awareness in your post btw) is that people who can be legally liable under the slew of anti-pedophile laws currently on the books are an insanely wider proportion of population that the sum total of the kind of truly dangerous people you talk about.
Many people here on slashdot are really really pissed at what they perceive as irrational overkill in that direction that strangles everybody's freedoms without having much impact on the real predators - hence the emotional tone that strikes a chord with a lot of us here.
Re:new? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shameful, how? (Score:5, Insightful)
``People have a special contempt for pedophiles because their victims are children and the motivation for the crime is mere sexual desire - the sort of urge most of us supress every day. It's an adult versus a child.''
That's fair and well, but that isn't the whole story. I don't think you'll find many people arguing that actual sexual abuse of children isn't a horrible crime that should be punished. The problem is that, under the guise of protecting the children (which we all agree is a Good Thing), many people are labeled as child molesters even though they don't actually sexually abuse children. This is a problem, because it ruins the lives of innocent people - the exact thing the system should prevent.
The debate, now, is about whether the collateral damage (innocent people getting their lives ruined thanks to "protect the children" laws) is a fair price to pay for the protection it affords to our children. Some people seem to take the position that any price is a fair price to pay to protect the children. This is an irrational position, but people find it hard to argue against, for fear of being seen as soft on child abuse. The truth is that there are some measures that are worth it, and some measures where the cure is worse than the disease.
Personally, I feel that only actual abuse (suitably defined) of actual children (suitably defined) should be a crime. Anything beyond that just makes it far too likely that people will be prosecuted even though they mean no harm to children.
Re:A new name for this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, do note that:
3 and 4 also include people (law enforcement?) who record the crime for the sake of prosecuting the criminals, and the fact that a crime has been recorded can be an aid to catching the perpetrators.
In the Netherlands, there was a front page news item a few years ago about children uploading videos of their classmates being beaten up. The article I read quoted someone saying that the uploaders should be punished. My reaction was: That's backwards. It's not the videos that are the problem, it's the beating up. The videos help you identify and punish those who are beating people up. You should be grateful to the people who give you these videos, because they help you deal with the _real_ problem.
Now, I understand the difference between recording a video and sharing it for the purpose of getting a criminal punished on the one hand, and recording a video and selling it for profit or sharing it for entertainment, on the other hand. Still, I think recording, sharing, or selling videos of crimes isn't as bad as actually committing the crime. I'd much rather that people who get aroused by sexual abuse of children get their kicks from watching videos than from actually doing it in real life - noting, of course, that the ideal is that these people get treated so that they don't need those kicks anymore in the first place.
And we all know girls don't lie (Score:2, Insightful)
And we all know girls don't lie about their age, don't we.
After all, if a club or bar has an 18 age limit, a teenage girl won't lie about her age so she can get in at 16, will she.
Re:Shameful, how? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because those laws might not be impacting me directly, but that's not a reason not to fight injustice. Segregation, apartheid and anti-semitism does not affect me, it is still wrong and must be fought and argued against.
The problem is that as soon as anything of a sexual nature is involved it is treated in such an emotional way. The main reasons for the laws are the way they are are because of emotional knee jerk reactions not because of a reasoned strategy to curb actual harm. Our feelings should never be a reason to enact laws. I personally can't stand pop music. I find that whole cult around britney spears and the rest disgusting. Should we have a law that would put people(and children) in jail for many years and permanently label them as perverts, because they had possessed pop music or a poster with a pop star on it?
If you lock a child in a room and emotionally scar it for life, so it will have trouble functioning in society, holding a job, creating a family etc. Then you are a child abuser and should be thrown in jail. So we should also throw the judges, the lawmakers, the police, and the voters in jail, who decided or aided and abetted that the appropriate response to a child sending some nude photos of her/him-self to their significant other is to put them in jail and brand them as sex offenders.
Re:new? (Score:3, Insightful)
What's REALLY sick is that this kind of activity, and many others that can result in infections, were well known YEARS BEFORE Fiola was persecuted. Yet on that basis, instead of the state being required to prove their case (they apparently got to assume he was the perp just because the computer he was using had the porn on it), he was required to prove that he was innocent. WE already knew this kind of thing is not just possible, but significant. But THEY didn't want to bother having to separate the real pedophiles from the innocent victims ... or were just computer idiots (like the department he worked for that forced him to use an insecure computer).
Re:Shameful, how? (Score:4, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with being a man or a woman. It has to do with being a citizen in a society where "sex offender" means a mark for life, where people violently hate "sex offenders," and where teenagers who did nothing wrong can be convicted of "sex offenses." No, the laws do not apply to me, but I still have to live in a society where people are convicted under those laws.
Re:This guy was lucky. (Score:2, Insightful)
Okay. But what's the logic of making cartoons of children having sex illegal (as is the case in Aussieland). Where's the victim? Where's the crime? This is nothing more than morality enforcement except now instead of the Catholic church doing it, it's the government.
First, all laws are based on somebody's definition of right and wrong, i.e. morality.
Second, if it is illegal then it is a crime. However I think you were trying to make the point of "who is damaged" in the
scenario. Well, you seem to have made the assumption that there is no damage to individual who "uses" child porn.
I'd like to know how many studies or testimonies of previous "users" will it take to convince you that it is/does
Third, I'd like you to honestly think to yourself if you would have the same opinion if someone drew cartoon images of your wife, daugther, mother, or sister being raped.
Lastly to address your comment about "land of the free," I'll just quote John Adams:
“Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people; it is wholly inadequate for any other.”