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."
its like episode V (Score:2)
Pedobear strikes back
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 =)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
ok, i meant to make this longer and darker, but i'm just not really feeling that paranoid tonight =)
Noted. Thank you citizen. This matter will be investigated and remedial action taken fnord if it is deemed to be warranted.
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.
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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.
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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.
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Your view also calls into question the existence of sites like this: http://clubseventeen.com/ [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
All persons depicted in Club Seventeen were over the age of 18 years at the time they were photographed or filmed.
So, um, yeah. Valid point, bad example.
As for the other example... yes, it's happened. Children have been taken away by CPS from parents who have taken pictures of their young kids in the bath - you know, the ones that every single family has. And while I'm inclined to generally agree with your viewpoint, I do take at least some issue with the second site which sells videos (and damned expensive ones, at that) of nudist activities that very clearly contains children. While clearly non-pornographic and non
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: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.
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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:This guy was lucky. (Score:5, Insightful)
Great! He's cleared! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Great! He's cleared! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Great! He's cleared! (Score:5, Funny)
>>>laws passed by retards
You will shortly be arrested for hate speech. Please do not move from your current position. The police will let themselves in.
A new name for this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Frameware ? :-)
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:A new name for this? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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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.
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I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often.
Maybe it does. Hmmmm....
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When 1% of your population is in prison, you can be sure the vast majority are actually innocent. No culture is that wicked.
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.
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And, being a law-abiding citizen, you requested a 17 year old friend have sex with her once?
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When 1% of your population is in prison, you can be sure the vast majority are actually innocent. No culture is that wicked.
You have a higher opinion of human nature than I.
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.
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: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:Shameful, how? (Score:5, Informative)
Man, that is complicated. If someone was convicted of felony statutory rape in New York, I would want to know which of the above was the actual crime before I even considered any punishment, let alone the death penalty. I do not even know what happens if the victim was 12 and the perpetrator was under 18; that is defined in a different section of the law. There is also the fantastic reality that if you have a 17 year old lover in New York, that is legal, but you cannot legally produce any erotic photographs or videos of your lover -- that would be a felony, again under a completely separate section of the law (and before you say, "well, people should not have 17 year old lovers," bear in mind that what I said applies to an 18 year old -- or do you think that is a death-penalty deserving crime as well?).
Before you jump to conclusions about sex offenders, perhaps you should first ask, "who is being classified as a sex offender?" In many cases, it is and absurd classification to carry, and worse yet, it is a classification that never gets removed from their record.
Re:Shameful, how? (Score:4, Insightful)
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: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.
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And that's just executions. Due to the inherent irreversibility of the punishment, people tend to apply higher standards of proof to it. In prisons, there are more people who are innocent (far more if you count people in jail for things that really shouldn't be criminal).
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: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.
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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 quot
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.
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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).
please mod parent post UP (Score:2)
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Now maybe if the punishment for child abuse was something extreme, like death then yeah maybe. What's done is done so I could see leaving them to play with the pictures they have and if they take it beyond that then wipe them off the planet.
Re:Legalise the posession of child porn already (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Legalise the posession of child porn already (Score:5, Interesting)
Our governments claim that it is essential to stop people downloading and possessing regular media from P2P services (outside of official channels) because it decreases the ability and motivation of media producers to produce new media.
Our governments claim that it is essential to stop people downloading child porn off P2P services because it increases the ability and motivation of child abusers (or more commonly now, children) to produce new child porn.
I think there's something fishy here.
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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 st
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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.
The ones who are in it for the money don't make any money off of P2P; they have other ways of distributing their illicit goods for compensation. Thus, P2P doesn't affect their ability or motivation. If anything, it would be a negative impact in the same way it is for the RIAA/MPAA.
The ones who aren't in it for the money are generally sick fucks who abuse their own children. They'll continue to do so whether or not their stuff finds its way onto P2P networks. If anything, they'd want to keep their stuff off
Re:Legalise the posession of child porn already (Score:4, Interesting)
There is not - nor has there ever been - a lucrative market for child pornography. Even before the laws that now ban distribution and possession of the stuff were written, and it was available (usually under the counter) from mainstream porn vendors, it just didn't sell very much. Today, with the internet, it's almost exclusively distributed gratis. That's something that people who've been raised to think of everything in transactional economic terms can't seem to grasp: child porn doesn't operates on supply-and-demand terms. So the argument that possession of child porn creates an economic "demand" for it which incentivizes pornographers to produce more... misses the point. Child porn is produced almost exclusively by people who enjoy child porn themselves. They distribute it not for profit, but for the simple reason that they want to share. Whether there's an audience of a dozen out there, or a million, they're going to do the same thing. Now, there are other arguments for the criminalization of possession of child porn, and those may or may not have merit. But the argument that possession creates demand is a fallacy.
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.
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Indeed. In fact, almost all child porn is released to 'friends'. There are rings of child abusers, and they send pictures to each other. Not on the internet, or at least not openly on the internet.
At some point, someone in that ring is, in fact, in it for a profit, and he'll 'pirate' that image and sell it to other rings.
At some point after that, it will escape into the wild as some anonymous person puts it on the internet. Sometimes it will skip the middle step.
Actual child porn producers do not want th
Flying the false flag (Score:3, Interesting)
If everyone downloads kiddie porn, then that makes it really hard to pick out and prosecute the people who do it deliberately.
This case was kinda stupid in that it went faster than humanly possible. I expect that newer versions will be a bit more subtle.
Personally I think trojans like this are a good idea precisely because they make it difficult to prosecute someone for having a copy of the stuff -- possession of kiddie porn is just another thought crime and prosecuting it is complete hypocrisy. The politicians like it because it is 1000x easier to prosecute someone for having a copy of kiddie porn than it is to catch and prosecute the people manufacturing it. The politicians get their public back-slapping for a job well done, meanwhile the children who are really being hurt by the creation of the stuff aren't any better off than they were before.
Its a case of the politicians deliberately not thinking of the children at all, only their careers, but proclaiming that they are protecting children -- 100% hypocrisy.
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.
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I must respectfully disagree with a number of your points.
possession of kiddie porn is just another thought crime and prosecuting it is complete hypocrisy.
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.
The politicians like it because it is 1000x easier to prosecute someone for having a copy of kiddie porn than it is to catch and prosecute the people manufacturing it.
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?
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:Flying the false flag (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually thought crime is often used to refer to something where all you're doing is sitting around not harming anyone (as opposed to victimless crimes).
Here's a fun thing from Denmark (age of consent is 15).
If I (32) have sex with a 17-year-old girl, that is perfectly legal.
If anyone takes a photo of it, draws it, writes about it in detail or films it - it is child pornography. And as I'm am the only 'adult' in this, I will bear the full brunt of the law's punishment. Even if she were to set up hidden cameras without me knowing it, I'd still be charged with manufacturing. It's classified as child pornography and not pornography with a minor (under 18).
But if no-one watches, it's perfectly legal.
That is fucking scary.
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:Flying the false flag (Score:4, Informative)
Because it's easier to assuage the public outcry and win PoliticanPoints by attacking those who possess it than going after those who produce it (since a lot of it isn't in the States, for one thing) and/or saving the kids.
There was a great article in the Economist recently about how there's no motivation for politicians to care at all about the suspect's side (felons don't vote, for one thing), so laws just become more and more unreasonable and the rights of pedophiles get eroded worse and worse.
Ever since that one girl had to Register after having naked pics of herself on her cell phone when underage, then charged as an adult, I've had basically zero respect for these laws, even as the thought of CP makes me sick.
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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).
And this new "virus" I "got" (Score:5, Funny)
Downloads all the latest movie and software releases, and stores them on my computer! It's madness, I say, madness.
Guess that lets my cat off the hook (Score:4, Funny)
Guess that lets my cat of the hook...
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http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/11/08/2135245/Malware-Can-Download-Child-Porn-To-Your-Computer?art_pos=1 [slashdot.org]
there, fixed that for me
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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: (Score:2)
There is an antidote though: Child porn on (nearly) every computer!
I mean, the law system basically already has that implemented: Everybody is guilty somewhere.
So it will make no difference if they pick one of us at random, because he is one of the 99.99% with child porn on the computer. Or because he is one of the 99.99% with $OTHER_CATCH22_CRIMINAL_OFFENSE.
Now all we have to do, ... (Score:2)
...is create a bunch of honeypot websites for politicians and fatcats.
And then trigger the appropriate middle-of-the-night "clubbing cops" raids on the targets.
But don't get too greedy. It must stay believable to the general public. (Including the media. Including "FOX & 'tards".)
P.S.: I think, we, the people, should have our own intelligence service. With the ability to filter out things that were aquired with proper methods. With a huge knowledge base. With native "agents" in every country. In every c
Re: (Score:2)
P.S.: I think, we, the people, should have our own intelligence service. With the ability to filter out things that were aquired with proper methods. With a huge knowledge base. With native "agents" in every country. In every company and government office. And with trust relationship management. Make it a game. And let millions of people play it. Let's see who 0wns who then ^^ (Yes I know... nice dream though.)
I believe we call that wikipedia.
prosecutors (Score:2)
What gets me are the confident assertions that people cannot unintentionally download child pornography by prosecutors who have no idea what they are talking about. It's disturbing both that people pay attention to them and that they are more interested in getting convictions than in consulting real experts.
In other news ... (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, slashdotters lined up in droves asking "where can I get the adult | lesbian | furries version of this script?"
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.
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?)
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: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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.
Blurring the lines (Score:2)
Probably is the most convincing scenario until a computer virus manage to infect and kill real people.
This should be interesting in Sweden... (Score:2)
... and the possibly upcoming law now, making it illegal to WATCH child porn. No, not consume it or otherwise support pedophile circles, merely watch it.
It's exactly these things that make me against that law. Sure, you'll probably easily explain it if it really did happen to you, but what if the search warrant was about something else? "Oh, look, he had child porn on his computer too, besides all this movie piracy." Where both can be a result of low computer security and a hijacked WiFi connection, neither
An inhuman feat... (Score:3, Interesting)
...so of course he's innocent.
What if he intentionally contracted this 'malware'? It seems to do a good job of diverting the blame.
He's not the only one... (Score:5, Interesting)
I see several people talking about how "gross" that guy is and maybe he "intentionally put the bot on his computer" and I thought that maybe I should put my 2 cents into this discussion since the same thing happened to me several years ago. I was charged with Possession of Child Pornography and I didn't do it. I didn't even know stuff like that existed, much less that it was on my computer.
I was a guy that always had fun hanging out with my friends and since I was one of the first ones to finish college and get a 'real' job, I was also the first one out of all of my friends to afford nice toys. Like a Flat-screen TV, every video game system, workout equipment, and a nice, fast computer. Friends came and went all the time. People may say I'm too trustworthy and I guess I wasn't thinking, but most of my friends had keys to my apartment along with my roommates. I'm sure you can figure out where this is going.
One day I get back from what was a 5 day party/drinking-binge with one of my friends who was going to college in another city a few hours away, and I notice that my apartment is messier than usual. I didn't think much about it at first but then I notice that my PC is gone. So I call my roommate and asked him if he borrowed it for a LAN party or something? (yea, that's how ridiculously lax I was with my friends) and he said no. Then on my PC desk, I noticed a detective's business card and a search warrant describing what they came to search for (they came sometime that morning and guess what they were looking for?) and what they took (PC stuff like HD's etc) and that they wanted to talk to me. I kind of did that whole out-of-body experience thing that people talk about where you don't really think this is happening to you and you get all numb and it almost feels like you're "watching yourself".
I can microscopically explain every detail of the whole ordeal, because even though I try, I will never forget it. But to make a long story short - I was eventually arrested and charged. My name was on the news in my local community and on the radio as well. The law enforcement went to my work and questioned my boss about how much "access to children" I had. (I never worked with kids so therefore I had "no access to children") but nonetheless I lost my job. There were even some people (old ladies who didn't personally know me) who wrote to the local paper asking the editor "why do they even give people charged with crimes like that out on bail?". I remember thinking "This can't be happening" and that someone's gonna come out and say it was all a joke like in the movie 'The Game' with Michael Douglas. I just couldn't believe it. I mean... I WAS INNOCENT and people were already condemning me for something I didn't even know existed.
At first I thought that the prosecutor would realize it was a mistake and apologize or something, but my lawyer sort of brought me to "reality" when he basically told me that I was DEFINITELY going to go to prison and that I was DEFINITELY going to have to register as a sex offender at least for several years after prison and possibly for the rest of my life. He was just trying to reduce the prison sentence and see what else he could do. He told me that since I was being charged with this crime there was no way in the world that I would "get off" despite not having any criminal record.
When the realization set in that my life was pretty much over... it got really bad. I felt as though my entire life up to this point was done and everything I ever worked for was over. I basically boarded myself up in the spare room at my parents home. It really felt as though the villagers were outside my Mom's house with pitchforks and torches just waiting to lynch me. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I lost 30% of my body weight in a matter of a couple weeks. I thought about suicide constantly... and every time I did I would begin crying. I would begin crying not because I was scared, but because I knew I wasn't thinking about suicide in a "passing thought
Standard of proof (Score:3, Interesting)
the courts need to raise the standard for proof of this crime. Just because there is CP on a computer should not be considered enough to prove the owner of the computer put it there. Computers, especially home computers running Windows, are inherently insecure and able to operate autonomously, subject to outside control without the owners knowledge. I can't think of any other possession we are less in control of, which is probably why there is no real analogous precedent for the courts to relate to.
The courts need to require that the prosecutor can show the owner DID download the material with knowledge, not just that it was there. The requirement for proof should be something like correlating an online conversation to a request for the material or carrying it on a DVD, purchasing it with the offenders card, something that shows it could not have been automated.
There is the potential for severe miscarriages of justice with the lax standard for proof presently employed which will inevitably lead to abuse and misuse of power. Once prosecutors have a slamdunk way to leverage a confession that will use and abuse it. All they have to do in ANY case is to look for a piece of CP on the defendant's computer, even if that has nothing to do with the case. No-one wants to go to jail for that and will confess to any other crime, even if they are not guilty. Look at the present case against prosecutors for manufacturing evidence if you don't believe they would do this. "there is no freestanding right not to be framed."
Re:new? (Score:5, Informative)
It's new because the prosecutors are actually being reasonable about it. Remember this story [arstechnica.com] from last year?
CP is disgusting but we shouldn't lose our freedom over it..
so what happens when a public pc goes to a link li (Score:2)
so what happens when a public pc goes to a link like that?
A virus downloads it to a public pc?
A pc that is not setup to even be used by any one aka one used to display stuff get some on it?
useing a laptop at a place with free wifi all the ip will show is that some from there when to the site and there are a lot places that have open wifi or just have 1 code to get on the network.
Re:so what happens when a public pc goes to a link (Score:5, Funny)
MACs encode the brand of wifi card (and usually of your laptop if it came with) so it can be reasonably easy to visually scan the room for the offender if there aren't 9001 MacBook Pros in it.
Like this? http://www.abluestar.com/utilities/rndimages/img/acer.jpg [abluestar.com]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Has nothing to do with the iPod. Here's the story:
http://blogs.eweek.com/applewatch/content/macbook/is_apples_mac_u_pic_worth_a_thousand_words.html [eweek.com]
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (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
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Next thing you'll know the news will be warning people about strings of armed robberies in their neighborhood, when anyone should know that someone with a gun can rob people. I mean what's the point? Oh, and forget about weather reports, why bother when it's perfectly logical and foreseeable that the temperature reached the level it did today, considering the long-term climatological tr
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: (Score:3, Funny)
CP is governed by supply and demand like everything else. If there were no buyers, then there would be no sellers. Sure, those who sexually exploit children would still do that, but the majority of people involved in CP aren't sexually interested in
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
>>>Sick Fuck
Yes because attraction for beautiful teenaged women (even those who, like Miley Cyrus or Emily Osment, are only 16/17) or beautiful twenty-something women clearly means I'm sick. Sure. Yep. Uh huh. I'm curious to know what the cure might be? Sterilization of everybody who finds young women attractive? Wouldn't that make the human race..... ya know, go extinct from lack of babies?
Sorry but I disagree.
Sexual attraction is not "sick".
On the contrary it's extremely healthy.
Re: (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:new? (Score:4, Informative)
I have never understood this weird and insupportable belief on slashdot that this is somehow restricted to Americans. In terms of acceptance of violence vs. acceptance of sex in media, America falls somewhere in the middle--less permissive of sex than England, but more than say India, or several Asian countries, or just about the entire Middle East. Dismissing it as uniquely American is pure eurocentrism.
Re:40 sites per minute? (Score:5, Interesting)
Because there is, to my understanding two kinds of "child porn".
1) The "core" material that is clearly children, clearly porn and prosecuted as such pretty much everywhere.
2) The "fringe" material that is teen but maybe not 18, suggestive poses, artistic or not so artistic nudes, CG art, stories, roleplay or whatever else that the US may consider child porn but at least parts of the world do not. They're an endless source of easy convictions that make it appear that they're tough on all the nasty bogeymen.
For example, here in Norway there was a "child porn" conviction that I read about in the paper, where the defendant disputed that any children was involved, and it quoted part of the main actress' bio. I found this very strange so I googled for it and it was "Tiny Tove", who was a Danish porn star that starred in a lot of dubious movies in the 1970s but was 18+ in all of them. None the less, he still got convicted because she was playing a much younger role in the movies and that is illegal in Norway. In other words, it's not "child porn" in 95%+ of the world and you can download it from any adult site or p2p network. If you turn off safe search on google you don't even have to do that. But if I did that, I'd be watching child porn under Norwegian law. It's just so fucked up you wouldn't believe it.
Re:Rources (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
The US has an extradition treaty with the EU, and in this case, they knew who they were looking for. If all you have is an IP address and it is a country you don't have an extradition treaty with, it is a bit more difficult.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Perhaps the government can do something similar. In fact, use prosecuted pedos to hunt the stuff down while in prison. If it resides in another country then just get ISPs blocking it. There is still proxies but you'll never get rid it completely but if you make it nearly impossible get then that's a good start.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:mod points (Score:5, Funny)