Fighting Porn Vs. Ruining Innocent Lives 815
After news of the conviction of a substitute teacher for endangering minors — because porn popups, possibly initiated by adware, had appeared on her computer during class — comes the even sadder story of 16-year-old Matt Bandy. His family's life was turned upside-down when he was charged in Arizona with possession of child pornography, even though the family computer was riddled with spyware and Trojans. After the intervention of ABC's 20/20, Matt finally was allowed to plead to a lesser charge (namely, sharing a Playboy magazine with friends) and just barely escaped being labeled a sex offender for the rest of his life.
In this case it was an overzelous Prosecutor (Score:5, Interesting)
The forensics are tough (Score:5, Interesting)
Did a user to to a porn site that downloaded spyware that brought down kiddie porn, or did somebody intentionally go to a kiddie porn site?
I've never found pictures of kids on a customer's PC (thank God), but I have done some investigations on "porned" and infested PCs: it's hard enough for an IT pro to figure out which came first. When the cops are doing the investigating, I expect they'll come to whatever conclusion makes the suspect look guilty.
I've seen similar ~3 years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
At my old University, they required everyone to buy a computer through them. So, every numb-nuts had a computer hooked up to the network. There was no default AV or firewall installed, or even Auto-updates, as this was early WinXP days (and Win2k and 98 the years before that).
Well, he of course got infected with ungodly amounts of crap. I ran Adaware on it once, and it came up with 500-600 pieces of garbage, with approximately 50 - 60 of those being actual installed software. As the school had on-campus service, I just told him to bring it to them, and they'd reinstall all the school software for him.
So, he brought it in, and they found "child pornography" on it. Now, this was absolute news to him, and everyone else. As this was at my old Fraternity house (owned by the school, network owned by the school, was run similarly to other school-owned residencies), they threatened everyone at the house, and God knows what else. Eventually they looked around the house, and to their surprise, did not find a projector and child porn laying around. Apparantly this is what they thought they were housing a child porn theater of some sort. Amazingly, they dropped the case right there, and were very nice about it all, considering what was involved.
As for the original poster, was it this student's fault anyway? He was forced to use this computer, was given inadequate software with no training, and was only using the services given to him. I realize he got away cleanly, with no lawyers involved, but can we really expect this to not be a problem? Many in law enforcement do not understand what's involved in these cases, nor do many in the field of law (though this is getting better as the younger generations are entering these fields.)
Even if it WAS intentional.. (Score:5, Interesting)
These things should be looked at with relativity. And some lawyers and politicians need to remember that they were kids once. Rediculous, "possession of a playboy." I can understand cigarettes or alcohol, but it's illegal to be curious now?
No Accountability (Score:1, Interesting)
1) Wipe a computer, overwriting the HD several times.
2) Install a new OS - it could be Windows, Mac, Linux.
3) Ask the prosecutor to have it inspected by his forensics experts.
4) Get the computer back from the prosecutor with a clean bill of health - only have it handled at that point by the court with a clear chain of custody.
5) Have the computer delivered to the trial.
6) Have the judge or prosecutor go to an "innocent" website that's been crafted to defend the case.
7) On that website display some innocent content - maybe a news article on the case with some embedded links.
8) On that very same site, place hardcore porn images in 1x1 images - define this image size in the HTML as 1x1 but leave the image the regular size so they don't show on the page but hit the browser cache.
9) Also create some on-mouse over actions that load hidden frames on the page which go to hardcore sites - the sites with the images in the page.
10) After the judge or prosecutor finishes loading the page and mousing over a few links ask the court to hand the computer over to the prosecutors forensics experts.
11) They will find porn on the computer and proof that the judge or prosecutor liked a few of the images because they loaded them multiple times.
This works in all browsers! Linux aint going to save anyone from this. Of course this same stunt could be used for evil, say to frame neighbors, co-workers, police officers, etc. The problem is, every computing environment is too open. All computers, even those locked behind multiple firewalls, anti-spyware, and anti-virus programs should be considered public terminals in the eye of the law. Unless there's video-tape of the perp in action or a confession no one can be held accountable for what's on the HD- it's just that simple!
Re:I might be missing something (Score:3, Interesting)
Whether it's convictable, I don't know. Under current laws, I would have to say if the pictures are of prepubescents (a 16 year old is a man, if not in the sight of the law), he's convictable.
However, I would note there's a big difference between leeching some images and actually abusing children or paying money for images of minors, providing a demand for the continued abuse of children. As disgusting as we may find it, nobody is harmed if someone gets off on underage pictures. There are arguments about likelihood to commit a crime (I am here excluding "victimless" crimes, which I believe includes leeching child pornography), but we convict people for criminal acts, not likelihood to commit criminal acts.
Re:I might be missing something (Score:5, Interesting)
You are correct about a few states, though - particularly California, where the AOC is 18, and two 17 year olds who have sex with each other are both "sex offenders". Kinda puts this whole outrage over sex offenders into perspective, doesn't it? Everyone wants the real child molestors to go to jail, but the language they use ends up also covering kids who really haven't done anything wrong, other than being born in the wrong state.
Interview with the District Attorney in the case (Score:5, Interesting)
Very interesting read.
Quote:
"JIM AVILA: So there was a huge amount of evidence that in fact, this kid was not involved in a sex crime. And yet, your office and
you yourself continue to believe and put him through two years of hell, because you continue to believe despite lie detector
tests, court psychiatrist reports, a report from the computer expert who said it could have come from anywhere...you
continue to say..."
NDREW THOMAS: (Overlap) Well...
JIM AVILA:
ANDREW THOMAS: Well, I...again, I...I'm not sure that that's totally right. But you gotta...
JIM AVILA: (Overlap) Halfway right?
"
Re:Unproportional (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to defend the US laws too much, but playboy is here in Europe too a pornographic magazine, I can't show it to your 8yo daughter without getting in trouble and you probably wouldn't want it any other way. Technically, a 16yo is legally responsible for his own actions and handing it to a minor is illegal, even if it's his buddy. It's just that in practise, it doesn't happen. On the other hand, it probably would happen if he was showing it to your 8yo daughter.
What the US seems to lack is some sort of sense in applying laws - I think the most incredible case is where a girl got charged with molesting herself because she jacked off in front of a webcam. And no, it wasn't a kiddie porn production charge, it was a molestation charge. I'm certain that somewhere in the technicals of the law it says it's a strict liability - the circumstances does not matter for the guilty - but you still have to be seriously fucked up in the head to interpret that to mean you can molest yourself.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
But popups and spyware are a good indication that the computer wasn't secure, and the computer not being secure is an indication that OTHER things may have been placed on there without the users knowledge.
Re:Funny.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Maricopa county prosecutors (especially Reichsmarshall Andrew Thomas) use this fact to extort harsh plea bargains (with this, among other crimes). So if you want to protest your innocence, you have one of two choices: Risk a trial where a loss means you never see the light of day again, or cop a bargain, regardless of your guilt, which will usually still keep you in prison for 10-25.
Re:Unproportional (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree that child porn is bad and should be punished (especially if one actually means kids as opposed to 16 year olds), but i don't think that someone who is found with child porn on their machine, even if they actually downloaded it, needs be labeled a "Sexual Predator" the same way a serial rapist (or any rapist) would be. To me it is clearly a much less serious crime. By our current standard, for example, the whole country of Japan should properly be labeled as predators what with the whole school girl uniform thing they have going on there.
Come on... 10 years for a picture of an underage girl "in a suggestive pose"? For just having it (as opposed to taking it)? That, to me, seems WAY too much. Yes, i understand that even though the copy of the picture doesn't actually hurt the kid in general it creates some sort of "demand" that makes it more likely that more kids will be molested in the future, but i still think a fine would be a more reasonable penalty.
just my $0.02.
posting as AC, because even SAYING probably sets off alarms at Predator Police headquarters or something.
Re:I might be missing something (Score:2, Interesting)
The crime in that is inducing a minor to be photographed indecently exposed. Like statuatory rape, they are not legally capable of doing so voluntarily.
So one could say, oh, well, the one who took the pixtures is a criminal but everyone who bought them (or traded, etc.) didn't induce it. But of course the fact they are a market does induce it.
And it could be like a gang standing around a murder victim. Someone pulled the trigger, but who? You just convict them all is the only way to deal with it.
rd
Disgusting. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I've seen similar ~3 years ago (Score:4, Interesting)
Why are the child porn types writing software that magically puts child porn on random people's computers?
It all becomes clear once you restate the question. How can we take a sucker for everything he's got?
The overlap of child porn types with those who write malicious internet software must be small indeed. So first of all, we're not talking child porn types. It's clear from news on busts that they do have clubs, and they do trade pictures, and some busts have been big, but we're talking Yahoo reject groups here, nothing more sophisticated than emailing or FTP'ing zip files to each other (where you have to contribute pictures to join the group).
We are talking instead people running malicious software, and it's the usual culprits. The same ones running bot nets to steal everything you have and own you if they can. Since child porn is pretty close to the most universally banned thing on earth, you can't store it on a server and lure people to it. So that's why it would be stored on innocent people's PC's that are owned.
And I suspect that once they get a credit card number from someone to buy child porn, that guy can pretty much kiss it good bye. What's he gonna do, report his child porn dealer to the police for maxing out his card?
So just a different angle on the usual from our friends on the internet who spend night and day posting about all the "free" stuff they have for you.
rd
Let me tell you a lil story (Score:5, Interesting)
Many moons ago I went out to meet this gal I met online, I knew she was under 18 but I was early 20s and stupid so I went out to meet her and I got busted as I walked in the door, tossed in jail and got a lawyer and got out on probation.
5 years, 2 lie detector tests, 2 years of mandatory therapy, tens of thousands of dollars spent out of mine and my families pocket, 1 career, 1 fiancee all lost along the way because I never really did anything but I thought with my love whistle insetad of the head on my shoulders.
So now I'm labeled a pure hardcore sex offender. I'm on the website here in my state, my glorious picture is up there, they put posters all around my white color suburbanite neighborhood, my neighbors who knew me couldn't believe it, the ones who didn't' saw me and pulled their kids aside like I was going to eat them alive when it was the farthest thing from the truth. I've had people spit upon my father who has a lawn business, mom who gets harrassed at her school from other teachers cause of it, my friends got hassled and dropped me like the plague. I got to see who my true friends and people were. People who were still there, still loyal, looked past my stupid mistake and realized "Hey, he did something really dumb, but he didn't rape some kid or kidnap a school bus full of girl scouts."
So here I sit here after I got all my ducks in a row, got a consulting job because companies hire business' not people so no background check, going to school out of state because they don't require registration or signup stating that some kiddy raper is attending their school, I live in a place that's in a decent area but the county is trying to squeeze people like me out because the community thinks we are all 'horrible representations of society' or some nonsense. I had to grow up alot along the way and I learned alot about the legal and criminal system and know there are thousands upon thousands of guys like me that are out there that really won't be able to be 'themselves' for 20yrs or so until it's all cleared up in the system and maybe a pardon for the governator.
I'm sorry for what I did to my family, to my friends, and to that lil child whom when I saw her in court I would've never done a thing to as she looked like my lil 12 yr old sister.
Do I feel my debt to society has been repaid? You be the judge on that. I'll let you know in 10 more years.
More quotable than Gerald Ford: Zappa (Score:5, Interesting)
Eventually it was discovered
That God
Did not want us to be
All the same
This was
BAD NEWS
For the Governments of The World
As it seemed contrary
To the doctrine of
Portion Controlled Servings
Mankind must be made more uniformly
If THE FUTURE
Was going to work
Various ways were sought
To bind us all together
But, alas SAMENESS was unenforceable
It was about this time
That someone
Came up with the idea of TOTAL CRIMINALIZATION
Based on the principle that
If we were ALL crooks
We could at last be uniform
To some degree
In the eyes of THE LAW
Shrewdly our legislators calculated
That most people were
Too lazy to perform a
REAL CRIME
So new laws were manufactured
Making it possible for anyone
To violate them any time of the day or night,
And
Once we had all broken some kind of law
We'd all be in the same big happy club
Right up there with the President,
The most exalted industrialists,
And the clerical big shots
Of all your favorite religions
TOTAL CRIMINALIZATION
Was the greatest idea of its time
And was vastly popular
Except with those people
Who didn't want to be crooks or outlaws,
So, of course, they had to be TRICKED INTO IT...
Which is one of the reasons why
Music
Was eventually made
Illegal
http://www.lyricsdomain.com/6/frank_zappa/scrutin
Re:I've seen similar ~3 years ago (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Save me from my internets (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Even if it WAS intentional.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Prohibition caused much more crime then it stopped, and always will, just look at the "war on drugs" and people killed in gun fights or because of drugs laden with toxins every day. When there is a demand for something, making it illegal to produce it in an ethical way will simply make it's production non-ethical, this has been proven many times in history and isn't changing any time soon.
You can say that some 14 year old can't make an informed decision- maybe they can't, I can't speak for them and nether can you. But I can say that it's certainly the lesser of evils.
*Waits for down modding and FBI to show up at door*
Re:I've seen similar ~3 years ago (Score:4, Interesting)
I visited and read the entire story as posted on the justice4matt.com site, and a couple of questions emerged in my mind. Please note that I'm not saying that this kid was guility, or even supporting the continuance of this case by Maricopa County.
Obviously the investigators noticed the similarity between these two usernames. How is this explained; are we to assume that the 'hacker' retrieved Matt's own Yahoo screen name, and registered one extremely similar to throw off investigators? This just seems odd to me.
Secondly, while it's obviously possible for a hacker accessing your computer remotely to do anything they'd like to with your system, WHY would this particular pedophile hacker decide to burn several child porn images to a CD-R or CD-RW that just so happened to be in the drive? As the justice4matt.com site argues, this is perfectly possible - and yet doesn't make any sense in my mind.
Re:your country is fucked (Score:3, Interesting)
How'd They Find the Stuff? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I've seen similar ~3 years ago (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I've seen similar ~3 years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
It is also perfectly possible that the images the teenage boy had on his computer was of someone approximately the same age or even older than himself. Child pornography is defined as sexualized pictures of anyone below the age of 18. In fact it would be illegal if this child distributed nude pictures of himself, something that should give you a hint about the rationality of charging minors with child pornography offenses at all.
Even if the pictures was of children much younger than him, the whole idea of trying to convict him to 90 years in prison is just ludicrous. Any competent psychiatrist can tell you it is perfectly normal for children to be curious about all aspects of human sexuality, even those that falls outside the accepted norm. He *might* need some counseling, but certainly not prison.
In the USA children are children until they commit a crime, then they have proven them self to be adult and will be treated as such.
"Would someone please think of the children", yeah right
Re:Let me tell you a lil story (Score:5, Interesting)
If you mean society owes me nothing then all I ask of society is to stop treating those of us that have did our time, understood our punishments and crimes, and want to reenter society as citizens as all of those that have done know wrong take for granted every day.
I for one miss having the ability to vote for elected offical, have the ability to protect my family by having a fire arm in my house, have to be monitored like i'm a walking ticking time bomb waiting for me to snatch some little girl off the street and devile her in inhumane acts. All I ask is that they stamp my letter saying "Welcome back Citizen, now behave this time OK?" and you will see a grown man break down in tears.
Yes it means that much to me to have back what most of you have and throw away every election day. No matter how much support I throw for the candidate of my choice I can't go there and say "Thats my chosen one!" and be done with that.
I couldn't even volunteer to reroll as an officer in the military. Nope they wouldn't take me back, I asked about being demoted down to enlisted "Come talk to me when it's off your record!" they said. "My family is over there fighting as we speak and buddies are dying as well, yet you won't let me back with a full college education yet you are taking people who can't qualify for GED's?" "You are a criminal, they aren't". I just shake my head.
It makes me sad in many ways and I could rant on how I could get away with voting or owning a gun or many other ways around the system that are found to be completely flawed, but what's the point in defying the very system I so desperately want to rejoin?
If you mean I still owe a debt to society, then by all means I'm more than eager to repay it. Trust me.
Re:Unproportional (Score:3, Interesting)
Nope, quite a few states require trials before a judge only for misdemenors and traffic offenses. I think the law should be like in Texas, that you have the right to a jury trial for any offense. None of that bullshit about "civil offenses" being charged by the state or "minor misdemenors." If it's important enough to be summonsed, it's important enough for a jury. This would discourage revenue-raising cops and prosecutors who just want to make a name for themselves.
Plea bargaining is alive and well. The conventional view of people who want to abolish it is that it allows hardened criminals to get away with lesser charges. My view is the contrary, sort of - the existence of that game requires prosecutors to press the harshest charges possible and then attempt to talk them down instead of trying them. If trials or a guilty plea to the charges themselves were required, then prosecutors wouldn't press unreasonably harsh charges because the chances of going to trial would increase and juries might be unwilling to convict.
Quite a few states have abolished grand juries as gatekeepers to felony trials in the name of "expediency." A shame, really, since grand juries serve as a check on prosecutors' power to some extent.
-b.
Re:A lesson in citizen names: (Score:1, Interesting)
Shouldn't the first country to gain independence in the Western Hemisphere have a say on what its citizens are called? What about the most populous country in the Americas? Or even the country with the highest GDP? Luckily, all three of these are the same country, so we don't have to figure out which takes precedence.
Just call everyone else "Columbians" (after Christopher Columbus). Since the citizens of the Republic of Colombia are Colombians, there shouldn't be any confusion. Or if there is, we can call Colombians "RCians."
Re:American == USA citizen (Score:3, Interesting)
You can take it any way you want, including up the ass, but American properly refers to any citizen of North, Central or South America.
Actually, in Spanish it is either americano or americana, and in Portuguese it is americano as well. Since this covers the vast majority of those south of the border (except for Belize, IIRC), and since Canadians don't care, we can call Americans "Americans," Canadians "Canadians," and everyone else Americanos.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Funny.. (Score:2, Interesting)
That is sadly, but completely true, and just goes to show the difference between law and fairness.
I have several friends who are convicted "sex offenders", with their pictures on our state's Web page and everything. None of them are or were rapists, molesters, or pedophiles. One, who was only 18, spent a year in jail and is on probation for the next 5, for having nudie pics that he downloaded of someone who it turned out was 16. Apparently, that's "kiddie porn". Another one was 16, sent his 15 year old girl friend a nude picture of himself (that she asked for), her parents found it, had him arrested, and now he's a sex offender. The last one was 16, had sex with his girlfriend (who was 6 months younger than him), and not only got charged with "statutory rape", but is now a convicted child molester.Is this fair, or rational? No. But it's legal.
Re:I might be missing something (Score:3, Interesting)
That reminds of this [discourse.net] case where a 15 year old girl was charged with kiddie porn of HERSELF...
I linked the BLOG because the original news story has gone away...:(
BWP
American != USA citizen (Score:1, Interesting)
I will add that, in many languages, the concept of United-Staters is getting root. I've seen it, among others, in French newspapers (états-uniens).
I find surprising to see that a country do not have a name for themselves, and that they have the arrogance to take the name of the continent they live in.
Of course, this might upset the United States of Mexico (Estados Unidos Mexicanos), as they are, also, a union of States. But we can not make everybody happy
Re:I've seen similar ~3 years ago (Score:3, Interesting)
Even more stupidly, the age of consent in some states is 16. So if I have a 16 year old girlfriend (I don't), I can see her naked body, I can have sex with her, but as soon as I take and keep pictures, I'm a sex offender? If I take pictures and give them to her, I'm not only a child pornographer, but I am distributing pornography to a minor. I'm a felon! That does not make sense.
I turned in a client the other day (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been doing house calls and such for about 5 years and have never had this happen. I've seen some bizarre shit on people's machines, but nothing illegal before this. I have a baby daughter and I asked myself "Knowing what I know now about this kid, would I ever want him near my daughter? No. If he's searching for this shit, I don't want to let this go and then read 5 years down the road he molested somebody and I didn't do anything about it."
I'm just glad I didn't spend much time working on the computer, because I'm pretty sure they aren't paying me now!