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October 23, 2002
A forthcoming bill in the U.S. Senate lays the groundwork for a national database of illegal images that Internet service providers would use to automatically flag and report suspicious content to police. The proposal, which Sen. John McCain is planning to introduce on Wednesday, also would require ISPs and perhaps some Web sites to alert the government of any illegal images of real or "cartoon" minors. Failure to do would be punished by criminal penalties including fines of up to $300,000.
The Arizona Republican claims that his proposal, a draft of which was obtained by CNET News.com, will aid in investigations of child pornographers. It will "enhance the current system for Internet service providers to report online child pornography on their systems, making the failure to report child pornography a federal crime," a statement from his office said.
To announce his proposal, McCain has scheduled an afternoon press conference on Capitol Hill with Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat; John Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted; and Lauren Nelson, who holds the title of Miss America 2007.
Civil libertarians worry that the proposed legislation goes too far and could impose unreasonable burdens on anyone subject to the new regulations. And Internet companies worry about the compliance costs and argue that an existing law that requires reporting of illicit images is sufficient.
The Securing Adolescents from Exploitation-Online Act (PDF) states ISPs that obtain "actual knowledge" of illegal images must make an exhaustive report including the date, time, offending content, any personal information about the user, and his Internet Protocol address. That report is sent to local or federal police by way of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The center received $32.6 million in tax dollars in 2005, according to its financial disclosure documents.
SAFE Act FAQ
Who must comply? "Any service which provides to users thereof the ability to send or receive wire or electronic communications." (18 USC 2510)
Who must be alerted? Federal and state police through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
What images must be reported? Illegal images of minors, which includes clothed teens in "lascivious" poses, according to the Justice Department. Obscene "cartoons" and "drawings" also qualify. (18 USC 1466A)
What information must be included? Basically everything the reporting person knows about the image and who posted it.
Penalties for not reporting? Criminal penalties including fines of up to $300,000.
Afterward, the center is authorized to compile that information into a form that can be sent back to ISPs and used to assemble a database of "unique identification numbers generated from the data contained in the image file." That could be a unique ID created by a hash function, which yields something akin to a digital fingerprint of a file.
Details on how the system would work are missing from McCain's legislation and are left to the center and ISPs. But one method would include ISPs automatically scanning e-mail and instant messaging attachments and flagging any matches.
The so-called SAFE Act is revised from an earlier version (PDF) that McCain introduced in December.
Instead of specifying that all commercial Web sites and personal blogs must report illegal images, the requirement has been narrowed. Now, anyone offering a "service which provides to users thereof the ability to send or receive wire or electronic communications" must comply.
Most courts have interpreted that language to apply only to ISPs. But it could be interpreted as sweeping in instant messaging providers and Web-based e-mail systems like Microsoft's Hotmail and Yahoo Mail. A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals opinion that dealt with an airline reservation system, for instance, concluded that "American, through Sabre, is a provider of wire or electronic communication service."
The list of offenses that must be reported includes child exploitation, selling a minor for sexual purposes and using "misleading" domain names to trick someone into viewing illegal material. It also covers obscene images of minors including ones in a "drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting." (The language warns that it is not necessary "that the minor depicted actually exist.")
ISPs are already required under federal law to report child pornography sightings. Current law includes fines of up to $300,000 but no criminal liability.
Another section of the draft bill says that anyone convicted of certain child exploitation-related offenses who also used the "Internet to commit the violation" will get an extra 10 years in prison.
That would dramatically raise sentences for a whole swath of crimes that do not involve adults having sex with minors. The Justice Department, for instance, indicted an Alabama man in November on child pornography charges because he took modeling photographs of clothed minors with their parents' consent and posted them online. The images were overly "provocative" and therefore illegal, a federal prosecutor asserted.
Marv Johnson, a legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the extra 10 years in prison was an odd requirement because the Internet is not inherently dangerous like a firearm. Rather, he said, the bill proposes to punish someone for using a perfectly legal item or service in an illegal way.
"It would be like punishing someone additionally for driving a car in the commission of an offense," Johnson said.
The proposed SAFE Act is not related to the 2003 SAFE Act, which stood for Security and Freedom Ensured Act, the 1997 SAFE Act, which stood for Security and Freedom Through Encryption, or the 1998 SAFE Act, which stood for Safety Advancement for Employees.
See more CNET content tagged:
penalty, Sen., Internet Service Provider, John McCain, cartoon
sorry but I would really be upset about being punished for sending a picture of popeye.
I know guys who like flat chested women. I know girls who shave it all. How do you say the girl in this cartoon is not 18. There is no one to say here is her birth certificate. I have met women in their 20s who look like teens.
I think this is a step to remove all porn from the net under the guise of child porn.
Where has respect for other people's speech gone?
Those that didn't know that the Senate was immune from prosecution. Sometime ago there was a young woman that went after a Senator for sexual harassment and lost because the Senate is immune from the laws that govern you and I!
"Thoughtcrime is the only crime that matters."
-- George Orwell, [i]Nineteen Eighty-Four[/i]
However I am still looking for where it says we have the right to not be offended.
They guy is a total idiot.
They guy is a total idiot.
The guy is a total idiot.
what about TV commercials?
While the intent of the law is commendable, the reach certainly exceeds the bounds of free speech.
Then find a subset of the populous and blame all that is wrong with them and send them to Guantanamo or start buidling "internment camps" throughout the United States.
This could help to solve the illegal immigration issue then because there would be forced labor for all of those in the camps so any meanial or dangerous jobs could be done by them.
"Deja-Vu all over again"
This proposed law strikes me of something that would have originated in a communist country. Since when did we start having the KGB in the United States and since when was it illegal not to report your neighbor. I thought that communism fell a few years ago. It is scary that a few senators are trying to revive it in our country. I think they need another means of stopping this activity by the porn pusher rather than punishing people for not turning them into the KGB.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Impeach McCain!
RON PAUL for president!
right to speak his mind. I can admire the man and still disagree
with what he is saying.
But then you could ask your question about any of our
politicians. I get the impression that as soon as a politician gets
elected they undergo a "commonsenseotomy" to remove any
common sense they may have arrived in Washington with.
That said, it is sad that a man who has suffered abuse at the hands of a evil dictatorship wishes to create one here in America.
"So sad, different dreams."
Ronald F. Maxwell
"Clearly your cartoon, though it is a fictitious character, depicts a teen in a sexual manner"
Artist: "The person in the cartoon may look like a teen but I assure you that they are 21, here's my artist's statement"
And almost as bad, or maybe worse. The sidebar of the article noted:
What images must be reported? Illegal images of minors, which includes clothed teens in "lascivious" poses
Who gets to decide what constitutes Lascivious?
Police: "You're under arrest for indecent pictures"
Dad: "That's a family picture of us on vacation in Hawaii"
Police "The teenage girl in the bikini is in lascivious pose"
Dad: "That's ridiculous! We are all doing the same pose!"
Police: "Yes, but she's the only cute one"
If you remember from your Civics or Government Classes from High School and or College, "The Senate is immune from any laws enacted by the Senate." What this means then is that you will have to get your pornography and or art (you know the non-existent model) from your good Senator!
Those that didn't know that the Senate was immune from prosecution. Sometime ago there was a young woman that went after a Senator for sexual harassment and lost because the Senate is immune from the laws that govern you and I!
Foreign Diplomats that enjoy total immunity. LOL
Shame on you... if you're going to lecture everyone at least
understand what you're talking about...
The following applies to the entire US Congress which includes
the US House of Representatives, not just the US Senators as you
mention.
Quoting Article 1, Section 6 - U.S. Constitution
"... They [Senators and Representatives] shall in all cases, except
treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from
arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective
Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for
any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be
questioned in any other place. ..."
This was written into the Constitution to prevent the Executive
branch from harassing the Legislative branch. i.e. separation of
powers, coequal branches of government, etc.
They [Senators and Representatives] are not immune from
prosecution for criminal activity.
Examples:
U.S. Senator William Blount arrested for failing to attend his
impeachment hearing.
U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney faced arrest for striking a
Police Officer.
U.S. Representative James Traficant is serving time for taking
bribes.
U.S. Representative Tom Delay was indicted for campaign
funding issues.
...of course the list goes on and on...
Or, if I'm a child pornographer, generate 100,000 files with the same hash (=an afternoon's work) and put them on a P2P network, posting them on public sites (YouTube, Flickr etc), or spamming them along with some Viagra emails, thus invalidating the entire system since law enforcement can't keep up chasing after my fake child porn?
The only reason such a system would be put in place is to pave the way for a censored US Internet - once the legislation and system has been in place for a while, pass a new law that makes it illegal for ISPs to transmit files matching the hash, thus blocking the American public from viewing "inappropriate" content. A national firewall a la China can't work, as has been shown - but legislating that all ISPs do content matching and selective delivery might.
Too bad, I thought McCain had half a brain before this.
MD5 is only 32 characters. Here is a URL to wikipedia on MD5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5
Now SHA1 gives us a 40 chrater Hexidecimal number. This would allow us quite a bit more combinations than MD5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sha1
However it is still limited to just 40 characters. The number of combinations are still limited and would repeat.
If you read the MD5 Wikipedia page you will see what I mean about collisions. Many web sites use hashes to encrypt their user passwords. Hackers will often aim for collisions while doing brute force attacks.
The people drafting this legislation must know these facts therefore must have another motive or one hell of a hash algarythym.
I guess you could graft this on to the virus scanners that most (Not all, some can't afford to do it) ISPs run. If you do this, they will have to cut quite a bit out of the virus database.
Even if you scan for hashes, all a bad guy would have to do is make a very small change to the file, and they will completely change the hash.
Having a known list of child porn, with known hashes is a good thing. It should help with prosecution. Scanning every email, PM and FTP in the US for these hashes is a bit overboard.
At a quick guess I would say that the number of UNIQUE images and videos that would be covered by this law would easily number in the hundreds of millions, and as you correctly state, a simple change (or even single-bit corruption) in these images would result in a new hash.
This would bring up a few problems. First, have you tried running a simple search against a 100M+ records? Even a good database is going to choke big time! We're talking about AT LEAST a 10,000-fold increase in server requirements. Second, if your search is too simple then you're going to hit a LOT of false positives. Third, how many billion dollars a year is it going to cost to maintain this list?
Of course, this is all a totally moot point. The law is so completely moronic that even if, by some not altogether unreasonable chance, both Congress and the Senate are full of idiots and they pass it then the Supreme Court will shoot it down in about 15 seconds.
Perhaps $300,000 is too small amount. How about Jail? 30 years?
As a f'rinstance, I like anime [some call it Japanimation? like nDCC-not Disney cartoon crap?] ya know? I guess not ...
anyhows, take Armitage III [google it, there's a Clue] and the McCain edict ... some government rent-a-thug would look at her and say ... 'ohmigawd, a lascivious teen etc. blah blah woof woof' ... only she's an android ...
oh, but that makes her not real and makes me a predator. Yeah, of whom? So Armitage wears kinky clothes, is petite, could be mistaken for a real teenager, well there ya are, fits all the requirements for putting me and thousands of other anime fans in the slammer.
Fine. And who is protected, what does this nonsense accomplish?
About as much expensive security as TSA.
And just how is anyone supposed to identify these "illegal" files? Scan my email and look for files that had a specific checksum? Something as simple as zipping the files would defeat that approach.
And utilizing more sophisticated technology such as encrypted peer to peer would render most efforts at driftnet surveillance useless.
I once had a lot of respect for John McCain and supported him in his previous Presidential bid. But his continued attacks on the First Amendment (McCain-Feingold, etc.) has destroyed all my confidence in the man.
This, IMO, is just electioneering hype and would only serve to further destroy the privacy rights of law abiding citizens while doing absolutely nothing to solve the problem.
Want to keep your children safe? Don't let them have a computer in their room. Keep it in a public area and supervise them while they are using it. Installing monitoring software would probably be a good idea in some situation.
Technology cannot protect children online. The only thing that can is parental supervision.
Right now there is a case of a substitute Teacher being prosecuted for having illicit pictures on it, why? Malware and it's subsequent pop-ups.
So before you go on this campaign you'd better do your homework or you may be the one in jail or paying fines and having a stigma attached to you because your computer was subject to a "zero-Day" attack of a downloader.
Right now your system could be a part of a "bot-net" serving up just such pictures without your knowledge. But don't worry I'm sure your spouse will wait for you while you're in prison for 10-30 years and had to sell the house to pay the fine.
Then the police could get back to work on [b]real[/b] crime, of which there is more than enough to keep them busy on any given day.
("The Legal Status of Women under Federal Law," Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Brenda Feigen Fasteau, 1974. )
John McCain *was* a war hero and I respect him for that. *Now* he's just another politician, bent on gutting our Bill of Rights and Constitution, and for that he should be tried for treason and shot.
But as with all forms of controversial art, where is the defining line? What characteristics separate a photographers "art form" from a "pornagraphic image"? Who makes the decision that an image is "too provacative"? What about the boundary where the "model" in the photograph has reached 18, a legal consenting adult?
With any of these types of bills that get passed into law, where are a definitive set of rules to prevent personal beliefs, views and biases from entering into the mix? The law cannot be something to viewed from a single individual perspective. It must be something that is applicable to everyone, everywhere, equally.
Free speech has both freedoms and limits. Unpopular, controversial speech must be protected under the First Amendment. At the same time, you can't walk into a crowded theater and scream "FIRE".
- Not everyone that has kiddy porn on their PC is aware of it
- by NerdPatrolAJ February 7, 2007 8:12 AM PST
- What about the the thousands of infected PCs with hidden folders serving illegal websites? This is commonplace in a world where people have been suckered by anti-virus solutions like Norton's and McAfee that claim to offer protection, but in reality do not. These poor schmucks do not even know these files exist or are even possible, but does that indemnify them from this law?
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