Comments on: P2P group launches site to combat child porn

Industry trade group aims to help consumers report online child pornography to law enforcement.

[Jim Hubbard]

This is extremely dangerous!

Why? Simply because, acording to the FBI, acquiring child pronography at all is a Federal Offense. The way this web site now appears (by telling users how to submit "accidental" downloads of child porn) it will actually encourage people to dl child porn in an effort to help stomp it out.

Saying not to, and then telling how to report child porn is like saying "We have to tell you not to do it, but when you do (*wink*) here's what to do with it."

I actually wrote and tried to submit (to the FBI) client and server software that would download suspected child porn from P2P networks (in memory only - never written to the user's hard drive as a useable file), hash the file and check the FBI's server (which my company also offered to donate) for that hash.

If the hash is found in the FBI server's child porn database, the ip, port, hash and time are submitted to the FBI server. If the hash is not found, but the file has been downloaded due to keyword match for probable child porn, the ip, port, hash, time and compressed image are submitted to the FBI server.

Files that are new would be viwed by an agent of the FBI, who would determine if the file is actually child porn or not.

Over time, the database would grow quickly and most manual checks would be eliminated - except for new child porn (God forbid).

Only problem was that the FBI said that they were not interested. The "lady" at the FBI I spoke with and offered this system to said that ANY downloading of child pornography is illegal - even if it is done to identify the bastards pushing this stuff.

I tried explaining to her that the system I had developed never stored the images nor were the images viewable by the volunteer running the client. In fact, the image was encoded using a public key in real time so that the eventual image im memory on the volunteer's PC could only be viewed with the private key on the FBI's server.

Still she said that ANY transmission of child pornography is illegal. They were simply not interested.

Three months later, Canada enacted a system similar to mine to weed out child porn there. (Go Canada!!!)

With all of the crime and terrorism the FBI has to look after, you'd think they'd appreciate the help. They don't.

It's just another example of the "us VS them" mentality of law enforcement as a whole. And, people feel that attitude, are turned off by it, and slowly stop offering to help law enforcement - leading to more unsolved crime and eventual anarchy.

The FBI and other law enforcement had better change their ways. When good people offer to help, and they refuse that help....they may wish that they had the help of the people one day.

Is stomping out child porn a good idea? YES!

But, the FBI is crystal clear that downloading child porn - EVEN FOR THE SAKE OF REPORTING IT - is a felony and is a federal crime. So, there are NO jurisdictions where people may download child porn for ANY reason whatsoever.

If you do accidentally download child porn, do yourself a favor and just delete it. Don't get involved - or you may just find yourself defending against a felony count of posession of child pornography.

Don't worry though, evidentally the FBI has enough people to handle everything all by themselves. (Makes you fell all warm and cozy, doesn't it?)

[CURB_STOMP_CP]

I've come across this crap while looking for "legitimate" porn. I've reported almost every (for not knowing how to in the past) instance of finding illegal content. The last report that I made to the FBI was a month ago. Since then, I have stopped viewing porn altogether. It made me sick that this garbage can make it onto the internet. What I saw made me sick the only other sick thing that I've seen that could compare to what I saw was a video of the contractor nick berg being decapitated in Iraq. These things stick with you and haunt you even after reporting them, because to them , you may have just become an easy target. I hope they use the information given to them the appropriate way. I completely stopped looking at porn because I'm a married Christian and nothing good can come from it for me. I also confessed to my wife that I had been looking at porn and told her of the childporn that sometimes came across and was reported. Unfortunately and fortunately, I won't be looking at porn hence, I will be unable to report it when I come across it because I won't come across it. STOMP OUT CP!!!

[TedInAK]

Don't Blame The...

...companies who create/distribute P2P software.

If you do, then also blame Sony, Panasonic, Emerson, (enter any VCR manufacturer here), for child porn, the concept is the same. If you can copy it, the technology is illegal!

Do you think child porn was just invented? It surely was not. With the above listed companies, do they condone it? Most likely not. Do they encourage it? Of course, not. It would be corporate suicide.

I can borrow/rent/buy any type of content, from Mary Poppins to Debbie Does Dallas to [enter the most despicable form of child porn here], but the aforementioned companies cannot be blamed. \

Blame the distributors...blame the manufacturers of perverted content...blame the people who give it away for free to all who want it, but don't persecute the peer-to-peer technology any more than you would the VCR/VHS/Betamax technology for abuses by the vast minority of users/abusers! Do you own a VCR? It can record illicit content! Do you own a computer? It can download any type of smut that you can imagine, from "Indecent Proposal", to freaky human/animal sex, to the most horrible child porn that you can imagine. It can be fitted with a DVD burner, so you can distribute it to the world! Should computers be banned? Should the internet be banned? Forthcoming DVD players will be able to copy DVD's! Does that mean DVD players should be banned? I don't care how much indecency in the world there is, to ban the technology behind it will not rid us of it! Should my 2 year old not be allowed to watch his Barney DVD because a DVD player MIGHT be used to show indecent material? I'm not a prophet, but I am a capitalist, and even more so, a realist...if it will make money, the product will come! You can't regulate the technology, as the U.S. Supreme Court said re: the original VCR / Betamax technology (Hollywood said no...people will steal our intellectual property and we will lose billions!) But instead, they made multi-billions of dollars since then, even more since the advent of the DVD!

Sorry for my rant. To be honest, I say make DVD's illegal...make VCR's illegal...make compters illegal...make the human memory illegal...all can be used to infringe on intellectual property...all can be used to promote deviant behavior...all can be used to do whatever you want...including letting my son watch Barney!

P2P Group launches site to combat child porn

It does not matter if you report child pornography. I reported what I found on my computer and it has been almost six months and have heard nothing. I believe it is such a problem that the FBI cannot keep up it.

[WrathofHeaven]

This kind of sick horror to children is allowed and done nothing about simply because you skank loser infested liberals have diseased our world! There is but one single way to deal with pedophiles: Take them into middle of street and place a bullet in their diseased minds period. These freaks of nature along with crack heads,drug dealers, homosexuals, gang bangers,home invaders, etc need to be but eradicated like the disease they are!

[CURB_STOMP_CP]

Murderers and rapists, too