My son told me that his friend told him that his brother called him up at 2am last night in a panic. He apparently had been surfing the web and looking at porn sites. A window came up (he said) and at the top it said YOU ARE BEING WATCHED. It showed a list of all the porn sites he had surfed to; said all your sites are being filtered (?) through your ISP in Pomona; and, there is an ongoing investigation. He grabbed the compter, ran out to the car, threw it in the trunk and was out driving around when he called his brother. I guess he throught the SWAT team was surrounding his house. After I stopped laughing hysterically, I decided that it seemed simimlar to those window ads that warn you you night have porn on your C drive and offer to run a free check; and then want to sell you software to delete it. But then again…? First of all, is looking at adult porn illegal? All the arrests you read about are always for child porn. Or, since they can’t arrest everyone if it is, this might just be an attempt to discourage people from going to those sites. One other thing you should know; these people are Russian, in this country a while, but still not totally savy. I mean they did come from a police state of sorts. what does anyone make of this?
I’ve heard (no, I don’t have a cite, or even a clue where I heard it, so it could be the phantom hitcher all over again) that there are some folks out there with computer skills and a problem with porn who do this sort of thing to get their point across.
I feel for the guy, though, based on the “ongoing investigation” and “police state” thing. I had a history seminar in university with a student from China. One of our local organizations was having a “Jail ‘n’ Bail” fundraiser, where they come in, grab you, take you to the telephone bank, and you aren’t supposed to leave until you’ve raised X dollars by getting pledges from friends.
Somebody got our prof on their list. We were all laughing as he was marched away by a half dozen volunteers, and happy because we now had an hour free of his damned monotone. Then we realized she was under the table and shaking pretty badly.
Apparently it’s not that funny if you’re from China.
In most areas there is an age requirement by law to go to a pornographic site (not like this is ever followed). I know it is 18 in most areas of the U.S., 21 in some other parts of the world (can’t remember where exactly…).
And it is possible to get information from a computer such as recently visited websites and what’s on a clipboard (like this site, its not always perfect, but you get the idea). A nice little trick, but not likely that the cops are knocking at your door.
Anyway, hope this helps.
Also, the FBI is rarely kind enough to give you a warning. They tend to just show up without even calling first.
They claim it’s so that you don’t destroy the evidence, but I think it’s just rude.
It’s not illegal to look at porn, if you’re an adult. AFAIK, only child pornography is illegal to posess.
Sounds like a super-clever version of the “You are transmitting your IP address” popup. Sites like anonymizer.com can provide this sort of information, as clayton_e says.
Maybe someone can help me, but I’ve been told that looking at internet porn is, in fact, illegal in certain states or areas of certain states who have blue laws regarding forms of porn. Not that it stops anyone, of course. Any info?
I bet it was a clever pop-up ad for anonomyzing software. I wonder how much potential business they lost because of people freaking out before they got to the pitch? Heh heh.
Or he could be being hacked.