First of all: WOW. Just WOW. If I lived in the USA, where being suspected of being a pervert is enough to be socially ruined ruin, this would be the first virus I would be seriously afraid of. Who cares if you lose all of your work, or some money if your identity is stolen. This virus could make you lose your social* life.* Your friends. Your reputation. The trust in your marriage. Your marriage, in fact.
Secondly, it is interesting to see if the existence of such a virus could change the intensity of the USA witch hunts against alledged child molestors.
“evil virus”? I hate to break it to them, but computer viruses are not sentient beings capable of distinguishing right from wrong. To paraphrase a certain sexy cartoon character: They aren’t bad; they’re just created that way.
That is scary and it could impact a lot of innocent people if the laws were evenly applied and there was a major crackdown. Despite my user name, I am practically a Puritan compared to many people and am I obviously completely opposed to any sort of child pornography but I have have stumbled upon some images and videos of youngish girls and I have no way of knowing if they are over 16, 18, or whatever the laws of the relevant state are and those references are stored and sometimes the images themselves are cached as well on your computer. It is technically possible to get in serious trouble for that and I think that is firmly planted in the idea of thought crimes rather than real crimes and U.S. laws that are based on thought crimes need to be adjusted really quickly in the U.S. in response to the information age especially because viruses like this will become more common and there is little way to know for sure who put the files on the computer in the first place.
But really, the way technology is going these days, this kind of thing was inevitable. Heck, you can already get people in enough trouble with old-fashioned viruses and such. Imagine what nefarious things you can do, and what has already been done, with the power to send any e-mail you want from someone else’s account through someone else’s computer. And THAT happens every day in thousands of ways.
OT, but I REALLY think they need to make a law differentating “underage” kiddy porn from REAL child porn. Underage porn is still kinda icky but not the same as honest to god child porn.
A security compromised PC will be co-opted (into a so-called botnet) for a variety of purposes. Mostly, they are used to distribute spam emails. This generates income for the controller (bot-herder). They may be used to launch a Distributed Denial of Service attacks for blackmail or malicious purposes. They may also be integrated into a public or private distributed file-sharing network, and it is these that may open the computer to users/distributors of child pornography.
OS manufacturers (particularly Microsoft) shoulder much of the blame, with a security model that is manifestly broken (and Windows 7, while better than XP/Vista, is not sufficiently protected). However, ISPs could do much more to protect and educate customers, using port filtering and network intrusion techniques.
My advice - don’t use an Administrative user account, have up-to-date antivirus/anti-malware, and use Firefox/Opera/Chrome (not IE).
““Underage” kiddy porn” (as used by AboutAsWeird in his post) means there are underage participants, but they do not look like children. I looked the same between the ages of 13 and 21, give or take a few months: my face had a teenager’s babyfat, my body was a grown woman’s.
“Child porn,” again as used in his post, means that the underage participants are evidently underage. That is, it’s porn that’s specifically geared towards people who get their rocks off on little kids.
The difference isn’t between “kiddy porn” and “child porn,” but between whether it’s bad because participants are legally underage or because they are children.
Actually, I think he’s differentiating between teenagers who are under the age of consent but not that far away from being adults, and pre-pubescent kids who are absolutely children.
Possessing a pic of a topless 17 year-old ought not to be a jailable offence, though most of the time it is considered so.
I’m not acquainted with the actual letter of the law, but I think there has to be some blatant sexual content involved before it’s considered illegal. My mom has at least one picture of me playing in the mud naked when I was two or three…is she gonna get hauled off to jail? Of course not. How many mothers have the “baby’s first bath” snapshot? Are they worried about the slammer? I doubt it.
This has been going on for a while. The real pedophiles find ways to upload the photos onto unsuspecting people’s computers, and when the authorities trace the photos down they end up arresting innocent people who didn’t even know they had them. Imagine if drug dealers found a way to plant drugs in your bushes where buyers could come up and pick up their drugs in your yard w/o you even knowing they were there. Then when the authorities kick down your door you won’t even know what the hell you are being arrested for.
Either way, yeah we are going to see alot of lives destroyed in our sexual moral panic. When I go on legit porn sites you are required to admit you are 18, and uploaders are required to show actresses are 18. However if a video with a 16-17 year old gets through the filters I’m sure there is some dumbass federal agent willing to destroy a few dozen people’s lives over the issue.
But they could be hauled off to jail. That is the problem. There have been stories of people being arrested for taking pictures of their children getting a bath.
What is important is that it is up to the police. If the police feel like destroying your parent’s lives tomorrow because of a few bath photos, they can and will. The legal framework for the police to totally screw your family over is there, its just a question on what mood the authorities are in.
I remember a story in the news a few years ago about a guy who claims he found a VHS tape in the park. When he watched it it was child porn, so he gave it to the police. After the police tracked down the pedophile in the video, they then arrested the guy who gave them the video tape. Imagine if reporting a theft got you charged as an accessory.
I think there was a federal law last decade which rescinded the concept of ‘art’ as a defense in child pornography. Pornography could be excused if it had ‘artistic, cultural or social merit’ (something like that) but the law passed rescinded that. So all books and films that reference child porn are now illegal.
Which means (I think) that everyone who has seen the napalm photo from Vietnam (with the naked pre-pubescent girl) or read the works of Shakespeare, or seen the movie american beauty is a pedophile.
Seems to me if enough people get bitten by a porn-distributing virus, it will develop into a legal defence that child-porn possessors can use. “Your honour - I didn’t knowingly put those pictures on my computer! I’ve had trouble with computer viruses recently and one of them must have put them there!”
Yes. Because a 17 year old who voluntarily tapes herself having sex, lies about being 18, uploads the video to a website, and shows it to other people who have no idea of her age is an innocent victim who needs saving from the bad men out there. Sure. :rolleyes:
There are serious sex crimes in society which most people are happy to ignore and pretend aren’t happening rather than face intelligently and competently (without moral panics, shame and draconian responses). The more we go after people who take pictures of their kids in a bath tub the less serious the real sex crimes could become in people’s minds, and there is a risk we may just drive them further underground. Same with the drug war. One of the big side effects of the drug war is people hate and fear the authorities far more than they did in the past. Name one problem in world history that has been solved by an irrational, draconian moral panic instead of a competent attempt to address its root causes in a logical way?
Have you ever seen the movies american beauty, romeo & Juliet, Lolita or traffic? If so, you could legally be considered a child pornography consumer under the child pornography prevention act of 1996 (which was struck down in 2002 for being too broad).
This group takes child sexual abuse seriously.
They realize what a massive public health hazard it is (since sexual abuse leads to higher rates of mental illness, substance abuse, abusive relationships, crime, deliquency, revictimization and cycles of abuse, personal suffering, etc) and they look for competent ways to stop both abusers from abusing as well as helping victims get help.
No moral panic. No attempt to play a knight in shining armor. No draconian hatred. No attempts to arrest parents who take photos of their kids in a tub. Just competent advice on stopping one of the biggest causes of public and private suffering we face.
