Such a facility would inevitably be misused against people for a disturbing variety of
reasons. That's why it will never happen, and that's why such matters are best left in
the hands of trained, skilled and well-regulated investigators. We have all seen the
effects of surveillance societies and hopefully some of us have learned something
from those disastrous mistakes.

A point-and-click informant system seems like a nice idea on the surface when
you sell it with an anti-crime or anti-terrorist gloss but the end effect is the same
with very real and sometimes irreparable consequences to the accused and to the
community. That's why we have courts and the justice system.

Karkensmama

Aaron is completely right, such methods could easily see innocent people being accused of distributing CP, destroying families and costing people their homes and livelihood's. And what is worse, you personally would trust the LW org to police this system that you propose, I think that you must be very naive.

A few weeks back I noticed that a Limewire.exe file was in my Incomplete folder so I wrote to this forum about it. Through sheer persistence, one of the forum members found that the LW org were using my PC, as well as other users, to distribute Limewire without our express permission or knowledge. In other words they were stealing our Internet bandwidth.

Now, suppose some unscrupulous person got hold of this method and started to distribute CP via your computer without your knowledge. Under your rules you would be automatically reported to the police and the first time you would know that anything was wrong is when the police come to arrest you and seize your PC.

And, of course, you would be guilty because you could not prove that the CP on your PC was not yours.

The point I am making is simply this, you cannot put your faith or trust in an organisation that has its own agenda and is unaccountable to you.

And if someone or some organisation has the technical knowledge and ability to compromise your PC then they can and will, your PC is not 100% safe or secure.

I firmly believe that if you come across CP then report it, let the authorities find the bad guys. However, I will not condone or have anything to do with witch hunts simply because innocent people get hurt, sometimes irreversibly.



UK Bob

Obviously our PC's are unsafe. That's a given. I suppose my proposal was a completely bad idea, and no one else has any idea on how to help the authorities. I suppose I will continue on my own with trying my best to help them catch these criminals. However my question is... Are you the ones that are gullible into believing that if you leave it up to police things are done faster because they are 'trained'? I believe so. The more people who act together, things are completed faster. But I guess in my eyes, that's just the way life is. You help someone, things get done faster, and more accurately. You don't help, and maybe someday it will end up being your child, or grandchild becoming one of the victims. So instead of sitting here and talking with people who by the looks of things do not have open minds, nor guts to stand up for our children, I will get off here and continue what I was doing prior to this. Helping capture sick animals, while knowing that I'm at least helping to protect my own children, and possibly yours.



PS: Concerning the comment about Child Porn mysteriously showing up in my PC without my knowledge and still be haled off in cuffs... Charges filed because of owning it... Where I'm living that is NOT the case. If you are truly knowledgeable in computer software/hardware, you will know that there are ways of getting hard core information that the normal Joe can't get his hands on.

As for that note, thank you for your replies. And thank you for sitting in front of your computer doing by the looks of things, NOTHING to help protect the innocent. Hopefully if you have kids, at least you are protecting them. Hopefully.

Sacrificing constitutional and legal protections for "speed" is never a wise idea.
The reason these matters should be left to the police are many but two that stand
out are fairness and accuracy. Obviously this is a hot-button issue and that is why
it is so easy to dispense with the constitution, the law and any sense of
proportionality when dealing with it.


Amateur activists could easily overstep reasonable limits on behaviour and unfairly
victimize perceived offenders only to find out later that it is they who were
committing serious crimes against the innocent. Trained investigators are much
better equipped mentally and emotionally to do their job professionally and with
much less risk of falsely accusing members of the public of crimes so heinous that
even the allegation bears life-changing (or even life-ending) consequences. Take a
second look at yourself and what you just said. If you fail to consider another as a
human being simply because of a suspicion then it is you who have become the
sick animal, and it is you who have become a danger to the public peace.

Trained investigators are also well versed in the techniques, laws and regulations
that ensure a high degree of accuracy in their work. They may not always succeed
but they do have that advantage over vigilantes and it is the most important factor
in getting convictions in a court of law. Rushing in to help "capture sick animals"
is far more likely to taint the case and make any evidence gathered useless
because amateurs don't know when to keep hands off and how to preserve
evidence for trial. The end result of inexperience and enthusiasm is that of
protecting the criminal by making it impossible to prosecute. The police may
seem slow to you but there is good reason for their calm and methodical approach.
If you interfere with it in any way you should expect to be charged with obstruction.


Your duty is to report any finds to an appropriate channel like the Center for
Missing and Exploited Children and then back off to let the police do their job, no
more and no less. That's it. You have no right to insinuate that we have done any
more or less than quietly fulfil that duty either, period, end of sentence. Nor is it
appropriate for you to accuse the police of failing to do their duties in this regard.
The only time you hear of their activities on this front is when they bring offenders
to court, so don't bother to complain about what you cannot know.

Oddly enough, you can't actually be sure it is (though yeah, it probably is) since it's possible for people to rename files with unrelated stuff (like an episode of MASH or Charlie Chaplin) with keywords related to the content you are describing.

Similarly, people can rename illegal content as something without such keywords, they disseminate it as a form of information terrorism and put other people at risk. Such people are essentially what make it problematic to share media anonymously like this, at least as long as media can potentially be illegal.

The only way to protect people from this while keeping freedom of information exchange is to not have media be illegal anymore, just actions should be illegal IMO.

Please I need help... It seems my 14 year old cousin went into a site that was of child porn or something and I did not know. The computer is registered in my name and the site had this message of bigbrother@detritus.org. I am getting married in April. I don't know what to do, please if someone can help me out here. I am very desperate. I don't know what to do... I sent them a message and told them they can even come to the house or call or email or whatever but, what if I am the one to get in trouble for someone else. I don't know what to do.

What do you mean the site "had a message"?

If there was some kind of message on the site against porn then it's highly unlikely that there
ever was any porn on the site or that anything illegal ever occurred and you were simply
tricked by anti porn zealots into confessing something you or your cousin never really did.

If you got some email message out of the blue accusing you of something you never did then
ignore it as a bluff. If something illegal really did happen then it would have been the police
contacting you and not some sleazy vigilante group.

I called the police and even the FBI right after I posted this message. I was so worried about this matter and they said the same thing you did. I thought I would have a heart attack and after I read the other posts, I really thought my life would turn into a disaster. Thank you again. I got the FBI number from someone who had the link here, I don't remember the user name but thanks to that person too.

As for child porn, I have to say I am very disgusted with the whole subject. I have many nephews and cousins and they are all babies and I would never like something like that to happen to one of them. I would say I would kill anyone who would try to harm them in such a horrible way. I have been a victim of abuse myself, r**e, etc. and I would like to tell all those people out there who think it is fun or amusing to do things like this, that they should think "what if that is my own child" before doing anything so horrible.