Being newish to file sharing I have also had the misfortune to be confronted with horrendouse stuff like this and is quite terrifying. The thought that you have been logged somewhere against it is scary to say the least even accidentaly.
What can you do, who can you go to i have no idea.
As you dont know where it came from you dont know who to alert?
A very depressing state of affairs on a very depressing subject. Which the only solution (you may disagree) is not to file share which is the way I will go.
I am sure it will reduce eventually over time, till then i will give it a miss.
Mach1, a damaged person now.

Hmm what measure's are being taken to minimize the exposure of "bs" like this ???

It has helped me alot browsing the forum to see people working safely to eradicate it best they can and passing on info to help combat this s**t.
It also allowed me to find links to sites that you can report it to.
Here is a couple-
http://www.ic3.gov/
Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), combating child abuse images and criminal material online

Yes you can get arrested for accidentally opening child porn on limewire. My brother has been living with this nightmare and we are looking to find others that have been wrogly accused. my brother is not a criminal and has always lived as an extraordinary person, volunteering for various groups and charities. He is a well educated man with a successful career. While looking at adult porn on limewire he opened a file containing child porn and his life has been changed forever. He spent a night in prison, is a convicted felon and ow is a registered sex offender with nightly curfews and visits from the police. It is all very wrong when he is not a criminal and it is a flaw in the system of file sharing. Please is you know of any other cases please contact me and advise others to be careful....file sharing is dangerous!

It took about 6 months before being arrested, then almost a year through the court system. It has been incomprehensible to think the state would invest so much time and money when he is not a true criminal. It now seems like the state wanted him to be a part of the sex offender program because he would boost their numbers for success stories. It really depends on the state. I live in a different state than him and similiar cases are misdemeanors and not a big deal where as his is a felony and he has to register.

ok so he was downlaoding regular porn and a child porn image opened and he deleted it instantly and did not think much of it because he deleted it quickly. His computer then broke so he brought it in to be serviced and the image was discovered and reported to the police. Then 6 months later he started getting calls from a police detective...he travels for work so he was not always home. He was asked to come in and talk to them and then it all got rally scarry. We got a lawyer and when he went in they arrested him and held him for the night. The whole thing was out of control....his case was in the same court as real violent offenders...cold blooded murderers. It was a hellish experience for him and as we found out later his face was even on the news...all for an accidental download of one stupid image!!!! My advice to you is to destroy the computer if it breaks rather than have it serviced. I do not wish the experiences of my brother and family on anyone. Also many judges and lawyers are of an older generation (as are potential jurors) and are unfamiliar with the idea of file sharing and do not understand it. there was a computer forensics specialist involved but the image hung around in the hard drive despite the fact that it was deleted. this was all in the state of Illinois.
So now my brother is a convisted felon, on probation and a registered sex offender. He has a curfew and receives visits from the police at all hours of the night and weekly meeting with other sex offenders which he is finding to be traumatic more than anything.
He had not previus criminal history and had an impressive background and now his life may never be the same again. I hope I am able to help you in any way and answer your questions.

This sounds just a little bit too convenient. Since when does a computer repair shop suddenly
become a computer forensics lab? You are implying they routinely undelete and snoop through
everything they can, which is as likely as police going into a tizzy over a single deleted image.

Case file number, please.

Well Aaron

I don't know about the US but here in the UK if a repair shop looks at your hard drive you would never know unless they found something, after all that is how Gary Glitter got caught (a pop star that had a thing for underage girls).

Mr Glitter's computer broke down and he took it into a repair shop to get it fixed, the repair shop scanned his hard drive, found illegal images and then called the police. The rest of this "Gary Glitter" story is now in the public domain, the BBC has 30 pages starting here:

BBC - Search results for gary glitter

As for kileyg story, I sympathise but his brother ran the risk when he downloaded pornography because some scumbag was bound to rename CP as ordinary porn and catch someone out. Just like they rename children films as CP and we end with "computer novice parents" accusing us (forum members), the LW app, and the LW Org of all manners of evil.

I take it that kileyg brother was not that knowledgable about computers because most of us know that when a file is deleted from a hard drive it does not go immediately, it takes time before the space the file occupies is completely overwritten.

As far as kileyg brothers concerned I think the only thing available to him is the appeal system.

Good Luck.



UK Bob

Well, I am new here. I did some research from what I could understand from Cybertipline, FBI, and few others.

If you accidentally downloaded a file which turned to be a child pornography or illegal obscure materials. You immediately report it to the law enforcements and the Cybertipline (National Center for Missing and Explioted Children) about that instance. Be honest with them.

What I am saying is that reporting the child pornography immediately after you unintentionally discover the child pornography is definitely right thing to do. Ignoring the child porn is not what you should do, everyone have legal responsibilities to report them immediately regardless of their personal bias. If it should occur to you, you don't have to worry about getting in trouble because you REPORTED to the authorities.

There are several instance of people who immediately reported child porn to the law enforcement and Cybertipline after they accidentally recieved or dwonloaded child porn materials. They don't get in trouble because they reported as required by the laws.

I am not sure if anyone here would agree with me but it is still right thing to report them anyways.

The Cybertipline recommended the same thing.

However, the ECPAT-USA's faq say differently.

a friend a while back was searching on google regarding Chris Langham who was charged with accessing child porn. Due to the recent case of Chris Langham, he interested to know about sex offenders in my area. He typed in 'child porn cases' and sex offenders

He clicked a link and he got this message on the site:

----------------------------------------------------

The American Online Kiddie Porn Page!
Detritus is fully responsible for the creation of everything you will see. We must ask you to disclose your age below before allowing you access to this sensitive area of the web site.


By checking the following box, I am certifying that I am a legal adult, of at least 21 years of age. Furthermore, I will not hold Detritus personally responsible if I happen to be offended by the following presentation.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION!
We appreciate your being a part of our ongoing investigation. Our new, state of the art, automated network information gathering and tracking control system has already documented your name, address, telephone number, and other pertinent information. Someone will be contacting you shortly. When our agents arrive to greet you, please be prepared, as they are working under a tight schedule, picking up other American Online deviants who have misplaced their morals.

Please do not attempt to evade us, as any effort to do so would be in vain. As you are reading this, your circle of family, friends, and co-workers are being informed that you have committed this morally, socially, and legally reprehensible act. You will not be permitted to re-enter society until you answer to these charges.

Before you try to fight these allegations and attempt to deny any involvement in criminal activities, please keep in mind how national security organizations operate; it would be far easier for you to end up dead than it would be to wade through the bureaucratic red tape of admitting the mistake of apprehending an innocent person. Perhaps you should admit your guilt while you still can. You are now one of people to have been entered into the database since 11/19/95.
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU.
Resistance is futile. Thank you for your cooperation.


A red ribbon, emblem of the Junior Anti-Sex League. We're here!

Return to Detritus.
Questions? Comments? Complaints? Congratulations? Send 'em to Big Brother.bigbrother@detritus.org
------------------------------------------------------------------

He was very scared about this and emailed them and is awaiting response

Will the authorities come to his house although he is not from the U.S, but lives in europe? If they do persue him, how long is it before he is questioned or arrested?
Has anyone come across this site, or is it just garbage. Thanks.

It is more likely a pure garbage. The law enforcement agencies are less unlikely to let the real child pornographers know that they are caught or busted.

Your friend should be fine considering that he didn't downloaded any child pornography materials, does he?

My guess, I would like to think that it is one of these anti-child porn vigilants which are generally dimly viewed by the law enforcement for a good reason. They could potentially hamper their operations against the criminals by scaring them away or disrupting it.

It was a reason why FBI, police, and National Center for Missing and Explioted Children generally advise against active vigilanism against the child pornography. The best recommandation as always - report all child pornography to the law enforcement authorities and let them do their own job.

In response to this post....the computer shop reported the image to the police, it was my brothers lawyers who hired the forensic computer experts and yes the police were in a tizzy over a single image!!! Yes as unbelievable as the situation seems it is all completely true and my reason for posting is to find others in a similar situation because I am sure there are more stories like this out there. Unfortunatley my brother was so naive that he did not realize that opening a file with CP was illegal when it was not marked as such and when he had no intention of viewing it intentionally or distributing it. CP is out there and it is wrong but something is wrong when my brother sits in his group meeting of sex offenders and he is now a felon for viewing an image and there are men sitting next to him with lesser misdeameanor sentences for violent **** and molestation. This is the honest truth as confusing and backwards as it may seem.

I downloaded a picture that was mislabeled, when i opened the file i found that it was child porn i immediately deleted it should i be worried at all?

Of course not. Don't get superstitious about it. ;]

I have a question of my own for someone to hopefully answer. I seen on the site (somewhere) about requesting possible upgrade ideas.... (I had an emerg. here at home, and left the pc running, and my 3 yr old shut the darn thing off on me so I lost where I was...) I have a huge one that I think would help in tracking these sick people. Why not have something put into the program itself? What I mean is, you know how we can block users, mark a file being junk? Why not have something like that but for reporting Child Pornography? That way, when someone sees the file, they mark it, and the information from the users file, and pc is logged. The people who run LimeWire would have access to this info, and they could forward it to police. If ppl want to help stop this destructive sick cr@p we need to bang our heads together and help. Not leave it alone and let the FBI/RCMP deal with it. There is only so many officers/agents who are able to work at this. What are all of us doing? Sitting here reading. LOL

If any of you are a survivor from sexual abuse, remember how you felt. What if it was your son or daughter? I have two little girls, and have gone through abuse. Whatever way I can help, I do.

I hope I didn't offend anyone.

~ Krys