Once again I will repeat it. The Star Trek technology you are thinking about is far far too
expensive to be used on insignificantly small cases like somebody downloading something by
accident and immediately deleting it. There is no way in any circumstance that the most
expensive scanning tunnelling electron microscope technique is ever, under any circumstance,
going to be used on anything less than a national security matter, period, end of sentence.

If you're not spreading anthrax around D.C. or mailing a hard drive full of uranium enrichment
info to China, a military standard DOD 5220.22 secure wipe that most secure delete software
is capable of is more than sufficient to make it effectively impossible for the FBI to cope
with or afford.

They're still using AnaDisk, for crying out loud. Do you know how old that puppy is?

For the few that accidentally download something a simple delete followed by
defragging the drive is more than enough to put their minds at ease. To think
otherwise is to be superstitious and to tell people otherwise is sensationalism for
the sake of self entertainment. :p

Hi guys, iam glad to join this forum, but its for reasons that i never thought would happen to me. I need serious advice of what to do.

Iam a big fan of limewire, love the fact that i can download all my fav songs so i will always use it.
But last year when i discovered that you could download porn on limewire, some sickening images of child abuse came with it. I had highlighted the search results to save time looking through each individual file, i was about to have an empty house so i thought i would get prepared lol. Anyway after highlighting then pressing enter, all the highlighted porn files started downloading.
Good so far.
After ten minutes of scrolling the internet i returned to limewire, and was shocked and disgusted to find what i did. Quite a few pics had been downloaded with titles that suggested it was child porn. Straight away i felt instantly sick and a cold feeling filled my body. Quickly i stopped downloading everything, deleted all my dowloaded files and switched off the pc. I started to think the police would be at my door in a matter of minutes.

The next day i decided to go back on and make sure all of the filth was deleted from my limewire. I then discovered i could type in keywords to block such files, and thats what i did. I thought if i typed in words such as kid and child, the chance of it happening again would be nil, so thats what i did.
I continued to download porn from limewire, thinking that only Adult porn was being downloaded as i had blocked out files with the words kid and child in them. But this was not the case. A couple of times the filth had been downloaded again and as i did before, i deleted them as soon as i found them. This then prompted me to stop downloading all porn from limewire, which i perhaps should have done before. In the keywords box i typed in all sexually related words i could think of to make sure of this

Ever since then i have been living in fear that the police will be at my door soon. Iam 16 now, was 15 when it happened and as you can imagine i have been mentally exhausted by this. Everytime i see police in my street, i think they are here for me, and sometimes i actually wanted to approach them and inform them of what had happened, but i didnt have the balls. It has been my dream to work in the police since i was a little boy, and child porn is something that absolutely sickens me.

My question is what should i do? Iam leaving school, want to join the police soon as possible, but i just couldn't do it knowing that i haven't reported what i accidentally downloaded. Iam scared that if i do tell the police, they will instantly suspect me of being a sick pedophile b*****d, which is something that iam not. Also, still being at school, Iam terrified that if i did report it, people at school would label me as a pedo and i would have the **** kicked out of me. I have came close before to telling my mum, but again iam scared in case she wouldn't believe me, even though i know she probably would.

So how should i report this. if i was ever even suspected of being a pedo, i honestly would consider suicide, thats how worried and depressed iam.

Please give me advice guys.

The screwed up laws make it dangerous to report it, so better not.

Use an eraser to erase all free space on the harddrive, then defragment and do the same thing over again.

If you want porn then use other sources that are better kept control of. The Gnutella network isn't being monitored as to what can and can't be shared. If it was then it would fast be no porn, no movies, no music and no nothing.

Thanks for the advice. Thing is though its a family computer, so would they find out if i erased free space and defragged?
Also the filth that was downloaded wasn't shared, i have never shared any files. Does that make a difference?
I dream of a career of busting people like pedophiles in the police, so to think i could be labeled as one is driving me crazy.

my my my AW...first you state that "imaginary super-CSI wizardry isn't necessary" then you state "The Star Trek technology you are thinking about is far far too expensive"..make up your worthless mind d00d...I for one am sick and tired of your games and such...yep, it is expensive (in the fact that an agent has to be sent to a location and paid for his/her time) but it does exist....yet again I have to point out what a tool you are...

The facts are simple.

The hypothetical situation where professional grade data recovery available to
police defeats the military grade data erasing software available for free to the
public does not exist. Show us one instance where it did.

There's no point anyway because collectors of porn tend to amass large collections
instead of deleting it. Most arrests you see in the newspapers report "huge" collections.

In cases where encryption is used to hide porn, the police either get lucky or they
don't in decrypting the data. Data recovery is not an issue in those cases.

Extreme grades of data recovery are never employed in minor criminal cases.
It's too expensive and only available in matters as serious as murder or national
security. The fact that it takes extremely long times is also a deciding factor
against using it in criminal cases that have statutory time limitations.

None of these facts override or invalidate any other. They go together, adding up
to the simple fact that people who accidentally download something and delete it
right away are never going to be pounced upon by high-tech warriors with magical
abilities to conjure up deleted files and destroy lives. To suggest that such a thing
can happen is irresponsible sensationalism which does the P2P community no good. http://www3.telus.net/Aaron_Walkhouse/really.gif

Thank you!
 

Aaron,your comment made me feel better.
I am freaking out---I can't believe I accidentally half-way downloaded
(Cause I realized half way and stopped)
KP...I should read the titles very carefully next time.
I deleated the file, and as someone said in another post,
is using Eraser. I hope that is enough.
Worrying constantly about this issue has made me so tired,
and it happened just yesterday. I am so worried that the cops are going
to come any minute....

Anyone have an answer to that question?

hi group

Sometimes formatting has a bad sector check that overwrites all the sectors with a test pattern.
Even so, a pass over free space with a secure delete program would be a good idea to make sure.