The Dallas Morning News (reg. req.) runs a story that insinuates that P2P companies could stop child porn on their networks but are reluctant to do so because then they would also be able to stop copyright infringement (Child Porn Tests File-Share Firms). In other words, these companies are scumbags unwilling to fight child porn so they can profit from infringement. Subtext, the Supreme Court should rule against them in Grokster to protect us from child porn:
File-sharing companies could find ways to block known illegal files before they're sent, said Detective Greg Dugger, a member of the Dallas Police Department's Internet Crimes Against Children unit.
But then they'd probably have to do the same thing for copyrighted works, and they'd lose their users instantly, he said.
"If one of these clients does the right thing, they'll probably be out of business the next day," he said.
A Supreme Court ruling in favor of entertainment companies could be the way to make P2P companies aggressive about policing their own networks, Mr. Burbach said.
But if the court rules in favor of P2P firms, the industry may have to prove it's no haven for pedophiles, said Rick Wallace, a full-time student in Illinois.
His Web site, www.seewhatyoushare.com, tracks the ways consumers make themselves vulnerable through P2P software.
"At a certain point, when you have children being exploited on networks the way they are, something's got to give," he said.
I'm not even going to get into whether filtering would actually work. The facts of the matter seem too confusing for law enforcement:
Police who specialize in child porn cases consider P2P networks dangerous because they can disseminate information to many people very quickly.
The P2P networks also give users the misguided impression that they're completely anonymous.
Most popular P2P programs don't have a central repository of data tracking which users are sharing specific material.
Even so, it's possible, with the right tools, to identify P2P users.
Entertainment companies have developed and bought tools that can identify the Internet addresses of P2P users.
Law enforcement agencies have more limited budgets, but they're reviewing similar options.
Let's see, P2P networks give users the false impression of anonymity. Doesn't this mean it will be much easier to identify who is sharing child porn? Why would you want to change this impression? If you make P2P illegal or have obvious tracking, the child pornographers will only move to distribution means that are harder to track. Police should be thanking P2P companies for making it easier to catch child pornographers.
And why the focus on what P2P companies can do? It is Hollywood that has the tools to track file-sharing; they've sued over 10,000 people. So, why don't police ask Hollywood to help them fight child porn? Why isn't Hollywood sharing this technology? Seems to me that Hollywood could fight child porn if they wanted, so how come they're not?
File-sharing networks are one of many places on the Internet where pedophiles lurk.
They also transmit their images through chat rooms, newsgroups, e-mail and even Web pages. "You can find them just going through Google," Mr. Burbach [Texas deputy attorney general] said.
Hmmm. Why aren't they asking for ISPs to run filters to identify child porn files? Seems if you really wanted to stop all these methods, there is only one place to go: the ISP. Of course, if an ISP started filtering everything for child porn, it is likely they would lose their users instantly. So, clearly, ISPs are unwilling to fight child porn in order to maintain their profits.
But then, it is politically more acceptable to bash P2P companies rather than large well-financed ISPs.
UPDATE 0700PT 2 JUN 2005
The author of the article responds in the comments below.
Ernest Miller pursues research and writing on cyberlaw, intellectual property, and First Amendment issues. Mr. Miller attended the U.S. Naval Academy before attending Yale Law School, where he was president and co-founder of the Law and Technology Society, and founded the technology law and policy news site LawMeme. He is a fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.
Ernest Miller's blog postings can also be found @
1. Crayton Harrison on June 2, 2005 12:20 AM writes...
Hi, I'm the reporter who wrote the story. You raise a lot of interesting questions. But I want to be clear -- I wasn't calling anybody a scumbag, and the law enforcement officials I spoke with wouldn't do so, either. I got a clear sense from everyone in the P2P industry that they want to eliminate child porn from their networks. The matter, as you note, is delicate, but their hearts are most assuredly in the right place.
Also, I have no position or stake in MGM v. Grokster. The story pretty clearly states that if MGM wins, Internet child porn could become an even bigger problem for law enforcement. This issue, obviously, isn't black and white, and I'd expect readers to be able to use this story as one factor in forming their own opinions about the Supreme Court case.
Cool site, btw.
Permalink to Comment2. Anonymous on June 3, 2005 07:14 AM writes...
This is a delicate matter. It's all about privacy rights and censorship. In order to use the system the MPAA and RIAA uses you need to have the hash/CRC or watermark of the original file. With music and movies this is easy. Then all it is, is a matter of downloading the file from P2P. Checking whether it matches what you have and logging the IP address it came from and what time. However the MPAA and RIAA or the companies they use to do this for them are not empowered by law to download child pornography. Only the federal agencies are allowed to do this. Unfortunately because the MPAA and RIAA use third party companies to do their dirty work for them. These companies are unlikely to just 'give away' for free thier 'tools' they use to trace P2P users.
The other problem is as I stated. Privacy and censorship. People simply do not like being snooped on even if they are not doing anything wrong. The rise in popularity of IP blocking software shows this. Eventually if someone comes along with an encrypted, IP masking P2P application that is just as fast or nearly as fast as the current Bittorrent, people will use it (and abuse it)! Simply because of all the bad publicity and 'fear' the industry has created. The entertainment industry are 'pushing' P2P networks towards being more anonymous and even tougher to track users.
The feds should be applying pressure to the industry to stop acting like idiots and come up with some sensible business solutions. One day when anonymous P2P is as popular as Bittorrent and people are untraceable only the entertainment industry will be to blame for this. Their greed is will eventually create a safe haven for illegal P2P activities.
Permalink to Comment3. Crosbie Fitch on June 3, 2005 10:42 AM writes...
I'm sure companies behind P2P clients like Kazaa would love to suppress undesirable content, irrespective of whether they would then also use it to suppress copyrighted works.
The fact is, they don't have the capability - it's theoretically impossible.
However, rather than confront this impossibility, it suits the RIAA's ends far more conveniently to suggest that it is possible to filter content, but that an ulterior motive prevents anyone implementing it.
Filtering of content does happen, but on a democratic basis. People don't share what they consider to be undesirable, this is because they simply delete it. Thus, there is a continuous tendency for undesirable content to evaporate - despite the best efforts of RIAA to insert it.
Sure, some nefarious types may anonymously share despicable content, in order for it to be picked up anonymously, whether plans for nuclear/bio weapons, child-porn, sedition, or witchcraft. This is as impossible to eliminate as litter is from the streets.
However, although elimination is impossible, there are better solutions such as rating. If you let everyone rate content, then it becomes a little easier for some users to avoid the content they aren't seeking.
For problems with distributed systems, the solutions also tend to be distributed.
Permalink to Comment4. EuroBoy on June 5, 2005 06:01 PM writes...
Filtering child pornography is already a reality in some countries in Europe, namely the UK, Norway and Sweden. The police are cooperating with the ISP's, providing lists of domains and urls that distribute such material, and the ISP's prevent them from doing just that - distributing.
Speaking of p2p, the police here have that possibility too. In March of 2004 the Norwegian police found 13 000 users that were sharing child pornographic files in 48 hours using a system they developed in-house. There were cases in more than 100 countries, and the operation was dubbed ENEA. Its basically just a matter of giving the police some guys with degrees and a bit of time and money, and you will have the ability to combat child pornography on a massive scale.
Permalink to Comment5. Marc Freedman, RazorPop on June 6, 2005 03:03 AM writes...
Ernest,
Excellent points. My objection to the article is more fundamental. It buys into the propaganda generated by Hollywood. Child porn on P2P was never a controversy until RIAA (not the government) said it was. More at:
http://www.p2p-weblog.com/archives/what_really_tests_fileshare_firms.html
Marc
Permalink to Comment6. Crosbie Fitch on June 10, 2005 05:40 PM writes...
Jesus Christ EuroBoy, you can't equate detection with filtering.
Otherwise you might as well say that catching drug traffickers is equivalent to prevention.
To know it's going on is not a problem. The problem is ensuring that contraband material is removed, filtered from the system.
Just because RIAA are able to detect trafficking in copyrighted material does not mean that someone somewhere is successfully filtering it.
Permalink to Comment7. Fima Fimovich on June 15, 2005 12:45 PM writes...
I would like to send you some links to publications
about my criminal case. I worked for Mitsubishi
Electric Automation in Vernon Hills, IL, USA.
My case are getting public attention now as an example
of miscarriage of justice. I could not defend myself,
because I did not have enough money for computer
expert. I was forced to confess for possession of
child porn. I got browser hijackers while browsing the
web. I was redirected to illigal sites against my
will. Some illigal pictures were found on my hard
drive only after
recovering in unallocated clusters, without dates of
files creation/download.
I do not know how can courts press widely on people to
convict them, while whole Internet is a mess.
This is my story in inquisition21.com. There is all
information about case written by Irish writer Brian
Rothery.
http://www.inquisition21.com/article~view~7~page_num~3.html
This is publication in Wired news
http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,63391,00.html
This is publication in Theregester
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/13/browser_hijacking_risks/
Article in Globe and Mail newspaper
http://ctv.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040617.gttwhijac17/tech/Technology/techBN/ctv-technology
Article in ZDnet
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5344831.html
This is article in Washington Times, May 22, 2004
There is information about my case.
http://www.cato.org/cgi-bin/scripts/printtech.cgi/dailys/05-30-04.html
Article in Crime research center:
http://www.crime-research.org/news/07.22.2004/506/
Article in Dallas, TX Newspaper
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=13614767&BRD=1426&PAG=461&dept_id=528214&rfi=6
The problem for me now is to find lawyer, who can
review the case. When I pleaded guilty, there were no
any publications, like in wired news. This article was
posted on hundreds sites, published in newspapers,
discussed on many boards, and translated to many
languages.
I think the problem with my confession was prosecutors
pushed case to trial without any thoughts about
computer experts. Judge answered NO for any requests.
Prosecutor promised couple years in prison. My lawyer
came to me and said 'You must answer in next 5
minutes, after that they call jurors for trial'. 100%
you will get conviction, no doubt.
100% to get conviction, and go to prison for couple
years. This was opinion of very experienced lawyer.
Going to prison with child sex conviction, there were
possibilities to get raped, bitten, or even killed.
These were real, very real.
So it was pressing like criminals pressing on victim.
I am political refugee from Soviet Union, and in my
understanding, there are no difference between
prosecution, court, police and criminals. I got
another prove of this.
People are silent in this country because charging
with any crime is very easy, but defence costs huge
money. Most people do not have $15,000 for lawyer, but
this is not enough. I think $200,000 is not enough to
defend yourself. So police and and procecution enjoy
abusing of power, like masters with slaves.
I just tryed to explain why there was plea agreement.
Some people do not understand this. They asking
questions like why admitted something you are not
guilty of. Josef Stalin victims admitted to any crime
just to exchance for easy death. Also you probably
read Orwell '1984'
Fima.
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