
My Life in Child Porn - marvin
http://www.wikileaks.com/wiki/My_life_in_child_porn
======
briansmith
Let me try to keep this "Hacker News":

It seems that the only way to even put a dent into child pornography is to
basically outlaw any kind of network privacy hardware and software. As long as
you have privacy you will have this kind of thing. If somebody starts a
popular service with (close to) 100% anonymity and 100% data privacy (e.g.
server provider doesn't hold encryption keys), they are virtually guaranteed
that it will be used for this kind of content. In other words, any truly
private service is almost certainly an unwilling accessory to this kind of
abuse. Further, users of such services are going to be stigmatized for sharing
a service with kiddie porn consumers/producers. That is very unfortunate.

Also, since apparently this kind of content is easily available, we are all
one click away from becoming criminals. Imagine somebody posted a link to some
kiddie porn on news.yc with a title like "Apple Announces iPhone 4G" on some
non-alarming domain. Anybody that clicks the link to get their daily Apple
rumor will instantly become a criminal.

Eventually, nearly all of us will probably have some kind of incident like
this. And, as companies and governments start recording and analyzing
everything we do online, this means that we will all eventually get caught. At
any time, any of us could be instantly arrested and (nearly) instantly
convicted. This is just like how cops claim that if they follow somebody long
enough, eventually they will break a traffic law because it is nearly
impossible to follow the laws.

Somebody that can solve these problems would be doing society a lot of good. I
wonder if they could make any money in the process.

~~~
cdr
I recall a story about a case where a US government agency put a video file up
on a server, linked to it in CP forum(s), and then traced the IPs of and got
warrants for whomever downloaded the file.

The catch? The file was nothing but static. Their argument was anyone
downloading the file was obviously thinking they were downloading CP, so the
actual content of the file was irrelevant.

Can you imagine getting linked to that file, without context/with false
context?

~~~
calambrac
I think this is the perfect example of a comment that needs a citation to be
taken at all seriously. I'm not saying you're lying, I'm just saying it's a
pretty sensational and inflaming anecdote, and it would be nice if you could
offer some proof.

~~~
cdr
Find it yourself if you care. I don't, especially. It was on Reddit within the
past 6 months, but it's impossible to find things on Reddit. I'm not about to
go googling about for it, personally.

Edit: Ok, ok, "fake" found it:
[http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9899151-38.html?tag=nefd.l...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9899151-38.html?tag=nefd.lede)

~~~
calambrac
Thanks, and yes, that's a really disturbing tactic, and pretty unbelievable
that it's actually court-approved.

------
DanielBMarkham
I couldn't finish this article. Not because it was written by a sick person --
it was -- but because it didn't seem to have a lot of interesting things to
say.

As a libertarian I'm all for wide-ranging freedoms, but I'm also a parent and
not a complete moron. I retain the right to have moral opinions even if I
think it is wrong to impose them on others. As a parent, I can see that kids
don't have the cognitive abilities to make decisions until later in life. I
don't want my 9-year-old joining the army. I also don't want my nephew with
Down's Syndrome to be sold life insurance, or my senile grandmother in a
nursing home to open a credit card account. We limit freedoms based on
cognitive ability -- that's just common sense. We should not provide the tools
for kids to do things they will regret the rest of their life. CP, from our
experience in many past cases, is something that leaves lasting scars.

I was especially amused at his fierce stance against fundamentalist
Christians, those bastards. Seems like he is convinced they are the only ones
keeping law-abiding perverts from their child porn.

If that's the case, you can count me in as a fundamentalist Christian.

With the technical angle, I'm sure its HN, but I'll let somebody else dig out
the good pieces. I feel like I have to go wash after reading the small part
that I did.

~~~
cdr
Your being a parent gives you no special insights. It gives you anecdotes,
nothing more.

~~~
aswanson
Everything you experience in life is an anecdote. What _does_ give you special
insight? Something you have _not_ experienced, but read about?

~~~
cdr
Yes. Reading a solid scientific study will give you more valid insight than
experience.

~~~
aswanson
Regardless of the subject matter?

~~~
cdr
Huh?

~~~
aswanson
Would a reading a scientific study give me more insight into how to better
painter, programmer, car driver, hockey player, or parent than actually doing
these things? Reading about anything bestows more insight than collecting
anecdotes (experience) in it?

~~~
cdr
Whoosh.

Doing something is completely different than knowing about something.
Parenting is likely the best way for a person to learn how to parent (though
supplementing reading, mentoring, and so on will likely be even better), but
reading a scientific study is going to give you a more accurate concept of the
mental and emotional capabilities of children in general than your experiences
parenting a single child (or several).

As the saying goes, the plural of anecdote is not data.

~~~
aswanson
The saying is wrong:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=369394>

~~~
cdr
The saying is irrelevant, whether it's wrong or not. I shouldn't have even
added it, lest I give you another way to deflect.

------
fake13
Sigh: "seriously creepy", "Evil lurks in the heart of man", "deleting browser
history".

These are typical responses, which lack any perspective on life and culture.
At face value, child pornography is not necessarily bad, child pornography is
not necessarily damaging and child sex does not need to be a bad thing.

Damage comes from rape, violence and emotional abuse (which is the worst
because it lasts).

But these things are not inherent to child pornography and very common outside
child pornography. The argument is child pornography _leads_ to damaging
events. But it certainly isn't the source. People who do such things are
usually emotionally disturbed themselves. And making child porn illegal is not
going to change that (almost hard to believe it wasn't illegal not so long
ago).

You might even have the same "make it illegal, it will become worse" effect as
there is with drugs.

So, I guess there is no point to this post, but I do think it's wise to keep
perspective on subjects. Even though everyone is inclined to err on the safe
side, continuously making the safe side more extreme.

~~~
Darc
As usual, there is a continuum there. While some young teenage girls (and all
boys ;) might be interested in sex, at how young do we put the limit? 13, like
in Spain? 12? 11? When does it becomes _really_ uncomfortable to talk about
their "sexual drives"?

When it comes to teenage sex becoming criminalized, though, the author is
right on the money: this is just crazy. When I was a teenager I knew some
girls my age who were having sex with young men in their 20s. None of us
thought this was creepy. They were boyfriend/girlfriend, and that was it. But
it was in France in the 80s, and I'm not sure people would be so understanding
today.

Ultimately, this should be a case of "has there been violence or coercion?",
and "how did the minor perceive the experience?". Anti-rape laws should
suffice for this, with the youth of the victim as an aggravating factor. As to
when to decide that the child was unable to give consent, that, ultimately,
should be in the hands of the judge, as advised by a psychologist. Not a
perfect system, but far more humane than automatically putting a 18-years old
behind bars for boinking his 17-years old girlfriend.

~~~
cousin_it
Agree with last paragraph. I had my first sex at 17 with a 15 yo girl who then
became my girlfriend for seven years. Guess America would gladly brand me a
pedophile.

 _I'm not sure people would be so understanding today_

The focused brainwashing by the media that led to this recent change in
people's opinions should really be the focus of discussion here.

------
ErrantX
As someone who works weekly on such cases I would like to point out that the
technical content of this article is largely correct, however the sections
about the origins of the abuse and the accused is incorrect.

~~~
marvin
Could you elaborate? I found those sections to be the most interesting.

~~~
ErrantX
// Disclaimer: I work in investigating these crimes \\\

His assertsion about the number of wrongly convicted people are very wrong.I
would say that around 80% are "users" whereas the rest have usually stumbled
across it (this is very obviosu btw: there is not often a fine line). A lot of
the defence is "it was a virus" so it is one of the first checks and has been
the case in only one example as I recall.

We deal with all sorts of computers weekly & I have never identified CP on any
of the machines that cross my desk (bar the odd image or 2 come across whilst
browsing legitimate pron sites)

In terms of the origins: a lot of the mild abuse is "homebrew" with a small
proportion of the worst images being homemade. The majority of extreme images
are, from their context, commercially produced.

I cant say much about the children being forced or not (or comment on the
argument of whether they are innocent or not) because I am biased due to my
job and because it is wholly subjective (actually I deliberately emotionally
detach from such thoughts to allow me to do my job fairly). And finally
because I am involved purely in the technical side and have not met any abused
persons :)

I am a bit worried to say any more: it really is grazing close to a line here
(silly laws ;)). Im well on the right side of said line (i'll add) but....

EDIT: edited slightly after chatting to a colleague :)

~~~
Hexstream
"I deliberately emotionally detach from such thoughts to allow me to do my job
fairly"

How do you do that? (neutral question)

~~~
ErrantX
Great question thanks

In terms of viewing images it is quite hard. Partly I manage it due to my
personality (empathy troubles etc. which is ideal for disconnecting). Mostly
though it is by multi threading: I program & pen test for the company I work
at so I occupy my mind with programming/hacking problems for later whilst
leaving part of me on neutral to process cases. And then just through sheer
will power :)

At first it was difficult to do but I find it easier and easier to function
perfectly normally (i.e. thoroughly and effectively do an investigation)
whilst not fully connecting with the content :)

(Also we use hash analysis to cut down the amount of actual content we view -
standard practice).

If you mean in terms of not feeling angry at suspects etc. - that is difficult
but I find ways to channel my dislike outside of work (kickboxing,
occasionally alcohol, arguing with my GF):) and carefully control it when in
the office. Again - practice makes that easier.

Not for everyone but I (and I hesitate to use this word because of the
context) enjoy it.

~~~
Retric
I salute you. Most people who deal with the darker side of humanity see /
learn things they wish they could unsee. But, I suspect your job is far more
difficult than most.

~~~
sho
Well I don't salute him at all.

Think about what he's doing. He is examining computers for _illegal
information_. An _illegal series of bytes_. This is utterly insane.

You can make up whatever justification you want, but to me the very existence,
the very possibility of existence, of _illegal information_ is absolutely,
180˚ opposed to everything I believe in. As far as I am concerned, people like
ErrantX are actively working to undermine free society.

The fact that many of these illegal files are simply scans of magazines you
could apparently buy, completely legally, over the counter, in the 1970s, just
adds that last twist of "We have always been at war with Eurasia" doublethink
_frisson_.

~~~
petercooper
To me that's like arguing it's crazy to pursue anyone committing violent
crimes because they're "just moving atoms around."

That said, I think it's totally ridiculous they don't devote _100%_ of the
crime fighting effort to eradicating producers, slamming down on abusing
parents, etc. That they're wasting time on easy targets seems sick to me. The
argument is that by killing the market, the producers won't abuse kids, but I
ain't buying that because I bet a dollar to a nickel that there's always been
a small section of society that has sexually abused kids for their own sick
pleasure from it.

~~~
rbanffy
The notion that child abuse would end because there would be no market for
commercial child abuse is a stupid idea.

It's also the kind of idea that so frequently bubbles up in law enforcement:
the eradication of visible crimes is more important than the eradication of
the unseen ones. It's also because the visible ones are so easier to catch and
give so much more TV coverage.

Going after the producers/abusers is the goal. Going after users do next to
nothing to protect exploited children.

I have seen a similar attitude when I followed the investigations after I had
a laptop robbed here in Brazil. Police officials were much more worried about
catching the guy with the gun than the guy who bought the computers to resell.
If you take down the guy in the spike, the buyer can quickly recruit another.
If you take down the buyer, the hub, the whole "market" collapses for a while
and crime drops (or migrates to other activities).

An that brings me to another story: when bank cashiers here started to use
ATM-like equipment in their desks and had no meaningful amount of money easily
accessible, bank robberies dropped to next to nothing. Interestingly, shortly
after that, kindnapping spiked.

~~~
petercooper
_The notion that child abuse would end because there would be no market for
commercial child abuse is a stupid idea. [...] Going after the
producers/abusers is the goal. Going after users do next to nothing to protect
exploited children._

Agreed, but that's exactly what I just said, lol :)

------
dawson
I hope I'm not the only person who after reading this immediately deleted
their browsing history; the thought of the title of this article appearing in
my browser/address bar history in front of certain/most people, is cringe
worthy.

EDIT: To the people down voting me, all I meant was I'm often showing stuff on
my laptop to different people and I would be afraid of their assumption if I
typed the letter "m" into my address bar and "My Life in Child Porn" popped-up
because they might come to the wrong conclusions that's all. Whether their
assumption is right or wrong, is irrelevant, I was just saying; it's something
I'm aware of and wouldn't want to happen!

~~~
unalone
So you read somebody's writings about child porn. Does that make you a bad
person? Is mentioning the phrase _child porn_ a crime? Is reading the words of
a child pornographer wrong?

There's nothing wrong in reading an article. Anybody that thinks so is either
deluding himself or is twisted in a really awful way.

EDIT: Okay, that makes sense. Sorry if it sounds like I was being scoldy.

~~~
dawson
No it doesn't make you a bad person, no mentioning the phrase isn't a crime
and no reading the words of a child pornographer isn't wrong--in my opinion.
However, not everyone shares my opinion and I can't take the attitude that my
boss, client or whoever sees it pop-up in my address bar history is deluded or
twisted, just because they don't share the same opinion as me.

~~~
chris11
And filtering/tracking software seems to be pretty naive. So if the network
administrator uses tracking software, that article will probably raise a red
flag. I would be somewhat surprised if a person thought that this article was
inappropriate.

But I wouldn't be very surprised if this article got your internet history
reviewed. That is at least an invasion of privacy.

And I think this would be most likely to happen on a network with a strict
internet policy, like at a company. Also, if your history is checked, there is
a possibility they will be reviewing how much time you spend on non-work
related websites. But I'm probably being somewhat paranoid.

------
chris11
I found it seriously disturbing that there were some parents who actually
thought it was ok to involve their kids in child porn.

~~~
myth_drannon
I think the question that these parents asked themselves was do we let our
(other) kids starve to death, let them live on the street and sniff glue , or
etc... or get money from something that is "controlled" by them. With the
collapse of Eastern bloc it was dark times for many..... and certain forces
used the situation for personal gain. And it is not different from parents in
Arab country or India selling their 9 years old daughter for arranged
marriage.

~~~
jonas_b
I'm afraid that you're correct, but I think there is also a "darker" side to
it. As the OP mentions, parents involving their kids in CP crosses class
barriers and happens in both poor and rich families.

A few weeks ago, I took a primal therapy course, aimed at improving
participants self-awareness and quality of life by letting them express pain
experienced during childhood trauma. Anyway, the reason I am bringing this up
is that some people in this course had childhood stories of abuse that would
make anyone puke. And these were all high-income people with good jobs.

I believe all parents try their best, nobody wants to be a bad person. But if
your perception of good parenting includes fucking your kids, that can make
you do horrible things.

~~~
barrkel
"good parenting includes fucking your kids" - eh? I didn't read that in the
article, i.e. that sexual molestation by parents was a significant source of
revenue (that was done through one-upmanship, apparently); it was rather
children who "posed naked" with the consent of parents.

I do think it's important to recognize a spectrum here; and also, rational
discussion requires avoiding emotive language.

------
vaksel
the technology part is pretty interesting, the business model too.

Which brings me to a question...if you are that tech savvy to do all the stuff
they talk about under technology...why risk all that for the peanuts they talk
about in the business model?

~~~
ErrantX
As the writer of the letter states the majority of this is conducted by the
russion organised gangs. Usually as one part of their larger cyber-crime
operations.

That entire "industry" is a multi-million dollar one.

~~~
chris11
I'm assuming that the parts can be used for many different things.

The botnet can be rented out. And it can be used used to distribute ads. There
was recently an article on HN about a guy who got arrested for putting spam on
a botnet.

And I'm sure having access to private servers can be monetized in other areas
too. At the very least you could use it to sell pirated material.

And of course the money laundering method they're using can probably be used
in other areas too.

~~~
ErrantX
yep - the botnets are usually multipurpose. You can buy botnets containing a
few thousand machines all over the place fairly cheaply now.

~~~
chris11
Do you know how likely it is for the police to arrest a bot herder?

~~~
ErrantX
Somewhere between low and impossible.

Usually it would be the users (the ones that send out the spam etc. via the
networks) who get caught - and that is a very low number as well really
(compared to those uncaught).

------
garply
I found the bit about the US prison population growth rate interesting. The
author points to a Reuters article that pegs prison population growth rate at
about 4%
([http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN07275062200710...](http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN0727506220071007)),
and, according to Google, the US population growth rate is 0.883%. I wonder
why the former is so much higher than the latter, and how those numbers
compare to historical trends.

~~~
arockwell
Most of the growth is thanks to our drug policy.

------
cpr
Ugh, if you ever wanted proof that Evil lurks in the heart of man...

~~~
unalone
I'm not comfortable using the word Evil big-E. This is human existence, good
and bad. This guy obviously thinks there's a reason behind child porn. He made
one or two points that sounded like they'd be worthy of debate at the very
least, rather than instant dismissal. And the people participating did so for
reasons. It isn't all abuse, from what he's saying here.

Calling things Evil is a convenient way of dismissing them. It means you can
put it aside and roundly condemn it and feel better for having done so. The
truth is more complicated: nothing is roundly good or roundly evil, which is
exactly why it's so difficult at times.

~~~
chris11
While I agree that child abuse laws could use some change, mainly with how it
deals with sex between people where the age difference is very small. For
example, I'm not comfortable with an 18 year-old being viewed as a predator
for having consensual sex with a 17 year-old.

But other than the fringe cases, I really don't see how it ever can be healthy
for a child to be involved with an adult, or even be in a situation where they
can give consent.

There is too great a power difference. Somebody mentioned earlier that some
parents were basically forced to get their kids involved with porn so they
could eat. What is the child going to do in that situation, say no? Basically,
in that situation, if the child has a choice it's between eating and doing
porn.

Also, minors today are taught that it is the acceptable thing to defer to
adults. So children already have a lot of pressure to defer to adults instead
of enforcing their personal boundaries.

And I can't imagine a child being seriously attracted to an adult. They are
both in different stages in life. After I started college, I really viewed
high school students differently. They are just in a different place in life.
I have different goals, responsibilities, and plans then I did in high school.
I really doubt I would have enough in common to be attracted to a high school
student, let alone be able to make a healthy relationship work.

~~~
unalone
I agree. I don't think child porn is at all a good thing. (I also agree with
the current age of consent laws, which some people think are too overstrict.)
But I don't condemn the people who make it in their entirety. Everybody has a
story talking about where they got to be where they are, and most of them
aren't stories of pure evil.

------
herewego
This is seriously creepy.

