
'Sweetie', a computer-generated girl, lures sex predators - dsego
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11151608
======
praseodym
Lawyers here in The Netherlands are saying that those sex predators cannot be
prosecuted because no actual girl was harmed. Furthermore this could be seen
as incitement, which lowers chances of prosecution even more.

So while this surely raises attention for the issue, I'm not at all sure if
it's a lot more useful than that.

~~~
redthrowaway
This is my concern, too: there was no crime outside of thoughtcrime, and I'd
rather we didn't start prosecuting that. That these men _intended_ to engage
in child exploitation doesn't alter the fact that they didn't.

~~~
rayiner
At least existing American legal standards define "thought crime" literally.
You can't be convicted of a crime merely based on your intentions, but if you
take a "substantial step" (or something similar, depending on the
jurisdiction) towards committing the crime, then it's no longer just
"thoughts" and you can be convicted for an attempt. At least some of these men
completed every step that was under their control: engage the girl and pay the
money. That's an attempt, not just a thought crime. It's like lining up and
firing a shot at what turns out to be a mannequin cleverly dressed as your ex-
wife. Still attempted murder.

~~~
redthrowaway
What's the purpose of the law? Is it to give redress to victims and punish
perpetrators, or is it to punish criminal intent -- that is, thought? Do we
view criminal law as a way to enforce societal rules against harming others,
or do we view it as a means of punishing people who harbour antisocial
intentions?

I suspect the answer is "both", but I'm leery of using criminal law to enforce
consensus views on how one should think. I'm far more comfortable with using
the law to address actual harm than to punish the desire to cause harm or even
an attempt to do so. I realize, however, that there are many cogent counter-
examples: being convicted of drunk driving does not require you actually hurt
someone, trying to buy drugs in a sting does not require there actually be
drugs present, etc.

~~~
rayiner
First, you have to keep separate three distinct things: 1) criminal intent; 2)
actions to carry out that intent; 3) concrete injury to some victim.

"Thought crimes" refers to punishing people for (1) only. But just because (3)
is lacking does not mean we're talking about "thought crimes" so long as (2)
is present.

Second, the purpose of the criminal law is not to give redress to victims.
That's the purpose of the civil law. The purpose of the criminal law is to
punish those who are morally culpable and to create societal norms certain
kinds of behavior. That is precisely why (3) is not necessary to prosecute a
crime.

~~~
selmnoo
> The purpose of the criminal law is to punish those who are morally culpable
> and to create societal norms certain kinds of behavior.

The purpose of any law should never be to punish the culpable. It may very
well be reasonable to punish the culpable if it _results_ in normalizing
societal norms by way of a threat deterrent ("if you do crime $x, you'll get
locked up just like this bad boy here"), but simply punishing a criminal for
the sake of punishing -- hurting, torturing, locking up -- is an idea that I
don't think stands to any thoughtful, philosophically-informed scrutiny.

I think if we get over this type of thinking society will improve. Now and
then whenever debate about capital punishment gets picked up, people point out
something about the histories of serial killers: almost invariably they've had
particularly shitty childhoods, they were born to drunkards and criminals
themselves, they were abused -- sexually, physically, they grew up in cultural
filth, they had virtually no access to opportunity. The thing is, thieves,
sexual predators and other folk who do sometimes petty crime aren't greatly
dissimilar in this respect, they've also been enraged to some point to lose a
sense of control, to lose respect for themselves and others. So to reform
society for lasting good, the idea of punishment -- that you should make
someone suffer -- is totally wrong. Instead we should should have social
programs that hook criminals up with psychologists and therapists, see what's
wrong, what's bothering them, give them a dignified place to live, and let
them heal and let them rejoin society when they're better.

After all, this strategy works and gives good results where it's been tried:
[http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/why...](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/why-
scandinavian-prisons-are-superior/279949/)

------
brianlweiner
Articles like these always talk about how huge the child pornography business
is, but the language always strikes me as similar to the scare stories from
the 80s about satanist cults, etc.

I guess I could be wrong, I don't know if there are reliable sources for that
kind of information

~~~
DanBC
The reliable sources are the hundreds of thousands of images of child sexual
abuse on the hard drives of people arrested and prosecuted for these offences.
Checksums of these images are made and distributed (to help find other copies;
to help filter these images) and some people attempt to identify the victim in
order to arrest and prosecute the offender and to offer help to the victim.

Satanist cults were always wing-nuts and piss-poor media reporting.
Unfortunately, there's some awful reporting about images of child sexual
abuse, and the perpetrators of child abuse, and the victims of sexual abuse.
(Demonising sexual abusers is not helpful.)

~~~
wyager
The article claimed it was a "Multi-billion dollar industry". I don't think
there's any compelling evidence that this is true.

~~~
DanBC
> I don't think there's any compelling evidence that this is true.

Have you looked for evidence, or is that a feeling that you have? I'm not
snarking, just wondering.

I guess it depends how you count the money. There has been a decline in the
use of credit cards to access images of child sexual abuse. Most images of
child sexual abuse are free, or traded for other images. But commercial
trading exists.

The best site for modern information is Europol
[https://www.europol.europa.eu/sites/default/files/efc_strate...](https://www.europol.europa.eu/sites/default/files/efc_strategic_assessment_-
_public_version.pdf)

You have people hosting images, and people paying for access to those images,
and people paying to have those images made. You have people travelling to
rape children. You have adults selling children into the sex trade. I dunno,
that feels like it could be a couple of billion dollars.

Some offenders have millions of images in their collections.[1] In 2005 there
were about a million images online.[2] About 50,000 images are added
yearly.[3] Sometimes children are raped "on demand", with the video being
streamed by the rapist to some one who has ordered and paid for that rape to
happen on video, and who is directing the abuse.[4] Parents sell their
children into the trade of images of child sexual abuse.[5]

Wired have some pricing information.
[http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/16/child-
abuse-i...](http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/16/child-abuse-images-
entrepreneurs)

> [previous para talks about decline in use of credit cards, and rise of free
> images of child sexual abuse] _New material has also become a currency in
> itself, with value ascribed to the novelty of the images. So individual
> video clips might cost as little as $10 (£6.20) each, with subscriptions for
> $50 (£30) for three months. Although one video file of new material on
> demand can cost as much as $1,200 (£748)._

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/05/sold-
mum...](http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/05/sold-mum-dad-
images-child-abuse)

[2][3] [http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-
do/policies/org...](http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-
do/policies/organized-crime-and-human-trafficking/global-alliance-against-
child-abuse/index_en.htm)

[4] [https://www.europol.europa.eu/content/new-cybercrime-
report-...](https://www.europol.europa.eu/content/new-cybercrime-report-
examines-disturbing-trends-commercial-online-child-sex-abuse)

[5] [http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/05/sold-
mum...](http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/05/sold-mum-dad-
images-child-abuse)

------
spikels
Finally the the Turing Test has been passed! This does not seem as impressive
as when imagined decades ago. Fooling perverts, even to the point of sending
money, seems to be much, much easier than creating more generally useful
artificial intelligence. But I guess it is a step forward...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test)

EDIT: As pointed out below only the video feed was artificial. The chat was
with a live human. Impressive but very different than the classic Turing Test.

~~~
anigbrowl
I thought that this was just a virtual face for a human researcher who was
conducting the actual conversation - at least that was how the demonstration
in the article was done. If they were entirely virtual I'm not sure they'd
need 10 weeks to accumulate sufficient hits.

~~~
spikels
You are correct it was just a virtual video feed. I misread the article.

I wonder how successful they could be with current AI technology. It seems
that in this narrow situation and very "motivated" opponent it could be very
successful.

~~~
abracar
There's a Spanish initiative called Negobot that seems to rely on AI much more
than Sweetie does — as its name suggests, it's a bot, not just a decoy.
(Article in English: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/11/negobot-
virtual-lol...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/11/negobot-virtual-
lolita-game-theory_n_3579716.html) and paper:
[http://www.esi.uem.es/~jmgomez/papers/cisis12.pdf](http://www.esi.uem.es/~jmgomez/papers/cisis12.pdf))

------
hfsktr
I am glad that they said the current laws are enough. It always seems like
people use these issues to get more power. I want to say something about how
that probably works for their cause but I can only imagine most people[1]
'thinking of the children' and adding as many laws as they can.

[1]the public that elects officials

------
anigbrowl
This is the YouTube campaign page. Obviously NSFW in subject matter, though
not explicit.
[https://www.youtube.com/sweetie](https://www.youtube.com/sweetie)

One good thing is that they've started with the perception that pedophiliac
behavior is a mental rather than solely moral problem. It's quite interesting,
if you can put up with the awful 'dramatic' music.

------
anigbrowl
This is the future of law enforcement in this field, and possibly others. The
marginal cost of setting up virtual honeypots is now so low that the obvious
strategy is to simply swamp the market with them.

~~~
ExpiredLink
Brave new world. An online world full of agent provocateurs that detect all
crimes before they are actually committed.

------
Raphmedia
A grim as it sounds, I prefer to see online underage prostitution rather than
real prostitution.

I don't know.

On one side, this behaviour is wrong and should stop. On the other, it let
those young girl make money without the risk of getting sick, pregnant or
abused. The worst that can happen is her getting scammed.

But don't get me wrong. Child abuse should NEVER be encouraged.

------
rosser
This is a nice counterpoint to the article yesterday about a pentest team
using a fake woman to spearphish their way into a US government agency that
was posted here yesterday. [0]

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6664572](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6664572)

------
runn1ng
At a risk of being downvoted:

I am not sure "webcam sex" hurts anybody. The girl is not physically harmed in
any way.

~~~
melling
So, if you had a daughter, it would be ok if she made a little extra money on
the side?

It's kind of strange that anyone would have to explain why this is a problem.
Wonder what just happened to your Google, Facebook, and NSA social graph
profile? :-)

~~~
britta
(I imagine you mean "young daughter" \- this is about the problem that
children under the age of consent are involved, not about women in general.)

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lcedp
I never understood this kind of field work when officers propose using
prostitution/drugs/you-name-it services. It looks like a crime promotion:
person might hesitate and never do a bad thing in years or they might do, but
officers do help in it.

It's almost like a prison for thoughtcrime. How do you know the crime would
happen if the person weren't helped(sic!)

------
SilasX
So the Perverted Justice/To Catch a Predator folks are spared from Baumol's
Cost Disease? (i.e. the problem in which your costs increase as fast as
general economic growth because you have to use a real human on a mission-
critical path)

