Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: WMCoolmon on August 20, 2008, 02:42:34 am
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Man escapes kiddie porn-related subpoena (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9834495-38.html?hhTest=1), but possibly not conviction.
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pictures are just pictures and not the real thing. if that fool goes further he will have a bigger problem to do deal with.
i don't like people who do this kind of stuff however i am not bias one way or the other about such a thing, the united states is supposed to be about freedom to do what you want even if it's like this for example, to force someone to do something contradicts what your government has always been saying to be free from oppression.
on the other side of the coin though, these silly laws that almost always has a back door somewhere and should of been paying closer attention to it's xenophobic judicial laws.
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Everyone watching kidde p0rn should be instantly executed.
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Everyone watching kidde p0rn should be instantly executed.
Uhh, that's a bit of a broad statement.
Which method of execution?
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hung like Saddam Husein :nervous:.
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Will be appealed and overturned in less than a year.
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hung like Saddam Husein :nervous:.
Meh.
I'd go for electric chair without water. :cool:
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Oh come on, you guys don't have any style... you've obviously never watched tankmen infinity :doubt:
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ok im going to play on the side of the devil here a little,
lets suppose someone was abused as a child ,young adult and because of this there sexuality and emotional nature is now fixed on young children , with the suggestion that all people who watch kiddie porn should be terminated should this victim suffer the same end....,
before we make huge statements we really need to look at the cause sometimes ,
but then again with the so said method bubbles the chimp would be free of his alien master......;
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Kiddie porn isn't one of those things that needs to be protected. Children are abused and ruined for the rest of their lives to make it.
For the sake of playing devil's advocate, viewing it shouldn't necessarily be illegal. Unfortunately, getting access to the materials often requires supporting the creators, which is essentially supporting child abuse. That is why child porn sites should be illegal, IMO.
Again, possession's not necessarily wrong; acquiring it in a way that supports the sick ****s that make it should be punishable by being fed to hungry dull-toothed pirahnas.
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Note: That article is incredibly old.
:EDIT:
Kiddie porn isn't one of those things that needs to be protected. Children are abused and ruined for the rest of their lives to make it.
It would be really funny if that was the real reason for it being illegal. :drevil:
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lets suppose someone was abused as a child ,young adult and because of this there sexuality and emotional nature is now fixed on young children , with the suggestion that all people who watch kiddie porn should be terminated should this victim suffer the same end....,
Pft. Psychological bull**** (IMHO). It's almost like a trend to blame your failings on a messed up childhood instead of taking it like a man.
Whatever f*** up childhood one had doesn't excuse him from acting the same. In fact, it's ten times worse.
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hung like Saddam Husein :nervous:.
IMHO, everyone should be hung....like a a horse.
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feed everyone to the wraith or gravemind, would be funny saves having to use a tree, a sheep or worms for creating rope beats being watching your death in 2012 ;7.
the problem is if someone owns something they will use it anyway they can which is why the laws are what they are. as you said, make child porn sites illegal, the only way to stop it is stop it at its source, in very much the same way France got liberated, but cutting Nazi supply lines off.
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feed everyone to the wraith or gravemind, would be funny saves having to use a tree, a sheep or worms for creating rope beats being watching your death in 2012 ;7.
the problem is if someone owns something they will use it anyway they can which is why the laws are what they are. as you said, make child porn sites illegal, the only way to stop it is stop it at its source, in very much the same way France got liberated, but cutting Nazi supply lines off.
and there was me thinking that france was liberated because the vichy governement started to crumble
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im not one for disinformation, when i want info i make sure i have the most accurate info i can get. on anything that interests me. if it means going through all seasons of a particular program to find out about a certain characters profile then thats what i will do for example or actually asking a war hero who was in the war and still lives. france was liberated by some good thinking and once these supply lines got cut off the rest of the invasion army came in, unfortunatly france doesn't acknowledge this fact, though but has publically made sure to know the allies destroyed some french warships off the african coast in the day to prevent nazi capture for specific hull layout info, armour used, communications, and some useful prisoners.
enough off topic.
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In my eyes, someone who wishes for the unquestioned death of any group of people is just as monstrous as those who view kiddie pr0n.
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hung like Saddam Husein :nervous:.
IMHO, everyone should be hung....like a a horse.
I agree (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmA0suwmpO8).
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IMHO, everyone should be hung....like a (sic) a horse.
You really shouldn't say someone is hung like horse. You know why? If they were, they would kill you!
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I think it should be dealt with on a case by case basis to be honest. Whilst the idea of criminals being able to hide things behind passwords is a concern, so is the concept that the court can order people to cough up those passwords at will, either situation sets an uncomfortable precedent.
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There are worse punishments then death. How many cheesy films do you need to see to get that?
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To be honest I'm going to agree with the judge on this one. The court doesn't have the right to demand a suspects password. They have enough on the guy to convict him without the password. There are very few juries who are going to believe him when he says that he doesn't have child porn on the laptop if he isn't willing to give up the password so I don't see why there is any need to compel him to do so. Simply make the point that there are two witnesses who saw child porn on the laptop and make it his job to prove that wrong.
I think it should be dealt with on a case by case basis to be honest. Whilst the idea of criminals being able to hide things behind passwords is a concern, so is the concept that the court can order people to cough up those passwords at will, either situation sets an uncomfortable precedent.
Not heard of our very own Regulation of investigatory Powers Bill then I take it?
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Not heard of our very own Regulation of investigatory Powers Bill then I take it?
No, to be honest, I haven't, but if it's designed to try and force me to give personal and private information simply because the Government 'wants' it, then I hope they've got a spare cell somewhere, cos they ain't gonna get it ;)
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Basically it says that the police can order you to turn over encryption keys etc and give you two years in jail if you refuse. I have no idea how they managed to get away with passing it to be honest.
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To be honest I'm going to agree with the judge on this one. The court doesn't have the right to demand a suspects password.
If you paid attention to the full situation, you'd know that the Customs officer who initially inspected the computer after the password was entered by the individual found child pornography on it. That should be more than enough for the legal system to demand the password. The judge got it wrong, and as I said before, you can bet money that it will be overturned.
People have this idea that their computers are sacred material and that the legal system has no right to examine them. A computer is identical to a hidden box of files in your house - it's just as subject to reasonable grounds and a search warrant as everything else. Don't like it? Don't store illegal materials on your computer, the same way you wouldn't store a pile of child pornography photographs in your file cabinet. I'm tired of this attitude that computers should be somehow exempt from legal examination just because you have a password or encryption scheme in place.
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Except that if you didn't have the key to said filing cabinet or claimed you didn't then it would be up to the state to break into it.
I never said the state hasn't got the right to look. I said that they haven't got the right to force you to help them look.
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"I lost the password to my computer that is CRITICAL to my work and employment and that I use every day...and I lost it JUST when you asked me for it." - yup, sounds very convincing.
Bah. If he were smart he would go along and give them the password. It's not like they can't break it, but this way he can be additionaly charged with "abstruction of justice" or something like htat.
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besides this whole affair, the probable reason why they are just asking is because one mans word without additional voices saying the same thing and viewing the same stuff is not very convincing.
besides how do we know this guy is telling the truth about what this man has on his machine? for all you know he could be a fia or cia agent that was on a mission to infiltrate an illegal operation and what the man saw where just empty files made up to make a list to make it look convincing because he might of been delivering the laptop to as certain individual key to the illegal operation or taking it back to the lab as proof. and an encrypted drive along with a lie within a lie could mean some serious proof of something and/or very important files to something.
my point is one mans word without further proof to that means little. they don't have anything to really hold him on except one persons word.
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Actually they do have plenty to hold and even convict him on. They don't need the contents of the PC to convict him as his refusal to unencrypt the contents without any details of what he has on there which is so valuable would sink him with most juries anyway.
"I lost the password to my computer that is CRITICAL to my work and employment and that I use every day...and I lost it JUST when you asked me for it." - yup, sounds very convincing.
Bah. If he were smart he would go along and give them the password. It's not like they can't break it, but this way he can be additionaly charged with "abstruction of justice" or something like htat.
It wasn't his Windows login that he was refusing to hand over. His Z: drive was encrypted but when the customs officers attempted to access it they managed to do so without needing a password. That means that the laptop was turned on even before he was stopped. Which gives rise to the possibility that the drive was encrypted or unlocked by a third person and that the defendant doesn't even know the password in the first place.
I doubt that's what happened but it is possible.
Oh and they aren't breaking PGP encryption any time soon. If PGP has been cracked it's a military secret.
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For some people around here *cough TrashMan *cough* MP_Ryan *cough*.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
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and i can think of many points that makes this fifth amendment invalid to people like cia, fbi, amed forces or police. if some people can get away with it, this will probably be no different in that respect.
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For some people around here *cough TrashMan *cough* MP_Ryan *cough*.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
You're reading way to much into it.
So you're saying that search warrants are illiegal? That if a guy refuses to let the police into his house for a search and they move him from the door with force, that he was COMPELLED to work against himself?
Hiding physical evidence and forced confessions - two different things.
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For some people around here *cough TrashMan *cough* MP_Ryan *cough*.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
You're reading way to much into it.
So you're saying that search warrants are illiegal? That if a guy refuses to let the police into his house for a search and they move him from the door with force, that he was COMPELLED to work against himself?
Hiding physical evidence and forced confessions - two different things.
The police can search his house but can't force him to show them where his kitchen is. You are the one confused.
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If the password/encryption key is writtin down on a piece of paper, then they can get a warrant for said paper. If the password/encryption key is in his memory, the only way they could get it is by confession. The Fifth Amendment protects him from being forced to incriminate himself.
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It wasn't his Windows login that he was refusing to hand over. His Z: drive was encrypted but when the customs officers attempted to access it they managed to do so without needing a password. That means that the laptop was turned on even before he was stopped. Which gives rise to the possibility that the drive was encrypted or unlocked by a third person and that the defendant doesn't even know the password in the first place.
No, they needed a password. He entered it voluntarily at the border. The PC was then seized and shut down, thus necessitating the password which he had entered for them rather than actually given them.
All this is in the original article.
If the password/encryption key is writtin down on a piece of paper, then they can get a warrant for said paper. If the password/encryption key is in his memory, the only way they could get it is by confession. The Fifth Amendment protects him from being forced to incriminate himself.
Does not apply. He is not a witness; he is providing a key just like any other which can be compelled from him by the court - where that key comes from is irrelevant. He is not required to tell them about the files on the computer, but he is required to grant them access to them. That's where the judge screwed up, and for repetition number three, you can pretty much guarantee this decision will not stand. I'm sure the prosecutors will appeal it right up to the Supreme Court if necessary.
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What's funny Trashman, is that your views on child porn are merely the result of your own upbringing. It's very likely that different upbringings will give people very different opinions on the subject. It's not through some genetic trait that we're supposed to acknowledge 18 as the age of consent and appropriateness. In fact it's quite the opposite, genetically, most people are going to desire to copulate with anyone capable of reproduction. Fear of what others might think is very often the main reason a person won't stray too far away from their own age group. Is there a great deal of different between a 16 year old ending up with a 28 year old, as opposed to a 19 year old with a 45 year old? Yet one is (in most states) illegal, and the other is not. However, when people think of child porn, the connotation that is usually associated is a person who is pre-pubescent. There is not really a logical reason in any society to have a desire for this, and I would probably consider that perverted. However, perversion isn't illegal. I agree with nuclear, the creation and distribution is what should be illegal. I'm tired of illegalizing the ownership of certain things, as a general principle and nothing on the side of ownership of child porn specifically.
On another note, steganography anyone? Should work fairly well, even at a customs inspection. But the smartest idea is to simply keep that kind of data off of anything that could be searched, either access it via the net after getting through customs, or put it on a MicroSD card in your phone (honestly, who looks _in_ a phone?).
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If it was a combination to a safe, would a person be entitled to plead the Fifth on that?
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I was actually just thinking that. If I had some crazy, uncrackable safe, could they charge me with obstruction for refusing to give up the combination? I'm pretty sure you could plead the fifth there, as the combination would be considered evidence, wouldn't it? So a password should follow the same line of thought.
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No, they needed a password. He entered it voluntarily at the border. The PC was then seized and shut down, thus necessitating the password which he had entered for them rather than actually given them.
All this is in the original article.
Not based on what I'm reading.
A federal judge in Vermont has ruled that prosecutors can't force a criminal defendant accused of having illegal images on his hard drive to divulge his PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) passphrase.
An officer opened the laptop, accessed the files without a password or passphrase, and allegedly discovered "thousands of images of adult pornography and animation depicting adult and child pornography."
It wasn't until December 26 that a Vermont Department of Corrections officer tried to access the laptop--prosecutors obtained a subpoena on December 19--and found that the Z: drive was encrypted with PGP, or Pretty Good Privacy. (PGP sells software, including whole disk encryption and drive-specific encryption. It's a little unclear what exactly happened, but one likely scenario is that Boucher configured PGP to forget his passphrase, effectively re-encrypting the Z: drive, after a few hours or days had elapsed.)
Maybe there is another article saying something different but the one quoted definitely does not sound like it's his Windows log on password at all.
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Wonder what they would do if the drive was configured to write all 0's if the password failed?
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I was actually just thinking that. If I had some crazy, uncrackable safe, could they charge me with obstruction for refusing to give up the combination? I'm pretty sure you could plead the fifth there, as the combination would be considered evidence, wouldn't it? So a password should follow the same line of thought.
It's somewhat rocky ground, I think, after all, what is being asked for is not evidence, it's access to evidence, telling someone your password is not an incriminating statement in and of itself, however, by answering it, he is giving Police something that could be used to incriminate him.
It's a very subtle difference, and one of those horrible, and yet inevitable language-drift things in law that frustrate me sometimes.
Edit: The bit that really cooks my noodle is, I think that by taking him to court over his password, they have made it into evidence, thus bringing the Fifth into play.....
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Maybe there is another article saying something different but the one quoted definitely does not sound like it's his Windows log on password at all.
It's not the Windows password - that's breakable. Do a search on HLP; this very case was discussed when it was first reported. The man has selected for Customs exam when entering the US from Canada. He provided his PGP encryption passphrase by entering it into the computer when the officer discovered the presence of the encrypted drive. Child porn found, guy is arrested, computer seized. Computer is powered down, PGP session ends. Months later they try to get back into it for court evidence and discover they need the passphrase. Guy initially refuses to provide it. He then claims conveniently that he's forgotten it. Fast-forward to latest court decision as discussed in the article.
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This page (http://technologyexpert.blogspot.com/2007/12/judge-pretty-good-privacy-key-is.html) goes into the ruling in more detail.
This page (http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/5919) is also interesting, talking about a device getting seized "indefinitely" by DHS.
I'm pretty sure that I saw an article earlier in the year about this, on slashdot, but I can't find it now. I'm a bit uncomfortable about doing a concerted search for a news article when one of the key phrases involves "child porn", for obvious reasons...
Re: chief1983, from the ruling (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9834495-38.html?hhTest=1) -
In distinguishing testimonial from non-testimonial acts, the Supreme Court has compared revealing the combination to a wall safe to surrendering the key to a strongbox. See id. at 210, n. 9; see also United States v. Hubbell, 530 U.S. 27, 43 (2000). The combination conveys the contents of one's mind; the key does not and is therefore not testimonial.1 Doe II, 487 U.S. at 210, n. 9. A password, like a combination, is in the suspect's mind, and is therefore testimonial and beyond the reach of the grand jury subpoena.
I don't quite get what the ruling is saying as to why the government's offer to not use the act of incriminating Boucher doesn't hold. It seems like the ruling is saying that because there could be additional items on the laptop that would be incriminating, besides the child porn, he can't give it up; but my understanding of similar situations is that in a similar case, the additional items would be admissible (EG you force someone to give up the key to their house to do a search for a bloody knife, and you find a bag of weed in the kitchen).
OTOH the judge might be coming at this from the perspective that, even if you tell the jury it can't regard the entry of the password as being incriminating, it's extremely probable that the jury will still make a decision based on that fact. But since, technically, you can't say that, he's leaving it unspoken for this ruling.
As the judge also says, it's equivalent to asking the defendant if he knows the password, and it reveals the contents of the defendant's mind. I think the analogy he's drawing is more akin to asking for a key that you assume that the defendant has, and asking for a key that you don't know the defendant has.
For instance, suppose someone is accused of murdering a woman's husband. Compelling to produce the key to their own house to search for the bloody knife would be fine; it's expected that somebody has the keys to their own property. Compelling them to produce the key to the woman's house would not be acceptable, because it would basically be having them admit to an affair with the woman, as long as there's no other convincing reason for them to have the key. If you could do that, you could compel people to produce whatever illegal items they have and then prosecute them based on that.
In this particular case, I think that would could be used to exonerate this from application of the Fifth would be the fact that the defendant claimed to have downloaded pornography to the encrypted partition prior to showing it to the law enforcement officers. Since Boucher already revealed that he uses the partition (after he waived his Miranda rights), it would be reasonable to assume that he also has the passphrase required to view the partition. The only reasonable argument I can see somebody making that would explain him not having the passphrase would be that he had someone else set up the encryption, and never turned the computer off, so he never needed the passphrase to view the partition.
The problem is that it really is still self-incrimination. Suppose that Boucher decided to tell the court that he had forgotten the password. There's not much they can do to prove him wrong. Putting him in that kind of situation would give him substantial motive to lie under oath and there is no evidence that can be produced that would contradict him. Though it can be (reasonably) said that Boucher encrypted the drive to restrict access, it still relies on unsubstantiated assumptions which can't be proven.
Or suppose that Boucher claims that he doesn't know the passphrase, but his dad does, and Boucher's father claims that Boucher knows the passphrase. How can you tell which one is lying without relying on the testimony of either one?
EDIT: @MP-Ryan: That's the way I remembered things as well (Boucher entered the passphrase for the customs guy). But according to the sequence of events in the ruling,
Agent Curtis did not see Boucher enter a password to access drive Z.
Overall, I get the feeling that the judge's ruling is basically: "Since we can't prove that we aren't lying, we aren't going to put you in a position where it would make a difference if you did, so that the Fifth Amendment doesn't get tarnished in the process."
But it is possible that he's guilty, and he also forgot the password. If he came up with some long, elaborate password and set it just before the trip, but didn't realize that the drive would encrypt itself when he put it back to sleep, I can see him forgetting the password by the time it came to trial. After all, he would have no motive to remember it, anyway. So him forgetting the password could be used as support for an argument that (1) He did know he had child porn (2) He did know that he could get searched at the border (3) He knew that he would be arrested if child porn was found (4) He encrypted the drive to prevent the border patrol from being able to access the child porn.
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Another thought, how does this stand in financial laws? Say a company is under suspicion, and passwords all its finance documents. Can they be compelled to produce those passwords or the documents inside them? I'm not sure whether there are special requirements of Organisations etc. with regards to things like that.
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That's a really good hypothetical situation. The only significant difference I see is that there are reasons for a company to keep records such as those. I don't know what type of records you'd be required to keep as a business, but I do assume you'd be forced to file a tax return of some kind and keep records available in case of a dispute arising with a customer.
In addition, you assume that the company does own and has composed the financial documents. If that's already the case, unlocking them with passwords would not demonstrate any guilt whatsoever.
Finally, if you did use the "I-forgot-the-password" defense, you'd be forced into not conducting business using the information for the duration of the trial. Dunno what tactics could be used, but if the prosecution pushed the trial into going until, say, the next filing date for taxes, you could be in a serious world of hurt as a business. I'd imagine that if you were already being investigated for some kind of fraud and then failed to produce good tax records, you'd find yourself in an audit pretty quickly. Either that or you submit the complete tax form and have it used against you in court.
Now if someone claimed to have seen financial documents on a company computer that differed from the main ones, I think you'd have a ruling that would come out to be the same as this one. If you ordered the owner of the business or the accountant to unlock those files and they did so, then they would be demonstrating a connection between them and the files - effectively incriminating themselves.
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It's not the Windows password - that's breakable.
Which was my point really when Trashman claimed it had to be a password he used every day. If you encrypt a file or drive you're only going to need the password when you use the drive.
Do a search on HLP; this very case was discussed when it was first reported. The man has selected for Customs exam when entering the US from Canada. He provided his PGP encryption passphrase by entering it into the computer when the officer discovered the presence of the encrypted drive.
But the the article linked doesn't say that. And the best I've seen from wikipedia is that the defendant was asked to use the machine AFTER the customs agent saw the titles of pictures and videos that sounded like child porn on the machine. There is no mention whatsoever in any article I've seen which says that the defendant entered a PGP password. Merely that he showed the agents how he used the machine.
Besides if it comes down to a newspaper article getting it wrong I suspect the one at the time to be incorrect as by now the facts of the case will have been talked to death in court.
Computer is powered down, PGP session ends. Months later they try to get back into it for court evidence and discover they need the passphrase. Guy initially refuses to provide it. He then claims conveniently that he's forgotten it.
Which is quite possible if he hadn't used it for months. We don't know how long he had the encrypted drive. For all we know he encrypted it the day before the trip and hadn't ever entered the password. Let's face it. If we believe your interpretation of how the guy was caught then he's obviously a doofus in addition to being a pervert so forgetting the password isn't something I'd consider an impossibility.
And that's before we consider the fact that maybe a 3rd party encrypted it for him.
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what ways are there to encrypt a drive?
1. if it was done over a wireless connection even wireless lan and a fully wired connection, it should of been detected and if it came to his drive when? which raised the question
1.a. supposing he wanted to be arrested and made sure that laptop had porn and made sure the customs officer got a good eyeful so this man could get himself into trouble. maybe to undermine the supreme court and turn it into joke or simply to show you can be above the law, no matter what crappy police chase videos show on tv. i dont know. if that was the case, he either had help to pull this whole thing off while making sure to keep anyone involved at arms length to prevent the forces at work discovering the true intent, meaning the internet connection to his drive to do such a thing.
or its possibly if did he it alone meaning he made sure this encrypted drive was open to make sure of such a problem and then when the computer was shut down the passkey might of randomized a new key, its entirely possible to download such a program to that drive and prevent tampering which would make his "i dont know my password" all the more truthful maybe because he really doesn't know. and i bet good money their is a trap switch that will automatically destroy the drive if the passcode was hacked making this entire case a waste of time.
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I agree with all of Karajorma's points.
My apologies, I put the wrong link for the ruling. It's actually:
http://www.volokh.com/files/Boucher.pdf
(or EFF, somewhat more respected source)
http://www.eff.org/files/Boucher.pdf
And it's 6 pages in big font, so it's worth it to read if you're interested.
On December 29, 2006, Mike Touchette of the Vermont Department of
Corrections took custody of the laptop. Touchette created a mirror image of the contents
of the laptop. When Touchette began exploring the computer, he could not access drive Z
because it was protected by encryption algorithms through the use of the software Pretty
Good Privacy (“PGP”), which requires a password to access drive Z. Since shutting down
the laptop, the government has been unable to access drive Z to view the images and
videos containing child pornography
So it doesn't matter at this point if the drive has a killswitch. If they try to crack the passphrase and it causes the drive to erase itself, they can just restore it from the original. It's the time required to find that crack which is an issue.
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And, if the drive had a killswitch, you'd think he'd have used it instead of the real password.
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What's funny Trashman, is that your views on child porn are merely the result of your own upbringing. It's very likely that different upbringings will give people very different opinions on the subject. It's not through some genetic trait that we're supposed to acknowledge 18 as the age of consent and appropriateness. In fact it's quite the opposite, genetically, most people are going to desire to copulate with anyone capable of reproduction. Fear of what others might think is very often the main reason a person won't stray too far away from their own age group. Is there a great deal of different between a 16 year old ending up with a 28 year old, as opposed to a 19 year old with a 45 year old? Yet one is (in most states) illegal, and the other is not. However, when people think of child porn, the connotation that is usually associated is a person who is pre-pubescent. There is not really a logical reason in any society to have a desire for this, and I would probably consider that perverted. However, perversion isn't illegal. I agree with nuclear, the creation and distribution is what should be illegal. I'm tired of illegalizing the ownership of certain things, as a general principle and nothing on the side of ownership of child porn specifically.
On another note, steganography anyone? Should work fairly well, even at a customs inspection. But the smartest idea is to simply keep that kind of data off of anything that could be searched, either access it via the net after getting through customs, or put it on a MicroSD card in your phone (honestly, who looks _in_ a phone?).
The difference is the childs inability to fully understand and cope with all the implications of sex.
That's why we scockingly try to protect our children.
you cna try to bing upbriging into this as much as you want - it's simply hte right thing to do.
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Another thought, how does this stand in financial laws? Say a company is under suspicion, and passwords all its finance documents. Can they be compelled to produce those passwords or the documents inside them? I'm not sure whether there are special requirements of Organisations etc. with regards to things like that.
As the girlfriend does accounting stuff, allow me to answer.
US law has been specifically written such that financial documents are, more or less, a matter of public record. Your tax returns aside, at any time you may be required to turn over your financial documents to either the SCC or the IRS when they conduct an audit: there is no defense against an audit and the law was specifically written so that there would not be. The only possible defense you have in such circumstances is to destroy or falsify your documents, one of which will still get you in trouble, the other of which isn't much of a defense at all. Too many people would know it had happened (either because they did it, or because those are not the documents they handled) and been involved in doing so.
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[*mega-snip*]
The difference is the childs inability to fully understand and cope with all the implications of sex.
That's why we scockingly try to protect our children.
I'll say it again: If these laws were created to protect children, then I wouldn't mind them. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. These laws were created to punish people for having a particular fetish.
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And, if the drive had a killswitch, you'd think he'd have used it instead of the real password.
You'd also think that he would disconnect Drive Z before going through customs.
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he's obviously a doofus in addition to being a pervert
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Thanks for the answers about how it would work financially :)
I'll say it again: If these laws were created to protect children, then I wouldn't mind them. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. These laws were created to punish people for having a particular fetish.
Problem is, it is hard to seperate the two, you cannot have one without harming the other.
In theory I agree that drawings, stories etc are perfectly legal, though have concerns about 'feeding' a fetish that, if acted out in real life, cannot help but lead to the abuse of a child. But I'm a lot more shaky on the grounds of photos, since they contain real people, which means at some point a child was abused.
That said, it also needs to be held in mind that, in the UK, for example, a relationship with a 17-year old is legal, in fact, I think you can even pose topless in newspapers like The Sun, a national Newspaper, whereas in some states in the US, that's child porn.
The thing is, you can never wean people off of a fetish, it's the nature of them that the more forbidden they are, the more tempting they become, I don't agree with killing a group of people for their fetish, most certainly, but it's a really complex problem to solve, since it is considered socially unacceptable even to defend it, which leaves these people isolated, feared and hated.
The sad fact is, there are very few families out there that haven't had child abuse happen at some point, but in those cases it is 'kept quiet' because it was a relative or close family friend, this has only recently started being reported, but it's gone on throughout history, the method of thought definitely seems to have swung from 'see no evil' to 'kill them all', and neither are likely to help.
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A simple look at a porn site shows that many people have such a fetish "teen" "young" and "schoolgirl" are defaults of the industry. Those are the words that get the ratings. Of course part of this might have to do with their clientel being mostly in their teens.
I don't really care, as long as these people stay the hell away from my kids... when I have them.
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And, if the drive had a killswitch, you'd think he'd have used it instead of the real password.
Well, not necessarily. If they were able to detect that a killswitch had been engaged, he'd have just handed the prosecution evidence that he had something to hide, and he had set up the encryption on the drive. Plus he'd be obstructing justice by destroying evidence.
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Depends on how the kill switch works. Could be a combination of a kill switch and steganography, in which it only wipes a portion of the data. Many ways to hide things from prying eyes, without suspicion, if you really want to. It doesn't even have to be a kill switch, just a different password that goes to financial documents instead.