Paedophile Snared As Google Scans Gmail For Images Of Child Abuse

Draxanoth said:
Does this mean if you want to send someone to jail all you need to do is spam them with bad images?
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This is my question as well. I mean, in this case, the guy was a convicted sex offender. But if someone spams your email with cp, are you screwed? Though I don't generally do it, some people just leave emails there that they don't read. I know I've done that in the past, esp with certain emails that get spammed a lot. If there was CP in there, and I didn't know about it. Would I get screwed by that?

Seems like there is a potential for abuse, here.
 
Cobra said:
They either have permission from law enforcement to own a server full of the stuff or they have a direct-access connection to the law enforcement server that has it. Either way implies a close working relationship.
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It appears all they have is the hash information so that the computer can trigger a review ... if a review needs to occur they send the file to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children and they are the first people to examine the image ... they then determine whether to alert the police (which is part of their charter as a non profit entity)
 
kbrickley said:
Except the article indicates they report the potential violation to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (which is also not a government agency) ... it is the NCMEC that determines whether to involve law enforcement ... if they report the image to the police the police still have to issue a warrant to get anything from Google directly

Again, I stand by my assertion that Google is a private and free internet mail service ... they are very clear on what the "price" of that free service is ... if you use their service to do illegal things then I don't blame them or the government for hunting the person down, I blame the person who chose not to use the Dark Net for the their illegal activities like the smarter criminals would ;)
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The National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children was established by congress and is funded by the justice department.
 
damicatz said:
The National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children was established by congress and is funded by the justice department.
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They are still a quasi independent organization and they have no law enforcement mandate of their own ... they are strictly a resource to police with a VERY VERY narrow mandate

Established in 1984, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® is the leading nonprofit organization in the U.S. working with law enforcement, families and the professionals who serve them on issues related to missing and sexually exploited children. As part of its Congressional authorization, NCMEC has created a unique public and private partnership to build a coordinated, national response to the problem of missing and sexually exploited children, establish a missing children hotline and serve as the national clearinghouse for information related to these issues.

To help support NCMEC's nonprofit work, NCMEC receives federal funding for certain core services and also utilizes broad based, private sector support from corporations, foundations and individuals.
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In any case, I've been here 7 years, and am still too afraid to click the "User CP" link on the top of the page. Once its on your hard drive, you're toast!
 
Cobra said:
The exploitation of children is an older crime than you might think. But then again, people had sex and got married extremely young then (girls basically as soon as they started menstruating, married to guys that were anywhere from their mid teens mid fourties), so maybe he would even be convicted as a pedophile nowadays. The world is always changing, not always for the better, but sometimes at least.
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Oh I wasn't referring to only this crime being discussed here, but also other crimes that were unthought of back then in general because that's one of the most often used quote when defending privacy against snooping.
 
Till they scan out and save images of your wife or girlfriend in her birthday suit that she sent you while you were away on that last business trip.
 
It bugs me that it was his inbox that triggered the warrant to search his home pc.

If it was his outbox, fair game. But inbox?
 
Looks like this guy was guilty, however I still don't like it.

I mean, what if someone didn't like you and sent you these type of images to frame you? All of the sudden you're a pedo now? Hell, even if you were found innocent it would still devastate your life, just like how a false rape accusations are hugely damaging to innocent people.
 
If they have software that can do this then whats to stop them from altering it slightly to scan your Google account so that it can scan your browsing history (if chrome is used) for the same kind of things?

but wait don't stop there...

A bit more altering and tweaking and use the same software to detect all forms of illegal activity on the web. (drugs, piracy, etc... ... )

It's good a thing that there is one less pedo on the streets but this is just wrong... NSA wrong and nothing justifies it.
 
canna said:
Looks like this guy was guilty, however I still don't like it.

I mean, what if someone didn't like you and sent you these type of images to frame you? All of the sudden you're a pedo now? Hell, even if you were found innocent it would still devastate your life, just like how a false rape accusations are hugely damaging to innocent people.
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You would have to piss off some sort of really dark hacker or something (and they are usually content to just destroy you financially) ... the images that would get you in trouble would not be easily obtained (and just the act of searching for them would likely trigger law enforcement involvement) ... the person trying to destroy you would also need an untraceable email as sending child porn is as much of a crime as receiving it ... although there are no absolutes, it is possible that if someone with an untraceable email address started spamming you with child porn that they would view this as an identity attack rather than an actual child porn case (but there is always the danger of an over zealous agent or a mistake)
 
shatterstar said:
If they have software that can do this then whats to stop them from altering it slightly to scan your Google account so that it can scan your browsing history (if chrome is used) for the same kind of things?

but wait don't stop there...

A bit more altering and tweaking and use the same software to detect all forms of illegal activity on the web. (drugs, piracy, etc... ... )

It's good a thing that there is one less pedo on the streets but this is just wrong... NSA wrong and nothing justifies it.
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The government is not scanning your gmail (in this case at least) it is Google doing the scanning by computer ... if the scan triggers a flag then Google sends the image in question to another body for verification ... if they view the incident as valid then they report the activity to the police (who then have to follow the normal process, including obtaining warrants to further investigate) ... and Google does monitor what you search for and if you searched for things associated with child porn then they would likely report you to the other body then also
 
Moral of the story, the NSA needs to say they are looking for Pedos and downplay the terrorist thing.
 
OEM said:
EDIT: Then again it is a private service, so I guess if you agree to their terms not much you can say. As long as it isn't the government doing this.
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That's not the problem. When you say you avoid Google because of the risk of abuse, everyone flips and says 'they're only scanning for ads. What are you paranoid?'

People don't just say its optional. They will get on your case for criticizing Google's integrity which we have zero real reason to hold in high regard.
 
w4ffles said:
http://gizmodo.com/5936572/the-wors...ornography-and-other-terrible-internet-things

Saves some poor soul the trouble of doing it manually.
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The only way Google could be doing that is by cooperating with law enforcement and acting as their agent. Otherwise the contractor and employees would be arrested for possession of child pornography.

Again, Google is acting as an agent. They did not simply stumble upon the child pornography, they set out with the specific goal of searching for child pornography in people's e-mails for the purposes of turning them over to law enforcement.

The moral of the story is : Only an idiot uses the cloud for important data.
 
It's not that hard to know what Google's email TOS is. They explain their privacy policy in plain, clear English:

http://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/

Probably the most relevant part of that to this topic is this:

Google said:
For legal reasons

We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to:

  • meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.
  • enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations.
  • detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues.
  • protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, our users or the public as required or permitted by law.
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With particular emphasis on that last line. There is absolutely nothing sneaky, underhanded, or evil about what Google has done here. Google is telling you what they do with your email before you sign up, and here they have done exactly what they said they would do.
 
kbrickley said:
You would have to piss off some sort of really dark hacker or something (and they are usually content to just destroy you financially) ... the images that would get you in trouble would not be easily obtained (and just the act of searching for them would likely trigger law enforcement involvement) ... the person trying to destroy you would also need an untraceable email as sending child porn is as much of a crime as receiving it ... although there are no absolutes, it is possible that if someone with an untraceable email address started spamming you with child porn that they would view this as an identity attack rather than an actual child porn case (but there is always the danger of an over zealous agent or a mistake)
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you mean, someone that uses public wifi and could just signup for a free e-mail account to send an attachment with, that kind of untraceable?
 
AaronGant said:
you mean, someone that uses public wifi and could just signup for a free e-mail account to send an attachment with, that kind of untraceable?
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It is still a little work and to go hunt up child porn (which would be pretty disgusting if you weren't mentally ill, like the other pedophiles) when there are much easier ways to get someone back ... much easier to spam them at work with regular porn (perfectly legal and still would destroy someone's working career potentially) or post their phone number/email/address on conventional sex sites ... there are just too many easy ways for griefers to get you without resorting to child porn to do it ... I'm not saying they wouldn't, but that is a whole new level of mental illness to do that to a person (and most of us could satisfy our sense of revenge with much less effort and risk)
 
Sounds more like an excuse from Google to scan our emails.
Suddenly it's alright to go through everyone's private emails when it's for a good course? At least they found their ticket through.
The next big thing will be no-knock raids on random citizens.. Because potentially you could be a bad guy.
 
readeh said:
Sounds more like an excuse from Google to scan our emails.
Suddenly it's alright to go through everyone's private emails when it's for a good course? At least they found their ticket through.
The next big thing will be no-knock raids on random citizens.. Because potentially you could be a bad guy.
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Every service people use from Google basically scans everything that goes through it. Want to update Google Search on your phone? You must click OK to let it read your texts and emails.
 
I'm glad that he was caught. I don't like losing my privacy. It already seems like a crime being an individual in this country.
 
I forget which country it was that found that crimes against children were actually reduced by allowing cild pornography. Think it is one of the Baltic states...
 
Starcrossed said:
I forget which country it was that found that crimes against children were actually reduced by allowing cild pornography. Think it is one of the Baltic states...
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...there are some things that are just wrong, even if the results are better. What's next, the purge?
 
That is scary as hell.. "Don't be evil" just took a jump out the window.
It's funny to think about how people were paranoid 15 years ago about microchip implants.. This is not much different with our cellphones and computers tracking us via GPS and reading everything about us.
 
Starcrossed said:
Yeah, I agree with you. That being said I think it is a more complicated issue than it seems on the surface.
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Agreed. Pretty sure it's a genetic/mental issue; in an earlier thread, I linked to a Harvard study that showed these people are extremely likely to repeat, and therapy is very ineffective. Throw 'em on a prison island somewhere.
 
readeh said:
That is scary as hell.. "Don't be evil" just took a jump out the window.
It's funny to think about how people were paranoid 15 years ago about microchip implants.. This is not much different with our cellphones and computers tracking us via GPS and reading everything about us.
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What part of "The Internet is not and has never been a private place" do you not understand?

Again, it's right there in plain English what Google does with your data.
 
TwistedAegis said:
Agreed. Pretty sure it's a genetic/mental issue; in an earlier thread, I linked to a Harvard study that showed these people are extremely likely to repeat, and therapy is very ineffective. Throw 'em on a prison island somewhere.
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Statism is a mental illness...
 
damicatz said:
Statism is a mental illness...
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No ... Order vs Anarchy is a choice, not a mental defect (and they both have positives and negatives and dangers) ... having a sexual preference for children is just as much a mental illness as having a desire to kill or inflict pain on yourself or others
 
As much as it's nice to see a pedophile get locked up I definitely don't agree with what Google does, but that is why I don't use their service or any other service on a server I don't control. The issue is they may scan for stupid crimes too like piracy or other victim-less crimes and that can cost people their lives. But guess anyone using gmail thinking they're safe is silly.

Though the danger with email is both the sender and the receiver need to be using a server they control otherwise the privacy is moot.
 
Fuk google. There are plenty of other ways of getting the pedo's off the street, but this goes to show you how huge money totally perverts normal humans. Fuk Google.
 
If anything they're just using this to justify what they're doing. People suddenly feel it's ok when they hear that some good came out of it.

It's like the new cyberbullying law here in Canada. You can go to jail for 10 years for bullying people on social media, it's pretty pathetic but "it's for the children" so everyone is cool about it. The issue when it comes to computer related laws is that the amount of evidence required is very low. An IP address is good enough.
 
chockomonkey said:
The key is exploited or abused children.
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Tell that to people who have had their lives turned upside down when lab technicians turned over innocent pictures of kids taking a bath or whatnot, and had police and child services showing up, making them fight charges..

Cops really don't care what's in the pics.. Hell they don't even care if they get the right person. If somebody uses your WiFi and they happen to download something that was monitored, you're the one that'll have your door busted down and all your computer equipment confiscated... And when they determine they screwed up, they'll refuse to take your calls and never give you your stuff back unless you hire and attorney and wind up paying $10k-$25k in legal fees to get it back!

As usual, good idea, horribly botched execution.
 
Starcrossed said:
I forget which country it was that found that crimes against children were actually reduced by allowing cild pornography. Think it is one of the Baltic states...
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People would rather have it happen in secret, than have to see it, even if seeing it put a stop to it.

If it was legal to pirate, and illegal to purchase, that would put the producers of it out of business.
 
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