p2pnet.net News:- Members of the P2P United trade group say they’re working with the FBI on ‘Operation Milk Carton’, a proposed anti-child pornography collaboration which would put alleged kiddie-porn perpetrators prominently on members’ websites.

Today the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection opened its Online Pornography: Closing the Doors on Pervasive Smut hearing and news of the move against online pornographers came in a statement from P2P United to the committee.

People who use a child for sexual purposes and/or who collect imagery from the Net to gratify themselves are sick beyond belief or comprehension and kiddie porn is something everyone is against, no matter which side of what fence they’re on.

Child pornography is, however, also popular with the corporate entertainment industry which uses it as a PR tool to attack opponents through its RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America). Some US politicians have also found kiddie porn garners instant press and use it to promote themselves and their agendas.

Among today’s panelists are Penny Nance, president, Kids First Coalition, Ernie Allen, president and ceo, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Kevin Lourdeau, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, and Kazaa owner Sharman Networks, through DCIA (Distributed Computing Industry Association), its PR and marketing company.

None of the five main commercial p2p network operators was included, however, an interesting ommission considering that through their lobby group, P2P United, they’ve been actively developing and promoting anti-Kiddie porn measures for some time.

Their Parent-to-Parent Online Anti-Child Pornography Resource Center has been online since last year and allows people to report suspected child pornographers to federal authorities with the click of a mouse. It also provides online help and information on the risks inherent in use of p2p software, and links to unaffiliated third-party filter software, as well as has links to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and federal enforcement agencies.

The P2P United members are FreePeers (BearShare), Manolito P2P (Blubster), Streamcast Networks (Morpheus), Grokster Ltd (Grokster) and MetaMachine (eDonkey2000).

P2P United has, “taken concrete action to help protect our children,” it says in a statement to the subcommittee, going on to point out that it’s also promoting ‘Operation Milk Carton’, a proposed anti-child pornography collaboration with the FBI which, says P2P United, is being discussed with the FBI’s ‘Innocent Images’ Unit.

The idea is to create something similar to the FBI’s ‘Most Wanted’ list and it was “Inspired by the use of low-tech milk cartons by law enforcement to radically improve the chances of missing children being spotted by members of the public,” P2P United says.

Under it, each member company will feature a prominent picture of alleged child pornographer (as specified by the FBI) on its website home and/or installation page.

Each image/text box would provide a one-click connection to official FBI information on the alleged kiddie porn perpetrator and P2P United says it hopes Operation Milk Carton will be online by the summer.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 6th, 2004 at 4:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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