P2pnets as anti-pedophile tools
p2pnet.net News:- Here’s an item in National Review by Penny Nance, Ernie Allen & Chuck Canterbury headlined, P2P Pressure – A copyright case has implications for tracking down child-porn brokers.
Beneath it is a response from LimeWire coo Greg Bildson.
The Nance, Allen and Chuck post reads:
“Later this year, the Supreme Court will decide MGM v. Grokster, a lawsuit brought by motion-picture and record producers against Grokster and StreamCast peer-to-peer, or P2P, file-sharing networks. P2P technology allows users to easily share copyrighted movies and songs for free with little risk of being caught. While the case is predominantly about copyright law, we believe that it is critically important for another reason — fighting the battle against child pornography. At stake is the ability of law enforcement to identify and prosecute child pornographers who use P2P networks to traffic illegal images that victimize children. This is why each of our organizations recently joined a diverse coalition in filing an amicus brief in the case.
“Disturbingly, P2P networks are emerging as a major conduit for the distribution of child pornography, according to a 2003 study by the U.S. General Accounting Office. In a search of one P2P network, twelve known keywords quickly identified more than 500 child pornography files. In another search by the U.S Customs CyberSmuggling Center, a mere three keywords swiftly produced more than 150 files containing child exploitation.
“Similarly, NCMEC has found that P2P technology is increasingly popular for the dissemination of child pornography. Using P2P, pedophiles are able to download larger files — such as graphic child-porn movies with sound — which they cannot easily obtain through websites or E-mail. As one of the amici noted in the brief “peer-to-peer programs have made it more difficult to identify users…. The anonymity of recent peer-to-peer technology has allowed individuals who exploit children to trade images and movies featuring the sexual assault of children with very little fear of detection.”
“For example, P2P companies Grokster and StreamCast disabled mechanisms to monitor and control activity on their networks. They deliberately want to know less, not more, about the material they help traffic. By engaging in this head-in-the-sand behavior, the companies have reaped millions in advertising revenues by continuing to facilitate copyright violations and the spread of illegal material. While their profits have climbed, law enforcement’s job of apprehending Internet criminals has become much more difficult.
“In its decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals blessed this irresponsible business strategy, and found that the new P2P companies were not liable for copyright violations because they had intentionally surrendered control over their networks. The decision to endorse this evasive strategy has implications far beyond copyright law. If allowed to stand, the Ninth Circuit’s ruling would encourage P2P companies to deliberately avoid knowledge of or control over any illegal conduct on their networks, whether it be copyright infringement or the trafficking in images of sexual assaults of children.
Bildson replies:
“This article so misrepresents the facts that I feel compelled to set the record straight.
You claim that P2P file sharing helps child pornographers. The truth is that P2P file sharing networks provide a powerful tool to law enforcement for tracking down and locking up the purveyors of child pornography. The most popular file sharing networks are far from anonymous. If a pedophile is sharing child pornography, they can be easily catalogued, tracked down and arrested. The FBI has made a number of arrests using file sharing tools to track perpetrators. Given that these individuals tend to hide their activity, they present a rare opportunity to be caught red handed if they use a file sharing network.
“The article goes on to imply that file sharing vendors are bad actors because they do nothing about child pornography. This is again totally inaccurate. I have personally lectured 20+ field agents of the FBI’s Innocent Images division in assisting them to track down child pornographers. I have helped individual agents around the country and at headquarters on numerous occasions over the past two years. We have made changes to our software specifically for the FBI to track unique uploaders of child pornography. We have also offered to help with the creation of software for the FBI that would enable them to track and prosecute thousands more child pornographers then they can currently deal with today.
“We at LimeWire abhor child pornography and are willing to help fight it in any way we can. While we don’t want to create a police state, we believe that we have taken appropriate action to deal with this specific problem. P2P file sharing software and its creators are not the problem. Sick individuals are the problem and when more of them get locked up, we expect that P2P file sharing networks will be regarded as a very bad place for these people to peddle their wares.
“In conclusion, it is my view that anyone with a Libertarian streak would support P2P file sharing. Our goal is to enable free speech and a free market for the exchange of ideas, art, educational material and digital media. If we can get beyond the short-term problem of these true bad actors, file sharing networks will be a powerful tool to enrich society and individual freedom. To achieve this better future, the right to innovate must not be trampled in anyone’s rush to judgment.
“For a view of the file sharing debate that would please America’s founding fathers, I would refer you to our amicus brief filed in the Grokster case.
Nance is president of the Kids First Coalition, Allen is ceo of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and Canterbury is president of the National Fraternal Order of Police.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
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See:-
major conduit - P2P Pressure, National Review, February 17, 2005
February 17th, 2005 at 9:13 pm
Yeah right. Now the people get to hear the cartel propaganda about how p2p is associated with child pornography. Good Grief, how much lower iare the cartels willing to go? They want to compare p2p users with paedophiles?
Do they want to brainwash the masses and possibly polititions that p2p is used only for sickening and illegal material?
There are, and have been hacker groups which have been battling child pronography for years. These hackers find child porn websites and attempt to have them shut down. For every one of them that they shut down, 2 more appear. Yet, most hacker groups that fight this plague are the ones shut down and stay shut down.
In many cases, the FBI is well aware of these websites, but it seems they have more ugent priorities. I have personally called the FBI long distance twice to report sites, only to be put on hold. I held for over 20 minutes before finally giving up. I was told the second time that “We are very busy, if you want to talk to an agent, you have to hold.” This before 11 September 2001 when things were relatively quiet. As far as I can see, no government agency reqally gives a damned about stopping this kind of crap. Now, it looks like these children are going to be exploited as a weapon against the p2p networks. GOOOOOOOODDDDDDD what will people do for a buck!
February 18th, 2005 at 2:46 am
O.o people that make and distribute that stuff are at fault… not the servers or the people that find it…
February 18th, 2005 at 1:23 pm
The state governments provide a great tool for paedophile groups to spread their disease. This is called the mandatory sex offender data base that is posted on the Internet. With this tool, organisations such as NAMBLA and NAMGLA can locate and correspond with sex offenders who are prone to this type of behaviour. The databases provide a name, address and even a picture. Just imagine what marketers do with this kind of information for anyone! The quicker we can get rid of these databases, the better.
Rather than publically branding and hounding these animals (which is unconstitutional), states should make sure sex criminals never get out of prison or sentence them to death. I see no benefit to society in unleashing these types of people apon society and forcing them to announce their crimes to everyone in their area. If they are dangerous enough to be branded as outcasts, then they do not need to be in society.
February 18th, 2005 at 2:17 pm
The child porn issue is a Trojan horse. In the legal battle against Kazaa (in Australia) the record companies are using Kazaa’s efforts to block kid porn AGAINST Kazaa.
How so? Simple. Their argument is that if Kazaa can block one illegal form of file sharing (kid porn) then they able to block another illegal form of file sharing (copyrighted works).
You may not like it, but itâs a compelling argument. From what I’ve read in the “Kazaagate” blog, Kazaa’s attempts to dance around this issue by claiming that although it CAN block kid porn, it just can’t seem to find a way to block copyrighted works fails to pass the bs detector test.
November 13th, 2006 at 12:42 am
You can’t stop this…which is a good thing.
November 25th, 2006 at 12:52 am
Interesting comments yes. I’ve actively reported limewire content to both Limewire, and now ISP’s. I encourage others to also. If you see an individual displaying child pornography, trace their IP address and report it to their ISP.
If Limewire wont do it, then perhaps it is up to those of us who have a “Libertarian streak”.
May 15th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
July 10th, 2007 at 9:25 am
I just wonder how much of this disturbing material is readily available for access and just how many people are out there in cyberspace on p2p networks willing to share it / download it. It’s unfornutate because all one has to do is load a p2p application and type in the word “porn” in the search, hit enter, and then just sit back and wait as hundreds or thousands of files are generated, many which blatently reference illegal pornographic / contraband material. You definitley don’t have to be intentionally looking for it. It’s easy to accidentally stumble upon it. Gnutellla applications are rife with this stuff. I can’t speak for the other applications. The only logical way to stop this epidemic is to either shut down the earlier versions of p2p applications (which is next to impossible) or law enforcement should go after the people who are openly sharing many files of this type of material. It seems to me that if they just concentrate on the mass numbers of people who have downloaded this material then this won’t accomplish anything in the way of curbing / eradicating this type of material on p2p networks (and believe me, the numbers are probably more than we’d like to believe given the nature of p2p networks and the availability of this stuff). In fact, only using this approach would probably keep law enforcement tied up with more work then they can possibly handle for the next several years. The people willingly spreading this stuff are the root of the problem. Go after them. I think this is what law enforcement has been doing and I commend them for it. Most of the people we hear busted with this stuff in the news are caught with hundreds or thousands of files of this stuff.
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:55 am
I do on occasion download adult porn (and only adult porn) on Limewire but that’s my choice, I do not however download any child porn; well not intentially anyway! I have accidentally clicked too many files for download and after the fact found to have some files that I rather had not seen.
As soon as I have realized the files are there, I “shred” (using a software shredding tool) them and software erase the whole machine.
I would like to know I’m I safe but I guess not as they are tracking just about everything we do, which concerns me when I could be prosecuted for making a genuine mistake!
November 24th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
I agree with concerned user. I used to run limewire and here recently I downloaded what i thought was a legal movie (dully titled girls gone wild) and it happened to be child porn. It scared me and I immediately removed limewire from my computer. If anything, The should attack the suppliers and the people mass downloading it.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
concerned, I agree its hard not to look when it is so prevalent who doesn’t enjoy the beauty of a young woman. there are so many dogs out there using and abusing young girls. I dont get how a man can get off on a undeveloped girl. all I can guess is they were abused themselves I hope they stop the cycle. When I am president i will unfund the net I bet they will deal with the porn then.
June 30th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
The is maybe a way. I learned long time ago that you can’t do anything about something that dosen’t involve money. I was thinking; It is possible to take a filename and size of child porn files and create a “dummy” and a lot of people(who are concerned) share thoses fake file, maybe that could discourage thoses sickos to use p2p to share they shits.
Would it work? does p2p software scan a kind of checksum (header, anything)?. Making the software to generate such files wont be a
probleme to me.
Please, any –> usefull
June 30th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
usefull information will be apreciated
November 11th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
This reminds me of WinMX, that place had a big listing of chatroom things linked directly from the application, and many of them were openly advertising child pornography. Guess how many were taken down? None. Maybe they were false sharers trying to bait real child molesters into showing their info, I dont know, but its the kind of thing i’d rather not see. It makes me paranoid, personally. I, like many others, download and watch pornography. There is no way of really knowing what you’re getting in a file, until its downloaded, and you start watching it. This alone makes it like a potential minefield.
I once made the mistake, about 6 years back, of doing a ’select all’ download, with the intent of filtering through the downloads the following day, to delete whatever didnt quite do it for me. One of the files in question might have been child porn, but I couldnt tell (you know what the industry is like). So naturally I deleted everything else in the porn directory out of a knee-jerk “oh god no” reaction, losing about another gigs worth of unfiltered porn. Its bad enough having to filter out the advertisement videoclips without THAT crap floating around in there. It wouldnt be so bad if individual users could be banned/reported easily, keeping the networks relatively clean, but with the amount of changing IPs there is little you can do about it. Sweep-downloading P2P porn used to be a good way of saving time, but now? You never know what you’ll catch in your net. To be honest, that one incident scared the crap out of me. Never again.