After Dropbox finds a child porn collector, a chess club stops his knife attack

"I failed my mission to kill everyone."

Read the whole story

 

[pjlahaie]

simonov[/url]":4yfxd9fi]

pjlahaie[/url]":4yfxd9fi]
Except the Honda Accord or the Ford F150 weren't designed to kill. Guns were created for the sole purpose of injuring/killing. Handguns are designed to injure/kill *people*, so are assault rifles.

Well, hell, I have over 130 firearms and I have never killed anyone or anything with them.

Am I doing it wrong?

Or perhaps one of us has the wrong idea about the purpose of firearms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_firearm

Guns were created to kill. All major advancements in firearms have been to make them more effective at killing.

Jay Leno is a well known car collector, doesn't mean that cars are designed to be collected.

 

[s73v3r]

SixDegrees[/url]":31qcts9w]

lewax00[/url]":31qcts9w]

I guess I'll get labelled as a monster, but let me point this out: Having these penalties so high and ruining a life so thoroughly that suicide (or murder/suicide) is the only acceptable outcome may be counterproductive.

Yeah, especially for a kid still in high school. He needs help, not a criminal record...

Eh, I'd guess there was plenty of help available if he had bothered to seek it out. Instead, it seems that his very first reaction to being caught and realizing the trouble his odious habit was going to cause him was to lash out at random victims, instead of dropping a dime on the local counseling service.

Is there? What do you think the reaction would be if he went to one of his teachers or the school counselor and said, "I like looking at kiddie porn"? I can't imagine the outcome being that much better.

 

[pjlahaie]

SixDegrees[/url]":2b5rc6wj]

Was there anything in his past behavior, however, that would have warned that this might have been a potential risk? Because denying bail requires fairly extraordinary reasons, and without such reasons you can be sure the defense would mount a strenuous effort to have bail granted.

Fairly extraordinary reasons? Like showing a collage of child porn images from his cell phone?

 

[s73v3r]

dermott[/url]":1vpjxiz9]

sketchy9[/url]":1vpjxiz9]1. Amazing that this vet remembered his training 50 years after the fact.
2. Imagine if this loser had had access to a firearm.

Counter-point: Imagine if the Mr. Vernon (the veteran in question) had had access to a firearm. Could have saved his arm a serious lot of trouble.

Either way, kudos to the gentleman. Not many people are willing to put themselves in the way of a knife for other folk. We need more people with his mindset.

The "good guy with a gun" counterpoint is almost never valid, because it almost never happens. Some of the last few campus shootings happened at schools where guns could be carried on campus, yet that didn't help anyone.

 

[SixDegrees]

s73v3r[/url]":1s4atejc]

SixDegrees[/url]":1s4atejc]

lewax00[/url]":1s4atejc]

I guess I'll get labelled as a monster, but let me point this out: Having these penalties so high and ruining a life so thoroughly that suicide (or murder/suicide) is the only acceptable outcome may be counterproductive.

Yeah, especially for a kid still in high school. He needs help, not a criminal record...

Eh, I'd guess there was plenty of help available if he had bothered to seek it out. Instead, it seems that his very first reaction to being caught and realizing the trouble his odious habit was going to cause him was to lash out at random victims, instead of dropping a dime on the local counseling service.

Is there? What do you think the reaction would be if he went to one of his teachers or the school counselor and said, "I like looking at kiddie porn"? I can't imagine the outcome being that much better.

Impossible to say what the reaction might have been, but I was referring to mental health counseling, not high school guidance counseling.

 

[rick*d]

simonov[/url]":387qvyt8]

pjlahaie[/url]":387qvyt8]

simonov[/url]":387qvyt8]
Made some minor edits to emphasize a point. A little education is required here. When some criminal misuses an AR-15 the bicoastal media and their credulous consumers are outraged. But no one is outraged when someone misuses a Honda Accord or Ford F150. You kind of expect the most popular cars in America to also be popular with criminals.

Except the Honda Accord or the Ford F150 weren't designed to kill. Guns were created for the sole purpose of injuring/killing. Handguns are designed to injure/kill *people*, so are assault rifles.

Well, hell, I have over 130 firearms and I have never killed anyone or anything with them.

Am I doing it wrong?

Or perhaps one of us has the wrong idea about the purpose of firearms.

I would really love to hear a rational explanation for the non-lethal purpose behind firearms. You know, considering they were invented as a weapon of war and all. The "best" non-lethal uses excuses I've heard so far are "target practice" and "skeet/trap shooting", both of which are actually practice for killing something. Now, you may indeed have a legitimate reason for wanting/needing to kill something - hunting, self-defense, and war all come to mind - but they are all lethal. Please, tell us oh Wise One with over 130 firearms in your possession, what is the non-lethal purpose behind guns?

 

[SixDegrees]

pjlahaie[/url]":2agbcmvk]

SixDegrees[/url]":2agbcmvk]

Was there anything in his past behavior, however, that would have warned that this might have been a potential risk? Because denying bail requires fairly extraordinary reasons, and without such reasons you can be sure the defense would mount a strenuous effort to have bail granted.

Fairly extraordinary reasons? Like showing a collage of child porn images from his cell phone?

Why does that merit denial of bail? It's odious in the extreme, to be sure. But it generally doesn't indicate any clear, immediate danger to the public or flight risk that wouldn't be mitigated by a bail agreement.

Had he been arrested for child molestation, there's little doubt bail would have been denied. Same if he had a history of violence. But I don't see any such charges here, nor any indication that he might resort to violent behavior.

 

[Deranged]

I see the tech connection with the Dropbox reference, but it really seems very tabloid like in it's style which is going more for the shock factor with nasty and/or gory details and not suitable on Ars Technica. I mean, it took until the second page before the article started the actual tech content. Appalling. If it was the tech that was the main point, then all the tabloid stuff could've have been mentioned in a single paragraph.

 

[Alzdran]

SixDegrees[/url]":qt1cfta5]

ProfessorGuy[/url]":qt1cfta5]I guess I'll get labelled as a monster, but let me point this out: Having these penalties so high and ruining a life so thoroughly that suicide (or murder/suicide) is the only acceptable outcome may be counterproductive.

If we were talking about drug use or other crimes, I might agree. But child porn directly harms children. And that harm is not a secret. I have very few problems with long sentences for this particular crime, particularly in light of the fact that there is simply no effective treatment for such problems.

The creation of child porn directly harms children; images in the PhotoDNA database are already known and circulating, so possession doesn't imply creation.

This seems to me to indicate a reasonable area for delineation - and this isn't an argument that we should decriminalize the possession of child pornography - where we distinguish between those who have directly hurt children, and those who haven't. If consequences don't distinguish this, then having violated one boundary, there's no consequence based deterrence available against worse offenses.

 

[s73v3r]

simonov[/url]":2qiucsfi]

pjlahaie[/url]":2qiucsfi]

simonov[/url]":2qiucsfi]
Made some minor edits to emphasize a point. A little education is required here. When some criminal misuses an AR-15 the bicoastal media and their credulous consumers are outraged. But no one is outraged when someone misuses a Honda Accord or Ford F150. You kind of expect the most popular cars in America to also be popular with criminals.

Except the Honda Accord or the Ford F150 weren't designed to kill. Guns were created for the sole purpose of injuring/killing. Handguns are designed to injure/kill *people*, so are assault rifles.

Well, hell, I have over 130 firearms and I have never killed anyone or anything with them.

Am I doing it wrong?

Or perhaps one of us has the wrong idea about the purpose of firearms.

Just because you haven't doesn't change the fact that is what those weapons were explicitly designed to do. They were designed solely to kill. They have no other purpose beyond that.

 

[SixDegrees]

Alzdran[/url]":16aqkrqp]

SixDegrees[/url]":16aqkrqp]

ProfessorGuy[/url]":16aqkrqp]I guess I'll get labelled as a monster, but let me point this out: Having these penalties so high and ruining a life so thoroughly that suicide (or murder/suicide) is the only acceptable outcome may be counterproductive.

If we were talking about drug use or other crimes, I might agree. But child porn directly harms children. And that harm is not a secret. I have very few problems with long sentences for this particular crime, particularly in light of the fact that there is simply no effective treatment for such problems.

The creation of child porn directly harms children; images in the PhotoDNA database are already known and circulating, so possession doesn't imply creation.

This seems to me to indicate a reasonable area for delineation - and this isn't an argument that we should decriminalize the possession of child pornography - where we distinguish between those who have directly hurt children, and those who haven't. If consequences don't distinguish this, then having violated one boundary, there's no consequence based deterrence available against worse offenses.

Possession indicates a market demand. Without such demand, supply would dry up.

 

[Meailda]

assault rifles .... nonsensense, nonsense, nonsense

Assault rifles have been heavily regulated since the NFA in the 1930 and new sales banned since 1980s. Maybe you are thinking about "scary black rifles". Weapons no more dangerous than their non-black counterparts but since they were scary looking a huge amount of political capital was expended to ban them for a decade with absolutely no benefit found (as concluded by the DOJ).

No he is talking about the semi-automatic 22 rifles that everyone is scared of. Apparently because you can kill alligators with them. I think people call them ARs.

 

[rick*d]

Alzdran[/url]":3r6z1rrj]

SixDegrees[/url]":3r6z1rrj]

ProfessorGuy[/url]":3r6z1rrj]I guess I'll get labelled as a monster, but let me point this out: Having these penalties so high and ruining a life so thoroughly that suicide (or murder/suicide) is the only acceptable outcome may be counterproductive.

If we were talking about drug use or other crimes, I might agree. But child porn directly harms children. And that harm is not a secret. I have very few problems with long sentences for this particular crime, particularly in light of the fact that there is simply no effective treatment for such problems.

The creation of child porn directly harms children; images in the PhotoDNA database are already known and circulating, so possession doesn't imply creation.

This seems to me to indicate a reasonable area for delineation - and this isn't an argument that we should decriminalize the possession of child pornography - where we distinguish between those who have directly hurt children, and those who haven't. If consequences don't distinguish this, then having violated one boundary, there's no consequence based deterrence available against worse offenses.

Not to mention, if all the existing CP is in the PhotoDNA database, then that's just incentive to create new material that isn't in the PhotoDNA database - especially if the penalties for creation are no greater than those for possession.

 

[Peevester]

I've said it before, I'll say it again - do not mess with librarians. Badasses.

 

[Rommel102]

rick*d[/url]":1o47ky27]

dermott[/url]":1o47ky27]

rick*d[/url]":1o47ky27]

dermott[/url]":1o47ky27]

Ralf The Dog[/url]":1o47ky27]

simonov[/url]":1o47ky27]
You sound like an expert.

So, what are the differences between an assault rifle, and a hunting weapon, or target shooting weapons?

The bullets fired, large magazine, collapsible stock, bayonet mount, pistol grip.

Okay... so you just described my target shooting rifles. All 4 of them.
How do you define an assault rifle?

ETA: "an", not "and". Edited for spelling.

You have four target shooting rifles with bayonets? The only reason to have a bayonet is close-hand combat after your ammo runs out. What are you practicing for, anyway? Alien invasion? Zombie infestation? ATF coming to get ur guns?

I don't own a bayonet. I should... they'd go nicely in my knife collection. Haven't got around to it.
You, however, specified bayonet mounts, which are a standard part of the front-sight base (FSB), which also serves as the gas block on a standard AR-15 model.

I shoot paper. Can't say I've ever seen a zombie/alient/ATF officer. Wouldn't resort to shooting them out-of-hand if I did. That's silly.

You do not get to specify "bayonet mounts" (a standard component of the front sight) and then move the goalposts to also include mounted "bayonets".

Now, are you going to retract your blatantly fallacious argument, and concede the point, or are you going to double-down on ignorance? This is a tech site. Learn some tech. It's fun.

If you want to argue about guns, cool, but you need to do it in a technically correct fashion, without logical fallacies. Anything less is a disservice to the community, and tends to feed hysteria rather than well-considered policy. Generally speaking, we don't do that here.

Go back up the thread. I'm not the one who specified bayonet mounts as a defining assault rifle feature. And if a target rifle has a bayonet mount as an inherent feature of the sight, then there's something wrong with the entire industry/hobby, if you just come to expect it. That's like putting nitrous oxide tank mounts on minivans because 0.01% of all cars have nitrous oxide, so why not put the tank mounts on every car?

And while this is indeed a tech site I have no intention of learning tech whose sole purpose is to kill. No, thank you. And don't give me your "target practice isn't killing" crap* if your rifle has a bayonet mount and you just accept that as a natural feature of any gun. Rommel102 even said a huge number of shotguns have them, yet my in-laws, who duck hunt, have several shotguns and none of them have bayonet mounts. What the hell would a shotgun be doing with a bayonet mount? You gonna stab that skeet if you miss?

* besides, what are you practicing for other than to kill something? even trap/skeet shooting is practice for killing birds. the Olympic biathlon is a military sport. there is no use for any gun that doesn't have its roots in killing something.

Eh, if you really want to was intellectual on the subject, the wide adoption of gunpowder and the ease of access to early firearms was a social catalyst that democratized violence and had a good part in ending feudalism and serfdom across the world and bringing about the rise of modern democracy. As the popular phrase goes, "God made Men, but Samuel Colt made them all equal."

I'll take today and all it's craziness over the past any day of the week.

 

[ayemahnuhrd]

Meailda[/url]":3vfajvjq]

assault rifles .... nonsensense, nonsense, nonsense

Assault rifles have been heavily regulated since the NFA in the 1930 and new sales banned since 1980s. Maybe you are thinking about "scary black rifles". Weapons no more dangerous than their non-black counterparts but since they were scary looking a huge amount of political capital was expended to ban them for a decade with absolutely no benefit found (as concluded by the DOJ).

No he is talking about the semi-automatic 22 rifles that everyone is scared of. Apparently because you can kill alligators with them. I think people call them ARs.

That is what I meant, but mainly ones that you can shoot enough bullets out of as fast as you can pull your finger before reloading to take out the average day care classroom or chess club. I'm less concerned about ones you have to load slower or that hold less bullets, since maybe then a brave unarmed vet or vacationing navy-man could jump on you when you are reloading and before you've blown away the entire class. I'm not particularly worried about alligators... I think whether we call them ' assault rifles' or 'super shooty things' is not REALLY my concern, despite the rampant gun-illiteracy problem in america today that has been identified in this thread.

 

[Rommel102]

s73v3r[/url]":2phqlybp]

dermott[/url]":2phqlybp]

sketchy9[/url]":2phqlybp]1. Amazing that this vet remembered his training 50 years after the fact.
2. Imagine if this loser had had access to a firearm.

Counter-point: Imagine if the Mr. Vernon (the veteran in question) had had access to a firearm. Could have saved his arm a serious lot of trouble.

Either way, kudos to the gentleman. Not many people are willing to put themselves in the way of a knife for other folk. We need more people with his mindset.

The "good guy with a gun" counterpoint is almost never valid, because it almost never happens. Some of the last few campus shootings happened at schools where guns could be carried on campus, yet that didn't help anyone.

They actually happen often and effectively. You just rarely hear about them outside of the local paper.

As per the report on gun violence ordered by President Obama:

“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year … in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008,” says the report. The three million figure is probably high, “based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys.” But a much lower estimate of 108,000 also seems fishy, “because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.” Furthermore, “Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was 'used' by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

 

[KGFish]

RockDaMan[/url]":2wim0d74]

When researching my book The Internet Police, one common refrain I heard from prosecutors was that child pornography had been largely under control by the late 1980s—until the Internet made it depressingly common. Analog technology had kept child pornographers from operating at scale; films and photographs couldn't simply be sent out to a public developing lab, nor could they be easily encrypted and sent as an invisible stream of electrons. Creating, developing, and distributing child pornography required infrastructure—if you could even find fellow collectors.

In 2009, Ernie Allen, then CEO of NCMEC, said, "Twenty years ago we thought this problem was virtually gone." The same argument was made in 2013 by Kelly McManus, the Homeland Security agent who investigated Hester. In her search warrant affidavit, McManus noted that the old method had "definable costs" and required a "significant amount of skill."

But not anymore.

A reminder that for all the positives it brings, technological progress sometimes ushers in real problems.

While technology has enabled distribution of child porn, I'm unconvinced that the rate of child abuse has changed. I'm pretty sure that the people who create child porn would have happily abused the kids, even if they couldn't record it for fame and money.

As a result, I find McManus' comment quite misguided - on the order of "I can't see it anymore, therefore it doesn't exist."

 

[KGFish]

Rommel102[/url]":32bi89jv]

s73v3r[/url]":32bi89jv]

dermott[/url]":32bi89jv]

sketchy9[/url]":32bi89jv]1. Amazing that this vet remembered his training 50 years after the fact.
2. Imagine if this loser had had access to a firearm.

Counter-point: Imagine if the Mr. Vernon (the veteran in question) had had access to a firearm. Could have saved his arm a serious lot of trouble.

Either way, kudos to the gentleman. Not many people are willing to put themselves in the way of a knife for other folk. We need more people with his mindset.

The "good guy with a gun" counterpoint is almost never valid, because it almost never happens. Some of the last few campus shootings happened at schools where guns could be carried on campus, yet that didn't help anyone.

They actually happen often and effectively. You just rarely hear about them outside of the local paper.

As per the report on gun violence ordered by President Obama:

“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year … in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008,” says the report. The three million figure is probably high, “based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys.” But a much lower estimate of 108,000 also seems fishy, “because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.” Furthermore, “Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was 'used' by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

Quick: how did the survey distinguish between "shot an attacker who was about to shoot them" and "shot someone who looked like he/she was up to no good"?

There's a reason why self-reporting is not generally looked at as generating useful statistics.

 

[Rommel102]

ayemahnuhrd[/url]":28f2rump]

Meailda[/url]":28f2rump]

assault rifles .... nonsensense, nonsense, nonsense

Assault rifles have been heavily regulated since the NFA in the 1930 and new sales banned since 1980s. Maybe you are thinking about "scary black rifles". Weapons no more dangerous than their non-black counterparts but since they were scary looking a huge amount of political capital was expended to ban them for a decade with absolutely no benefit found (as concluded by the DOJ).

No he is talking about the semi-automatic 22 rifles that everyone is scared of. Apparently because you can kill alligators with them. I think people call them ARs.

That is what I meant, but mainly ones that you can shoot enough bullets out of as fast as you can pull your finger before reloading to take out the average day care classroom or chess club. I'm less concerned about ones you have to load slower or that hold less bullets, since maybe then a brave unarmed vet or vacationing navy-man could jump on you when you are reloading and before you've blown away the entire class. I'm not particularly worried about alligators... I think whether we call them ' assault rifles' or 'super shooty things' is not REALLY my concern, despite the rampant gun-illiteracy problem in america today that has been identified in this thread.

You are describing nearly every modern firearm from pistols to rifles that has been made in the last 120 years.

Unless you pulled a Superman IV and magically collected every gun in the world and destroyed them, you aren't going to be able to eliminate mass shootings whether they are carried out by deranged psychopaths or radical terrorists.

Even if you did, such individuals would find another way to do harm. That could be with a pressure cooker and some household chemicals or simply by driving a Dodge Ram over a bunch of children waiting in line for the bus. The only reason that most choose the gun is because it has a higher rate of success and it is really easy to off yourself at the end.

I do agree that violence is sickening and that we must do something to help curb it, but at least in the USA both the populist media narrative around mass shootings as well as the darker reality of urban gun violence have root causes that aren't "guns". But addressing deep rooted issues such as mental health and poverty take a lot more effort than that simpleton argument.

 

[KGFish]

Rommel102[/url]":3oz8v7hk]

Eh, if you really want to was intellectual on the subject, the wide adoption of gunpowder and the ease of access to early firearms was a social catalyst that democratized violence and had a good part in ending feudalism and serfdom across the world and bringing about the rise of modern democracy. As the popular phrase goes, "God made Men, but Samuel Colt made them all equal."

I'll take today and all it's craziness over the past any day of the week.

You neglect to mention the rise of the merchant middle class, and land holdings becoming less important in generating wealth.

 

[FFabian]

Apart from the whole child porn stuff: Dropbox apparently scans uploaded files! What we see here is a positive example/reason. But there are other reasons and purposes. What files are also scanned and for what content? We know that US IT companies are willful helpers of the US government and it's security apparatus. Another reason for non-US entities to avoid US based companies for data storage and handling.

 

[Pjerky]

Boskone[/url]":dzrs10d5]Note to dumbasses: don't underestimate old men. They tend to be veterans, and veterans tend to have a more predictable (and less passive) response to threats than run-of-the-mill civilians.

It seems like at least once a week I'm seeing a story about an elderly vet taking down a young man who theoretically held all the cards. I have to wonder how often "This isn't fair!" goes through the kids' minds.

Most of the modern generation of kids are giant pussies. They grew up with everyone being a winner, no losers, and being told they are all "special". They have rarely dealt with any hardships or hard work. They really have no grasp on reality.

Hell, in the last few years I have run into a few of these younger douchebags (I say younger, yet I am 32 so...) that live in their own little worlds. A few of them have tried to get aggressive with me or act like little assholes around me to impress their friends. Every single time all it took was either a stern glance, a snapped word, or me simply walking up to them with a "don't fuck with me" look and they back down immediately.

In my generation that would have at least provoked an eye-to-eye standoff with the opponent. If not a few thrown punches. And I guarantee you that my generation is no where near as tough and rugged as my grandfathers generation. I can't even imagine how tough and rugged my great great grandfather and his generation was.

 

[Hinton]

John Savard[/url]":2g2k8jxg]It was just luck that the right man was in the right place at the right time to prevent a horrible tragedy.

This should have been avoided in the simplest, most direct way: the suspect should never have been granted bail in the first place.

Removing bail for people accused of non-violent crimes seems kinda extreme. But then again, someone in USA must love the thought of everyone being in jail.

 

[Rommel102]

KGFish[/url]":2zs7b80o]

Rommel102[/url]":2zs7b80o]

s73v3r[/url]":2zs7b80o]

dermott[/url]":2zs7b80o]

sketchy9[/url]":2zs7b80o]1. Amazing that this vet remembered his training 50 years after the fact.
2. Imagine if this loser had had access to a firearm.

Counter-point: Imagine if the Mr. Vernon (the veteran in question) had had access to a firearm. Could have saved his arm a serious lot of trouble.

Either way, kudos to the gentleman. Not many people are willing to put themselves in the way of a knife for other folk. We need more people with his mindset.

The "good guy with a gun" counterpoint is almost never valid, because it almost never happens. Some of the last few campus shootings happened at schools where guns could be carried on campus, yet that didn't help anyone.

They actually happen often and effectively. You just rarely hear about them outside of the local paper.

As per the report on gun violence ordered by President Obama:

“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year … in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008,” says the report. The three million figure is probably high, “based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys.” But a much lower estimate of 108,000 also seems fishy, “because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.” Furthermore, “Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was 'used' by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

Quick: how did the survey distinguish between "shot an attacker who was about to shoot them" and "shot someone who looked like he/she was up to no good"?

There's a reason why self-reporting is not generally looked at as generating useful statistics.

You'd have to ask the CDC via the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council.

I do know that most defensive gun uses don't involve shooting at all, but rather the credible threat of force. I also think that if accidental shootings such as you describe were common that the anti-gun lobby would be all over it, giving it priority time in the national media cycle.

 

[Rommel102]

KGFish[/url]":2oaqkfw3]

Rommel102[/url]":2oaqkfw3]

Eh, if you really want to was intellectual on the subject, the wide adoption of gunpowder and the ease of access to early firearms was a social catalyst that democratized violence and had a good part in ending feudalism and serfdom across the world and bringing about the rise of modern democracy. As the popular phrase goes, "God made Men, but Samuel Colt made them all equal."

I'll take today and all it's craziness over the past any day of the week.

You neglect to mention the rise of the merchant middle class, and land holdings becoming less important in generating wealth.

I also neglected to mention the Black Death and any dozens of other factors, but hedged that by saying that guns had a "good part in ending".

 

[therealeffingaeiouy]

Given the linked article about previous arrests, the commonality of "bbs" for many of these sites makes me believe that the problem was not gone for twenty years but actually completely unfettered on dial up modem bbses where law enforcement was not active for half that time and more and the rest on a Wild West internet that law enforcement was way behind on the learning curve for a long time.

So while it is interesting law enforcement officials thought that child pornography was stamped out twenty years ago, I suspect from the early 80s until mid 2000s it is likely that it was flourishing with little impact by law enforcement.

Dial up modems were still the most frequent way to access the Internet through y2k and into the tech bubble crash. Which means dial up bbses were still easily accessible from the same set up as the Internet, a different reality from today.

I suspect there are probably still dial up modem bbses out there for all sorts of illicit activity as it seems to be completely off police radar at this point.

 

[fxds]

The change has been so dramatic that computers are now "a preferred method of distribution and receipt of child pornography materials."

The quoted portion is apparently attributed to Homeland Security agent Kelly McManus. Cops can't ever drop the bullshit, can they? Yes, I'm sure computers are now a preferred method of distributing child porn, just as they're a preferred method of distributing adult porn and a preferred method of distributing non-pornographic photos and videos. Child porn is bad enough. Most people have an extremely negative reaction to it. There's absolutely no need to engage in fear mongering.

Well, unless you're trying to influence public opinion of computers and the Internet in the hopes of justifying pervasive, intrusive surveillance.

 

[pjlahaie]

Hinton[/url]":38qysz29]
Removing bail for people accused of non-violent crimes seems kinda extreme. But then again, someone in USA must love the thought of everyone being in jail.

Some of us don't consider child pornopraphy a non-violent crime.

 

[KGFish]

Rommel102[/url]":zsqtdbtt]

KGFish[/url]":zsqtdbtt]

Rommel102[/url]":zsqtdbtt]

Eh, if you really want to was intellectual on the subject, the wide adoption of gunpowder and the ease of access to early firearms was a social catalyst that democratized violence and had a good part in ending feudalism and serfdom across the world and bringing about the rise of modern democracy. As the popular phrase goes, "God made Men, but Samuel Colt made them all equal."

I'll take today and all it's craziness over the past any day of the week.

You neglect to mention the rise of the merchant middle class, and land holdings becoming less important in generating wealth.

I also neglected to mention the Black Death and any dozens of other factors, but hedged that by saying that guns had a "good part in ending".

If anything, crossbows had a bigger impact than guns. You can hedge all you want, but personal guns had little to do with the end of feudalism and serfdom.

 

[Pjerky]

Iphtashu Fitz[/url]":39pof687]

simonov[/url]":39pof687]How is a PhotoDNA file of child porn any different, fundamentally, from, say, a JPEG file of the same image? Both are computer codes that could be used to display a prohibited image. Or does the one-way hash make it okay?

The same exact way the value b2650798dd5f07838ccd91af91b22db1 is different from this image:

That first value is the md5sum hash of the image. There's no way you can get the original image back from the hash, but it's easy to calculate the hash from the image.

PhotoDNA apparently creates a similar hash but it's not a hash of every individual byte in the image (as this md5sum one is). The PhotoDNA hash value will apparently be the same even if the image has been altered slightly by cropping, watermarking, etc.

One thing no one seems to be mentioning is that even after a hash is made someone still has to identify an image as child porn (**shudders and nearly vomits**). Unless they have come up with some automated system that can reliably do so without human interaction. I don't think this has been accomplished.

So with that in mind, I pray for the people that have to identify such images for the hash database to be successful. That must be a horrendous job that requires regular psychological help.

 

[Ralf The Dog]

PRMan[/url]":2zd4nxh6]

Iphtashu Fitz[/url]":2zd4nxh6]

simonov[/url]":2zd4nxh6]How is a PhotoDNA file of child porn any different, fundamentally, from, say, a JPEG file of the same image? Both are computer codes that could be used to display a prohibited image. Or does the one-way hash make it okay?

The same exact way the value b2650798dd5f07838ccd91af91b22db1 is different from this image:

That first value is the md5sum hash of the image. There's no way you can get the original image back from the hash, but it's easy to calculate the hash from the image.

PhotoDNA apparently creates a similar hash but it's not a hash of every individual byte in the image (as this md5sum one is). The PhotoDNA hash value will apparently be the same even if the image has been altered slightly by cropping, watermarking, etc.

It just cuts it up into little squares and if the hashes of the squares match a certain percentage, it flags it for human review.

The problem is, where to you cut the squares? It sounds trivial; In reality, not so much.

 

[AliceWonder]

ProfessorGuy[/url]":2l9lw7xl]I guess I'll get labelled as a monster, but let me point this out: Having these penalties so high and ruining a life so thoroughly that suicide (or murder/suicide) is the only acceptable outcome may be counterproductive.

People who look at child porn usually don't have rational minds.

I suspect he would have gone on that spree regardless of the penalties he was facing.

Google's monopoly strategy has a very direct impact on me, and when I have been in depression to the point where I thought about ending things, anger at Google most certainly has been present but it would never result in me taking "revenge" by killing a bunch of people associated with Google before I commit suicide because I am rational even when depressed enough to contemplate suicide.

The very fact that this perv wanted to kill people as part of his suicide plan indicates he was not rational, so you can't suggest that the penalties had anything to do with his plan.

Merely being caught and exposed for what he is very well may have been enough to want to end his life, and go out by expressing mis-placed raged against those he associated with the cause of depression / anxiety.

I'm glad he apparently didn't have access to a firearm.

 

[jonahs]

Boskone[/url]":18ekk0gv]Note to dumbasses: don't underestimate old men. They tend to be veterans, and veterans tend to have a more predictable (and less passive) response to threats than run-of-the-mill civilians.

It seems like at least once a week I'm seeing a story about an elderly vet taking down a young man who theoretically held all the cards. I have to wonder how often "This isn't fair!" goes through the kids' minds.

probably closer to 'omg hax' ? We need an emoji for black humor because some things are so awful you kind of have to laugh.

I think one thing we should credit the internet/computers/videos games for is that it probably leads idiots to get unwarranted sense of skill and abilities and that minimizes harm they do. In times past more people like that might have managed to sneak into joining the army or some other organization and get real world training and skills, instead they assume they can because they can use a knife or gun in FPS.

 

[bouncyfires]

This story exemplifies how little damage is typically done when the person intent on harming others doesn't have access to firearms.

 

[dadsfolk]

simonov[/url]":1enac0gx]

jdale[/url]":1enac0gx]

The change has been so dramatic that computers are now "a preferred method of distribution and receipt of child pornography materials."

This sentence sounds very dramatic, but I think it's fair to say computers are now "a preferred method of distribution and receipt" of many types of media. Certainly porn in general, but also for example music, probably newspapers and magazines, etc.

It also misses the fact that the Golden Age of Online Child Porn was 15 years ago, when Usenet was still active and open as the wild west. I reckon it's actually much harder to find child porn online today than it was in 2000 or so.

Maybe not. I suspect the government runs a significant number of honeypots.

 

[FireWraith]

Ralf The Dog[/url]":3bbd3o16]It is sad, these child pornographers are so incompetent in covering their tracks. I think we should help. If you are a child pornographer, the only safe encryption to us is Rot 13. Anything else, the NSA can target.

Note: Rot 13 is only useful in protecting child pornography and terrorists. It should never be used to protect legal content.

Better encrypt it with ROT13 twice, just to be safe.

 

[pjladyfox]

SixDegrees[/url]":3lpo6u2t]

pjladyfox[/url]":3lpo6u2t]

SixDegrees[/url]":3lpo6u2t]

ProfessorGuy[/url]":3lpo6u2t]I guess I'll get labelled as a monster, but let me point this out: Having these penalties so high and ruining a life so thoroughly that suicide (or murder/suicide) is the only acceptable outcome may be counterproductive.

If we were talking about drug use or other crimes, I might agree. But child porn directly harms children. And that harm is not a secret. I have very few problems with long sentences for this particular crime, particularly in light of the fact that there is simply no effective treatment for such problems.

Using that same logic why not just institute the death penalty for them? If they are so beyond hope, beyond help, then why not? Now before you answer this do recall that, currently, we have a "one size fits all" approach to this particular charge that is catching many teenagers texting images of themselves around to their boyfriend/girlfriend.

Now don't get me wrong here I'm not excusing what this person did at all nor do I have a good answer for what a better solution would be. All I can say is that what we are doing now is not working as well as some here think or we would be seeing less of these instead of more.

I'm not at all a fan of the death penalty. Not that it isn't deserved, perhaps, in some cases. But because of our abyssal record when it comes to applying it. At least a long, even indefinite, prison sentence can be reversed should a conviction turn out to be wrong.

As for this approach not working, it keeps these people off the streets and away from other victims, so it works at that level. And currently, there is no effective alternative, such as medical treatment, that can address problems like this.

But that's actually my point it doesn't. We do not have, as far as I know, a lifetime sentence for this particular offense. Last I checked it was a few years and a fine per offense which does NOT "keep these people off the streets". Now, of course, our WONDERFUL (insert sarcasm here) DA's can decide to lay on say x number of charges per picture which would stack and increase the time in jail/prison. But, at some point, if they are well behaved and did not commit any additional crimes for said offense (read: kidnapping, injury, etc) these people will be eligible for parole.

So after spending 20-something years in a system, that many her advocate should include rape and assault, this person will now have ZERO means to obtain employment to pay off their fines. Oh, tracking them after their release? Guess what, if said person can't work they are now HOMELESS. This means that said person, as long as they are under parole, will have to check in with said person every 30 days. Meantime, this person is left to their own devices to wander the streets unsupervised. Guess what happens when you turn loose someone like this? It's a proven fact that without any kind of support, which is incredibly difficult burden for said persons since "ewww! you know one of THEM?!" puts them in a rather no-win situation, they WILL re-offend

So, again, where does any of this address this address the problem? You've already claimed they're beyond help but short of them hurting someone they will get released eventually. And that's where the biggest flaw in our "justice" system is; it's all about the punishment but zero about what comes afterwards.

So instead we have created this situation where we're always "surprised" when these people re-offend and wonder how that could happened. The answer really is for society as a whole to look in a mirror. We have created these people who become habitual criminals because we don't give them any other option but to do so. And the few lucky ones who manage to avoid this fate? They're the ones with the financial/emotional/medical support that allow them to fight thru everything in order to try and rebuild some sembelance of life for themselves.

The lie of "paying your debt to society" is an illusion we as a society blind ourselves by when the reality is that we're the ones who have set into motion this endless cycle of crime and abuse both to us and to the ones we feed into the justice system.

 

[strykerakamack]

sketchy9[/url]":1pfy8bec]1. Amazing that this vet remembered his training 50 years after the fact.
2. Imagine if this loser had had access to a firearm.

A Brave Man who would not have been able to protect himself or those
around him due to the fact that the library was a gun free zone .
A 75 year old who has more balls than all the anti gunners combined
A truly brave man to run towards danger instead of away like most of the nanny state raised today.

 

[Flaming Sasquatch]

John Savard[/url]":3ejoodcv]It was just luck that the right man was in the right place at the right time to prevent a horrible tragedy.

This should have been avoided in the simplest, most direct way: the suspect should never have been granted bail in the first place.

pjladyfox[/url]":3ejoodcv]Now don't get me wrong here I'm not excusing what this person did at all nor do I have a good answer for what a better solution would be. All I can say is that what we are doing now is not working as well as some here think or we would be seeing less of these instead of more.

I don't think that a rehabilitative approach, rather than a punitive one, would work better.

But I do know something that would work; however, the reasons why we don't do it are obvious as well.

Sterilize everyone, or at least all members of one sex, at birth, in some way that is reversible - or, more specifically, that allows for reproduction with medical assistance.

Those people who are selected, after a careful screening process, to have children will live in special residences; their access to their children, however, will never, for a moment, be unsupervised. No one adult is trusted with a child, the same way no one soldier is trusted with the firing of a nuclear-armed ICBM.

This would also solve the overpopulation problem as well as the problem of harm being done to vulnerable children by predatory adults. But it would facilitate, for example, a totalitarian government ensuring that all children are indoctrinated with its ideology.

Wow. Totalitarian socialist eugenics. This may be a first for Ars. A bad first, but a first nevertheless.