When I was in middle school and the internet was still fairly new (we had just gotten it) a classmate of mine hatched a terrible plan to get rid of a teacher he hated. He waited until the teacher was out sick one day then during the substitute's typical teaching pattern of having us "read these 3 chapters, answer questions then keep your head down until class is over" he jumped on the teacher's computer. After reassuring the substitute that he was allowed to he tried desperately to find child porn. His plan was to save it into semi hidden folders onto the computer then later on turn the teacher in for having child porn.
Fortunately this classmate wasn't able to find any and eventually gave up. But I've always remembered his plan. It's terrifyingly believable that if someone managed to get into your computer and download child porn, there is likely little recourse or way to prove you did not do it.
Because think of the children.
Possession and distribution of child pornography is perfectly legal if you're the FBI though.
Each video frame is a separate charge...
We have sleepwalked into being a police state and barely anyone seems to care.
Police have also started trawling Reddit to look for thought crimes. [1]
[0] http://m.theregister.co.uk/2014/08/05/whatsapp_smut_convicti...
[1] https://m.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/53y1wi/a_reddi...
"<...> police stopped them for unrelated matters and discovered the shock images upon inspecting their mobile phones"
What?? So police in UK can now ask to inspect inside your phone without any warrant or even reason?
1. They weren't convicted of any crime.
2. The person was charged because he racially slandered someone. Not because of a thought crime.
What kind of court routinely convicts people who didn't actually do the crime?
A few years ago when I worked in computer forensics there was this big myth that if you went on porn websites and one of the images was underage you'd get done for it. However intent is a big part of law and so there would always have to be something along with "just an image" showing some intent to have obtained and viewed it.
Yes. In such a case, a presumption of innocence would be true in theory but of no value at all in practice. Such an attack could even be carried out remotely -- an attacker could compromise a machine remotely, then plant incriminating evidence on the compromised machine (i.e. child porn, terrorist literature, drug-dealing evidence, etc.), then alert the authorities.
This plausible scenario is another reason to vigorously protect one's computer against external attacks.
You're likely familiar with this concept in the context of speeding tickets. All that needs to be proven is that you were, in fact, speeding. It doesn't matter if you could not have been aware of your violation due to, say, a speed-limit sign that was blown away by a storm. If you were provably doing 55 in a 45 zone, you have no recourse.
The argument for absolute liability with speeding violations is purely practical, I believe. The reasoning is that it's not a crime, per se, so the trade-off of individual protection vs expediency of trials is deemed worthwhile. Clearly, the same is not true of child pornography convictions.
Actually, that's "strict liability".
> All that needs to be proven is that you were, in fact, speeding. It doesn't matter if you could not have been aware of your violation due to, say, a speed-limit sign that was blown away by a storm.
That probably does matter, since exceeding the speed limit properly posted is usually the actus reus of speeding, so even to the extent it is a strict liability offense, the absence of proper signage for any reason (except when the speed limit is either the states maximum highway speed limit or a default limit for some other condition which does not require signage, in which case notice is provided by the law setting the default for the conditions, and the sign is a reminder) makes it so that no offense occurred. [0]
[0] Also, given that states do generally have default speed limits that apply in the absence of signage, one could easily argue that the absence of signage is itself a positive indication that the default speed limit applies, making available a U.S. v. Kantor-style "good faith" defense even under strict-liability principles. [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_liability_(criminal)#Un...
Dropbox (and all other "cloud storage" providers) actively scan for CP material and will turn you in to the police automatically.
The thing about this stuff that's really alarming is that any random script kiddie could also do this by coaxing your machine into downloading something. That greatly increases the surface area of people who can screw you. Given the abysmally awful security profile of a lot of consumer software and devices this is very plausible.
Real-life sexual offences, as in actually attacking a child, is strict liability.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1978/37
> 1 Indecent photographs of children.
> (1)[F1Subject to sections 1A and 1B,] it is an offence for a person—
> (a)to take, or permit to be taken [F2or to make], any indecent photograph [F2or pseudo-photograph] of a child F3. . .; or
> (b)to distribute or show such indecent photographs [F4or pseudo-photographs]; or
> (c)to have in his possession such indecent photographs [F4or pseudo-photographs], with a view to their being distributed or shown by himself or others; or
> (d)to publish or cause to be published any advertisement likely to be understood as conveying that the advertiser distributes or shows such indecent photographs [F4or pseudo-photographs], or intends to do so.
[...]
> 4)Where a person is charged with an offence under subsection (1)(b) or (c), it shall be a defence for him to prove—
> (a)that he had a legitimate reason for distributing or showing the photographs [F6or pseudo-photographs] or (as the case may be) having them in his possession; or
> (b)that he had not himself seen the photographs [F6or pseudo-photographs] and did not know, nor had any cause to suspect, them to be indecent.
There are some amendments in the Sexual Offences Act 2003, but I don't think they turn it into a strict liability offence.
And what if the teacher was not on leave or sick, but just in the school's cafeteria, or briefly in another class, etc?
Good luck proving anything with the dates, especially after several months, where nobody remembers who was where at that random day in the past.
Are there any cameras in the school that might have captured his visit to the cafeteria? Review the footage.
How did he pay for his food? Did that create a record that can establish a time and location?
Are there any witnesses who saw the kid sit down at the computer? Like the substitute teacher, for instance?
None of this is unique to child porn cases. Establishing or disputing time and location is basic trial strategy. All a defendant has to do is create reasonable doubt, not conclusively prove innocence.
And they'd remember they saw him after 6 months, and even more so that they saw him leave in 15:20 instead of 15:10, because?
>None of this is unique to child porn cases.
No, but all this make "I didn't change them because filestamps in file are in an hour I wasn't there" difficult.
Heck, the teacher himself will probably not remember where he was at the time the timestamps show...
Once an accusation of child pornography (creation or possession) is put out there if any of it gets exposed to the public by the way of the media (and it will) that person's life is seriously ruined even without prison time.
The problem seems to get worse, too and I certainly don't have any good ideas regarding it. Except maybe re-tooling a new search engine that somehow can take context / validity into account but that's exceptionally difficult to do. And even then if someone gets their news or information from any other source you're still screwed.
