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Child sexual abuse material could be going undetected because of ‘false reports’
- rpiguy 6y agoOne would hope it was closer to 100%
- codezero 6y agoI’m not sure I understand. Are you saying it would be better if there were no child abuse, so any report would be false? I’m not sure how that is productive in the context of this post, given that there is child abuse.
- microcolonel 6y agoAs horrible and cynical as this is, I feel like they probably should not publish this. I think there are more people who would abuse this information, than who could do anything about it.
- saagarjha 6y agoWhat kinds of abuse do you think this opens up? That DOSing the people handling this work?
- sgillen 6y agoI guess the perceived problem is using this fact to dismiss serious requests, or as defense in court of real criminals.
- microcolonel 6y agoYes, that is exactly what I'm talking about. Sadistic or Machiavellian people with an interest in it may get the idea that they can send false, marginal, or expired reports to waste their time; and equally I feel like this kind of writing is less likely to be read by people considering making a genuine report.
- codezero 6y agoMaybe that’s the point... Maybe they have some information indicating that false reports originate largely from actual criminals. So this article will bring more out of the woodwork. Perhaps they let their guard down and submit without hiding their identity, to look more legit, and this is how they bait them. It’d be a great honey pot.
- Zenst 6y ago‘false reports’ - what percentage of those are malicious is a question they should be asking themselves. False claims like that are bad as in such crimes, the mentality is guilty until proven innocent in the eyes of the public at large.
- Waterluvian 6y agoChild pornography accusations are often a bell you cannot unring. There is often no “proven innocent” step.
- DanBC 6y agoSomeone making 8300 reports over six months is making 43 reports per day. You don't stumble upon that many images of child sexual abuse in normal web browsing.
- buisi 6y agoIt is either wholly fraudulent or a vigilante. The law does not discriminate between someone pursuing images for their own usage or to report them. If it did, every criminal would be able to use reporting them as a defense in court and look at them for decades. Possession / viewing / downloading is illegal because it is very difficult to get probable cause for distribution. Some of them encourage distributors as-well. If viewing was legal and it led to more reports and content being taken down, that would be positive but it could go the other way with it being harder to pursue.
- coderintherye 6y agoSeems some simple filters on their reporting tools could help them more easily deal with inaccurate reports. They note: "Do report only once for each web address – or URL. Repeat reporting of the same URL isn’t needed and wastes analysts’ time." Well, surely they could implement a filter to only allow reporting the same URL once. Further they note: "non-criminal adult material from pornographic websites" Surely, there could a be a whitelist for major legitimate porn sites with an automated response that those sites are legitimate businesses not hosting illegal material.
- asfginmionio 6y ago>Surely, there could a be a whitelist for major legitimate porn sites with an automated response that those sites are legitimate businesses not hosting illegal material. Pornhub is currently in hot water over allegations that they have been negligent in keeping child porn off the site. I don't know whether or not those allegations have merit, but it is certainly the case that child porn crops up on mainstream sites from time to time. Here's one relevant article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-51391981 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-51391981
- timwells3 6y agoWhile that article references an incident from 10+ years ago, agreed, CSAM can be on any website with UGC. I’m sure a large amount of false reports is from legal adult performers that appear to look young though.
- curryst 6y ago> Surely, there could a be a whitelist for major legitimate porn sites with an automated response that those sites are legitimate businesses not hosting illegal material. That probably only works for sites that are run by producers. They're already required to keep extensive documentation of the actors' ages. The content is also curated (i.e. it is only their own catalog). That doesn't work for the YouTube style sites where videos are uploaded by random people, with (I'm guessing) no verification of age. As an aside, I am curious how much of the CP they can actually check just from a URL. I know nothing of the practice, but I would have assumed most of it was locked behind private forums or the like where you need a username and password to actually see anything. Maybe CP opsec is just much worse than I imagined
- lilboiluvr69 6y agoHe said: “If they are caught actively searching for this, they will have no more of a defence than someone that’s doing it because they want to find it for their own gratification. It is not a defence in court going looking for this.” I wonder, with the rise of deep fakes and CGI, why a company hasn't come up with a business model offering professional rendered synthetic child pornography. It seems to me that there would be demand for it, and if an ethically un-encumbered product is indistinguishable from the real thing, much of the demand of child sexual abuse imagery would evaporate.
- getoffmyawn 6y ago> I wonder, with the rise of deep fakes and CGI, why a company hasn't come up with a business model offering professional rendered synthetic child pornography. It seems to me that there would be demand for it, and if an ethically un-encumbered product is indistinguishable from the real thing, much of the demand of child sexual abuse imagery would evaporate. I suppose law enforcement could use it in sting operations. but if it proliferates wouldn't it still be illegal otherwise? seems legally and morally fishy to me.
- briandear 6y agoEven animated child porn is illegal because the theory goes, it drives demand for the real thing. Someone who flies flight simulators eventually would welcome the chance in a real airplane. Besides, getting off on children sexually is beyond reprehensible. If we are to have any laws at all, I vote for the one that doesn’t encourage or support exploiting children, real or otherwise.
- risho 6y ago>Even animated child porn is illegal because the theory goes, it drives demand for the real thing. Someone who flies flight simulators eventually would welcome the chance in a real airplane. And people who play Grand Theft Auto inevitably go out and run over hookers with their car or seek out videos where such things happen in real life. Oh wait...
- fortran77 6y agoWhy are volunteer, non LE groups doing this in the first place? And how do they screen their "volunteers"? And how do these people get dispensation to view illegal pornography? The whole thing smells rotten to me.
- maxk42 6y agoI tried calling the FBI to report an uploader on one of my sites who had posted child porn. They wouldn't take the info and instead directed me to NCMEC - a volunteer non-LE corporation. I don't know why this is standard practice in the US but it rubbed me the wrong way. LE should be taking the lead on this.
- briandear 6y agoNCMEC works with law enforcement once they determine that a crime has likely been committed. NCMEC is an excellent org and such public-nonprofit partnerships help free up LE agencies to pursue arrests and prosecutions. The sheer volume of reporting would overwhelm most agencies. They’ll wait until they have more concrete leads before getting involved.
- maxk42 6y agoWell that's just it: I had IP addresses and public posts from the perpetrators and NCMEC never called me back.
- jacobwg 6y agoYou may have already found this link, but in case you didn't or anyone else reading is interested, you should send in an online report to CyberTip (https://report.cybertip.org/ https://report.cybertip.org/), which is the legally-mandated reporting website if you encounter child porn / abuse material. Reports sent there pass through NCMEC and are eventually forwarded on to law enforcement.
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- asfginmionio 6y agoFrom their website (https://report.iwf.org.uk/en/report https://report.iwf.org.uk/en/report): >We take reports on UK-hosted non-photographic images of child sexual abuse, such as computer-generated images. The images we can take action on must be of children, pornographic, grossly offensive, and focus on a child's genitals or depict sexual activity involving or in the presence of a child. More detail here: https://www.iwf.org.uk/what-we-do/how-we-assess-and-remove-content/laws-and-assessment-levels/laws-for-non-photographic-0 https://www.iwf.org.uk/what-we-do/how-we-assess-and-remove-c... It's rich to complain about people wasting time that could be spent on "real abuse imagery" when this organization is also going after cartoons. Maybe they should sort that out first? Also, the HN title is inaccurate. The article claims these reports are mistaken, but does not say they are fraudulent. In fact, I do not see fraudulent reports mentioned in the article at all.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Sebguer 6y agoThe fact that you made a throwaway to post this is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
- squarefoot 6y agoThere's a potential good use for fake images. Virtual, or well photoshopped, images could be used to lure dealers into distribution, so that a known trace can be followed, hopefully helping to bust them.
- squarefoot 6y agoWhile I've learned to not give a shit about being downvoted, since it happens more and more often out of personal taste than objective thinking, still It just amazes me how some users hit the button without even thinking why they are doing it. Creating fake illegal things has been done in the past with the purpose of analyzing their path through the so called black markets in order to discover where they travel to go from point A to point B. So, why doing the same with fake child porn images should sound so weird? I mean, they're fake, it's not like someone is being harmed in the name of justice, but simply the authorities could pose as creators and attempt to get in contact with the distributors and bust them.
- tyingq 6y agoSeems expected, since there is a fixed line for the age, varying by jurisdiction. People want to do the right thing, so false accusations seem normal.
- handedness 6y agoIf the blotters of our local PDs are any kind of guide, I'm wondering if there's any crime that's reported with an accuracy rate higher than 25%.
- brian-bk 6y agoThat's what I thought too, 25% accuracy for public reports? That's crazy high! They just don't want to hire more people or improve their process.
- antibland 6y agoWhy is this submission[0] flagged, yet this is not? Because of the word "black"? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23950661 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23950661
- throwaw4y-plate 6y agoImagine bikeshedding TFA with an argument over "Uber, but for deepfake child pornography."
- iso1210 6y agoIWF, the shady company that has near 100% control over the UK internet and blocked wikipedia?
- hubbabubbarex 6y agoAll paedophiles are happy of our government and police corruption. Crime pays obviously