7 ms·

I always find it odd that people often tend to focus on pedophiles "getting off" rather than pedophiles hurting children. If we really want to protect children,

I always find it odd that people often tend to focus on pedophiles "getting off" rather than pedophiles hurting children. If we really want to protect children, we'd do well to find harmless ways for pedophiles to get off. It's pretty well established that giving people benign sexual outlets is an effective way to prevent them from seeking harmful ones. I mean, yeah, don't run a TOR exit node because of the legal risk - that makes sense. Or because you're afraid it makes it easier to hurt kids... well, I don't know if it really does, but at least your heart is in the right place. But what business is it of anyone else who gets off?

rprasad 14y ago
I say this as someone who has been in the unfortunate position of defending a pedophile in court, please stop defending child pornography and pedophiles. Child pornagraphy is not an abstract concept. Child pornography isn't outlawed simply because it's obscene. Child pornography is outlawed because it is depraved, frequently violent imagery or videos of real children actually being violated. This is not speech. This is one of the most horrific, most sadistic acts that a human being is capable of perpetuating against another. It is worse than murder; these victims usually survive what happens to them. (There are a few situations where images are faked, i.e., by photoshopping children's faces on adult bodies, but this represents a drop in the bucket.) This idiot was dumb enough to run a anonymizing network that he knew could be involved in illegal activities. He ran several nodes despite this, knowing and accepting that the Tor network would shield the identities (for the most part) of the actual criminals using his systems as through-ways, leaving behind his IP address as the sole traceable link. Will he be convicted of possessing and/or distributing child pornography? Probably not. Tor is not as anonymous as people think it is; an FBI forensics team will probably be able to track down the real criminal. In such case, this idiot will probably be off the hook. But if they are unsuccessful in backtracing to the real criminal, he will be the sacrificial lamb offered up by the prosecutors for this crime. His conviction (and trust me, there will be a conviction if this goes to trial) will serve as a warning to others: if you want to use Tor, make damn well sure you aren't a pass-through for child porn.
- theon144 14y ago
  How do you suppose one should make sure the exit node you run won't be used for sharing of child porn? And how is he automatically an idiot for running a TOR exit node? All node operators run them knowing they could be used for illegal activities, and that it could bring them some legal trouble.
- mistercow 14y ago
  > please stop defending child pornography and pedophiles. Please reread my comment and tell me where I defended either of those things. You seem to be saying that you're a lawyer. I'd have thought that line of work would require a modicum of reading comprehension skills. >It is worse than murder; these victims usually survive what happens to them. Oh for fuck's sake. Do you know how incredibly demeaning and psychologically harmful it is to victims to tell them that they'd be better off dead? >This idiot was dumb enough to run a anonymizing network that he knew could be involved in illegal activities. He ran several nodes despite this, knowing and accepting that the Tor network would shield the identities (for the most part) of the actual criminals using his systems as through-ways, leaving behind his IP address as the sole traceable link. Yes, because there are obviously no legitimate and noble reasons to have anonymizing networks. >if you want to use Tor, make damn well sure you aren't a pass-through for child porn I'm not sure you understand how Tor works.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  I'm calling bullshit on you being a lawyer. Someone is an idiot for running Tor, one of the last hopes for long term free speech on the internet? I guess you must think the founding fathers were pretty fucking stupid too, since the broke the law as well, eh?
dreoe 14y ago
Fun fact: People care more about hurting paedophiles than they do about protecting children. It's why communities rally around protesting against sex offender treatment centres or cheer about prison rape like more sexual abuse somehow won't make offenders more deviant.
- roryokane 14y ago
  More precisely, people care most about signalling to others that they want to hurt pedophiles. People’s next highest priority is probably protecting children, and actually hurting pedophiles is lowest.
ahelwer 14y ago
Are you seriously defending child pornography right now? First off, the "harmless outlet" concept is absolutely not "well established." Pedophilia is a paraphilia. The desire grows as it is fed. Furthermore, the reason you hear of child porn rings is because those are what form - people share it with each other in a tit-for-tat sort of way. It absolutely incentivizes the production of more, which means more abused kids. God damnit HN, I should have known a thread on a Tor node being shut down would bring out all the child porn apologists. Funny how that happens, eh?
- aes256 14y ago
  > Furthermore, the reason you hear of child porn rings is because those are what form - people share it with each other in a tit-for-tat sort of way. It absolutely incentivizes the production of more, which means more abused kids. I'd imagine it's like any other prohibited material or substance; drugs, counterfeit goods, pirated works, etc. Of those implicated, a small minority are involved in production, while the vast majority are simply consumers. I assume you are willing to at least acknowledge the existence of the latter group; people who simply consume child pornography and play no part in the production, or any sexual abuse of children for that matter. Do you really think it is appropriate to ruin these peoples' lives — splash their names across the newspapers, lock them in jail, destroy their career, their relationships, make them a social pariah — for mere possession of child pornography? For having a certain sequence of 0s and 1s on their computer?
  - drzaiusapelord 14y ago
    >and play no part in the production, or any sexual abuse of children for that matter. Their demand of it CAUSES IT TO BE MADE. Jesus, I've never seen so much bending overbackwards over CP. Hey guys, we still have the first amendment and SCOTUS always rule sensibly on speech issues. No one is going to start a police state over CP enforcement. The slippery slope doesn't always happen, in fact, its rare that it does.
    - aes256 14y ago
      I don't view CP as a free speech issue, I just think its prohibition is an arbitrary, puritan social construct. Same applies to indecent exposure laws, I guess. At what point did we decide the human form is indecent in its unclothed state, and people should be deprived of their freedom for exposing their natural form in public? At what point did we decide people should be deprived of their freedom simply for looking at images of children in their natural, unclothed state?

rprasad 14y ago

I say this as someone who has been in the unfortunate position of defending a pedophile in court, please stop defending child pornography and pedophiles. Child pornagraphy is not an abstract concept. Child pornography isn't outlawed simply because it's obscene. Child pornography is outlawed because it is depraved, frequently violent imagery or videos of real children actually being violated. This is not speech. This is one of the most horrific, most sadistic acts that a human being is capable of perpetuating against another. It is worse than murder; these victims usually survive what happens to them. (There are a few situations where images are faked, i.e., by photoshopping children's faces on adult bodies, but this represents a drop in the bucket.) This idiot was dumb enough to run a anonymizing network that he knew could be involved in illegal activities. He ran several nodes despite this, knowing and accepting that the Tor network would shield the identities (for the most part) of the actual criminals using his systems as through-ways, leaving behind his IP address as the sole traceable link. Will he be convicted of possessing and/or distributing child pornography? Probably not. Tor is not as anonymous as people think it is; an FBI forensics team will probably be able to track down the real criminal. In such case, this idiot will probably be off the hook. But if they are unsuccessful in backtracing to the real criminal, he will be the sacrificial lamb offered up by the prosecutors for this crime. His conviction (and trust me, there will be a conviction if this goes to trial) will serve as a warning to others: if you want to use Tor, make damn well sure you aren't a pass-through for child porn.

theon144 14y ago
How do you suppose one should make sure the exit node you run won't be used for sharing of child porn? And how is he automatically an idiot for running a TOR exit node? All node operators run them knowing they could be used for illegal activities, and that it could bring them some legal trouble.
mistercow 14y ago
> please stop defending child pornography and pedophiles. Please reread my comment and tell me where I defended either of those things. You seem to be saying that you're a lawyer. I'd have thought that line of work would require a modicum of reading comprehension skills. >It is worse than murder; these victims usually survive what happens to them. Oh for fuck's sake. Do you know how incredibly demeaning and psychologically harmful it is to victims to tell them that they'd be better off dead? >This idiot was dumb enough to run a anonymizing network that he knew could be involved in illegal activities. He ran several nodes despite this, knowing and accepting that the Tor network would shield the identities (for the most part) of the actual criminals using his systems as through-ways, leaving behind his IP address as the sole traceable link. Yes, because there are obviously no legitimate and noble reasons to have anonymizing networks. >if you want to use Tor, make damn well sure you aren't a pass-through for child porn I'm not sure you understand how Tor works.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
flyinRyan 14y ago
I'm calling bullshit on you being a lawyer. Someone is an idiot for running Tor, one of the last hopes for long term free speech on the internet? I guess you must think the founding fathers were pretty fucking stupid too, since the broke the law as well, eh?

dreoe 14y ago

Fun fact: People care more about hurting paedophiles than they do about protecting children. It's why communities rally around protesting against sex offender treatment centres or cheer about prison rape like more sexual abuse somehow won't make offenders more deviant.

roryokane 14y ago
More precisely, people care most about signalling to others that they want to hurt pedophiles. People’s next highest priority is probably protecting children, and actually hurting pedophiles is lowest.

ahelwer 14y ago

Are you seriously defending child pornography right now? First off, the "harmless outlet" concept is absolutely not "well established." Pedophilia is a paraphilia. The desire grows as it is fed. Furthermore, the reason you hear of child porn rings is because those are what form - people share it with each other in a tit-for-tat sort of way. It absolutely incentivizes the production of more, which means more abused kids. God damnit HN, I should have known a thread on a Tor node being shut down would bring out all the child porn apologists. Funny how that happens, eh?

aes256 14y ago
> Furthermore, the reason you hear of child porn rings is because those are what form - people share it with each other in a tit-for-tat sort of way. It absolutely incentivizes the production of more, which means more abused kids. I'd imagine it's like any other prohibited material or substance; drugs, counterfeit goods, pirated works, etc. Of those implicated, a small minority are involved in production, while the vast majority are simply consumers. I assume you are willing to at least acknowledge the existence of the latter group; people who simply consume child pornography and play no part in the production, or any sexual abuse of children for that matter. Do you really think it is appropriate to ruin these peoples' lives — splash their names across the newspapers, lock them in jail, destroy their career, their relationships, make them a social pariah — for mere possession of child pornography? For having a certain sequence of 0s and 1s on their computer?
- drzaiusapelord 14y ago
  >and play no part in the production, or any sexual abuse of children for that matter. Their demand of it CAUSES IT TO BE MADE. Jesus, I've never seen so much bending overbackwards over CP. Hey guys, we still have the first amendment and SCOTUS always rule sensibly on speech issues. No one is going to start a police state over CP enforcement. The slippery slope doesn't always happen, in fact, its rare that it does.
  - aes256 14y ago
    I don't view CP as a free speech issue, I just think its prohibition is an arbitrary, puritan social construct. Same applies to indecent exposure laws, I guess. At what point did we decide the human form is indecent in its unclothed state, and people should be deprived of their freedom for exposing their natural form in public? At what point did we decide people should be deprived of their freedom simply for looking at images of children in their natural, unclothed state?