Let's blame Google and ISPs for others' crimes

j0nathon2

I want to vent about this because it's getting quite frankly ridiculous.

Google offer a search engine service that lets us find what, in the majority, OTHERS have put online.

ISPs offer a service that lets us browse what, in the majority, OTHERS have put online.

Yet again in the news today, I see the onus on stopping child abuse online has been shifted to ISPs and search engines.

And also again in the news recently, ISPs, or the largest of, are being told they must block piracy sites.

Why are they solving the symptom and not the problem. The things they were talking on about TV were ridiculous, banning terms from search engines, or warning you that you will lose your job if you proceed. This is stupid if they really think people consuming this content just type "the obvious" stuff in to google.

Perhaps if they gave offenders more than half of a few number of months for their crimes, more people would be deterred. Perhaps if the social services kept up with the families they know are at risk, more children would be saved. Perhaps if the police followed leads from the public, more crimes would be stopped. But perhaps this costs too much money.

When it comes to piracy, the law is there to help the victims (the companies) claim their losses, since when should the law and the government be able to force ISPs to start banning websites, and where does this end, do we start banning the BNP website, what about the UKIP if it scores more votes, how about the Lib Dems...

A second point on piracy is that if content wasn't so stupidly expensive in the first place people might pay. Want to watch all premier league games, well that's two sets of outgoings? Want to play the latest game on two machines or two friends want to read the same e-book, well that will be two licence keys. Want to download the latest album instead of buying the CD, well that will be twice as much!

peter_the_piper

Getting Google/Isp is surely the easiest way of reducing the number of visits to these sites. You won't stop the inveterate pae***ile as they know the sites anyway but could stop random browsers.

Jennifer_Jane

It's not the be-all or end-all obviously. But at least it's something. If this is the easiest, quickest option then let's get on with it. It's something that doesn't need to go through the interminable Parliamentary process, so let's get it done.

I'm so glad that someone seems to be doing something about this which should have been tackled years ago. I wouldn't criticise any action whatsoever to deter or diminish this behaviour.

Although it seems like a mild action and certainly will not stop these vile crimes, if it puts off some people that will help lower the demand. I hope that more stringent action will be put into place. They need to look at Skype too.

It's both heartbreaking and sickening what apparently goes on.

j0nathon2

That assumes you can just go to Google and search for that type of content, and I am doubting it's true. Google already remove imagery and piracy content when asked too.

It just seems like the government are trying to hide the real problem by blaming somebody else; I also fear they're putting the groundwork in place so that in future they can ban anything, so while today they ban the word "sex", for example, next year it's "sharia" and the year after its "democracy" etc.

I have no problem asking or forcing the ISPs to do as much as possible, but I think they already are - nobody but the criminals themselves are turning a blind eye I hope.

They need to start looking at the sentencing, the criminals and social services. 22 weeks for holding images of children is too short, and likely only 11 would be served. 22 months isn't enough. And I am not saying social services are ignoring the problem, but their budgets are probably insufficient to do everything they would like.

Azari

peter_the_piper wrote: »

Getting Google/Isp is surely the easiest way of reducing the number of visits to these sites. You won't stop the inveterate pae***ile as they know the sites anyway but could stop random browsers.

Nobody (apart from pædohiles) objects to getting ISP's to ban child abuse sites. And the ISP's are perfectly happy to do that. (Research 'Internet Watch Foundation').

The objection is to idiot politicians who haven't got a clue what they are talking about telling Google and others to block search terms that lead people to child abuse sites.

If it were that easy, they would.

But, surprise, surprise, the people who run these sites don't make it obvious by giving them names that are easily blocked.

You can stop people going to a goat !!!!!! site by banning the search term 'goat !!!!!!', but how do you block them from going to a site called 'unspeakable things of a sexual nature with ruminants'?

Ignorant idiots like Camerloon can threaten legislation but they will get a nasty surprise when they ask some one to draft a bill and are made aware of a few of the basic realities of semantics as applied to the internet.

The only sensible way to stop child abuse sites is not some 'quick fix' of passing the buck from government to someone else. It needs properly funded research that gets law enforcement finding the sites quicker then the pædophiles and getting them blocked, together with reciprocal arrangements with every other jurisdiction to ensure that there is no hiding place for those that run them.

j0nathon2

Nobody (apart from pædohiles) objects to getting ISP's to ban child abuse sites. And the ISP's are perfectly happy to do that. (Research 'Internet Watch Foundation').

I am sure many remember the news stories a few years ago about the Wikipedia story with a CD cover image that got the Wikipedia page banned, as the IWF identified the image as not suitable. Although in this example it was a bit too far, it did show that procedures are in place and working - from identifying and blocking an image, to following it through and making a sensible decision.

Azari wrote: »

You can stop people going to a goat !!!!!! site by banning the search term 'goat !!!!!!', but how do you block them from going to a site called 'unspeakable things of a sexual nature with ruminants'?

Exactly. And what about people who want to learn "How to tell sex of baby goats" are they going to be told they're losing their job and an investigation kicked off on them?

The woman I saw on TV was just on another planet, and if this is the intelligence of those put in charge of protecting people, then here is the first problem to solve

robatwork

I get annoyed with lazy journalism about this too. This morning the reporter on BBC 5 live said if child abuse images were found then "google would take them down".

Of course google can remove the results but can't actually take them down unless they host them, which is unlikely.

It seems when a technology story comes up, as long as the reports are close enough, it's good enough.

Ronaldo_Mconaldo

Perhaps if they gave offenders more than half of a few number of months for their crimes, more people would be deterred. Perhaps if the social services kept up with the families they know are at risk, more children would be saved. Perhaps if the police followed leads from the public, more crimes would be stopped. But perhaps this costs too much money.

What's this? So the British police are responsible for detecting and preventing crimes all over the world? Would you expect Social Services to get involved in the prevention of a baby being raped in some East Asian country? How much money do you think this country has?

If they stop people viewing images of crimes and crime scenes in this country then that reduces the number of people who get off on it in this country. Which makes this country slightly safer. Getting onto the mega Billionaire search engines and telling them to stop it is the way to go along with the other measures in place. If Google really wanted to they could stop child !!!!!! on the internet over night, I have no doubt.

jacques_chirac

peter_the_piper wrote: »

Getting Google/Isp is surely the easiest way of reducing the number of visits to these sites. You won't stop the inveterate pae***ile as they know the sites anyway but could stop random browsers.

I find it difficult to believe there is such a thing as a 'random browser' in this context. If you search for child !!!!!! you are a !!!!!phile, full stop.

j0nathon2

Ronaldo_Mconaldo wrote: »

What's this? So the British police are responsible for detecting and preventing crimes all over the world? Would you expect Social Services to get involved in the prevention of a baby being raped in some East Asian country? How much money do you think this country has?

No, they're not.

But they ARE responsible for all this at home, and they're not doing a good job of sorting it.

If they stop people viewing images of crimes and crime scenes in this country then that reduces the number of people who get off on it in this country.

Good.

Which makes this country slightly safer.

Good.

Getting onto the mega Billionaire search engines and telling them to stop it is the way to go along with the other measures in place. If Google really wanted to they could stop child !!!!!! on the internet over night, I have no doubt.

No they couldn't. Let's say we wanted to ban pictures of kittens on the internet. You have a picture of a kitten. You go to https://www.somewebhost.com and put your kitten on. You go to https://www.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and upload your video. You send an SMS message to all your friends about your video and your kitten. Let's imagine we shut google.com down too. Has this stopped your kitten being viewed? Not at all, you've done a great job of circulating this without a search engine at all, and we haven't even touched upon newsgroups, forums with Private Messaging (like MSE) email, chat rooms...

Now let's imagine somewebhost and dailymotion and ISPs all ban the word "kitten". So you decide to call it "baby cat". They ban that, so you call it "small felis catus". They ban your IP address, so you get your friend to do it. They ban his IP address so he gets his friend to do it. They ban all your IP addresses, so you put it on a DVD and circulate it - who you going to blame now, Sony?

Jail you for 10 years, you're not going to be doing it for 10 years.

brendon

From what I understand, most child !!!!!! images are on the "deep web". I don't think many !!!!!philes are openly searching in Google for child !!!!!!. I think many of them use Tor, which is encrypted and hidden. It was essentially created by the US Navy to handle their communications, so it is "military" grade if you like. (Although it's most famous for discreetly buying drugs from Silk Road, now-a-days.) Spies used to use it (maybe they still do?) to communicate with each other. It is technically impossible to see what goes through this network and who is sending/viewing stuff.