Internet Entrapment And Who's The Criminal?

[Frank Hovis]

I have seen stories of people (I remember one American lady in particular) who off their own bat go into extreme muslim chatrooms / discussion boards and pose as a radicalised muslim ready to perform terrorist acts who talks to others on there to gather evidence which they then pass to the police.

Their actions are surely illegal as they have been encouraging terrorist acts on the internet; whatever their motives may have been. They're usually ok if they go to the police for a get out of jail free card and a public-spirit badge with their findings but if they're caught for what they're doing before they go to the police they must be on a very sticky wicket.

Which made me wonder about this one:

More than 100 Britons were among 1,000 men caught trying to pay a computer-generated child to perform sex acts online, after a Dutch children's charity set up a fake profile.

Terre des Hommes carried out a 10-week sting near Amsterdam, posing on video chat rooms as "Sweetie", a 10-year-old Filipina girl.

Some 20,000 men contacted her, with 1,000 found to have offered her money.

The names of these men - including 110 Britons - were passed to police.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24818769

Clear entrapment, but also no actual crime so what are the police expected to do?

And what happens if, like with my US lady example above, somebody starts going onto these social networks posing as a paedophile but with the aim of capturing real ones (which I'm sure happens)? They would be guilty of various crimes (conspiracy, viewing pictures) in the process and using the defence that they were being a vigilante would not alter that, plus how do you prove that's what you were doing and does that count as a defence?

The police (quote below) say leave it to the police. I know they always say this but this is one I agree with, vigilantes on the internet are playing a dangerous game and I'm surprised we haven't seen more in court having to defend their actions.

But European policing agency Europol has expressed reservations about the findings.

"We believe that criminal investigations using intrusive surveillance measures should be the exclusive responsibility of law enforcement agencies," spokesman Soren Pedersen told the Reuters news agency.

Andy Baker, of the UK's National Crime Agency, also said that "tackling child sex abusers is best left to specialist law enforcement agencies".

But he praised the campaign, saying it had "widened awareness of a global child sex abuse threat".

"Working with our international law enforcement partners, we will now look at the information being passed on by Terre des Hommes," he added.

I note the dread word "awareness", always used when a charity has wasted money on a stunt with no real justification. So there are 1,000 paedophiles on the internet, well hold that front page

[geezer466]

At the very least it flags up the names to the local police so they can add them to the database.

Coercion to commit the crime in the first place is I think against the law in the UK so that Dutch charity could have found themselves in hot water had they tried it here.

[ccc]

I heard that story on the news a few times yesterday.

Interestingly i got the impression from the stories that it was some sort of police thing.

It certainly wasn't made obvious it was nothing to do with them at all.

Anyway don't know if that is even relevant.

[chronyx]

I found this story to be somewhat concerning.

Nominally being done for a fraud, police search his mobile phone and find 'extreme animal porn' (a video a friend sent him)...let it be known in court... reported in the local paper and now his reputation is dust and people incl. his family will never look at him the same way again.

http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/crime/extreme-animal-porn-on-phone-belonging-to-firm-s-director-1-5645417

Yes there is a strange trend for sending obscene 'shock' videos over 'WhatsApp'...I've received and deleted all sorts from various mates.

[Executive Sadman]

Its not a popular viewpoint, but id agree with the libertarian walter block on things like this. You can look at as much kiddy porn as you want. Physically touch a child in a sexual manner and your ass will be locked away for a very long time.

Merely looking a photos, regardless of how vile they are in any free country should not be a crime.

[Executive Sadman]

I found this story to be somewhat concerning.

Nominally being done for a fraud, police search his mobile phone and find 'extreme animal porn' (a video a friend sent him)...let it be known in court... reported in the local paper and now his reputation is dust and people incl. his family will never look at him the same way again.

http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/crime/extreme-animal-porn-on-phone-belonging-to-firm-s-director-1-5645417

Yes. Its all gone a bit mary whitehouse lately. Which simultaneously suits the puritianical fuddy duddy tories and the femnazi labour types.

[Frank Hovis]

I found this story to be somewhat concerning.

Nominally being done for a fraud, police search his mobile phone and find 'extreme animal porn' (a video a friend sent him)...let it be known in court... reported in the local paper and now his reputation is dust and people incl. his family will never look at him the same way again.

http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/crime/extreme-animal-porn-on-phone-belonging-to-firm-s-director-1-5645417

Yes, I saw that on on the tenant attacks landlord link. The case was actually about a fraud but the paper runs with this one. He said somebody sent it to him (okay, we've all had a dodgy mate who would think that this sort of thing was funny before we started avoiding them), he watched it once (surely that's provable) and didn't delete it presumably because he didn't know how to.

I would expect anybody who has an older computer will have had illegal images on their hard drive from a unwanted redirected link at some stage; though much much less common now than when the internet was less-policed and we didn't have Firefox with the Noscript add-on to stop us being sent somewhere we haven't chosen to go. We all assume that it's gone and because we didn't seek it out, stay at the link, save it or revisit it then that's that; guilty of nothing. I guess this bloke did too.

To my local paper's credit they did a full page front story this week fully exonerating a local councillor on child abuse charges, the judge ordered the case thrown out because the evidence was full of inconsistency and not credible. So why the f did it come to a court case and drag this poor bloke's name through the mud? As per the last time no link as I think the poor guy has suffered enough. He said that it seems to be with the CPS that any public figure is "fair game", that IMO is also the case with Paul Gambacinni.

[corevalue]

I get concerned about plod carting off all your devices, to trawl through so they can find something to incriminate you with, when the main charge, unrelated to sex offenses falls through. Another issue with this, is why don't they make a snapshot copy of the drives, why do they physically remove the whole machine? It's deprivation of property before guilt has been established.

[Bloo Loo]

What does a computer generated child look like?

What did the programmers allow it to do?

Is this just a variation of Hentai porn so many Japanese get hot under the zipper for?

[Frank Hovis]

Its not a popular viewpoint, but id agree with the libertarian walter block on things like this. You can look at as much kiddy porn as you want. Physically touch a child in a sexual manner and your ass will be locked away for a very long time.

Merely looking a photos, regardless of how vile they are in any free country should not be a crime.

I wouldn't go that far but I do think that the press coverage, whether guilty or not, is far worse than any sentence. There are plenty of suicides and I know of one bloke (not personally but know people who know him) who lost his job, home, marriage, ended up homeless for stuff that the police called mild. When you look at the punishment in the round it's worse than getting ten years for manslaughter.

I do think that it should be punishable (sorry, I'm not a great libertarian) but with strict confidentiality attached, had this guy got one month in prison with no publicity he could have carried on with most of his life, think the marriage would have been over but that would be it, as it was he got a suspended sentence (effectively no punishment) but his whole life was destroyed.

[swissy_fit]

I found this story to be somewhat concerning.

Nominally being done for a fraud, police search his mobile phone and find 'extreme animal porn' (a video a friend sent him)...let it be known in court... reported in the local paper and now his reputation is dust and people incl. his family will never look at him the same way again.

http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/crime/extreme-animal-porn-on-phone-belonging-to-firm-s-director-1-5645417

WTF?

I didn't even know it was illegal!

I don't like animal porn, but why is it illegal? Because it's distasteful? It's about as distasteful as sh*gging a 25 stone woman to me, but that's not illegal.

Not very long ago, a matter of weeks, someone sent me a link to a phone video of a man, it looked like in South East Asia somewhere, sh*gging a goat then noticing he was being filmed and running after the person filming. Are the police tracing all IP addresses that clicked on that as we speak?

The world has gone mad.

[Bloo Loo]

WTF?

I didn't even know it was illegal!

I don't like animal porn, but why is it illegal? Because it's distasteful? It's about as distasteful as sh*gging a 25 stone woman to me, but that's not illegal.

Not very long ago, a matter of weeks, someone sent me a link to a phone video of a man, it looked like in South East Asia somewhere, sh*gging a goat then noticing he was being filmed and running after the person filming. Are the police tracing all IP addresses that clicked on that as we speak?

The world has gone mad.

no, the NSA/GCHQ sends them to everyone, then, if you complain about anything anytime in the future, then it can all come out.

[chronyx]

WTF?

I didn't even know it was illegal!

I don't like animal porn, but why is it illegal? Because it's distasteful? It's about as distasteful as sh*gging a 25 stone woman to me, but that's not illegal.

Yes I've seen that vid. It probably is classed as porn but I just found it amusing/disturbing rather than arousing

[Frank Hovis]

WTF?

I didn't even know it was illegal!

I don't like animal porn, but why is it illegal? Because it's distasteful? It's about as distasteful as sh*gging a 25 stone woman to me, but that's not illegal.

Not very long ago, a matter of weeks, someone sent me a link to a phone video of a man, it looked like in South East Asia somewhere, sh*gging a goat then noticing he was being filmed and running after the person filming. Are the police tracing all IP addresses that clicked on that as we speak?

The world has gone mad.

Quite. There are many things that I don't like but that doesn't mean that they shoudl be illegal (well, they would be if I had my way!).

The charge is:

possessing extreme pornographic videos which were grossly offensive, disgusting or of an obscene character.

I have seen (and rapidly closed) many things on the internet which I find grossly offensive, disgusting or of an obscene character. It doesn't make them illegal. To pick one of many: what Americans call "scat" videos. Absolutely revolting. And falling for Anorthosite's invitation to google lemon party is one mistake I won't make again. Seriously, don't, especially if at work or if you've just eaten.

[Bloo Loo]

Quite. There are many things that I don't like but that doesn't mean that they shoudl be illegal (well, they would be if I had my way!).

The charge is:

I have seen (and rapidly closed) many things on the internet which I find grossly offensive, disgusting or of an obscene character. It doesn't make them illegal. To pick one of many: what Americans call "scat" videos. Absolutely revolting. And falling for Anorthosite's invitation to google lemon party is one mistake I won't make again. Seriously, don't, especially if at work or if you've just eaten.

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://themaresnest.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/lemon-party-t-shirts.jpg&imgrefurl=http://themaresnest.wordpress.com/category/downloads/page/4/&h=766&w=1132&sz=158&tbnid=mhMXNBlVf1rqKM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=192&zoom=1&usg=__lnPCrJx6QEl9EZWzsHaViUto0YU=&docid=AYN_24KTx8s6AM&sa=X&ei=Y1l6UomLGIKphAfk_YHQBQ&ved=0CDIQ9QEwAQ

[Turned Out Nice Again]

i don't know about the world, but Britain has definitely gone nuts.

what's "extreme" about animal porn? seriously. most of it is i believe animal-on-female horse/dogsex. where exactly is the victim there?

especially when you consider the horrors visited daily on farm animals across the country in food production.

it's more funny than erotic.

or the consensual BDSM they have also added to the "extreme" category? no victim there either.

i suspect the prig legislators (think Labour women) who voted for this consider 90% of (if not all) porn "extreme".

the really worrying aspect of this is that (unlike kiddiesex) those kind of images can pop-up on otherwise uk-legal xxx sites around the world.

couple this with the fondness of the police now to steal your computers under a variety of pretexts and you have people being denounced in court as "grossly" "disgusting" "perverts" etc. for *absolutely nothing*.

yet ... you can go and watch somebody actually beheaded every night of the week with no risk of prosecution whatsoever.

nuts.

incidentally, for a lot of people nowadays their computers + data is their livelihood. that the police can steal them and hold them for an indefinite time is outrageous in itself.

[Executive Sadman]

I get concerned about plod carting off all your devices, to trawl through so they can find something to incriminate you with, when the main charge, unrelated to sex offenses falls through. Another issue with this, is why don't they make a snapshot copy of the drives, why do they physically remove the whole machine? It's deprivation of property before guilt has been established.

Police, like every other ailing freedom quashing bureaucracy need to justify their own existence.

As the population ages, crime tends to fall, so its reasonable we fire a bunch of them (add to the fact consumer durables are worth a lot less than 25 years ago, and security and private surveillance is much better, so theft is a lot less). Being self serving jackbooted thugs, they obviously dont like this, so must lobby for the creation of new 'crimes', usually along dubious 'morality' lines such as 'hate speech' 'inciting offense' or 'sexual deviancy'...or the latest, banning that British pastime of spitting in public. Because people who gob every now and then obviously present a massive threat to my daily life.

[corevalue]

And to further muddy the waters, my wife just loves to watch videos of naked women after they have been brutally assaulted/murdered. It's called CSI, I believe, and possession of still images of these things is potentially against the law!

[MrPin]

What does a computer generated child look like?

What did the programmers allow it to do?

Is this just a variation of Hentai porn so many Japanese get hot under the zipper for?

Yes I wondered that! It's just a CGI cartoon, FFS!

[stormymonday_2011]

Yes I wondered that! It's just a CGI cartoon, FFS!

The Treachery of Images

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images

To confuse the artists image with the reality is what you would expect in a primitive culture that believes in magic

Sadly, that is exactly what English law now does.

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/prohibited_images_of_children/

This is one area where British and US law diverge quite widely primarily because of the First Amendment to the US constitution

See also

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation

[DeepLurker]

WTF?

I didn't even know it was illegal!

I don't like animal porn, but why is it illegal? Because it's distasteful? It's about as distasteful as sh*gging a 25 stone woman to me, but that's not illegal.

Not very long ago, a matter of weeks, someone sent me a link to a phone video of a man, it looked like in South East Asia somewhere, sh*gging a goat then noticing he was being filmed and running after the person filming. Are the police tracing all IP addresses that clicked on that as we speak?

The world has gone mad.

That reminds me, the following vid was posted here a while ago, how long before it's made illegal?

[stormymonday_2011]

It seems the small outbreak of sanity in the press that followed the revelation about the murder of Bijan Ebrahimi on that Bristol housing estate has passed and they are back in full righteous paedo hunting frenzy mode again

Only the Independent seems to have voiced a note of caution

It is worth pointing out to Guyt and his fellow witch-hunters that it is far from evident what they have achieved by luring 20,000 ‘perverts’ into their chat room. At the most it indicates that amongst the hundreds of millions of internet users, there is a small group of sick, screwed up and potentially predatory individuals. That is of course bad news. But what is even more disturbing is that their behaviour has encouraged others to pretend to be like them. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and I wonder if some of these paedo-hunters retain the capacity to distinguish between fact and fantasy. Guyt and his colleagues believe that it is okay to pretend what they are not on the internet. Has it occurred to them that their audience might be complicit in playing the same game?

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/paedophile-hunting-and-sweetie-the-case-for-luring-potential-criminals-8922310.html

As some posters on the Register have said if 'sweetie' is a Turing machine (albeit a very unconvincing one going by the press photos) how do 'Terre De Hommes' know for sure that all the perverts visiting their site are not Turing machines as well masquerading as real people.

http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2013/11/06/child_protection_group_deploys_avatar_to_trap_webcam_creeps/

[Turned Out Nice Again]

That reminds me, the following vid was posted here a while ago, how long before it's made illegal?

Funny. While for most people "animal sex" conjures images of depraved males violating goats or whatever,

i suspect a much more commonplace scenario would be the soppy old doggy lady taking things too far with Rex.

behind closed doors, nobody knows.

Eleanor Rigby.

[beccles]

Saw this on the news earlier. CGI girl FFS, I can imagine a lot of people realising its computer generated and posting stupid things for a laugh, now they're on the possible peodo list.

I used to play this a lot. I'd wonder if I could get done for date rape, trying to get a CGI girl drunk.

My link

[Rave]

And falling for Anorthosite's invitation to google lemon party is one mistake I won't make again. Seriously, don't, especially if at work or if you've just eaten.

I wasn't the slightest bit shocked or offended by it- good luck to them, as far as I'm concerned .