Eroding privacy through the private sector: AOL version
In an effort to combat child porn, five big internet providers are establishing a database of child pornography images. Child exploitation is horrible, and, in my opinion the people involved should be strung up, but when I read about stuff like this....
Okay, so child porn warrants scanning emails. What about terrorism? Or drug trafficking? Where is the stop down the slope?
AOL, for instance, plans to check e-mail attachments that are already being scanned for viruses. If child porn is detected, AOL would refer the case to the missing-children's center for further investigation, as service providers are required to do under federal law.....
Ryan said that although AOL will initially focus on scanning e-mail attachments, the goal is to ultimately develop techniques for checking other distribution techniques as well, such as instant messaging or Web uploads.
Okay, so child porn warrants scanning emails. What about terrorism? Or drug trafficking? Where is the stop down the slope?
posted by mikevotes at
8:44 AM
10 Comments:
When a government is no longer "of the people, by the people and for the people," but of the power, by the money and for the corporation, this is what you get. Just as the government becomse an arm of corporate greed and profit, so too the corporations become an arm of the government in securing power and control.
What is crushed in this relationship is any recongnition that the power lies with the people. In this arrangement -- the current Washington arrangemtne -- the people are merely resourses to further the ends of the wealthy and powerfull... like so much coal to burn in the furnace of money-lust.
We, as individual citizens of a free nation, must either fight to protect our liberties, or roll over and give them up. A liberty not protected is a liberty lost.
OK.... I kinda got into preacher mode there... sorry.
By
-epm, at 9:14 AM
I could give you a good inside rundown on what goes on here. My reluctance stems from someone dear to me monitoring this crap for one of the big space providers.
Suffice to say, the issue is so complex that the companies can still only respond to public complaints pointing them to this shit.
At this stage they all have far too much on their collective plates to go digging for porn (child porn as well as publicly accessible stuff.) or anything else.
The monitoring and harvesting are two very separate issues. To be effective, the first is highly time consuming, not to mention psychologically ravaging. The latter issue can be done, sort of by bots, but the approach is really too broad brush to be much use.
I've said before, the corporations do not see the governments thrust as a priority. At least one I know about will not be bullied by the government, they have their own massive agenda.
By
Cartledge, at 10:52 AM
The weird thing about this to me is that it's voluntary monitoring and reporting by private companies.
EPM, no need to apologize in this time of rapidly eroding civil liberties.
And, Cartledge, the way I think the AOL thing is gonna work is to be fully automated. The database they're building carries "signatures" from known images. So, they're just going to run the items for matches on those signatures. So my guess is this is all going to be done automatically.
And I think the AOL agenda is to keep full control of their business. There was a veiled threat before these negotiations that the admin might try to pass a law involving monitoring, that's why the private companies are offering this.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 1:02 PM
Sorry to be a skeptic on this one. If that is the plan, we are talking little more than smoke and mirrors.
It sounds more a hollow threat than a reality.
Even the 'people' who are monitoring this garbage are subjected to rigid legal guidelines. The processes aren't as simple as identifying and pulling.
I have to say again, I'm living close to this one and have discussed automation.
I am told it is not an option because there are too many legal factors involved.
Perhaps the companies and government want to sell the 'fear factor' of an automated regime. Maybe it suits their purpose to plant those seeds. But they aren't a viable reality.
By
Cartledge, at 2:05 PM
I don't know, but that's the sort of mechanism I'd guess we're looking at. There has been alot of talk about the photo "signatures," the discussion of the establishment of a database of suspect images, and now this story. So, putting those together, it sounds like it will be automated monitoring. And, no, it won't be horribly effective.
If the descriptions I've read are valid, if you just crop off a pixel or two across the top or any side, or shift all the colors, (not to mention encrypting) the photo wouldn't match the signature.
And I would totally buy the idea that this could be propaganda to put people off. This is not an area where I can claim expertise either in the law or the technology. What I'm spouting back is pre-chewed news bits.
So, I'm more than willing to go with your gut.
BUT, if it is just propaganda, then how cheap has privacy become, that it would be violated for a program that doesn't work?
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 2:16 PM
how cheap has privacy become, that it would be violated for a program that doesn't work?
I thought that was the basis of many discussions lately. Smoke and mirrors appear to be the weapon of choice.
By
Cartledge, at 4:18 PM
how cheap has privacy become, that it would be violated for a program that doesn't work?
I thought that was the basis of many discussions lately. Smoke and mirrors appear to be the weapon of choice.
By
Cartledge, at 4:19 PM
That's why it's in my mind.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 4:52 PM
They already WANT to scan emails, to eliminate any vestige of privacy, in order to protect their bottom line. The 'child porn' business is simply a wedge issue to allow this to happen.
By
Anonymous, at 8:57 AM
If you look at the history on this issue, the government is strongarming industry to set up the mechanisms for them. I don't see how this directly helps the bottom line of AOL, but it does drastically help their relationship with government, and if Rupert Murdoch has taught us anything it's that government relationships generate profit.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 1:21 PM
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