Fills me with 1990 nostalgia of IRC being ddosed and no one being able to trade ccs or dcc them 0daywarez. Ah the sweet chaos and drama.
Fun times, glad to see people are still having fun :0)
The part about childporn though... That's pretty abhorrent. Nearly half. I just don't understand child porn. Why? I wonder if there are child porn "Hunters" that go after these scum. (by Hunters I mean White hats)
I mentioned this awhile back when a similar topic came up. Awhile back I wrote a small crawler/search engine for onion sites that didn't log visitor info, just the search terms. After about a week if running I went back to see what people were searching for and the majority of it was child porn. I was totally shocked. I had anticipated cracking and warez type stuff but not child porn, or at least not at the levels I was seeing. I shut down the app after that :(
This very hack was undertaken by those "hunters" you're asking about. There was also Operation Darknet, an Anonymous-driven takedown of Lolita City (one of the worst child porn onion sites) and the original Freedom Hosting, back in 2011.
Because of the specific way that child porn is, you are basically admitting to breaking the law by reporting it. If you want to go after child abusers then you have to do it anonymously. And of course, in the U.S. you can't even use synthetic images to lure child abusers, because they can count as child porn in some cases.
The system discourages everyone from the public to law enforcement from doing anything productive about child sexual abuse.
Plenty of CP hunters. I'm hunting it right now on the Candid App, not like you need to hunt it there since it seems to get blatantly advertised by all the idiots. Funnily enough, I've told the CEO several times and she doesn't seem to care that it's happening, as many of these groups on Candid are still operational, and she's dead silent on the issue.
That's a really dangerous game to play. In order to shut it down you have to seek out the sites that host it. Unless you have the protection of working for law enforcement, it's not worth the risk. Even if you do work for law enforcement, the psychological damage from seeing those acts can be very high.
A cynic will wonder; is that really any different from when the FBI raids the servers for a hosting company due to illegal content stored there and ends up leaving a ton of legal sites offline as a result?
Refusing to defend what one regards as an odious law is not the same as consuming the material yourself. I am also against such laws, yet I do not consume the content myself.
Please do not misrepresent or mischaracterise people in order to dismiss their point, it is used to silence debate (such as by calling people 'perverts' because the watch porn to discredit them). If you have an argument, post it - but please do not silence debate. I'm sorry if it wasn't your intention to do this, but it's a recurring theme to call people certain words or names in order to silence them nowadays.
Probably you are talking about HN comments, not the source comments.
I am presenting unpopular opinion here (score for my comment [0] goes wildly from -4 to +4) and you probably believe I am doing it because I am consumer. What actually make me questioning current state of laws is this simple experiment: can you run an FTP site (or Syncthing folder, or automated seedbox) at home where everyone on the Internet is free to upload and download anything and leave it unattended? What kind of laws prevent you from doing it?
The only laws are pretty much the copyright laws and CP distribution laws. As for copyright you at least have an option to setup DMCA abuse address, but you still have to actually process requests. As for CP laws things are worse: you will get your house raided without a warning.
These things damage net neutrality and make content distribution the privilege of companies which manage to make responsibility non-personal and keep the damage taken from data center raids under control.
There are enough people questioning copyright and at least we begin to understand that copyright is not some sort of "natural law", but a protectionist policy. Discussions on CP are pretty much taboo in our society. People mess up terms (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13567776) and believe witch-hunt is justified (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13568255). My point is that ban on CP distribution is, like copyright, is not the result of distribution being a crime by itself (even in current state it is a "victimless crime"). It should be made clear that it is only justified as long as it harms producers (https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=13567612). If it does not, then the law should be abolished, similarly to how we had to abolish marijuana possession and distribution laws.
I think you're overlooking a few key differences here (between CP and copyrighted content in general).
For the former, viewing or downloading it encourages the sick individuals making it to create more of it, since it brings them hits for their sites or (in some cases) literal money from paid purchases or subscriptions. In that case, consuming it any way encourages the more harmful production. It provides an incentive to create this stuff.
That's not true of standard copyrighted content. In those cases, distributing it (legally or otherwise) is not encouraging something illegal to be done since producing said content isn't illegal to begin with.
TLDR:
Distribution or downloading illegal content is bad, because it encourages people to do something illegal to provide said content.
Distributing or downloading legal content isn't bad because creating said content isn't bad to begin with.
> Btw it is non-consensual porn production which is harmful, not distribution.
Victims of child sex crimes have ongoing trauma from the knowledge that images of their abuse and suffering continue to be used for the sexual gratification of others, without their consent.
Prosecuting the consumers (vs. the producers) of child pornography is an attempt to increase the risks of obtaining it, hopefully disincentivizing demand. This line of thinking and policy is akin to prosecuting customers (as opposed to the providers) of prostitution, or prosecuting users (as opposed to makers and sellers) of controlled drugs.
We can debate about how effective or ineffective or smart or misguided this is, but that's where it comes from, and is a frequent tactic to split the customerbase into two parts: the ones who may have been interested when the risks were lower and are now dissuaded, and those who are not deterred by the risks and choose to pursue it anyway.
Society can then point to the fact that everyone was given this choice to paint the latter group as not only morally corrupt, but also risk-taking, thoughtless, irresponsible, or simply people who "had it coming". This is a common way of providing for a permanent underclass in ways that promotes good societal mores, doesn't discriminate along ethnic lines, and doesn't disproportionately punish the economic poor.
You're being naive at best here. The state CP today is essentially pay for tourture using bitcoin and tor. If there's anything that's going to ruin the Internet it's not understanding that not everyone wants this nihilistic future forced on them.
> Btw it is non-consensual porn production which is harmful, not distribution. Distribution is a victimless crime that everyone stands up against due to copyright propaganda
Unrestricted distribution allows entities to profit from the production of child porn. Therefore, distribution incentivises harm in the form of new content with non-consensual victims.
>Distribution [of child porn] is a victimless crime that everyone stands up against due to copyright propaganda .
That's foolish reasoning. The distribution network is what incentives the creation of child porn. People are making it and putting it up on the net so it can be distributed. Child porn is a multi billion dollar a year business. Also feeding into pedophilic fantasies, which is what child porn does, will further act as an incentive for the creation of child porn.
[+] [-] godmodus|9 years ago|reply
Fun times, glad to see people are still having fun :0)
The part about childporn though... That's pretty abhorrent. Nearly half. I just don't understand child porn. Why? I wonder if there are child porn "Hunters" that go after these scum. (by Hunters I mean White hats)
[+] [-] johnnycarcin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neotek|9 years ago|reply
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/operation-darknet
[+] [-] microcolonel|9 years ago|reply
The system discourages everyone from the public to law enforcement from doing anything productive about child sexual abuse.
[+] [-] lightedman|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] api|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TACIXAT|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ycmbntrthrwaway|9 years ago|reply
You make it sound like they are hunting for porn. Child porn producer, child porn distributor, rapist and pedophile are all different things.
[+] [-] cmdrfred|9 years ago|reply
If you are looking to build a skillset these are the only acceptable targets in my opinion.
[+] [-] falcolas|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] njharman|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CM30|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dogma1138|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MikeTLive|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ue_|9 years ago|reply
Please do not misrepresent or mischaracterise people in order to dismiss their point, it is used to silence debate (such as by calling people 'perverts' because the watch porn to discredit them). If you have an argument, post it - but please do not silence debate. I'm sorry if it wasn't your intention to do this, but it's a recurring theme to call people certain words or names in order to silence them nowadays.
[+] [-] ycmbntrthrwaway|9 years ago|reply
I am presenting unpopular opinion here (score for my comment [0] goes wildly from -4 to +4) and you probably believe I am doing it because I am consumer. What actually make me questioning current state of laws is this simple experiment: can you run an FTP site (or Syncthing folder, or automated seedbox) at home where everyone on the Internet is free to upload and download anything and leave it unattended? What kind of laws prevent you from doing it?
The only laws are pretty much the copyright laws and CP distribution laws. As for copyright you at least have an option to setup DMCA abuse address, but you still have to actually process requests. As for CP laws things are worse: you will get your house raided without a warning.
These things damage net neutrality and make content distribution the privilege of companies which manage to make responsibility non-personal and keep the damage taken from data center raids under control.
There are enough people questioning copyright and at least we begin to understand that copyright is not some sort of "natural law", but a protectionist policy. Discussions on CP are pretty much taboo in our society. People mess up terms (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13567776) and believe witch-hunt is justified (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13568255). My point is that ban on CP distribution is, like copyright, is not the result of distribution being a crime by itself (even in current state it is a "victimless crime"). It should be made clear that it is only justified as long as it harms producers (https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=13567612). If it does not, then the law should be abolished, similarly to how we had to abolish marijuana possession and distribution laws.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13567284
[+] [-] mkj|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jlgaddis|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ycmbntrthrwaway|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dang|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CM30|9 years ago|reply
For the former, viewing or downloading it encourages the sick individuals making it to create more of it, since it brings them hits for their sites or (in some cases) literal money from paid purchases or subscriptions. In that case, consuming it any way encourages the more harmful production. It provides an incentive to create this stuff.
That's not true of standard copyrighted content. In those cases, distributing it (legally or otherwise) is not encouraging something illegal to be done since producing said content isn't illegal to begin with.
TLDR:
Distribution or downloading illegal content is bad, because it encourages people to do something illegal to provide said content.
Distributing or downloading legal content isn't bad because creating said content isn't bad to begin with.
[+] [-] dleslie|9 years ago|reply
Victims of child sex crimes have ongoing trauma from the knowledge that images of their abuse and suffering continue to be used for the sexual gratification of others, without their consent.
[+] [-] thr234ow234away|9 years ago|reply
We can debate about how effective or ineffective or smart or misguided this is, but that's where it comes from, and is a frequent tactic to split the customerbase into two parts: the ones who may have been interested when the risks were lower and are now dissuaded, and those who are not deterred by the risks and choose to pursue it anyway.
Society can then point to the fact that everyone was given this choice to paint the latter group as not only morally corrupt, but also risk-taking, thoughtless, irresponsible, or simply people who "had it coming". This is a common way of providing for a permanent underclass in ways that promotes good societal mores, doesn't discriminate along ethnic lines, and doesn't disproportionately punish the economic poor.
[+] [-] rekord|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darpa_escapee|9 years ago|reply
Unrestricted distribution allows entities to profit from the production of child porn. Therefore, distribution incentivises harm in the form of new content with non-consensual victims.
[+] [-] vivekd|9 years ago|reply
That's foolish reasoning. The distribution network is what incentives the creation of child porn. People are making it and putting it up on the net so it can be distributed. Child porn is a multi billion dollar a year business. Also feeding into pedophilic fantasies, which is what child porn does, will further act as an incentive for the creation of child porn.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] api|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cmdrfred|9 years ago|reply
I disagree. Production would be pointless without a way to distribute it.