Anonymous Patron writes “This One From Sacramento California. The Sacramento Police Department is investigating a 30-year-old man suspected of looking at child pornography in Sacramento State’s library Nov. 8.
The man, whose name was not released, was not viewing the pornography when three officers approached him.”
Another Anonymous Patron writes “This one from Edmonton Sun, Canada where A 34-year-old man has been charged after allegedly downloading child pornography at the Cambridge (Ontario) Public Library. The man’s arrest on Tuesday was part of a police investigation into “suspicious activities allegedly linked to this individual,” Waterloo regional police Staff Sgt. Bryan Larkin said yesterday.”
I don´t understand
Why not just look at regular pornography and risk being thrown out of the library or just screaming ¨First Amendment¨ until some administrative wonk lets you look at porn.
Why go to the trouble of looking for child pornography which is most certainly a crime everywhere. Is there some level of pervert street cred I don´t know about.
Re:I don´t understand
I think I can field at least part of this one, and keep in mind this is coming from a former black hat.
Many of the more computer literate pedophiles are afraid to look at child porn in their own dwellings because of the widely publicized sting operations carried out by the FBI and other agencies. They fear that while accessing illegal materials, they may get caught up in some kind of sting where the IP address is traced, tracked, and then eventually located and raided. This is not an unreasonable fear, since that’s pretty much the way the whole thing works.
So computer literate pedophile scum decide to use us, in more ways than one. They know that we’ll protect their privacy to an extent. Which may give them time to get away. They know that we’re really not going to monitor what they’re looking at. And most of all, if they do access a site involved in a sting operation, they hope that all the FBI gets is an IP traced to a PC or thin client at a library. It carries a degree of anonymity because an IP traced to Anytown Public Library is better than an IP traced to their name and address.
It’s almost a Zen riddle, they achieve anonymity by using public facilities. They’re quite literally hiding in plain sight. Especially public facilities where there’s an oft publicized code of privacy.
kiddie porn and wifi
I’m wondering what is going to happen when wifi is at most of the public libraries and those twisted individuals bring in a laptop to get their kiddie porn.
Re:kiddie porn and wifi
We have wifi but going by GWD’s post above it would be the worst of both worlds because their in a public place and could get caught but their on their own personal computer so all the evidence is linked directly to them.
Re:kiddie porn and wifi
It’d be a step backward for them to use WiFi. Yes the IP would come up as “Anytown Public Library” but all the stuff would either be cached on the laptop or otherwise saved. There’d be no way for the suspect to deny it. Using a thin or otherwise hardwired computer, there’s a reasonable doubt that the kiddie porn came from someone else.
Re:kiddie porn and wifi
OK I don´t look at kiddie porn at the library but I do know a little about networking. Sure the librarians are not going to know who was using 255.1.1.1 at ten minutes after noon on Tuesday but if they see some pervert looking at kiddie porn they will most probably call the cops; I know I would. ( My library does not use DHCP I am not sure why) but in most libraries the user can simply reboot to get a new IP. I doubt that few libraries use machines that the more astute pervert can not circumvent.
Heck I doubt most librarians could figure out how to disable the automatic reimaging, re-ghosting, deepfreeze or whatever the library uses to return the machines to a pristine state after each use. Nor could they figure out how to save the information until the cops could arrive with the appropriate forms and papers to compel the library to give them the computer for their investigation.
Wifi will make it easier for the perverts to use the library as a hiding place. Sure their HDD may have some evidence on it but formatting and overwriting programs exist that will make the disk as unrecoverable as the MILSPEC data erasure programs the governmnet uses on its machines. Failing that simply degauss the bad boy and no one can read the disk ever again (or for that matter use the HDD ever agin but it keeps those pesky FBI fellas out of your child porn).
I still think public embarrasment followed by a public trial and imprisonment works wonders. A librarian yelling ¨why are you looking at naked children¨ usually begins the process 🙂
Re:kiddie porn and wifi
“Wifi will make it easier for the perverts to use the library as a hiding place. Sure their HDD may have some evidence on it but formatting and overwriting programs exist that will make the disk as unrecoverable as the MILSPEC data erasure programs the governmnet uses on its machines. Failing that simply degauss the bad boy and no one can read the disk ever again (or for that matter use the HDD ever agin but it keeps those pesky FBI fellas out of your child porn).”
I think we’re making a mistake in assuming these guys are in any way intelligent. Men have been caught with this crap on their work computers and home computers. Apparently only the semi-functional ones come to the library (lucky us) but I’ll bet cold cash they wouldn’t understand anything you just said.
Re:kiddie porn and wifi
The stupid ones have been caught.
Who was the smartest criminal? The one that never was caught.
That said the ones that are smart enough to figure out how not to get caught are probably not the same dimwit perverts who come to the library to use the public computers. The ones with any sense, aside from being disgusting perverts, probably have a job that gives them enough money to buy better computers and internet access at home than I have.
Recall the Pete Townshend was caught because he used his own credit card to access a child porn site; I agree Greg these are not physicists.
Of course Townshend was not convicted, but he had to register as a sex offender, give a DNA sample because he admitted looking at child porn. WHO would have thought.