Dallas Morning News: CP Tests File-Share Firms

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Lin, Herb" <HLin () nas edu>
Date: June 3, 2005 9:34:02 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: FW: +++ Dallas Morning News: CP Tests File-Share Firms


For IP if you think relevant



http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/ 
060105dnbuschildporn.102ffe5a6.html



Child porn tests file-share firms

Case may shift balance between user privacy and fighting crime

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

By CRAYTON HARRISON / The Dallas Morning News

File-sharing companies have gotten caught between police and child  
pornographers.

Makers of software such as Grokster are walking a fine line, trying  
to help nab child porn traffickers while guarding users' privacy.

The companies don't want to appear to have too much control over what  
users trade.

After all, they're busy defending themselves against copyright  
lawsuits by the entertainment industry, which wants them to stop  
users from trading pop songs and movies.

A Supreme Court case is testing the P2P companies' delicate balance.

Entertainment companies led by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. are  
asking the court to hold Grokster Inc. and other file-sharing  
companies partially responsible for users' actions.

P2P companies say they're not being hypocritical by sharing  
information about child porn traffickers with police but leaving  
copyright violators alone.

Sharing explicit images of children and copying a musical recording  
are two very different things, they say.

Child pornography "will always be illegal," said Marty Lafferty,  
chief executive of the Distributed Computing Industry Association, a  
P2P trade group.

"It will always be something that the right approach is to eliminate  
it from this channel, whereas the copyright issue is more of a  
licensing issue."

It will be tougher to chase child porn traffickers if P2P software  
makers aren't liable for the content on their networks, Texas and  
several other states have told the Supreme Court.

The high court is expected to rule on the case in June.

"We're not proposing that P2P networks go away," said Edward Burbach,  
Texas deputy attorney general.

"We're proposing that in those cases where we've got a transfer of  
illegal items – copyright, child porn, others – that they recognize  
they can in fact help us."

There is a danger in aggressively pursuing child porn traffickers  
online.

If pedophiles believe the file-sharing networks are no longer  
anonymous zones, they'll simply move to darker corners of the  
Internet where they're more difficult to catch, police and software  
companies agree.

Most of the millions of people who use file-sharing software, of  
course, are trading copyrighted material for free, though the  
software has legitimate, legal uses.

Many P2P companies make money through advertising, and they don't  
want loyal users to worry that they're being watched.

Child porn traffickers must be tracked down and punished, but  
copyright violators shouldn't be treated so harshly, P2P companies  
argue.

Priorities

"Anybody who suggests that the misuse of P2P software to trade  
copyrighted materials by individuals is as serious a problem as child  
pornography really needs to re-evaluate their priorities," said Adam  
Eisgrau, executive director of trade association P2P United, which  
includes Grokster.

File-sharing networks are one of many places on the Internet where  
pedophiles lurk.

They also transmit their images through chat rooms, newsgroups, e- 
mail and even Web pages. "You can find them just going through  
Google," Mr. Burbach said.

The government has received far more complaints about child porn on  
Web pages than on P2P networks, according to a 2003 General  
Accounting Office report.

But the same report found that child pornography was so easily  
accessible on P2P networks that congressional staffers could download  
hundreds of illegal images using only a few keywords.

Police who specialize in child porn cases consider P2P networks  
dangerous because they can disseminate information to many people  
very quickly.

The P2P networks also give users the misguided impression that  
they're completely anonymous.

Most popular P2P programs don't have a central repository of data  
tracking which users are sharing specific material.

Even so, it's possible, with the right tools, to identify P2P users.

Entertainment companies have developed and bought tools that can  
identify the Internet addresses of P2P users.

Law enforcement agencies have more limited budgets, but they're  
reviewing similar options.

More powerful tools

Marc Freedman, chief executive of Dallas developer RazorPop, is  
selling a software tool called X-Files that helps police identify the  
Internet addresses of file sharers.

It can also help police target the hash codes, or identifying  
markers, of specific files.

He's talking to various law enforcement agencies about the product.  
Some want a more powerful feature that would scour all of a user's  
shared files, but that's a bad idea, he said.

"It's a consumer market," he said. "If you burden the software and  
tell people how to design one set of software, then consumers are  
just going to migrate to other software that doesn't have those  
restrictions."

Out of business

File-sharing companies could find ways to block known illegal files  
before they're sent, said Detective Greg Dugger, a member of the  
Dallas Police Department's Internet Crimes Against Children unit.

But then they'd probably have to do the same thing for copyrighted  
works, and they'd lose their users instantly, he said.

"If one of these clients does the right thing, they'll probably be  
out of business the next day," he said.

A Supreme Court ruling in favor of entertainment companies could be  
the way to make P2P companies aggressive about policing their own  
networks, Mr. Burbach said.

But if the court rules in favor of P2P firms, the industry may have  
to prove it's no haven for pedophiles, said Rick Wallace, a full-time  
student in Illinois.

His Web site, www.seewhat youshare.com, tracks the ways consumers  
make themselves vulnerable through P2P software.

"At a certain point, when you have children being exploited on  
networks the way they are, something's got to give," he said.



-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/