Downloaded kiddie porn? Better burn your computer

Downloaded kiddie porn? Better burn your computer

by A Person Published on December 9th, 2009, 9:19 pm Rift: News

CBS A local man is likely to go to prison for years after he says he accidentally downloaded child pornography onto his computer.

Matthew White, 22, said he was surfing for pornography two years ago on Limewire -- a fire sharing application that allows users to trade music, movies, games and pictures -- when he discovered that some of the files he had downloaded were images of children.

Matt claims he quickly erased the files.

"It didn't appeal to me," he said. "I was looking for women my age, so I just wanted to download 'College Girls Gone Wild' and accidentally downloaded underage pornography."

About a year later, FBI agents showed up at his family's home. The family agreed to let agents examine the computer, and at first, they couldn't find anything.

Investigators later were able to recover the deleted images from deep within the hard drive.

So given that these images had been deleted and could only be recovered by forensic examination of the disk this seems unreasonable to me. I think that most of us have at some time found ourselves on sites we didn't want to be and that refuse to let you leave by opening new windows with all sorts of images every time you try to close them. This ruling suggests that if that happens you must burn the hard disk otherwise forensic examination could recover one of those images and off to jail you go.

[Grendel35]

I agree...I remember one time, years ago, my ex (when we were still married) wanted to check out what she was told was a chat site/support forum for expectant mothers. She typed in the address exactly as it was given to her, and it popped up with some porn site for people who like to see pregnant woman porn. She about had a heart attack. Obviously, she got out of it, but like you said...the hard drive stores it anyway. I agree it seems unfair to dig up deleted stuff from people's hard drives. For one, they (the authorities) don't know if that info got there by accident, and actually, it shouldn't matter. It was DELETED...which, to most people, means that the person didn't want it, for whatever reason.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

OK -- I know that mere possession of these sorts of images is enough to get you punished for the rest of your life. Which seems rather harsh to me... but there you have it. What gets me about this story is that the FBI is spending these resources to track down these people with images, while truly violent problems are apparently being ignored.

Another thing that bothers me is that this case, as reported in this story, seems so easily defensible. The FBI computer experts found these files after data recovery experts tracked them down. They told this guy that there was no way he could have accessed them using the normal search tools in his operating system. Which brings up the question of whether he actually "possessed" them. Yet this "public defender" advised him to just plead guilty and take whatever the state decides to impose on him?

That's BS. This guy should sue the state for incompetent legal aid and sue to get his good name returned to him.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

So given that these images had been deleted and could only be recovered by forensic examination of the disk this seems unreasonable to me. .. This ruling suggests that if that happens you must burn the hard disk otherwise forensic examination could recover one of those images and off to jail you go.

Looking at the comments attached to the article, it seems that the Federal law on this subject are rather unreasonable. If an image exists on the drive, the drive's owner is guilty, regardless of its situation. I would say that the law needs to be re-written. But we know that there is no way it could be -- every legislator in Washington could agree that the law is wrong, but they would fear making a change, for concern over being accused at election time of "being soft on child predators."

It's a sad thing -- it's easy as can be to pass a law tossing people into jail, even if they're harmless to society. But protecting the innocent from unjust imprisonment... that's something that scares lawmakers to death.

[Liv]

It's always good to have a few very large electromagnets on hand.... just in case....

[BecauseHeLives]

OK -- I know that mere possession of these sorts of images is enough to get you punished for the rest of your life. Which seems rather harsh to me... but there you have it. What gets me about this story is that the FBI is spending these resources to track down these people with images, while truly violent problems are apparently being ignored.

Another thing that bothers me is that this case, as reported in this story, seems so easily defensible. The FBI computer experts found these files after data recovery experts tracked them down. They told this guy that there was no way he could have accessed them using the normal search tools in his operating system. Which brings up the question of whether he actually "possessed" them. Yet this "public defender" advised him to just plead guilty and take whatever the state decides to impose on him?

That's BS. This guy should sue the state for incompetent legal aid and sue to get his good name returned to him.

I agree 100%

[A Person]

To kill the kiddie porn industry we should all be downloading it from file sharing sites. After all the music industry keeps tellng us it's destroying them.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

To kill the kiddie porn industry we should all be downloading it from file sharing sites. After all the music industry keeps tellng us it's destroying them.

Well, that would sure make the FBI's life a lot more interesting.

I would like to find the federal laws regarding this. According to this article, the only way to avoid jail time in the case of accidental or mistaken download of this toxic stuff is to immediately report the event to the FBI -- and let them confiscate your computer. I wonder if they would compensate you for that loss? Or if they would have their forensic experts scrub your drive and return the machine to you after thoroughly checking for evidence of any other crimes they can dream up?

[BecauseHeLives]

Just wait until viruses start popping up that download kiddie porn to your computer. You get 8 years in the pen because you didn't have sufficient virus protection.

[SouthernFriedInfidel]

It could be an odd method of recycling old computers. Get in Limewire on a computer you're set to get rid of, download stuff until you get this contraband, call the FBI -- and let THEM dispose of it for you.

Rather a complex bit of work sure... but it could be entertaining to do once every other year.

[A Person]

One problem is that those with an interest in distributing kiddie porn obviously disguise their stuff. Their target knows the subterfuge but it's easy for someone to download a deliberately mislabelled file.

Another is that the porn business frequently attempts to make their actresses appear younger than they are - this is not what most people think of as 'kiddie porn' but there is no legal distinction between an underage teen and a prepubescent child or infant (at least I don't think there is)

This is one reason I impress on my clients the importance of good computer security. Many people will say they don't really care if someone gets on their network, but it quite likely that they are doing so to cache their child porn images. It's also why I scan all network drives for images and movies and remove any that are not legitimate company items. I have to put up with Mordac cartoons but it's better than the alternative

[Nfidel]

Downloaded kiddie porn? Better burn your computer

Other media also. A while back one of my cameras corrupted a memory card. I couldn't upload the photos via any of the usual methods. I downloaded a free program that yanked the photos off the card. In fact, it found photos from various shoots going back a couple years. Keep in mind that I always format the card in the camera once they've been uploaded and backed up, yet they must still reside on the card until they're overwritten with new files. I've never taken any photos that I'd be embarrassed or ashamed of except of course in an artistic sense. But, if you're in the habit of taking photos of yourself in compromising situations, never let go of those memory cards.

[Liv]

That's true of any media. Back when I was in the know... (and I'm sure A.P. can confirm or deny) the OS just changed a single marker in the sector on the drive to indicate it was free to be written over. I use to have a program that would re-write over the deleted stuff to truly get rid of it. I'm guess that's pretty much computer forensics these days.

[A Person]

That's still how it works. But they have forensic techiques - magnetic force microscopy (MFM) and magnetic force
scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), that can recover data even after it's actually been overwritten

A pass with a write head is like a car on a three lane highway. It more or less covers the center lane but drifts a bit from side to side. By examining the edges of a track - the outer lanes of the highway, they can see narrow traces of previous writes and reconstruct data that has been overwritten

I've used PhotoRescue to recover data from SD cards. It is remarkably effective.