In the "I Have a Couple of Reservations" Department

I’ll tell you – and I’ve had a number of computer forensics experts refute me on this but they’ve done nothing to assuage my concerns – that I worry about the nature of the evidence in “computer only” child porn imagery. With the tricks that can be played by even a relatively small but devious Web applet, I suspect evidence can be planted. Yes, a good forensics specialist should be able to identify and eliminate what might be planted or accidentally transferred. But computer forensics is a category that embraces a lot of people who don’t have true credentials (in some places, all you have to do is call yourself a PC forensics expert to be listed as one; this is a shame considering there are others who spend years studying).

Why do I say this? Two things, actually, account for my concerns.

First – while I’ve never discovered child images on any system of mine, I have – even with a number of blockers, even though I’m the only user on most of the systems, and even though I don’t frequent sexually oriented material online, I have found images in my cache (cheesy mainstream sex stuff probably sent as images through e-mail ads) that I know I did not browse. Until I got rid of one of my domains that attracted the most junkmail, this happened with amazing frequency. I’d discover these images whenever I did a search on artwork to place orphaned images into collections for various projects. Ick.

Second, and more alarming, I once worked with a really weird guy who sometimes “freelanced” pulling dirty PC tricks on people. One of his most popular “bonus jobs” was planting evidence on one spouse’s PC of questionable photos that would then be “miraculously” discovered by the other spouse – some cheesy lawyer contracted his services for same in messy divorce cases. Now, this fellow wasn’t particularly talented yet boasted of three ways – including one Web applet – he could do this and “fool” forensics. So I’ve always wondered what a talented person could do.

Trust me, if you knew my background in working with online services, you'll know that I take the production and proliferation of child porn pretty seriously. I've also worked on some education programs to help kids and their parents understand not just the dangers from the outside, but the mixed messages some of the kids send out that may make them a target. But unless we set very high standards for proof in child porn cases, I think we're setting standards that take resources from more serious forms of abuse taking place in the whole business. For example: there was an article out a couple years back (I wish I could tell you a link but I believe it was a California paper reporting it possibly before 2001).

What happened (and this is subject to my memory) was that a special case had made prosecutors/police decide that if they got search warrants on home computers even in cases that really involved nothing related to computer-based crimes, they could use any found porn pictures (not just child porn, not just illegal pictures) as leverage to threaten a suspect to get them to fess up to something else. Well, they were doing booming business for a little bit because porn really is pretty prevalent and it doesn't take a sex fiend to have sexually oriented material in a Web cache or in their email box. But... darn, you know what? When they really DID have a problem developing with a group circulating kiddie porn of the type where kids weren't just being exploited ("please do this for Uncle John") they were being REALLY forced ("Do this or you won't get out alive" or "Do this and you won't eat."), their resources were stretched too thin peeking at the PC of a middle-aged manager who had pictures of his middle-aged girlfriend in a leather bra.

The problem with the kiddie porn cases that John Ashcroft wanted to make a lynchpin of his DoJ tenure were just as apt to be one person with one or two pictures that make have been reproductions of classic or foreign art as the really serious whackjobs who get access to real kids to do real things to. That's not an exaggeration either. I remember a friend a couple of years ago worked with a woman who had gotten into a pile of trouble because she had snapped beach pictures of her nieces and nephews frolicking on a private beach on the jersey shore. The kids were apparently in and out of clothing (all under six at that stage before they realize why we wear clothing and because it was damned hot). One of those processing places had seen these cavorting, sun-kissed cherubs dumping damp sand over one another and called the police. Didn't matter that there were ten adults present, no sexual activity, that the person who took the pictures was a pro photog, the woman went through weeks of having clients and people in her building, etc. interviewed with some truly excruciating questions.

But turn on TV. Forget all the naked adults. What's with all the naked or near naked kids? I mean, before you go so nuts with pictures taken in a very normal family setting, why would there be no concern with commercials that feature scantily clothed kiddies where the frequently used premise is the babies talking like adults. I'm not sure what exactly would "click" to someone who could look at a child and see a sexual being but I'm frequently surprised by what I see in simple diaper commercials.