Google 'reveals user' over Gmail child abuse images

[webfact]

Google 'reveals user' over Gmail child abuse images

HOUSTON: -- Google has revealed the identity of a user after discovering child abuse imagery in the man's Gmail account in Houston, Texas, according to a local news report.

It alerted a child protection agency, which notified the police and the man was arrested, KHOU 11 News reported.

Google told the BBC it would not comment on individual accounts.

The arrest raises questions over the privacy of personal email and Google's role in policing the web.

Police in Houston told the local news station that Google detected explicit images of a young girl in an email being sent by John Henry Skillern. After the existence of the email was referred to them by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the police obtained a search warrant and arrested the man.

Full story: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28639628

[bbc]2014-08-05[/bbc]

 

[rhythmworx]

If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about.

 

Them sick *ucks deserve all they get, good on google for once.

[Calach]

If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about.

 

Them sick *ucks deserve all they get, good on google for once.

 

That's what they say in North Korea too.

[F430murci]

If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about.
 
Them sick *ucks deserve all they get, good on google for once.

 

That's what they say in North Korea too.

Yeah, but unlike North Koreans, I actually have internet access, electricity 24 hours a door, high quality food on my table, clean water, drive Italian sports cars and can say anything I want about Obama without fear of being arrested.

News flash, its not the government scanning images in the emails. It is a private company, it is their email system, you probably consent to it by signing up and using their free system and if you don't like it, don't use gmail or better yet, don't send child porn in you gmail emails.

--------

DETECTIVE DAVID NETTLES, HOUSTON METRO INTERNET CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN TASKFORCE: "He was trying to get around getting caught by just keeping it inside of his email. I would never be able to find that. ... I don't really know how they do their job, but I'm just glad they do it."​

Google's made no secret it scans Gmail users' accounts to provide targeted ads and even argued in court users should have no expectation of privacy. In response to a class action complaint against the company last year, Google's attorneys argued, "Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient's assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their communications are processed by the recipient's ECS provider in the course of delivery."

The company also partly funds the Internet Watch Foundation, which identifies child abuse images on the Web.

http://m.wpxi.com/news/news/national/googles-gmail-tip-leads-child-porn-arrest-near-hou/ngtdD/ Edited August 5, 2014 by F430murci

[terryp]

If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about.

 

 

 

what ignorance ...this is exactly why most peoples rights are being destroyed by people with the same idiotic attitudes.......what will you say when all your rights are gone and they come for................ YOU

[JacChang]

Thank god years ago, I learn to put fake personal info on my facebook.

 

It's a business, not some social site to serve us.

[siampolee]

Any move that exposes these evil  people is a positive move, thus  the actions of Google are to  applauded and lauded.

 

Any ''kiddy fiddler'' who is exposed is indeed a bonus for our and all children, one more  piece of useless humanity off of the cyber street we hope 

[ChrisY1]

The question I ask is, doesGoogle only conduct searches for child porn information on it's users ?

We all have loads personal information going through the GMail system daily...for me, it's information about my banking....info to my accountant...a whole range of stuff that I consider very personal.....I consider it much more than a case of "if I don't like it, don't use it".

 

The US now openly has data collection..same as Australia is about to embark on....

Can we actually communicate in private an longer, when encrypting is able to be decrypted by these bodies?

Scary stuff nowadays and likely to become worse

[JacChang]

The question I ask is, doesGoogle only conduct searches for child porn information on it's users ?

We all have loads personal information going through the GMail system daily...for me, it's information about my banking....info to my accountant...a whole range of stuff that I consider very personal.....I consider it much more than a case of "if I don't like it, don't use it".

 

The US now openly has data collection..same as Australia is about to embark on....

Can we actually communicate in private an longer, when encrypting is able to be decrypted by these bodies?

Scary stuff nowadays and likely to become worse

Well said.

 

For decades now, I have been cynical of these so called online websites regardless of their brand. Facebook/google/ whatever is as credible as the next spam website that pops up.

 

It's no longer what we were used to know as the social website. Where the owner maintains a site, for us customers to input our data to mingle with others.

 

Now? From what I know is. Questions I ask myself. Why should I tell you my real birthdate huh? Why should I be so stupid and let you know my real location? Yea sure, give you all this free information. In the real world, companies need to pay money for this, while we are stupidly giving it for free. What's the point of giving out these information if these exact information is being asked by your bank to verify it's you?

 

Behind the real facebook/google/whatever.

Business marketers = They want to know where you live, what you eat, what websites you've gone through, what type of "likes" you have done, heck, they know everything about you. Ever wonder why the advertisement on your facebook is different from your girlfriend/wife's?

 

Scammers= Loot free info from your profile. Heck, you might as well list your account numbers on your profile.

 

Police/murderers= They want to know where you've been, who you have been with. Your photos. Your cars. Your "check in" at facebook saying where you are.

 

Bottomline.

Fake profile = no info on me

my gain, your loss

[Calach]

 

 

If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about.
 
Them sick *ucks deserve all they get, good on google for once.

 

That's what they say in North Korea too.

Yeah, but unlike North Koreans, I actually have internet access, electricity 24 hours a door, high quality food on my table, clean water, drive Italian sports cars and can say anything I want about Obama without fear of being arrested.

News flash, its not the government scanning images in the emails. It is a private company, it is their email system, you probably consent to it by signing up and using their free system and if you don't like it, don't use gmail or better yet, don't send child porn in you gmail emails.

--------

DETECTIVE DAVID NETTLES, HOUSTON METRO INTERNET CRIMES AGAINST CHILDREN TASKFORCE: "He was trying to get around getting caught by just keeping it inside of his email. I would never be able to find that. ... I don't really know how they do their job, but I'm just glad they do it."​

Google's made no secret it scans Gmail users' accounts to provide targeted ads and even argued in court users should have no expectation of privacy. In response to a class action complaint against the company last year, Google's attorneys argued, "Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient's assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their communications are processed by the recipient's ECS provider in the course of delivery."

The company also partly funds the Internet Watch Foundation, which identifies child abuse images on the Web.

http://m.wpxi.com/news/news/national/googles-gmail-tip-leads-child-porn-arrest-near-hou/ngtdD/

 

 

Well, you also have a Patriot Act, Guantanamo, whistle blowers in jail or exile, PRISM, extraordinary rendition and 1 adult out of 1000 in jail.

 

This "if you don't have anything to hide..." phrase is just a poor slogan to promote securitarian and surveillance policies, it supposes that society and authorities are entitled to know everything about individuals, that it is necessarily wrong to hide something, and moreover, that State is fundamentaly and permanently benevolent, which of course isn't true.

Edited August 5, 2014 by Calach

[slygeeza]

it should be noted that the guy, as far as I can tell, was arrested for having child porn, not raping kids. there is evidence that porn reduces rape. not suggesting he shouldnt have been arrested, just saying that there are much worse things he could have done.

[Franky Bear]

If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about.

 

Them sick *ucks deserve all they get, good on google for once.

That's the way i live my life. I don't care if they snoop on me because i don't break the law in any way which means my door will come in at 6am with blacked up cops with machine guns.

The internet changed the way bad guys work, so the more snooping they do the better as far as i'm concerned 

[sanuk711]

 

If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about.

 

Them sick *ucks deserve all they get, good on google for once.

That's the way i live my life. I don't care if they snoop on me because i don't break the law in any way which means my door will come in at 6am with blacked up cops with machine guns.

The internet changed the way bad guys work, so the more snooping they do the better as far as i'm concerned 

 

I am the father of 5 girls from 2 marriages, & obviously have nothing but loathing for child molesters,  But really Franky, people like you & rhythmworks who are willing to sign away any hard fought for freedoms, scare the life out of me.
 

[Franky Bear]

 

 

If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about.

 

Them sick *ucks deserve all they get, good on google for once.

That's the way i live my life. I don't care if they snoop on me because i don't break the law in any way which means my door will come in at 6am with blacked up cops with machine guns.

The internet changed the way bad guys work, so the more snooping they do the better as far as i'm concerned 

 

I am the father of 5 girls from 2 marriages, & obviously have nothing but loathing for child molesters,  But really Franky, people like you & rhythmworks who are willing to sign away any hard fought for freedoms, scare the life out of me.
 

 

I sleep at night just fine. No freedoms have ever been taken away from me. 101 countries visited, no hassles. I walk to streets safely. Only time i have been involved with the police is when i've been at a football match, or been a bit rowdy ouytside a pub.

 

[sanuk711]

I think you belong to a group that most internet people refer to as ..."Sleep walkers Franky"..................

.

 

I am really glad that Google reading peoples mail allowed you to walk the streets of 101 countries safely.

 

.

** Anyway the Liverpool --Man U match is now there for the download....

Edited August 5, 2014 by sanuk711

[Franky Bear]

I think you belong to a group that most internet people refer to as ..."Sleep walkers Franky"..................

 

 

.

** Anyway the Liverpool --Man U match is now there for the download....

 

 

I could care less though. Far more important things to worry about than someone looking at the porn links i use.

[Scott]

This is not new.   About 10 years ago -- possibly a few more -- a friend of mine sent a picture to his parents of him and his daughter in the bathtub together.   Absolutely nothing revealing, lots of toys and lots of suds and not even the top 1/2 of either was visible (the daughter was blowing bubbles at her dad).  

 

Within 48 hours of sending the email.   The parents received a knock on the door from the police.   They had to explain it was their son and his daughter.  

 

The email was sent from Thailand to Canada, by the way.  

Edited August 5, 2014 by Scott
edited 'not' out

[midzo]

"If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about."

Said every fascist ever.

[Krataiboy]

If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about.

 

Them sick *ucks deserve all they get, good on google for once.

 

If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about. 

 

It isn't about having something to hide (though most of us, if we are honest, have a few skeletons in our cupboards).

 

It is about the right to personal privacy, which is one of the basic rights of every democratic society - rights which are systematically being undermined across the developed world by your kind of naive thinking, which encourages mass State snooping and the stifling of dissent.

 

If you don't mind strangers from State security organisations monitoring your phone conversations, emails and internet trawls, how  would you feel about letting them install spy cameras in your home - the toilet and bedroom for example? The boundaries of what we will tolerate when it comes to loss of privacy are constantly being tested and breached and without resistance they will cease to exist..

 

Countries like the US and Britain (which happens to have more surveillance cameras than any other nation with a similar sized population) are slowly but surely morphing into the Big Brother totalitarian states which millions of people died opposing in World War II.

 

Incidentally, you have presumably failed to notice that the speech has become a little less free in your adopted homeland  than it was a few months ago when you could be as rude as you liked about the Puea Thai administration and get away with it. Today's newspapers are reporting  that a number of dissenters against the current junta are facing trial by military court, with the prospect of lengthy jail sentences.. 

 

 

But feel free to shoot your mouth off. After all, you have nothing to hide. Have you?

[Frank James]

"If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about."

Said every fascist ever.

 

"we'd like to know a little bit about you for our files.."

 

From an interview with Reagan's Attorney General Ed Meese:

 

U.S News: You criticize the Miranda ruling, which gives suspects the right to have a lawyer present before police questioning. Shouldn't people, who may be innocent, have such protection?

Meese: Suspects who are innocent of a crime should. But the thing is, you don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect.

[Chicog]

My company uses software that can spot T&A in emails. Pornography is strictly forbidden, but many people used to ignore it.

No-one wants to have to sit and snoop through peoples' mailboxes to look for it, so an automated process does it for them.

Microsoft have similar technology by the way.

As long as it's only a dumb program doing image analysis I don't really see a problem. As someone else said, it's in the terms and conditions and if you choose to use it, and then abuse it, you are the one that is to blame.

 

I have no problem using GMail, because I don't email kiddie porn, and I applaud them for using technology to nail these scum.

 

It's not as if the subhuman involved was denied due process.

 

Added: I'm pretty certain that Benjamin Franklin didn't know much about the Internet or child pornography for that matter.

 

 

Edited August 5, 2014 by Chicog

[Chicog]

it should be noted that the guy, as far as I can tell, was arrested for having child porn, not raping kids. there is evidence that porn reduces rape. not suggesting he shouldnt have been arrested, just saying that there are much worse things he could have done.

 

People like him create the demand for child porn, so to my mind he's almost as guilty as the abusers filming and photographing it.

[Saradoc1972]

 

Yeah, but unlike North Koreans, I actually have internet access, electricity 24 hours a door, high quality food on my table, clean water, drive Italian sports cars and can say anything I want about Obama without fear of being arrested.

 

 

I fail to see what those amenities have to do with basic freedoms in a democracy. Unless you are argueing along the lines of "Life's good, shut up" or "I am happy, if you are not it's the wrong democracy for you", in which case the word democracy no longer applies.

 

I suppose for the time being you can say anything about Obama without being arrested, might just buy you a couple of hours of quality time with the border patrol whenever you enter the US, even as an US citizen. For the time being it only happens to US muslims and also to NSA-critical western authors wanting to attend an international conference.

 

 

News flash, its not the government scanning images in the emails. It is a private company, it is their email system, you probably consent to it by signing up and using their free system and if you don't like it, don't use gmail or better yet, don't send child porn in you gmail emails.
 

That's good. Private companies cannot hide so easily behind nondescript mantra-like terms like "national security" to avoid lawsuits.

 

At least for Germany I am 100% positive the practice of going through somebody's communication is illegal under both the telecommunication act and the constitution, no matter what you consented to, without a warrant in the first place. Might buy somebody at Google up to 5 years in prison as it contravenes our idea of freedom of speech, even if it uncovers illegal acts.

 

As this went through the news now I am also 100% certain Google will have to cut out those practices at least in continental Europe quite soon or be gone with it's mail and cloud services. I am expecting some lawsuit to be filed within the month.

 

"You probably consent to it by signing up..." - so you don't even now if you are swearing away your rights by signing up to some service, too much hassle going through 25+ pages of fine print full of legalese, the ramnifications of which you wouldn't comprehend even if you did? That's why terms of business are curtailed by laws.

 

 

Google's made no secret it scans Gmail users' accounts to provide targeted ads and even argued in court users should have no expectation of privacy. In response to a class action complaint against the company last year, Google's attorneys argued, "Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient's assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their communications are processed by the recipient's ECS provider in the course of delivery."

 

I suppose the sender of a letter would be quite surprised if said letter was ripped open by the mailman, that recipient's assistant could only get it's jand on it have processing by the communication provider. Will be an interesting lawsuit over in Germany with that statement out in the open. Or rather not.

[Scott]

A troll post and numerous replies have been deleted.  

 

[F430murci]

My company uses software that can spot T&A in emails. Pornography is strictly forbidden, but many people used to ignore it.
No-one wants to have to sit and snoop through peoples' mailboxes to look for it, so an automated process does it for them.

Microsoft have similar technology by the way.
As long as it's only a dumb program doing image analysis I don't really see a problem. As someone else said, it's in the terms and conditions and if you choose to use it, and then abuse it, you are the one that is to blame.
 
I have no problem using GMail, because I don't email kiddie porn, and I applaud them for using technology to nail these scum.
 
It's not as if the subhuman involved was denied due process.
 
Added: I'm pretty certain that Benjamin Franklin didn't know much about the Internet or child pornography for that matter.
 
 

Thanks. Exactly. Not like someone is sitting around reading each and every email. Not like full account numbers are in your gmail mailbox and if so, then your financial institution is the problem.

Again, if you are signing up to use a free private public email source like Gmail, you don't really have a legal expectation of privacy

4th Amendment is applicable to government intrusion.

All you guys that think you are so important that someone is interested in tou or cares about your email are delusional provided you are not sending porn pictures and getting nailed by photo screening software because you violated Google policy.

[kingstonkid]

If you have your own domain besides your IP can anyone access your email.  That may be the only way to avoid.

 

I know that the Canadian government and business are not allowed to email me and when i send them stuff on line they get upset if my name or id shows at all due to privacy concerns

[Bernard Flint]

Any move that exposes these evil  people is a positive move, thus  the actions of Google are to  applauded and lauded.

 

Any ''kiddy fiddler'' who is exposed is indeed a bonus for our and all children, one more  piece of useless humanity off of the cyber street we hope 

 

SIR

 

Totaly agree, and i feel rather sick reading the ones who dont agree with taking these sickos out, very worrying.

[wolf5370]

PGP has been free for years - even ZIP with a random 10 char password is almost impossible to open (can be done but takes a lot of processing and a long time - for each one). If privacy is really an issue either use these for your messages and/or attachments, use an ISP/hosted based email rather than a free one, or use the darknet. Not saying this for protecting child pornographers, but for people that want to be private in their emails - thus is why companies pay lots of money for infrastructure to host their own email systems and not use free mail.

[wolf5370]

 

Any move that exposes these evil  people is a positive move, thus  the actions of Google are to  applauded and lauded.

 

Any ''kiddy fiddler'' who is exposed is indeed a bonus for our and all children, one more  piece of useless humanity off of the cyber street we hope 

 

SIR

 

Totaly agree, and i feel rather sick reading the ones who dont agree with taking these sickos out, very worrying.

 

Who is disagreeing with taking these "sickos" out? Point out a post! The complaints are not due to worry about poor pedos, but of further and continual erosion of privacy.  

[Loptr]

My company uses software that can spot T&A in emails. Pornography is strictly forbidden, but many people used to ignore it.

No-one wants to have to sit and snoop through peoples' mailboxes to look for it, so an automated process does it for them.

Microsoft have similar technology by the way.

As long as it's only a dumb program doing image analysis I don't really see a problem. As someone else said, it's in the terms and conditions and if you choose to use it, and then abuse it, you are the one that is to blame.

 

I have no problem using GMail, because I don't email kiddie porn, and I applaud them for using technology to nail these scum.

 

It's not as if the subhuman involved was denied due process.

 

Added: I'm pretty certain that Benjamin Franklin didn't know much about the Internet or child pornography for that matter.

 

 

 

It appears the mods agree with you...