Google develops new software to combat child pornography images

[David Tom]

The internet is a gift; an extensive data sharing network that has enabled us to do so much good. It has revolutionized the way we communicate with one another, schedule events and vacations, manage our finances, and even receive an education.

Unfortunately, the internet also has the potential to do evil. Criminals can hide behind the blanket of anonymity that the web provides, and there is no better example of this behavior than the child porn industry. In many cases, these images find a permanent home on popular search engines such as Google - a practice that the California-based company is working hard to eradicate.

According to The Telegraph, Google’s engineers are developing a new technology to crackdown on the transfer of child pornography through online channels. Google’s system will enable other search engines and websites to ‘flag’ these photos as indecent, where they can then be deleted automatically.

Past efforts to earmark such images have been ineffective, with the main difficulty stemming from a lack of an industry standard. Using this knowledge, the new software aims to create a unified platform upon which the elimination of child pornography can begin. The software was originally designed in 2008, and the company now believes that the project had progressed to the point where it will be operational within the year.

Scott Rubin, a spokesperson for Google, added, “Each offending image in effect gets a unique fingerprint that our computers can recognize without humans having to view them again. Recently, we have started working to incorporate these fingerprints into a cross-industry database. This will enable companies, law enforcement, and charities to better collaborate on detecting and removing child abuse images.”

Not surprisingly, Google’s efforts have earned them considerable praise from advocates of child safety. This is not only due to the ground-breaking technology that they are set to release, but also because of a $2 million fund that the company has created. This money will be used to help independent software developers produce their own programs for use in the war against child sex abuse.

John Carr, a government advisor, expressed his gratitude by saying, “Google have stepped up. No one can argue about that. In all my time working in this space no company has ever devoted anything like this level of resources to working with civil society organisations to attack online child abuse images.”

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/52919-google-develops-new-software-to-combat-child-pornography-images.html

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

Thanks Google

Funny timing on the story though after like 6 articles about PRISM and the NSA. It really gives me mixed feelings to be saying I support online privacy when it will benefit pedophiles as well.

 

[cliffordcooley]

It really gives me mixed feelings to be saying I support online privacy when it will benefit pedophiles as well.

Wouldn't a pedophile give reasonable cause for search? I don't understand how, this would give cause to violate everyone else's privacy.

 

[RH00D]

Just so we're clear, this does nothing to protect children. They are still being sexually abused in real life. So before we all go feeling warm and fuzzy and good about ourselves, let's not forget that.

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

Wouldn't a pedophile give reasonable cause for search? I don't understand how, this would give cause to violate everyone else's privacy.

Once you know they are, sure, but if your identity is 100% protected how will they find out who they should be searching?

Just so we're clear, this does nothing to protect children. They are still being sexually abused in real life. So before we all go feeling warm and fuzzy and good about ourselves, let's not forget that.

I don't feel 'good about myself' but a little schadenfreude at the expense of a pedophile should be enough to brighten anyone's Monday morning.

 

[cliffordcooley]

RH00D, so true!

Virtually fighting a real war, that should gain some ground. As long as we don't win the war we will always have job security. I'm questioning exactly how much we really want violence to stop. Those of us fighting each other want nothing less than to continue. After all what would everyone have to keep their minds busy in a peaceful world. Unfortunately some are so sick, they include kids in the conquest to keep their minds busy. Now if we retrace our steps and find out when we as a society became so ill, we might have a chance at finding a cure. Long story short; we (as a whole) don't want a cure, so we will never find one.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

This is going require a delicate balance between protecting on line privacy & exposing these scumbags but if Google can pull this off, I'll tip my hat to them.

 

[Guest]

It is important to remember that blocking such images does nothing to prevent current abuses. It does however play a role in helping to prevent new interest in those that may have a... weakness I suppose... in that area

 

[Guest]

Cliffordcooley So what are you sayin' that the police don't want to solve crimes so they can keep their job? That firefighters want people's houses to burn so they can keep their job? 1st off, you know they get paid the same even if no one calls them. And 2nd ARE YOU REALLY THAT crAzY!

Society 'as a whole' likes evil so we can 'keep our mind busy?!' yeah, cause we could all use some trauma and maybe some PTSD so wouldn't have to fall asleep so easily at night.

Oh wait I got it. You must work for a Union right?

 

[cliffordcooley]

1st off, you know they get paid the same even if no one calls them. And 2nd ARE YOU REALLY THAT crAzY!

And you are only looking at the topic from one side of the fence, choosing to ignore why so many are standing on the other side. As long as one of the two sides maintains its border, the fence will never come down. Have you ever heard the phrase "before you can fight an enemy, you must first understand the enemy"? If we as a society does nothing to understand why we fight, fighting will never stop. Our negligence in understanding why, is where I get the impression we don't care if violence stops.

And yes I might actually be that crazy, crazy to think we have it within ourselves to stop violence. But at the same time, question whether we are ready to make that commitment.

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

1st off, you know they get paid the same even if no one calls them. And 2nd ARE YOU REALLY THAT crAzY!

And you are only looking at the topic from one side of the fence, choosing to ignore why so many are standing on the other side. As long as one of the two sides maintains its border, the fence will never come down. Have you ever heard the phrase "before you can fight an enemy, you must first understand the enemy"? If we as a society does nothing to understand why we fight, fighting will never stop. Our negligence in understanding why, is where I get the impression we don't care if violence stops.

And yes I might actually be that crazy, crazy to think we have it within ourselves to stop violence. But at the same time, question whether we are ready to make that commitment.

Understand why we fight what? Child p0rn? The war on drugs? gun violence? I'm sure people try to understand their enemy, it helps them beat their enemy.

I don't think you're crazy for thinking we have it within ourselves to stop violence, but I do think it's presumptuous and maybe even a little arrogant. Do you assume others have the capacity to be peaceful because you are peaceful. Everyone's brain is wired differently, and I don't mean just opinions. I think it may have been Ted Bundy (the serial killer) who said he couldn't understand why anyone cared that he killed people when there were so many in the world. How could a few of 6 billion have any value?
Most prisoners have anti-social disorder, which means they have hard time feeling empathy. Psychopaths can't tell right from wrong. To them violence is just something you have to not get caught doing, like driving over the speed limit, not something you actually have to avoid. Do you watch Breaking Bad? Compare Jesse's personality to Walter's (or Todd's) and you'll see the difference.

So unless we figure out how to pre-wire people's brains GATTACA-style, there will always be violence. Just like there will always be pedophiles. RH00D's point was right, that restricting a pedophile's search engine doesn't remove them from society or change how they think. But to say the rest of us don't want that behavior to stop so we can continue to fight it is a bit far fetched.

 

[cliffordcooley]

So unless we figure out how to pre-wire people's brains GATTACA-style, there will always be violence.

Your getting close! People were pre-wired (your term) from the beginning to be peaceful. The lack of pre-wiring is where we fall short.

I'm not posting my reason by here is a Hint

 

[Forensics1]

Just so we're clear, this does nothing to protect children. They are still being sexually abused in real life. So before we all go feeling warm and fuzzy and good about ourselves, let's not forget that.

As a civilian you have no way to know this but in reality, and to be super clear, we who encounter child pornogaphy will greatly benefit by Google's amazing action in the effort to stop child sexual abuse. My company has been performing digital forensics for more that ten years now. We have assisted in having about ten child porn freaks arrested in that time. If the hash values for the child porn images, as refernced in this article, had been available to us we could have at least doubled or tripled that number.

The problem has ALWAYS been that law enforcement and NCMEC have never made those hash values available to small private certified digital forensics examiners (companies) even though we use the same software that LE does and we are just as motivated to lock these nuts up. The significant part of this announcement, then, is that Google is making these values available to private companies. I guarantee you that once our guys have access to these values we will be checking every computer that comes into our lab.

I can remember dozens of computers that we wanted to examine for child pornogaphy while in our lab. We tried to get LE involved but they told us to come back in 6 months to a year. They are so inundated with the cases they literally do not have time to make every case they could have made had those computers been examined. With Google supplying the necessary hash values we will ge able to scan every box that walks through our door. It is easy to do once we have the hash values and impossible to do without having them.

What Google is doing here is enabling thousands of additional certified private examiners who will now be able to do the busy work for LE. We will now be able to provide the evidence and the documentation all wrapped up with a bow on the top and LE will be able to get search warrants and arrest warrants based on our work. All of that will directly result in protecting children. It will have an effect that will be measured by greatly increased arrests and convictions of pedophiles.

And THAT is how people work together to directly protect children. HoAhhh!

 

[treetops]

Kudos to google, this is only costing them money and they are still doing the right thing. Not every company is heartless.

 

[Forensics1]

Understand why we fight what? Child p0rn? The war on drugs? gun violence? I'm sure people try to understand their enemy, it helps them beat their enemy.

I don't think you're crazy for thinking we have it within ourselves to stop violence, but I do think it's presumptuous and maybe even a little arrogant. Do you assume others have the capacity to be peaceful because you are peaceful. Everyone's brain is wired differently, and I don't mean just opinions. I think it may have been Ted Bundy (the serial killer) who said he couldn't understand why anyone cared that he killed people when there were so many in the world. How could a few of 6 billion have any value?
Most prisoners have anti-social disorder, which means they have hard time feeling empathy. Psychopaths can't tell right from wrong. To them violence is just something you have to not get caught doing, like driving over the speed limit, not something you actually have to avoid. Do you watch Breaking Bad? Compare Jesse's personality to Walter's (or Todd's) and you'll see the difference.

So unless we figure out how to pre-wire people's brains GATTACA-style, there will always be violence. Just like there will always be pedophiles. RH00D's point was right, that restricting a pedophile's search engine doesn't remove them from society or change how they think. But to say the rest of us don't want that behavior to stop so we can continue to fight it is a bit far fetched.

Your evaluation that most people like Ted Bundy can be diagnosed as having "Anti Social Personality Disorder" is correct. It is actually a genetic defect that prevents them from forming what Freud called the "Super Ego" aka the "conscience" that 95% of human beings have. This defect prevents them from experiencing guilt, empathy, sympathy, and other normal feelings that most people experience.

However, you would be incorrect to say that they do not know right from wrong. They know exactly what is right and what is wrong, but ,they don't care.

This is why when someone with this disorder murders another human being, just as Bundy did, they take steps to prevent being captured. They lie, the cheat, they steal, they evade, they will do whatever is required to avoid arrest.

They see people as possessions, not as humans with intrinsic value. They will marry a spouse not because they love that person but because they believe their spouse will make them look better to the world.When that spouse no longer makes them look better they will rid themselves of that person just like they would toss out the garbage. This is when women are murdered by their spouse, fiance, or lover, and men and simply dumped by theirs. Both men and women have this disorder though we usually see the males committing the violent crimes.

These people are very dangerous and they walk among us. Be very careful.