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[umiman]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7437003.stm

Is it just me, or is arresting someone and raiding their houses based solely on their IP address and the fact that they might have stumbled across something on the internet bordering on idiotic?

From now on, if someone manages to say... hack Google and put child porn on its front page, are we all doomed to go to jail and labeled as pedophiles?

More stupidity:

quote:Some commercial child abuse websites, run by criminal gangs, break up images on to several servers around the world. The fragments, like pieces of a jigsaw, are only united when a paedophile downloads an image.

Sigh... if they're trying to say "torrent"... sigh...

quote:And the latest technology, such as web-enabled devices like the Sony PlayStation and new generation mobile phones, is being used to download these images.

Wow! The Sony Playstation 3 has unrestricted access to child porn that a PC can't get? Incredible!

[ June 05, 2008: Message edited by: umiman ]

[Keiseth]

There goes my respect for the BBC. I assume Australia too makes use of dynamic IP addresses? So if Guy A actually finds the images on IP X, and then leaves, the DNS assigns IP X to you, you're the criminal?

[Dasleah]

Depends on the ISP. I've got a dynamic IP that alternates between clean and a bunch of wanks that spend all their bandwidth vandalising Wikipedia. But yeah, I'm pretty sure that they can at least confiscate your computer even if you can prove that the IP changes.

Also - in Britain, someone was refused entry because their t-shirt had a picture of Optimus Prime holding a gun on it. A picture of a gun. On a shirt. The world's gone to hell with all these knee-jerk politics. It's more about being seen to be doing something, rather than actually doing something.

[Cthulhu]

That guy looked like Derek Smart.  They should know that you should never deny anything to Derek Smart, or he'll smack you with his PhD

[Earthquake Damage]

To add some seasoning to your food for thought:  This is the result of the same idiots who break out into a "think of the children" song and dance (with harmonica accompaniment) every eight minutes.  Nice world we'll be leaving those children, eh?

[A_Fey_Dwarf]

A lot of the people arrested were primary school teachers. This really disturbs me, I can't stop worrying about my young cousins who go to an Oz school. Damn pedophiles, we should lock the bunch of them up and throw away the key.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Interesting. And it doesn't help that when people do unethical things with the Internet, the people who desperately want to censor everything come out of the woodwork and bitch and moan about how horrible it is.

And I sure hope the Australian police bothered to track everyone's web traffic through their ISPs for those six months, rather than just saying if your IP address hit the "respected European site" your computer should be confiscated. For example, I read the article you linked to, so am I put on some kind of list because of the text found in the article?

I smell an 1,800-member class action lawsuit brewing if they didn't cross all their Ts with this one.

Just for the record, I'm not against justice. I'm against overzealous and irrational policing by Orwellian states. If they did it right, kudos. But by this simple BBC report it sounds like they botched it.

[McDoomhammer]

I for one find this "Respected European Site" thing extremely dubious.  Respected by whom?  What kind of site?  I understand that it;s not exactly appropriate to be shouting the URL from the rooftops, but I question all this vagueness.

[Torak]

I wish we'd stop putting the proven no-way-in-hell-non-guilty rapists and paedos in prison and just kill them.

The same with most murderers and kidnappers. Capitol punishment is such a rare thing now, we just let the horrible people merge with normal society which fucks the woodworks up in time.

[Helmaroc]

Agreed, those who are completely guilty and have shown no signs of changing their ways should be stopped permanently.

[Cthulhu]

I don't think anyone should be executed, murder(or other crimes) don't justify murder.  Life imprisonment with 0 chance of parole, however...  I've heard voluntary castration for a lower sentence suggested before.  As long as there was no way they could take hormone therapy or get it reversed, maybe that could work.

[McDoomhammer]

I'm glad to hear a similar viewpoint to mine, Cthulhu.  Never heard about the castration thing before, though.

[Kagus]

I am of the opinion that if you violate such basic human rights as life (murder) and personal sanctity (rape), you do not deserve having your own rights respected.

But then again, I also happen to think that the current execution methods could be scrapped in favor of gladiatorial combat.  Instead of being the current burden they are on the prison budget, death row prisoners could actually bring in money for the jails (everybody loves sponsors).

[Wooty]

The problem with sticking everyone in prison for life is its so costly. Someone in prison for life will end up using a heck of a lot of money, money that could be used to improve the life of people who aren't sick murderers, people who are paying so that the sick murderers can eat right now.

Kagus put it pretty well. Except the gladitorial combat thing - we could use them to test new health and cosmetic products.

[Helmaroc]

I think that life sentences should not exist, if it is that bad, the person should be executed. Why let them live if they're going to die a criminal anyway? And hell is plenty enough punishment.