dj_sniffy

Originally posted by XYCash

You contract with a sponsor to look for CP related material on their affiliates sites correct?


yes


You database that information and the results are released to the sponsor correct?


only a red flag is released to the sponsor, giving them the URL of the website that found, confirmed, CP material (no different than what ASACP does)



In the process of finding those people who may have CP related material you also database those who don't, right?


yes, images are classifed as "adult" or "cp". this also allows us to have subsequent images to be auto-identified by the database, to weed out previous images (ie. same image found on different website, same image downloaded next time around from same website, etc).





Now, what you may deem illegal and what I may deem illegal when it comes to obscenity , not CP may be two different things.



correct, but we are taking the guidelines of the federal gov't and ASACP and any other guidelines for rules of evaluation. the end result is what guidelines we use, we can say, given said stipulations, we determined a website to have CP.

a sponsor may not know or care about the guidelines, but when they go to the site, they will make their own arm-chair determination, and say ya, that's CP... i know it when i see it. that's the whole point of sniffy. people know what CP is, but sponsors don't have the time to find it.

so does that mean 18+ models who are marketed as under 18 be caught up in the net? i would hope that the guidelines we establish will look at the context of the situation. maybe one of the guideliness that is handed down to us by the sponsors, is that if it looks like the image is trying to portray a minor, then that's a red flag in their book.

sponsors already have this issue.

i agree things are subjective, but rather than going by "common sense", since that varies, we are atleast stating our assumptions down and following those assumptions, until they get changed or updated.



The fact is your software could be used to search for what the feds see as obscene material (no relation here to CP)

yes, it could be possible given your scenario. we have a database of data that tags an image as being "adult" or "cp" that is indexed by MD5 hashed, with the location/url of where the file came from.

the feds could take our data, and run a query of hash values of "obscene" pics, and given our data flags as "adult", they deemd as "obscene" and the URL is revealed.


so how is this any different than the feds going to google and querying for keywords? it's no different. both google and sniffy don't openly say to the feds, feel free to use our data for whatever purposes since you have a court order. no, we don't say anything at all.

but yes, there is that possibilty that our data could be used to ferret out what the feds deem as "obscene". so the VCR can be used to make copies of tapes. so CD-R technology can be used for people to steal copyrighted material. technology will take us to places where we didn't intend them to go... (ie. the guys who developed the atomic bomb)

We can be responsible for our own actions and do the best that we can.




Would it not be easy to write into the contract with the sponsor (not the webmasters whom you are databasing) that no part of this software or your database will ever be used by the feds except under subpoena?

yes.


will this make you sleep better at night that 1 known web crawler says they are not offering their data to the feds freely? what about the other unknown amount of web crawlers that come from mainstream or from the feds that do their own indexing?

what about adult websites who do spidering to grab images from other websites for viewing on their own site?

while focal criticism is welcomed, the toppling of sniffy would be no victory for the industry.

i think it comes down to the better of two "evils". do webmasters want to be "monitored" by an adult-industry entity that states what it is doing, has credible people involved, associated with organizations like ASACP, or do you want some mainstream company and/or Feds to secretly and stealthfully do the monitoring?

it's happening everyday, whether sniffy is running or not.

do you want to support an industry inside solution, or just want to put your hands in the air, and say stop stealing my bandwidth?

the debate could be, why should sniffy be the adult-industry keeper of the data? well, no one else has proposed such a thing. i reliaze people have the technical skills to do the exact thing, but no one has stated this is our plan except for us.

i am not challenging others to come up with their own, if you do, that's the beauty of the free market. but we do feel we have a package that does things faster, cheaper, better. so if sniffy is the only provider of the service, great for us. should their be competitors, that's fine, that's business. but will this other business be open to public scrutiny as we are, or just do what they will and completely ignore the voices of the adult industry?

if the sponsors feel pressured that a negative backlash will hit them because of the use of sniffy, then congratulations to those folks, chalk up another point for the CP supporters. you may not like CP, but your "good intention" actions will only support their cause. Inaction is action, just not where you intended.


-dj

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