Try whois for sniffy.com

Btw Lee, don't forget to register SniffyJr.com

Thanks Babee, there are endless defensive domains to consider. You know I still wub' you! have since 1999.

Originally posted by freeadultcontent
Few questions after reading all of this tech talk.

If your program is making copies of content, even if said content will be deleted after review, and your company is a profit venture, are you not then profiting off of said content and thus infringing on ones copyright of said content?





this is a great question for content providers since websites that sniffy visits, are downloading images that were licensed to the website, but the copyright belonging to the copyright holder. so it would be the copyright holder that would pose this question.

i don't believe there is any precedent either for or against my opinion, that copyright owners do have copyright protection to the image and its use and display of the image, but copyright does not extend to the binary level, whereas the image is copyright for its visual presentation, who representation is done through 1's and 0's.

this to me would be a great debate, because it touches upon new areas of IP in the digital age. it's kind like the story that the RIAA is saying that when you buy a CD, you are purchasing the license to the music, not buying the music or the CD. so therefore, if the CD breaks, they don't have to be responsible to pay for it, because you licensed the music. while a cd can be riipped to MP3, the format has changed, but the work of art is still the same being the same way the artist intended on the creation as music to listen. by hashing or doing acoustic fingerprinting, etc on the mp3, does not, IMHO, constitute copyright infringement, because the artist and the IP holder can't extend dominion to the medium that goes beyond the artist creation.

One could say then how did you obtain this copyright material. it was downloaded from a website much like any other web surfer. some websites could have a disclaimer that acceptable use of the site is for non-commercial, personal use/viewing only. or, that since the image was retrieved legally, by visiting the website, that the subsequent processing of the image and extraction of the data does not constitute copyright infringement.

an interesting question that only a court of law will determine, rather than just a lawyer's opinion.






Will it stop at the free areas or will it also sniff inside of a pay area? You did mention AVS etc.




we are focusing on the free areas. to get inside a site requires membership...either meaning we joined or was given consent. if CP exists behind closed doors, then some how, or some way surfers had to be attracted to the site to sign up, so that kind of marketing is done in the free areas.




You are making a road map of each webmasters entire network of sites. Listing which ones should be reviewed, had flags, etc. You are also dealing with CP and the now underfire adult internet, specially with the upgraded 2257 rules. What is to stop the Government from subpoenaing your database and thus putting many of us in even more risk? We are in an age of proactive politics, i.e. attack before attacked, porn causes cp, etc. So why would they not just love to get their hands on this database, the FBI will know about it afterall?



i am not sure what the government's interest would be in a database schema that includes file type attributes like md5, filename, filesize, H, W, etc. we are not looking for CP, that's what ASACP does and thus the close relationship. should we find CP, we turn it over to the sponsor who in turn turns it in to ASACP.

if we are subpenaed, we have to comply. but that's no reason to deter having a business model because of a potential gov;t seizure of data. Potential seizure of property due to CP related items is certainly a liability, so that's why we work under ASACP, and are not out on our own, potentially putting ourselves personally under criminal liability. no amount of money in the world is worth such a position.





Privacy laws will be violated unless each sponsor sends out a hardcopy letter to each affiliate informing them of the information that would be, could be, or may be shared with your company etc. There has been a whole slew of new privacy data sharing laws that went into effect, you are aware of them I presume, well are you?


is it a privacy issue that a sponsor cannot disclose to a third party the URL of their affiliates? i have not read an affiliate contract in an while, but i would assume there is no such thing. we aren't asking the sponsor for how much payouts to the affiliates, personal contacts, etc... we are asking for just the URL




Sniffy visits affiliate site A. Affiliate site A has blocked the hell out of sniffy. Sniffy then reports to sponsor that they could not sniff such site. Sponsor terms affiliate because sniffy could not sniff site A, affiliate looses all traffic income from sponsor. Since sponsor is busy and does not have time to check the hundred or possibly thousands of possible flags that sniffy reports. Maybe sponsor or sniffy have tired and or overworked employees, or maybe sponsor does not wish to hire more people to check flags. Well then did sniffy just cause affiliate finacal harm because affiliate was protecting bandwidth?


in your scenario, sniffy did not cause the direct harm. because a site blocked the searching, the sponsor made their own determination on what they wanted to do about it. I would think that sponsors would not just ban the affiliate without first verifying. i would expect a sponsor to do their own diligence. the value of sniffy is to do the laborious tasks, so the sponsor can focus on the problem areas.

if a website wanted to ban sniffy, then they need to explain that to the sponsor. it's no different than if someone make a report that X website had CP on it. would ASACP immediately contact the FBI and turn them in? No, they validate the lead first, ensure that it is indeed a problem, then they take action. Would the website blame the person who submited the lead as to their downfall? No, they would blame ASACP and the FBI, but should blame themselves for their actions.




Sniffy hits a TGP, TGP has trade script. Sniffy is checking every single link. Gets TGP banned from other trades because of bots. Sniffy just cost TGP money did it not?

Sniffy hits another TGP. TGP has banners for sponsor. Submitter fucked with TGP and altered an image or something. Will TGP get flagged? Then if so, say the reviewer goes to TGP but its been a few days. The images or text is no longer there since it was rotated out or fixed. Does sniffy report to the sponsor but say image and or text has been removed since crawl?


in this scenario and with any scenario where a yellow flag goes up by a reviewer, additional people will then focus on the suspected site to validate what sniffy and reviewer has found. given another snapshot/viewing, and finding confirmation, it becomes a red flag. this kind of check and balance is the same with the previous comment that a spoonsor is not going to just take our word about the red flag.




Affiliate runs toplist. Pain in the ass webmasters change text on toplist to something not allowed on wed.. Affiliate updates toplist and checks for rule violations every tuesday. Sniffy visits toplist on thur. it gets reviewed on friday. Sponsor is sent a violation letter, and affiliate is screwed even though affiliate would have removed it on tuesday. How does sniffy handle such instances?


answered above.



Webmaster has some enemies. Enemies hack webmasters site and place some not so kosher content and keywords on webmasters server. Webmaster is now in heap of trouble thanks to sniffy, webmaster looses all sponsors, and now has no income. Latter prooves it was a hack after long legal battle etc. Would not sniffy be open to a civil suit?



no, because of first the additional levels of internal verification, then there would another level of the sponsor doing the verification. if everyone sees the same thing, and then sponsor cans the affiliate, they deserved to do so. should they be wronging canned, for whatever reason, it is between the affiliate and the sponsor. in all of the examples you have given, there is no direct connection with sniffy's action and having a website being wrongly accused. wrongful accusations happen when there is no measure for verification, much like hearsay and accusation. anyone can hack or accuse someone, a throw back to the salem witch trials. this is not the modern day mcCarthy times. Sniffy is not big brother, and does not cause harm to webmasters.

if a webmaster is doing some thing illegal, then they should get busted. if they do, its because ASACP or the sponsor pushed it forward. Sniffy is then the informer.. so maybe a rat if you will, but the only people that should be fearing sniffy's actions are really those that might get caught.



-dj

http://www.leenoga.com/babynoga.gif - Ya wore my fingies out. Will continue this heartfelt hopeful historical thread in the later. Any comments, concerns, etc., will be responded to, what you think does matter.

Still the burning question, is this concept worth ironing out the kinks, doing the tech was easy, its the window dressing that goes down like "milk after a glass of grapefruit juice".

Blech.

Cya later on.

1. IMO, from what I have seen.. Most sites that actually have CP are promoted in the newsgroups, yahoo groups and chat rooms.. Not through free sites, link lists and TGPs. This would catch those that are promoting legal sites but using underhanded tactics.. making it look like they are going to an illegal site.

And yes, the sponsors have the right to stop this type of marketing and that type of marketing is a problem. But it does not really attack the real problem which is real CP out there behind closed doors.

2. LOL... apparently you haven't dealt much with sites such as linklists that have scripts doing the checking. The scripts can get tripped up pretty easy and they often auto reject. I don't imagine that a sponsor, once they have an automated check will be any more vigilant. An unfortunate outcome of automating any process is that people tend to become reliant on the automation and ignore the human check features that should be in place.

3. see #2 :)

4. This is kind of like "Only guilty people get arrested". If a sponsor shuts down a site on sniffy's (or any scripts/bots/whatever) say so, they are shutting down an income stream. This can be very damaging.

Just imo...

Yeah. I would not turn my affiiate list over to another webmaster unless I was paid well for the info.

I wish I though of this. Not only get webmasters to turn over their affiliate lists to me, but to take it to the next level by getting them to pay me to take the info. I'm impressed, you think big.

wimpy,

a very simplified and twisted way at looking at our proposed business model, maybe you might have more interest in our new side line, powered water. the polls say it will go over big like the pet rock and sea monkeys.

no kicking sand in the eyes and no P in the ool.

-dj

Can you track all the websites your affiliates have? If so, you are further along then some of the BIGGEST Industry players. Some only ask for one website and half the time that website is dead, and the sponsors linking code is all over the place on 100+ websites per webmaster. They have no idea where their banner flies.

Then I am hearing you must feel we have validity if you already have us sailing the perfect storm.

We have developed the wares [SniffyJr.] that ASACP gets at no cost [FREE FREE FREE]. May they take their org to the next level.

Even if we do not bring to market the tools for the sponsors due to no support [this has to be determined], at least we gave the ASACP something they can sink their teeth into.

Give me a moment, I am trying to feel bad and ashamed of our actions.

Originally posted by FarleyHiggins


1. IMO, from what I have seen.. Most sites that actually have CP are promoted in the newsgroups, yahoo groups and chat rooms.. Not through free sites, link lists and TGPs. This would catch those that are promoting legal sites but using underhanded tactics.. making it look like they are going to an illegal site.




an excellent point. it's through the chat mediums like IRC, etc where chatters can send URL to the sidedoors and "hidden pages" on an otherwise legitimate website, a front if you will.

i will chat with Joan at ASACP about where the thousands of CP leads per month come from, whether ppl found the sites through chat rooms, or stumbled upon them from link lists, etc.




2. LOL... apparently you haven't dealt much with sites such as linklists that have scripts doing the checking. The scripts can get tripped up pretty easy and they often auto reject. I don't imagine that a sponsor, once they have an automated check will be any more vigilant. An unfortunate outcome of automating any process is that people tend to become reliant on the automation and ignore the human check features that should be in place.

3. see #2 :)




not sure about your points here. you say that automated checks produce errors and that sponsors are reliant on them, rather than having human checking.. but that's exactly what sniffy does, reliance on human checking, not automated scripts. maybe i have been typing too long and not understanding what i am reading.




4. This is kind of like "Only guilty people get arrested".




for the humor impaired, the following is a joke and any racial or racist interpretations are only valid if you are not white (dj is not a cracka).

no, guilty people are not the ONLY ones to get arrested, innocent black and mexicans get arrested. no such thing as an innocent white person getting arrested. werd.





If a sponsor shuts down a site on sniffy's (or any scripts/bots/whatever) say so, they are shutting down an income stream. This can be very damaging.





this is the problem that sponsor's are starting to face, where they are letting affiliates go that have CP material. we already have one sponsor make a post to say he removed some sites. sponsoprs could certainly keep CP sites in the affiliate program, could be because they do their job well and make the sponsors money, but Lee observed that there was an issue, and a problem, and hence, the birth of sniffy.


-dj

not sure about your points here. you say that automated checks produce errors and that sponsors are reliant on them, rather than having human checking.. but that's exactly what sniffy does, reliance on human checking, not automated
------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanx for the reply(s) dj (you too Lee) I'm off to bed after this too.... barely staying with it here...

What I ewas referring to was your "flagging"... You send the sponsor flagged sites.. IMO, after a while, the sponsor will just be taking out the flagged sites with no additional checking....

It will take the webmaster, once they know the site is gone, to argue and get the site back in.... During that time, there is revenue lost...

That is definitely a sponsor issue, not necessarilly a program issue for you... But it makes an easier sell if those kinds of issues are covered...

anyway, my offer stands.... I have some ideas that you may or may not have thought of and they are yours for the asking..gratis...

Good Luck... The effort is noble as long as the cash doesn't get in the way....

Ya know being sleep deprived is not such a bad high :-)

I have talked to a few sponsors on the "informal", and out of 3 chats, I had 3 parties "very" interested.

Underground networking is powerful, prolly the last fringe of having longevity in this business.

As a result of these chats, we saw Sniffy thru development, approached the ASACP, and been in talkies and all that boring but very necessary proposal stuff. We had no idea how passionate Sex.com's Gary Kremen is about CP and ethics, rumour has it Sex.com is the largest sponsor of ASACP.

Anyhoo, there are sponsors that want to follow us build this thing out, and I am sure there are sponsors that don't care. If a sponsor has a need for us they will know where we are.

There is no law, regulation or policy to force the hand of anyone. If the benefits to a sponsor outweigh the risks, kudo's to the sponsor for appreciating such a tool. Either you trust our work ethics or you do not, I cannot combat your hesitency.

We are acting on our own, we are not aligned or fronting for another company. We have disclosed our relationship forming with the ASACP and have answered as many questions as we could at this time.

We are not running a covert operation, and have and will continue to make our progress a matter of public record.

[Lee rubs her eyes too], it has been a trying thread about 12-13 hours, have not done this since the old days :-)

Anyhoo, we would love to talk to you and hear what you have to say. We are still at the stage of flexibility, and I wish we had all the answers, but we do not :(

Keep up the postings, you are moments away from qualifying for your GFY T-shirt!

Email eric at adult.com when you hit 100 posts, give name, address and shirt size, and of course say you made the 100 post club, give your nick.

Niters everyone.

So webmasters will know which sponsors are proudly supporting Spiffy ?

After reading the entire thread, my eyes hurt. And yet one thing still bothers me. Someone back a page or 2 brought up a point that has not been answered and seems to me it is the ONLY thing worthwhile in this whole thread. To paraphrase:

If going after CP is the issue, why aren't the processors for CP sites, and the CP sites themselves, being targeted?

This is The War On Drugs 101: Getting the little street peddlers accomplishes next to nothing. More are to be had and are like the heads of the Hydra. If you want to kill the beast cut out it's heart. Get rid of the main source of CP and nail the fuckers who process for those sites. Once the source dries up, the street peddlers have nothing left to peddle.

Why is it, with all this vast technology and intellect, nobody has dared to actually do something that will actually accomplish something?

Well, I have been reading this thread for the past two hours and I'm totally exhausted too...

As Lee's initial post reads, "...Nothing like this has been developed and we feel tools should be developed within our industry.

Any thoughts? Does this have value? If you were a sponsor would you pay a monthly feel for this police dog, we loving call "Sniffy"?"

Well, I can say that I've been buried beyond belief with endless "road maps" towards fraud in the past. It takes alot of time on the part of the affiliate program. It boils down to whether the program is willing to put the time in after receiving these "red flags". It costs money to take these extra measures with or without the software. I think that it IS worth a monthly fee to have a list of webmasters and urls that are questionable waiting in the ole inbox first thing in the morning. It would save alot of time.

The keywords (along with other factors as stated) would be more than enough for me to shut down a webmaster account. Whether it be "lolita" in the meta tags, the body text, the domain, or even naming your pics "lolita1.jgp", it's up to the sponsor to decide what level to take it to. Some might give a warning, drop them WITH pay, drop them WITHOUT pay, or redirect their linkcode to a blank page without telling them. It all would have to do with the severity of the offense.

Alot of webmasters use various kiddie porn terms throughout the text of their page and such simply for search engine placement. The numbers for kiddie porn searches are huge which is probably why Gary Kremen is all over it with his search engine. Sponsors may be held responsible for the actions of their affiliates someday. Every little bit helps. If this tool is cost efficient and productive, why not?

I do think that this will affect relationships between webmasters and sponsors. Some webmasters will think twice before signing up to a sponsor who supports sniffy while others will think twice if a sponsor does NOT. Also, even though any webmaster has the right to put up anti crawling code to keep sniffy out, the sponsor is totally going to wonder what they're hiding. With all the "shit" webmasters out there it's ignorant not to wonder. Maybe it'll help weed some of that out.

Anyway just my :2 cents: , I'm beat and my phone just rang.... later :)

This is scary as hell
All of the good questions have been asked and the answers where all tap dancing. freeadultcontent's post was the best and their is no way a program can work around the issues he raised.
and the statements you made in this thread....... spooky to say the least:

"Personally speaking, if I had an affiliate program I would use every tool available. It would be my moral fabric that dictated how my program operated. But that's me, and you are you"

No it is YOU this is your program so obviously it will be guided by YOUR moral Fabric, sorry Im a grown man, no more interested in working within your moral structure than any one else's.

"We have our own guidelines, and absorbing other ideas for determining what is CP"

Ahhh That clarifies your first statement

"Look at the bandwidth as your contribution towards the fight of CP."

No I look at the bandwidth issue as you stealing from me. Search engines spider sites to list, resulting in hopefully more traffic for me. Surfers look at sites to browse, hopefully resulting in more sales for me. You just want to burn my bandwidth so I can pass whatever test your moral compass leads to??? who do you think you are? I also run a restaurant. Paying customers come in and sit down. I keep bums out just like I do on the web.

"we could say that if someone is exhibiting or promoting images that makes one believe they are underage, then that could be flagged as CP"

Well Now that's orwellian isn't it? Lets flag people for every little sick fantasy they have hmmmmmm Guess that puts a whole lotta sponsors out of business that push teen sites, and Cheerleaders. How about those teen pictures with teddy bears. Isn't it funny that a sponsor with a ?no lolita? words allowed rule has content pictures of young ladies in pigtails with lollipops and teddy bears?, Hypocritical to say the least. Guess what fantasy they are pushing. Bondage, rough sex etc. must also qualify under that statement you made.

Some of you haven't figured it out yet but the only purpose things like this serve is to beat up the U.S., European, and Aussie webmasters. Why? Because while your explaining to your sponsor the word Ch@ld porn on your site was on a warning page, and trying to get your hard earned money back some third world webmaster just took your signups for the month. Right now some third world webmasters is reading this and laughing his ass off. He loves when shit like this happens because he isn't worried about the fbi or any of that shit. Your only hurting what is for the most part honest webmasters,.

However I do agree with one statement you made.

"For those that just hate the idea of what sniffy is doing, you could rally up and protest with your sponsors and boycott them should they elect to use the service."

Let me be the first to rally and boycott, sorry sir But I became an independent operator to get away from his type of "I'm looking over your shoulder crap." I dislike KP as much as the next guy or gal but that doesn't mean I will allow you to bring me into your personnel crusade against it, or allow your program to dictate how I run my sites.

We have enough to worry about with Big Brother. I don't think anyone is keen on an invasive service named Sniffy sniffing anyone's servers anytime soon.

There's more tricky sponsors, processors and program promoters than webmasters. That's where the sniffing really needs to be developed.

Lee,

the trust issue for me would be huge. I'm sure you have a great reputation, but being from the gay side of the industry, I've never heard of you and even if I had I would need certain contractual agreements before moving ahead with something like this.

I have all my "ducks in a row" as far as 2257 so my concerns over affiliates insinuating they may have under aged content is tiny as compared to my worries about the present administration and their less than slap happy view of porn in general.

Again, I don't think it would take much reconfiguring for sniffy to be used for purposes other than looking for CP or web sites insinuating CP.

This would be an extremely valuable tool in the hands of the feds who are on a fishing expedition looking to prosecute webmasters for obscenity.

Just think of the potential...they can catalogue everything and each site that draws a red flag...i.e. piss, bondage, gay - send their legal analysts through them to mark them for a possible investigation.

What are you going to do or what have you already done to insure webmasters that sniffy isn't ever used for this type of purpose?

-joe

joe,

Another poster had made the same observation as you about the fed gov't potentially interested in the data sniffy finds.

In one way, i can take it as being flattering that people think that with our technology and with a database, that we have some "killer app" that is unique.

who is to say that the FBI doesn't have their own kind of sniffy? that they have their own team of human viewers who search for CP and whatever else? There is a task group specificially set up in the FBI to tackle the issues of CP (they are in posession of the world's largest collection of CP images).

With a huge budget now given to them by the Homeland Security Act, alot of attention, after terrorism, is placed on the internet space.

I am very doubtful that the FBI themselves do not have their own type of crawlers and processing methods in place to do what you are thinking.

If the FBI comes knocking at our door and takes our data, we can't stop that. So does that mean we have to be fearful of that miniscule possibility, to not have our own database?

So how do you feel about google then? They have amassed the largest database of web pages, all indexed and have their own API to allow for programatic interfacing. The FBI could run their own keyword analysis tool against google to pick up what the google spider has found. Did you want to protest or boycott google for what they are doing?

What about archive.org? Is your website listed in their wayback machine? (most adult sites wouldn't be in there, but my point is they index ones entire website, and make available for public access without your permission. so if you made a mistake or said something on your website that you changed, then their spiders might have grabbed that old copy and saved it. talk about total invasion of your property).

We can't ensure that the FBI won't want to take our data. No on can. What i can say, is the type of data that we store is file specific, not activity tracking of a website.

Sample database fields:

filename
filesize
location (website where image was found)
md5
sha1
imageH
imageW
status



if from these kind of file attribute data that the FBI can somehow figure out your activity, then that's some clever team of programmers they have. if they wanted to get this same kind of data, they can download any script from any website and be able to do the same thing.

is this the objection about sniffy using up your bandwidth? it's such a small amount of consumption that is just smoke.

what's the real issue?

we have already replied many times to say that Sniffy doesn't shut down websites. Sniffy doesn't track webmasters traffic, users, activity, etc.

if a sponsor wants to use some kind of guideline or test in determining who they want to be apart of their affiliate, that's there business. it's not your given right, just because you own some websites, that you can join the sponsor's program. they have rules and requirements, much liike any club......

so if a sponsor rejects you because they don't care for your website being purple colored, that's their right.

if they reject your application because you have CP on your site, that's their right.

If they drop you because you block efforts to validate your site, that's their right.

if you don't send them enough traffic to meet some kind of quota, that's their right.

it's not an invasion of privacy, it's about compliance with the sponsors requirements. should a sponsor elect to use sniffy, it just becomes another requirement. maybe someday they will require that you have to have a photo taken, or a fingerprint, or a background check, who knows. But if you want to be apart of the sponsors program, you have to comply with THEIR rules.

You have every right to not sign up for a sponsor if you don't like their rules. Today, right now, if you don't like their terms, you won't sign up. If tomorrow, their terms say that they will be using sniffy to do verifications, then that's condition of usage. you can take your traffic elsewhere, or you can further comply.

sponsors are saying now they don't want the kind of traffic that has been pulled in from the use of underage wordings, or words that are used on the "bad" long list of words (George Carlin only had 7 on his).

so some sponsors are adding the additional requirements about the types of keywords that are used on a site that sends them traffic.

are webmasters upset about that? i am sure those that use those keywords are. Who are they going to be upset with? The sponsor for adding this additional requirement.

If the sponsor elects to use sniffy, who are the webmasters going to be upset with? Answer should be, the sponsor. But the postings are upset with big,bad brother sniffy.

seems misdirected.


-dj

great question for the sponsors.

it's their call. if they want to say that on their website, or on their requirements sheet for joining. if they want to use it privately, its still their call. there is no invasion of privacy.

no one has signs on their front lawn of the website that says only people who want to spend money should come to this website. freeloaders and web crawlers go away.

wouldn't it be great that if free loaders didn't come to your site and wasted your bandwidth? that your conversion ration were 1:1, not 1:100, 1:500, 1:1000,1:5000, etc???

-dj

Joe, I am *NOT* from the gay side of the industry. Just because I am gay does not mean my passions and business interest are limited to lifestyle.

My history comes from pioneering adult on CD-ROMS back in 1991. If you did not know, my genre was hardcore porn [straight]. I have never made a name for myself in the gay world hence those are not my roots.

I came on the scene in 1996 at YNOT, and came to be in the era where many of the players you know now were at their beginnings. I was passionate about bringing a solution to the webmasters who found legitimate content cost prohibitive.

Zmaster came on the scene and we sold our CD's cheap, we spent endless hours lecturing about copyright issues & obscenity concerns. Another thankless job that put me under scrutiny because webmasters did not want to held accountable for stealing content. They resented getting "caught", and kicked up a storm and squealed as if they were butchered.

Despite the heat, name calling and hurtful antics back towards me, in the end they saw the light and became better webmasters.

Not one time with the hundreds of copyright violations against my content did I ever sue anyone. Instead thru education made them a better webmaster. There was a time when my content was right up there for the most infringed.

Could have made a living just suing and settling.

I am not asking permission to launch this project, but I am not going to take all these split hair points and shelve it. That would make me no better than a person that turns a blind eye.

If we had to wait for the industry to agree on something we would be waiting along time because our industry does not require everyone to be team players.

I am not the problem here, unethical webmasters are.

DJ, I don't know what the FBI may have for capabilities, but I am not talking about their abilities.

I am not talking about CP at the moment.

I am talking about the possible potential for sniffy to be used for obscenity prosecutions. If it can identify and hunt down CP it can certainly identify specific sites based on certain preset criteria.

Yes, I know google indexes sites...but googles stated purpose is not policing webmasters.

What I want to know is if you would ever allow Sniffy to be used by the feds for purposes other than hunting down CP such as images which may be perceived as being obscene?

A simple "no we would never allow the feds to use this for purposes of obscenity prosecutions and it's written into our contract" would answer the question.

AS a webmaster who would personally be VERY interested in a tool like this, these are the things that worry me.

One of my larger worries and something you guys should consider in your marketing approach, that this software would take care of is a credit card company suddenly putting our account on hold because we are somehow associated with a site that's implying underage content.

I understand.

However, I am not keen on the out of control areas of our industry that has necessitated the need for tool development.

Sniffy does not decide how you manage your sites, the sponsor who hired Sniffy sets the search criteria.

You can do as you please. Sponsors can do as they please, and we can do as we please.

You can damn me until the cows come home, but unless you have a better solution, onward and upward.

Originally posted by darksoft

If going after CP is the issue, why aren't the processors for CP sites, and the CP sites themselves, being targeted?


they are. ask ASACP and the FBI about it. Go to news.google.com and search for CP, etc.




This is The War On Drugs 101: Getting the little street peddlers accomplishes next to nothing. More are to be had and are like the heads of the Hydra. If you want to kill the beast cut out it's heart. Get rid of the main source of CP and nail the fuckers who process for those sites. Once the source dries up, the street peddlers have nothing left to peddle.

Why is it, with all this vast technology and intellect, nobody has dared to actually do something that will actually accomplish something?



some possible reasons:

-combating an issue takes money.

-ideas that are based on good merits, get criticized and force to be shelved due to some negative sentiment.



any bit of forward direction should be welcomed. about accomplishing something? you sound like you want things done overnight. drug trafficking, done. illegal aliens, done.

systematic problems take a long time to make major change.

i agree with you and the other posts that, like the drug analogy, you need to attack things at the sources, and at different levels.

in order to make some change, you have to chip away at the problem, not sit back and just say just because your little rock axe ain't a stick of dynamite that you give up.

there is already active movement at all levels to stop CP, from the federal level, to organizations like ASACP, to people who report CP leads, to webmasters, and to services like us. All of us are doing some job at some level in tackling the problem.


the FBI are sitting in chat rooms, and combing web pages. But why is it that thousands of CP leads a month come to ASACP? Because CP is out there, and people who push CP images, are either doing it to "share" their pics with others, or trying to make a buck. If you are trying to make a buck, then you are a webmaster. if you look to use sponsor programs to make that buck and use the bad words or bad images, then that's where the sponsors and the FBI and ASACP are concerned.

Sniffy is concerned as well, that's why the service was created. It's merely a tool.

Yes, a tool can be used to knock something down, or it can be used to build something up. If you want to see sniffy's database and activities as a tool to do evil to the adult industry and reign hell-fire from the fed government, then that's your entitled viewpoint.

on the otherhand, if this tool is used to help sponsors get rid of CP, help ASACP get rid of CP, help fellow webmasters get rid of CP, then it does make a difference.

is the issue that while we are touting a "noble" cause, is it because we look to profit from such a venture? that's business. if private sector doesn't do it, then you are waiting for the public sector? that's government, and we want less gov't intrusion. non-profit organizations can be misleading, they do make money. The head of PBS makes over 500K as the CEO. he says his salary is in line with other CEO, but many people felt that being non-profit meant that he should have a high salary. The RIAA takes money from record labels and pay their executives very high salaries. It's non-profit, but people are profiting.

in order to make the record clear, sniffy is a for-profit service. it makes money by sponsors paying sniffy to verify/validate their affiliate webmasters. through the course of its business practice, it may uncover CP related websites, that the sponsor may choose to terminate, and may turn over to ASACP/FBI.

sniffy will have a database of millions of image data (it already has). what else will sniffy do with the data? that's a business decision. will the data be used to spy on webmaster activity? the database doesn't track that kind of info ( go talk to sextracker or hitbox about that). some other company may come through and have their own scripts that does monitor your traffic, oh wait, there are companies like that already out there spying , i mean logging, i mean monitoring ,on you and your traffic. do you question what they do with their data? you should, but it doesn't detrack from their business. when you put that free counter on your website, you are giving some third party access to your traffic. are you concerned with that? what about what they do with that data? who do they sell it to? great questions, but they aren't going to tell you.

this open forum is an opportunity for sniffy to share what its doing, and to get opinions from sponsors on the validity of the idea, as well as to get the kinds of posts that were on the board.

will someone's hangup of sniffy about it's "invasion of privacy" or "bandwidth stealing" stop sniffy from going forward? no, this isn't american idol and we are not asking you to call 1-888-you-vote.

we are opening up our ideas to get opinions. to listen to concerns that might otherwise be silent since companies who do thigns that you don't agree with, normally don't invite criticism or scrutiny.

are we tap dancing in our responses? no, they have been timely and to the point. FreeAdultContent addressed some excellent points, but they were based on sniffy causing harm to a webmaster. this thesis is completely incorrect, since sniffy can only warn or advise. It's the sponsor and the webmaster's actions that causes termination.


for those that have been reading the thread, i do understand that it runs long, and for you to read every post, does show your interest and concerns. sorry to be so long, but so much to say in response to a concern, that i and lee wanted to give a "non-tap dancing, we'll get back to you later" type responses.

as we have said many times, sniffy may never be let out because sponsors didn't want to pay for the service. whether their reasoning was not worth the money, or public sentiment. in the end, is about business, and the market space will dictate what happens.

but, this doesn't stop us from still trying to make a difference. Sniffy Jr. (the subset of the Sniffy service) can still be used by ASACP to help in their cause. The issues brought up in this forum may help to shape future policy, who knows.

only thing we know, is we are trying, and not sitting still.

-dj

lee,

I know you aren't...I was saying that I am from the gay side of the industry:)

Thanks for a re-cap on your history.

-joe

joe,

Lee and I have stated many times, what our purpose and goals are. You said that google says they don't police webmasters.

we say we don't police webmasters.

Does google state anywhere that they won't do anything with the data, like hand it over to the FBI if they forced to do so?

no.

Can we say we won't give the data to the FBI.

Yes.

But, if we, or google, or any other database gets a subponea from them, we have no choice.

Google's API opens up their database to allow keyword analysis. FBI could already be using it, but you seem satisified by google's statement that they "don't police webmasters".

of course they don;t, it's not their job as a private company, it's the FBIs job.

Could our data be used against webmasters? i don't see how since we are focused on image data. Google is in a much better position as a datasource to be used. They index the text, the links, the meta tags, etc. Their data is much easier to programatically search for whatever suspicious activity the feds are looking for.

we haven't developed an API, and don't intended to have any kind of external connections to our data, yet google has developed such a thing that could potentially be used for exactly the purposes that you are commenting about.

and we know that google does spider adult websites, they have a huge database of data sites. google has the bigger power. sniffy is not the "killer db" that the feds would want. but should they make a determination that they want our data, we can't stop it.

i personally don't feel it's the Fed's business to be sniffing around our data. other than reporting CP leads to ASACP.

-dj

Yes, I completely understand that anyone can be forced to hand over data they may have. That is completely different than what I am talking about.

Yes google can do all the things you say above, but they are not the ones here soliciting webmasters opinions about it.

I am just pointing out what I see as a potential for your software that I think many adult webmasters will also see.

A federal contract is a rather lucrative prospect and money seduces people.

The federal government could easily contract you for the purposes of hunting down what they deem to be obscene images.

Because of this possibility it puts you in a compromising situation.

Saying you will do something and legally stipulating it in a contract are two different things.

Scenario:

Breaking News 1: Sniffy wins the hearts and minds of every adult webmaster on the internet with it's fabulous goal of eliminating CP forever. By indexing and categorizing every adult website on the internet Sniffy has the ability to track down illegal CP everywhere it's posted taking a huge burden off of adult webmasters everywhere who found it impossible to manually track down these offensive sites.

Breaking News 2: Sniffy wins huge federal contract to help the Justice Department rid the internet of obscene images. Sniffy, a break through software used to combat CP on the internet now opens it's database to the federal goverment in the war on porn. With this lucrative contract and it's huge database of adult sites, sniffy will be able to categorize and identify obscene images making the federal prosecutions for obscenity a breeze.

-------------

This may sound off the wall to you, but I don't think I am the only paranoid adult webmaster out there..or at least I hope I'm not. :eek2

I think you need to build in protection for adult webmasters against this ever happening before you will get full backing.

Originally posted by XYCash




Saying you will do something and legally stipulating it in a contract are two different things.




sniffy doesn't contract with webmasters. there is no agreement by the webmaster that we need to sign. afterall, why would a webmaster who knows he has CP, allow sniffy in by first signing a contract that says he knows we are doing it.

to have a contract with each and every webmaster is a huge logistical nightmare. why do we need to ask permission to visit your site, when you don't already do so for regular surfers?

membership sites restrict outsiders by entering through the member doors. what you open up to the outside world, to the free viewing of the surfers, is fair game....

i think it would be great to have the support of all webmasters for sniffy. we aren't heare to ask permission, if so, then we would only get a handful.. there is a vast amount of adult sites out there, far beyond what is represented in this forum.


we are here to understand concerns and issues, so that we can be good neighbors. if i wanted to blast my guitar everyday, i have that right, but i wouldn't be a good neighbor. if you came over and talked about it, and i respected your points, i would try to lower the volume, or play when you are not around, but that doesn't mean i stop playing. i can't go around to every house in the neighborhood and ask permission and have a signed document about when i will play and when i won't, or what kinds of songs i can play.



Breaking News 1: Sniffy wins the hearts and minds of every adult webmaster on the internet with it's fabulous goal of eliminating CP forever. By indexing and categorizing every adult website on the internet Sniffy has the ability to track down illegal CP everywhere it's posted taking a huge burden off of adult webmasters everywhere who found it impossible to manually track down these offensive sites.





great PR statement, can we use that?? *grin*



Breaking News 2: Sniffy wins huge federal contract to help the Justice Department rid the internet of obscene images. Sniffy, a break through software used to combat CP on the internet now opens it's database to the federal goverment in the war on porn. With this lucrative contract and it's huge database of adult sites, sniffy will be able to categorize and identify obscene images making the federal prosecutions for obscenity a breeze.



next PR statement would be, Lee Noga, shunned and banned from the adult industry for biting the hand that feeds her.

for your scenario above, why are you protecting and condoning webmasters that don't have their proper forms in place for their content? if a webmaster is using illegal images and underage models, shouldn't they be targetted by the feds????

(i realize that you don't condone their actions).

for those like yourself that have done everything to comply with FEDERAL laws, you have nothing to fear. So if the feds sniff you, whether using sniffy or their own tools, you have nothing to worry about, besides the paranoia issue of being sniffed by the feds (and i don't dismiss that it is something to worry about... can we say Waco?)

Those that are doing wrong, will be both paranoid and fearful of governement action.

will we sell out to the Feds? no.

first of all, they aren't in the business of acquiring businesses for their purposes (Microsoft does that). if they wanted our data, they could take out data. Homeland Security and federal laws see to that.




I think you need to build in protection for adult webmasters against this ever happening before you will get full backing.

i think that webmasters need to build their own protection and be compliant with federal laws. resource boards and support from the industry and fellow peers, should help each other to do what is the law. until the laws change, that's the way it is.

if you are doing something illegal, then you may get caught. what difference is it if it is sniffy or a script kiddie's program that does the catching. illegal is illegal, there is no gray area.


I think what you are asking is, are we going to sell-out or give the fbi our data (?)

No.

could they make us give them our data for free?

yes.

will we like that?

no

should we just go home now and put sniffy in the pound because we are fearful of the feds?

no

am i rambling too much in my posts?

maybe


-dj

Ok...maybe I'm not making myself clear, which is a strong possibility given I've been on this computer too long today. I am not talking about CP at all, period.

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

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

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

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

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

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?

I realize that Lee would be banned from the adult world forever if he did this, but if he's making a few million a year off a federal contract why would he care?

-joe

He [LeeNoga] is a she :-)

Think DJ is formulating a post back at ya.

oops..hehe sorry 'bout that:)

For the homophobic, turn your heads as I grope Marsha AKA Princess at the S. Florida Internext show.

http://www.leenoga.com/pix/marsha&lee.jpg

Hmmm, where is the federal law against the use of the word lolita?

Where is the federal law that says that putting up pictures of 15 year olds in a nudist setting is illegal?

Where is the federal law that says that putting an 18 year old in pig tails and handing her a teddy bear and a lollipop is illegal?

There is a tremendous difference between what is legal and what the majority of people, here or otherwise, consider to be acceptable. In one sentence you talk about legal, in another you talk about the things I have mentioned above basically as something you will sniff out and work to eradicate.

I certainly wish you luck with it Lee, I just don't see that the logistical nightmare combined with the legal queries the size of the Grand Canyon are worth it.

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

Way to go ! Anyone who isn't a Spiffy Supporter is pro-CP. You keep using that argument. It'll take you places.

I feel a vent coming...Lee gets out of her own way.

Lets take a little trip back in time when I started dabbling in adult via a BBS system in the late 80's.....

There was nothing glorified about dealing in porn, it was not GLORIFIED as it has become with Al Gores invention we know as the internet *shrug*.

Anyhoo in the early 90's as we stepped out by commercializing CD-ROMS with adult and I was hit with over 16 million dollars worth of lawsuits. I sat in a court room and watched the jury cringe as the prosecutors threw hardcore images up on a large screen for what seemed like hours.

I had an FBI file opened on me in 1993 and my case was sent to the Department of Justice who thank god found me way to small to persue.

My peer group back when consisted of folks who came up thru the video industry and to this day still have gunshot holes in their walls as a reminder of the business they have chosen.

I took my trials and tribulations on the road and openly spoke at BBS conventions dating back to 1993, about doing things right.

I did not do this as some righteous porn monger, but I did this as a woman who was pinched and did not want to see any other person have their life turned upside down like I did.

Do you think for a moment I fed any info to the gov't. Absolutely not, and to this day I have nothing to say to any law enforcement agency.

The age of the internet seems to make some feel like they are owed courtesy with rights protection. I wish I could sit back on my hinds and believe the same. I know different, I believed that once and insisted my case go all the way to the Supreme when I lost at the 11th circuit court after a 4 year wait.

I ran out of money, and the price I paid to this day still haunts me 10 years later. I cannot tell you the countless times I was given enough notice to pack an overnight bag and jump county lines to avoid a summons.

Do you know what it is like heading for a show, and being photographed boarding a plane from your home town, and photographed at the show, and having to deal with these photographs in depositions?

My wanting fair rights resulted in camera surveillance on my home, emergency exit plans in the event they raided the house, and constant paranoia that day could come at any time.

When Jeb Bush came into office it was scary, it was time to sell off my livelihood and get out of that kitchen. Florida was itching to bust content providers, and who better than me, the target with an "X" on my head from my past.

13 days after I sold my content publishing company off, a big bust happend 76 miles from me. I will always wonder if that was because they could not pinch me for the last time, and that girl was the next option.

Am I bitter when it comes to the price I paid for my wanting to be free to deal in porn? Sometimes.

But, there is no way I am gonna make it easy for any outside agency to turn the lives upside down in the manner they turned mine.

Rant over, Lee re-enters the thread :-)

yes...and it would make me much more interested in your software. :)

Originally posted by Kimmykim


Hmmm, where is the federal law against the use of the word lolita?



there isn't, thanks to folks like the ACLU protecting our 1st amendment rights. there is also a list of words you can't say on TV. it's not against the law to say "tit", but the corporate monitors won't allow it.




Where is the federal law that says that putting up pictures of 15 year olds in a nudist setting is illegal?


nudists aren't a protected class, like a religious argument, so i think on this point, ya, a 15 year nude girl in a nudist setting, with exposure of genitalia is CP. a pic of the gerber baby or the michelin baby is not CP.







Where is the federal law that says that putting an 18 year old in pig tails and handing her a teddy bear and a lollipop is illegal?



it's not, but sponsors are starting to say, if you are attracting visitors because you are given the implicit direction that you have underage models, then that's what they are fighting. it's not about the law.... we are far from wanting that, it's about internal practices. This whole point of sniffy is not just about dealing with that is legal, it's about what the sponsors want.

if the sponsors say they don't want any websites that have a red background because studies show that it leads to violence in the homes, and the sponsors are against domestic violence, then sniffy or any other enterprising company that can fill the need will step in.

having a red background is not against the law, unless of course it is accompanied by other bad things, but if the sponsor doesn't want red backgrounds on affiliate websites, that's their call and their requirement. so you either change your background to like mauve, or don't sign up with the sponsor.




There is a tremendous difference between what is legal and what the majority of people, here or otherwise, consider to be acceptable. In one sentence you talk about legal, in another you talk about the things I have mentioned above basically as something you will sniff out and work to eradicate.


Sniffy won't eradicate CP from the world, it only points the red flag.

Sponsors won't eradicate CP from the web, they can only kick off those the don't want to be associated with.

People who send in leads to ASACP won't eradicate CP, they can only report it.

ASACP is trying to eradicate the world of CP by their active efforts in finding and tracking CP sites. That's what they do.

The FBI eradicates CP by putting people in jail.


-dj

Wow..that was intense...and scary. I can't imagine the mental and physical toll that must have taken on you... but it's exactly why my paranoia level is through the roof. You would be smart to write up a serious history like that and pop it on the sniffy site. Webmasters need to feel like you are out to protect them, not pursue them.

-joe