On August 29th 2011 a Pacific Grove, California couple was arrested for possession and manufacture of child porn, after the FBI traced an IP address to the male perpetrators workplace. Following the seizure of the couple’s personal computer and hard drive, officers discovered pornographic images of an under aged girl and the female perpetrator, allegedly filmed inThailand (the female perpetrator is a Thai national). The couple was placed in federal custody, and US federal officers are investigating potential human sex trafficking charges.
Coincidentally another news story appeared as the Pacific Grove couple neared their first trial date on September 21st. The social networking site Facebook made waves in the press when an Australian national discovered that the website tracks the internet history of members even after members have logged out from the site. After a user logs out of Facebook, the website merely modifies its tracking cookies, allowing the website to maintain account information on a user. Every time a uservisits a webpage with a Facebook widget, the networking site collects more information on the user’s movements for its own database.
Child pornographers deserve to be caught, and the actions of the law enforcement officers who used technological skills to rescue the under-agedvictim of thePacific Grovecouple are to be commended. Internet tracking can assist legitimate law enforcement individuals. However, authoritarian regimes can also use such tools against government dissidents and critics with legitimate aims. The Chinese government censoring websites considered critical or dangerous to the current regime, or regimes actually controlling an internet “off switch” are other more nefarious examples of government internet controls. The intensive, invasive monitoring of internet users by sites like Facebook represent an invasion of an individual’s right to privacy.
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dear all.
recently my internet cafe was closed for a period of 2 weeks in thailand for having 5 under 18s in my shop before 2pm, as a punishment for violating thai internet cafe laws. Internet laws are getting very stringent in thailand for a number of reasons child porn and sex trafficking is only one. firstly 2 of the boys were our next door neighbours children who had good reason not be at school and had parents pemission to be in our cafe and the other 3 boys looked well over 18, and secondly most schools had started summer holidays when such law is relaxed. We lost an appeal which lasted 2 mins and had to close for 2 weeks. Under 18s are not allowed into cyber cafes before 2pm to deter them from bunking off school. So what about all the children in thailand who never go to school because parents cannot afford school fees,? do the police and education officials visit these childrens homes,? no because the law only targets poor hard working internet cafe owners, what about the increasing number of children who have home internet who are free to play online games 24 hours a day, and worse who have access to harmful porn sites and adult chat sites unsupervised,? at least in an internet cafe they have a degree of supervision. What about all the children found in big shoppng mals during school hours,? do they shut the mal down as punishment,? no they pick on internet cafes because he word internet comes into it. And what about the none existant health and safety in thai schools where children often have no seating and sit on hard floors for long periods which can lead to repetative back injury in later life,? what about hard concrete play areas instead of the softer materials designed to lessen head injury whilst playing football, and what about th dangerous bus ride home on modified pick up trucks with kids hanging off the back of these ludicrous things. It is obvious to me that in thailand the internet ets blamedfor everything and yet dispite its down side, the internet does far far more good than harm and like it or not, its here to stay so grow up thailand and join a modern world. As for children and internet porn sites etc, OH DO COME OFF IT, thailand is known throughout the world as the sex capital of the world and there is pornography in every open fronted bar for children and all else to see particularly in pattaya and puchet etc, so lease tidy up your own country before blaming your sins on the internet and hammering internet cafe owners and police your own problems instead of forcing us to do it for you.