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Crime The Internet

Tech Sites Including Microsoft's Bing Criticized Over Child Pornography Policies (cnet.com) 73

Posted by EditorDavid from the targetting-tech dept.
"Microsoft's Bing search engine reportedly still served up child porn, nearly a year after the tech giant said it was addressing the issue," reports CNET: The news comes as part of a Saturday report in The New York Times that looks at what the newspaper says is a failure by tech companies to adequately address child pornography on their platforms.... [A] former Microsoft executive told the Times that it now looks as if the company is failing to use its own tools. The Times' Saturday report notes that 10 years ago, Microsoft helped create software called PhotoDNA that "can use computers to recognize photos, even altered ones, and compare them against databases of known illegal images." But, the Times said, Bing and other search engines that use Bing's results are serving up imagery that doesn't pass muster with PhotoDNA....

The Bing news is part of a larger story from the Times about how various tech companies are dealing with child porn on their platforms.
The Times criticizes a tech industry which they say is looking the other way: Amazon, whose cloud storage services handle millions of uploads and downloads every second, does not even look for the imagery. Apple does not scan its cloud storage, according to federal authorities, and encrypts its messaging app, making detection virtually impossible. Dropbox, Google and Microsoft's consumer products scan for illegal images, but only when someone shares them, not when they are uploaded. And other companies, including Snapchat and Yahoo, look for photos but not videos, even though illicit video content has been exploding for years. (When asked about its video scanning, a Dropbox spokeswoman in July said it was not a "top priority." On Thursday, the company said it had begun scanning some videos last month.)

The largest social network in the world, Facebook, thoroughly scans its platforms, accounting for over 90 percent of the imagery flagged by tech companies last year, but the company is not using all available databases to detect the material. And Facebook has announced that the main source of the imagery, Facebook Messenger, will eventually be encrypted, vastly limiting detection.
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Tech Sites Including Microsoft's Bing Criticized Over Child Pornography Policies More

Tech Sites Including Microsoft's Bing Criticized Over Child Pornography Policies

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  • Ahh, yes, here they come with the predictable "won't they think of the children?" plea.
    • In order to recognize child pornography, I'm sure they had to create an AI training set that thought a lot about children!

    • If you think of the children all the time, you're probably a pedo.

  • They all highlight the reason (Score:3)

    by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Sunday November 10, 2019 @11:05AM (#59399558)

    Encryption. If only they didn't use encryption. Apple encrypts everything, designed for evil child pornographers of course. How much pornography is 'really' out there, what percentage of total images? Is it worth violating everyone's privacy?

  • Please don't force tech companies to make AI that can detect child porn. That could only be used for evil. Someone will go "Hey, let's use a GAN [wikipedia.org] for this task!"

    • Microsoft already made the tool. They just aren't using it for search.

      Sometimes when people make unreasonable proposals they bring up child porn as an argument. There are also reasonable things that platforms can do. Let's do the reasonable things and not do the unreasonable things.

      The summary mentions Facebook. For their own purposes, Facebook developed and uses software that identifies what is in images, including whose face it is. Facebook already knows for certain if the image is in the database of k

      • How could they know it's child porn that isn't in the database?

        • Hmm, let's see.... feed 10k child porn pictures into ML/AI image detection system. Then feed in one more previously unknown child porn pic. How well does it match the other 10k a used kids? Sent SWAT, shoot to kill.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by lgw ( 121541 )

            Except - there isn't actually a database of CP pictures like that. That wouldn't be illegal. It also wouldn't be very useful, as exact matching isn't very useful. There's a database of image signatures that pictures can be matched against even with small changes.

            • Hmmm, I knew there was some database out there but didn't realize it was just signatures. Thanks for correction. Who was the famous musician who claimed he was buying child porn in order to stop child porn?

              • Who was the famous musician who claimed he was buying child porn in order to stop child porn?

                IIRC, it was Pete Townshend (of The Who)

            • Throwing the pictures away doesn't sound very smart, because when you come up with a better signature method, you'd have to go out and take all the pictures again.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Cederic ( 9623 )

                Retaining a catalogue of the pictures is something the police can do, once, and share the signatures with others.

                That way the images do not get disseminated and don't get stored on corporate servers.

                Of course, you are at this point having to trust that the police are giving you the signatures of only child pornography, but that's a different conversation.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by nasch ( 598556 )

            That might be a good way to detect nudity, but nudity is not necessarily pornography. If I'm not mistaken, the child porn laws in the US are not quite insane enough to criminalize photos of kids in the bath tub for example. I've never heard of an algorithm that can determine whether an image is sexual in nature.

        • People who do this kind of thing for a living have probably come up with more clever ways than my first thought. My initial thought is that if a group of people are exchanging make pictures of kids, sending them around the group, and a few of the pics are marked/known child porn, the rest probably are too.

          In addition there may be a textual message included with the pic. Those messages would tend to use certain words, "lolita" or whatever code words the sickos use.

          You can then apply basically the Page Rank

  • Stop making technology sole social problems (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Sunday November 10, 2019 @11:15AM (#59399580) Homepage

    STOP MAKING TECH COMPANIES RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WORLD'S SOCIAL PROBLEMS!

    It is not the responsibility of Amazon, Microsoft, Google, or Facebook to make automated systems that patrol all human activity for bad behavior. I would rather throw the writer in jail for searching for the inappropriate material, than the developers who aren't searching for it. That is not their job! If this is anyone's job, it is law enforcement, not tech companies.

    And as a reminder: In the US, even cartoon drawing can be considered child porn [wikipedia.org]. Good luck making an algorithm that can read a Japanese Manga and determine if it qualifies as child porn in a US courtroom. The requirement is that it be "found to be obscene or lacking in serious value." I don't want those companies deciding for me what has "serious value."

    • I would rather throw the writer in jail for searching for the inappropriate material,

      You would rather imprison the journalist? You must have got up early to press your brown shirt. Aren't you late for a Bund meeting?

      • Re:Stop making technology sole social problems (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Calydor ( 739835 ) on Sunday November 10, 2019 @12:21PM (#59399722)

        Being a journalist should not be a "Get out of jail free" card. While yes, there should be some allowances for borderline criminal (but non-harmful) stuff in order to expose actual criminal activity, we are being told again and again that every single search, every photo, every CARTOON DRAWING OF A MINOR is harmful to all children in the entire world. It's one or the other, you can't have both.

        • we are being told again and again that every single search, every photo, every CARTOON DRAWING OF A MINOR is harmful to all children in the entire world.

          Except you're mischaracterizing the argument, which is that some search engines are making it easy for the producers (who harm children) and the consumers (who fund them, or reward them in other ways) to get together.

          It's one or the other, you can't have both.

          Yeah, that's what I implied. You can't both support freedom and support jailing journalists for blowing the whistle.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

            which is that some search engines are making it easy for the producers (who harm children) and the consumers (who fund them, or reward them in other ways) to get together.

            Is that the game you want to play? How about:
            * Some color laser printers are making it easy for the producers (who harm children) and the consumers (who fund them) ...
            * Some coal producers are making it easy for power producers (who release CO2) and the consumers (who fund them) ...
            * Some knife manufacturers are making it easy for murderers to kill people
            * Guns, etc.

            The journalist is not blowing a whistle. They are pointing out the obvious, which is that search engines can be used to search for porn, chil

            • IT IS NOT THE SEARCH ENGINES RESPONSIBILITY!

              It's everyone's responsibility.

              It was not Xerox's responsibility when then invented the printer, nor Samuel Colt's responsibility when he invented the gun.

              Samuel Colt no more invented the gun (or even the revolver) than Henry Ford invented the car.

        • If you're that upset about journalists, just wait until you read about how the federal government is actually the worlds largest distributor of CP, because they take over the sites, move them to government controlled servers, then just keep on running them to catch visitors. There was some stories about the first time they did that on one site for like 10 days, but then after that they took over almost all the sites and operated huge forums with hundreds of thousands of members for nearly a year, then only

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

        Because the journalist is now in possession of child porn!

        • Because the journalist is now in possession of child porn!

          That would be a reason to jail the journalist, but if you read the Times article they were very careful to avoid ever seeing or storing any of the data. They created a headless browser that downloaded the images and piped them through an algorithm to match them against a database of known child porn images without ever displaying or storing the data.

      • I am sure you are rather upset that Ashley Bianco [thewrap.com] was wrongly fired for being a suspected leaker... Right? And pissed off that ABC/CBS would team up to find and fire a leaking journalist in their midst, right? Even when they were TRYING TO FREAKING OUT THE CHILD RAPIST JEFFREY EPSTEIN...

        • Sounds pretty crap to me, but this is the first I recall hearing of it. There's so much noise in the news that it's hard to keep track of what's going on.

    • Kiddie porn is a business. People charge to video themselves shagging the kids. Anyone who knowingly profits from this business is going to have a bad time in terms of public relations and will have law enforcement issues. Microsoft has the tools to stop its services being used for kiddie porn but is chooising not to use them because its the thin end of a very thick anti-privacy wedge.

      The Times report will make that position much harder to sustain.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

        If this discussion was going to stop at kiddie porn that would be fine. But it has already gone into political fact checking, filtering out references to Hong Kong, Tienanmen Square, Nazi symbols, right to be forgotten...

        Anyone who knowingly profits from this business is going to have a bad time in terms of public relations

        No, this is big businesses being singled-out for being big. I don't see an article telling Akamai not to cache it, or Google Chrome to filter it, or Network Solutions to refuse the DNS lookup, or CenturyLink to filter the packets. There's plenty of companies that made money off that sear

      • If only commercial CP accounted for anything more than a vanishingly small percentage of the content, that would be great because even Bitcoin is traceable when you convert it to cash, so we'd be able to nail a lot more of those people. But it doesn't.

    • This isn't about AI making decisions. It's using known images to identify their spread. Same or similar counts here. And it would be flagging as inappropriate for review. Can we do what you're talking about? Sure but this isn't that.

      Care to try again and make a lucid point?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      It really isn't technology. I mean without a camera, there would be no child pornography, and yet we do not build algorithms into digital cameras to keep people from taking and saving these images.

      The key here is what we can do to minimize the abuse of children. I think it is certain that children have been sexually assaulted for a very long time. The catholic priest did not just start molesting boys when Google started searching the internet, or when the first BBS started hosting pictures. The boycott

    • It is not the responsibility of Amazon, Microsoft, Google, or Facebook to make automated systems that patrol all human activity for bad behavior.

      Actually it is very much the responsibility of companies to obey the law, whether that law be not selling products that kill people, not mishandling personal data, or not sharing child pornography.

  • Anti-encryption propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stikves ( 127823 ) on Sunday November 10, 2019 @11:19AM (#59399588) Homepage

    They are now using children to go against encryption. It was first "the terrorists", now "child abusers".

    Same catch phrases repeated again, and again, until public relents, and another freedom is eroded:
    - Won't anyone think of the children?
    - If you have nothing to hide...
    - If only we could unlock the phone of that known terrorist/arsonist/gang member..

    I would take my freedom over securing myself for a %0.00001 chance of random harm

  • Bing and Co didn't check all the pictures and videos on all the internets before allowing it into their 'phonebook'?

    Call me shocked.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      'All the pictures on all the Internets' assumes that the sites they are crawling can't serve up custom content. Here's the generic porn for the boomers, here's some MLP for the zoomers and Barney the Dinosaur for the robots.

    • They are making thumbnails, which means they are downloading the image, and can use PhotoDNA to decide if it should be blocked. The tool exists and they have the data. Do you understand the issue now?

  • Govt wants access to everything (Score:4, Interesting)

    by joe_frisch ( 1366229 ) on Sunday November 10, 2019 @01:14PM (#59399846)

    Already in windows the boundary between local and cloud files has been blurred. I discovered that without my asking everything on my desktop had been put in the cloud for "my convenience". Now they want companies to deep scan data on the cloud.

    I think we will just have to wait for people to learn how bad it is for the government to know everything about everyone. Then maybe future civilizations won't make the same mistake

    I actually don't have anything to hid, but other people have things that I would like them to be able to keep hidden.

    • The answer is to not get any sort of cloud account for storage.

      Local storage is shockingly inexpensive these days.

      • Yes, but if you use windows and outlook (which are actually quite user friendly) it gets set up for free, and sometimes folders get put in the cloud without your knowing it

        • No they do not get put "in the cloud" without you knowing it.

          • I was surprised to discover that my desktop was in the cloud. Next person I asked who used W10 didn't know that either

            So *I* was surprised, but maybe most people know that?

    • "Already in windows the boundary between local and cloud files has been blurred."

      No it has not.

    • maybe future civilizations won't make the same mistake

      History shows that we don't learn from history.

  • They are not in the law enforcement business and they have no obligation nor business scanning peoples files just because.

    Imagine if you are a renter. Should your landlord be permitted to come into the house you are renting and search for illegal shit, just because they own the property and hey, you MIGHT have some illegal shit there, and even though they do not specifically suspect them of anything, it is a good idea to check anyway? No fucking away!

    It is no different here. This idea that companies should

    • They are deciding whether it goes in the search results or not. The search is already happening, it's a search engine. That's what it does.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Agripa ( 139780 )

      Imagine if you are a renter. Should your landlord be permitted to come into the house you are renting and search for illegal shit, just because they own the property and hey, you MIGHT have some illegal shit there, and even though they do not specifically suspect them of anything, it is a good idea to check anyway? No fucking away!

      A better question is if you are a renter, should law enforcement be permitted to conduct a warrantless search?

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/i... [forbes.com]

  • spam (Score:1)

    by crispi ( 131688 )

    Still waiting for MS to deliver on their promise of eliminating Spam.

  • google has a ai toolkit for child abuse imagery detection they can use that. also law enforcement should use those nsa monitoring net traffic to scan for pedo keywords on file names being transfered. or the hash values of files like netclean.com does

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