Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 90 posts

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#71

Post by [deleted] »

kakarot wrote: post #18
GreaterFool wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. It's just bad writing in the opening paragraph. WhatsApp doesn't provide search but groups can be joined via links. Third-party apps and sites use the links to index groups. Some groups share illegal content. WhatsApp should hire people to crawl those apps/sites, find the illegal groups, join, verify and ban. Not entirely unreasonable. Won't fix anything* but if the company is big and well funded they should at…

> WhatsApp should hire people to crawl those apps/sites, find the illegal groups, join, verify and ban. This is a problem that needs a good solution, but you're literally suggesting that an arm of the one of the world's largest data collectors and propaganda engines, which offers free encrypted public communication to the masses, should fund and operate an internal spy agency whose job is to blend in and infiltrate g…

[deleted]

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#72

Post by ndnxhs »

codyb wrote: post #60
claudiawerner wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable, I can't help but feel it's the state we're at. A platform having to trawl the web to find links to its own service, infiltrate itself, verify the contents, then shut it down... I suspect a marginally easier way might be to maintain a list of referrer URLs/joining IPs (or start collecting them) and check them against a list of domains/IPs of sites known for sharing CP. I'm…

Could they go the other way and analyze join events to groups or something on their own networks to find groups? I guess the issue then would be that they're monitoring every group? I can't imagine these people are writing something like "child porn in this chat --> ". I haven't the faintest idea how people who're interested in that sort of thing're finding these links. Definitely a problem which seems potentially in…

From what I was told about tumbler it really is as obvious as saying that

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#73

Post by Asooka »

No. The world has a child porn problem. And until you start offering mental health care to paedophiles and going after child porn producers, nothing will change. You can ban the entire internet if you like and paedos will just meet in bars and exchange usb sticks. This is ridiculous, of course every single secure information exchange platform will be used for child porn. And drugs. And teens sending nude pictures to each other. And terrorists. Etc.

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#75

Post by Doxin »

Johnny555 wrote: post #29
legostormtroopr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why aren't builders taking more initiative to employ moderators to monitor crimes inside the houses they build?

That's not a perfect analogy -- these aren't people meeting one-by-one in private spaces, WhatsApp is providing them a shared space where they can meet and share images. This seems more like blaming a hotel for letting one of their conference rooms be used for an illegal porn swap meet.

You can have a shared space in your private space very easily, so it does seem to me like the analogy holds up.

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#76

Post by Proven »

How is that WhatsApp's problem?

When data ownership and privacy is concerned, these fakers claim these should be inviolable.

When there's something they don't like, you have no rights to privacy and private enterprises should perform the police work for the State and ignore property rights.

SJWs...

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#77

Post by dkobia »

You can't have it both ways. End to end encryption or open groups with censorship by moderation, pick one. This is a side effect of private clubs and private online communities. While I don't condone the behavior, we need to get more creative on how to police this than putting in place mechanisms for violating everyone's privacy, which is just lazy and dangerous.

It's hard to read some of these stories without ignoring the current surge of schadenfreude that writers are capitalizing on.

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#79

Post by krylon »

gmaster1440 wrote: post #6

Newsflash: e2e encryption is used to send content that stands to gain most from using it.

With WhatsApp, end-to-end encryption is used by everybody, even though most people probably do not realize it.

EDIT: Okay, that came out more snarky than I wanted it to. On the one hand, you are right, of course: Provide a secure, encrypted, easy-to-use means of communication, and people with something to hide will use it. If I wanted to download or spread child pornography, I would not do it via an unencrypted channel, either.

On the other hand, your comment might be read by some to mean that you think encryption is the problem. And I think, by the time somebody posts a video of a child getting raped to a WhatsApp group, the problem has been around for while and is not going to magically disappear if WhatsApp were to remove end-to-end encryption from their service.

And child pornography, understandably, provokes strong emotions, which is why politicians and law enforcement officials eager to push more surveillance or censorship like to use it as a reason to push their agenda.

Re: WhatsApp has an encrypted child porn problem

#80

Post by hkt »

dmurray wrote: post #53
hkt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the same. Houses aren't a mass medium of communication.

They're worse than that. Houses are a mass medium of child abuse. It's a lot easier to rape children indoors than to find a a suitably secluded spot outside any house.

I don't think you have grasped what a mass medium is - you don't get millions of people joining each house. You get lots of houses with a few people in them.
Post reply on HN