51–60 of 316 posts
The judge doesn't really understand a hash well. They say things like "Google assigned a hash" which is not true, Google calculated the hash. Also I'm surprised the 3rd-party doctrine doesn't apply. There's the "private search doctrine" mentioned but generally you don't have an expectation of privacy for things you share with Google
Does two different labs DNA analysis are exactly equal?
It seems like a large part of the ruling hinges on the fact that Google matched the image hash to a hash of a known child pornography image, but didn't require an employee to actually look at that image before reporting it to the police. If they had visually confirmed it was the image they suspected it was based on the hash then no warrant would have been required, but the judge reads that the image hash match is not…
I am not at all opposed to any of this "get a damn warrant" pushback from judges.
I am also not at all opposed to Google searching it's cloud storage for this kind of content. There are a lot of things I would mind a cloud provider going on fishing expeditions to find potentially illegal activity, but this I am fine with.
I do strongly object to companies searching content for illegal activity on devices in my possession absent probable cause and a warrant (that they would have to get in a way other than searching my device). Likewise I object to the pervasive and mostly invisible delivery to the cloud of nearly everything I do on devices I possess.
In other words, I want custody of my stuff and for the physical possession of my stuff to be protected by the 4th amendment and not subject to corporate search either. Things that I willingly give to cloud providers that they have custody of I am fine with the cloud provider doing limited searches and the necessary reporting to authorities. The line is who actually has the bits present on a thing they hold.
Wow, do I ever not know how I feel about the "good faith exception." It feels like it incentivizes the police to minimize their understanding of the law so that they can believe they are following it.
That's a bingo. That's exactly what they do, and why so many cops know less about the law than random citizens. A better society would have high standards for the knowledge expected of police officers, including things like requiring 4-year criminal justice or pre-law degree to be eligible to be hired, rather than capping IQ and preferring people who have had prior experience in conducting violent actions.
It seems like a large part of the ruling hinges on the fact that Google matched the image hash to a hash of a known child pornography image, but didn't require an employee to actually look at that image before reporting it to the police. If they had visually confirmed it was the image they suspected it was based on the hash then no warrant would have been required, but the judge reads that the image hash match is not…
The hash functions used for these purposes are usually not cryptographic hashes. They are "perceptual hashes" that allows for approximate matches (e.g. if the image has been scaled or brightness-adjusted). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perceptual_hashing These hashes are not collision-resistant.
> Google’s hash match may well have established probable cause for a warrant to allow police to conduct a visual examination of the Maher file. Very reasonable. Google can flag accounts as CP, but then a judge still needs to issue a warrant for the police to actually go and look at the file. Good job court. Extra points for reasoning about hash values.
I'm trying to imagine a more "real-world" example of this to see how I feel about it. I dislike that there is yet another loophole to gain access to peoples' data for legal reasons, but this does feel like a reasonable approach and a valid goal to pursue. I guess it's like if someone noticed you had a case shaped exactly like a machine gun, told the police, and they went to check if it was registered or not? I suppos…
The closest "real world" analogy that comes to mind might be a real estate management company uses security cameras or some other method to determine that there is a crime occurring in a space that they are renting out to another party. The real estate management company then sends evidence to the police.
In the case of real property -- rental housing and warehouse/storage space in particular -- this happens all the time. I think that this ruling is imminently reasonable as a piece of case law (ie, the judge got the law as it exists correct). I also thing this precedent would strike a healthy policy balance as well (ie, the law as it exists if interpreted how the judge in this case interprets it would a good policy situation).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The harshness of sentence is not for the action of keeping the photos in itself, but the individual suffering and social damage caused by the actions that he incentivizes when he consumes such content.
Respectfully, it's not pornography, it's child sexual abuse material. Porn of/between consenting adults is fine. CSAM and sexual abuse of minors is not pornography. EDIT: I intended to reply to the grandparent comment
The distinction you went on to make was necessary specifically for this reason.
The judge doesn't really understand a hash well. They say things like "Google assigned a hash" which is not true, Google calculated the hash. Also I'm surprised the 3rd-party doctrine doesn't apply. There's the "private search doctrine" mentioned but generally you don't have an expectation of privacy for things you share with Google
There's a password on my Google account, I totally expect to have privacy for anything I didn't choose to share with other people. The hash is kind of metadata recorded by Google, I feel like Google using it to keep child porn off their systems should be reasonable. Same ballpark as limiting my storage to 1GB based on file sizes. Sharing metadata without a warrant is a different question though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Respectfully, it's not pornography, it's child sexual abuse material. Porn of/between consenting adults is fine. CSAM and sexual abuse of minors is not pornography. EDIT: I intended to reply to the grandparent comment
Pornography is any multimedia content intended for (someone's) sexual arousal. CSAM is obviously a subset of that.
The language has changed as we (in civilised countries) stop punishing sex work "porn" is different from CASM
In the bad old days pornographers were treated the same as sadists
"Defendant [..] stands convicted following a guilty plea in the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (Glenn T. Suddaby, Judge) of both receiving and possessing approximately 4,000 images and five videos depicting child pornography"
A win for google, for the us judicial system, and for constitutional rights.
A loss for child abusers.