Australian Customs Officials Will Search Your Laptop For cough

[blueflamenco]

I find some teen magazines quite offensive, in fact, I would even call that near child coughography. Then I consider adult cough magazines, legal coughography. So my point is what may be clear cut to some, will be very unclear to others.

I find men's "lifestyle" magazines displayed prominently at the petrol station quite offensive, but that's beyond the point.

What is customs definition of illegal coughography?

If we are all so concerned about this should we not contact them ourselves and find out?

 

[blueflamenco]

Also we have to remember that not 'dirty' old adults will be caught up in this coughography inspection. Imagine your teenage child sending around (semi or) naked photos of themselves and receiving them from their friends or their friend's friends via MMS.... now that could also be called child coughography IMO and be criminally prosecuted for .... even though we know for all intent and purposes, that was just teenagers growing up.

So search away, lots of (potentially innocent) people will be caught, inconvenienced, shamed and the end result; that real illegal coughography won't even be impacted.

Good point. This has been done I believe. But is it really a bad thing? It seems as though a lot of teens are naive and have a lack of self respect if they are prepared to engage in this in the first place.

 

[samh004]

Good point. This has been done I believe. But is it really a bad thing? It seems as though a lot of teens are naive and have a lack of self respect if they are prepared to engage in this in the first place.

That’s true.

I guess the thing with kids sending around semi-/nude photos of themselves and friends is that how can it be wrong for them, they’re the same age. Surely it’d be wrong if they had photos of a semi-/nude man or woman on their phone instead

But whatever.

 

[blueflamenco]

That’s true.

I guess the thing with kids sending around semi-/nude photos of themselves and friends is that how can it be wrong for them, they’re the same age. Surely it’d be wrong if they had photos of a semi-/nude man or woman on their phone instead

But whatever.

Well what I see as wrong about it is that they don't understand the potential consequences of their actions.

If you are 16 and send your boyfriend a semi nude picture and a week later you break up... Who knows where those pictures will end up? I believe there have been cases like this recently where a recipient printed out nude pictures and distributed them to friends. And if it's a digital image and it gets uploaded to the internet then there is no saying where it could end up.

 

[JohnK]

Am I the only one that thinks these new measures will not stop child coughography and are a total waste of time and resources?

As for actual legal cough it is simply my laptop and no one else's business. But I won't be stupid enough to take a laptop with me overseas. And I refuse to be bound by the directives issued by "Big Brother"....

 

[blueflamenco]

Am I the only one that thinks these new measures will not stop child coughography and are a total waste of time and resources?

As for actual legal cough it is simply my laptop and no one else's business. But I won't be stupid enough to take a laptop with me overseas. And I refuse to be bound by the directives issued by "Big Brother"....

Actually, I don't think anyone so far has disagreed and said that the new measures are a good use of resources.

Good job, keep your cough laden laptop at home where it belongs

 

[samh004]

Well what I see as wrong about it is that they don't understand the potential consequences of their actions.

If you are 16 and send your boyfriend a semi nude picture and a week later you break up... Who knows where those pictures will end up? I believe there have been cases like this recently where a recipient printed out nude pictures and distributed them to friends. And if it's a digital image and it gets uploaded to the internet then there is no saying where it could end up.

Sure, the photo could end up all over the place.

However if you take a photo, you own the photo, then you send it to someone, you’re passing on the right to do whatever with the photo surely, unless you have them sign some sort of contract or you released it under a creative commons license of some type, so while the photo may be illegal to look at by those over a certain age, I don’t think there should be an issue with people of the same age viewing the photo, and as for distribution of the image, that all comes down to whatever license was attached to the photo when you sent it to your bf/gf

However I realise the law doesn’t work that way and soon we’ll have a whole bunch of adults that have sex crime convictions (and can’t work anywhere) because they sent photos to their friends of themselves when they were 14/15/16… and this is the world we live in

I think we’re moving off-topic?

 

[JohnK]

Good job, keep your cough laden laptop at home where it belongs

I did not confirm or deny that my laptop has any cough on it. People send me emails with jpegs all the time.

Simply put anything on my laptop is my business and not for someone else to scrutiniise and decide whether they approve or not.

 

[blueflamenco]

Sure, the photo could end up all over the place.

However if you take a photo, you own the photo, then you send it to someone, you’re passing on the right to do whatever with the photo surely, unless you have them sign some sort of contract or you released it under a creative commons license of some type, so while the photo may be illegal to look at by those over a certain age, I don’t think there should be an issue with people of the same age viewing the photo, and as for distribution of the image, that all comes down to whatever license was attached to the photo when you sent it to your bf/gf

However I realise the law doesn’t work that way and soon we’ll have a whole bunch of adults that have sex crime convictions (and can’t work anywhere) because they sent photos to their friends of themselves when they were 14/15/16… and this is the world we live in

I think we’re moving off-topic?

Yes, off topic I'm sorry.. I agree with you, but - while adults might understand that if you send someone a photo you are passing on the right to do whatever with it - I don't believe children and teens fully understand and consider the consequences.

 

[tbaoo]

i have become concerned about this issue and placed a piece in my blog, i can't post the link due to the cheeky nature of my only landing here from a google search - cheers alan

 

[samh004]

i have become concerned about this issue and placed a piece in my blog, i can't post the link due to the cheeky nature of my only landing here from a google search - cheers alan

You couldn’t have simply said that you travel with 300,000 images? I don’t know why I needed to go to your blog/website to read that, and a whole lot of other stuff that didn’t make sense.

Either way, it could be an issue with confiscated HDD’s (hope you have backups) or a non-issue if you just show them a quick flick through a folder containing adult women. You’ll soon work out if you should continue travelling with the collection or not…

 

[tbaoo]

wow - what was that noise, oh it was an attempt at humour flying over somebody's head. a clue might have been landing here, google search, and the sheer silliness of the cough piece and the other stuff that didn't make sense ?...any-who - thank you - flaps down and good bye.

 

[straitman]

wow - what was that noise, oh it was an attempt at humour flying over somebody's head. a clue might have been landing here, google search, and the sheer silliness of the cough piece and the other stuff that didn't make sense ?...any-who - thank you - flaps down and good bye.

Please close the door as you leave :!:

 

[samh004]

wow - what was that noise, oh it was an attempt at humour flying over somebody's head. a clue might have been landing here, google search, and the sheer silliness of the cough piece and the other stuff that didn't make sense ?...any-who - thank you - flaps down and good bye.

This isn’t a humorous thread. It’s a very serious issue. And not because anyone here travels with 300,000 images of cough, it’s the whole, "we’re going to take your laptop to examine it and as that’ll take time you wont have it for a while, just because you’ve travelled from Cambodia today and look seedy". And then, "oh you have photos of kids in the bath, we’ll shame you by arresting you and publishing your name before we find out they’re your kids".

And as funny as you were trying to be… it really does seem like this was just a plug for your blog, which I glanced over and wondered if it was missing a bit of CSS, certainly too much white.

 

[harvyk]

On OT, and away from people trying to make jokes...

Let’s look at this from another angle... What are some better more effective methods of catching the people who like \ distribute CP?

Well one way which springs to mind is law enforcement agency can set up what is called a "Honey Pot". These are servers which look attractive (often used in the IT security industry) to the people they are trying to catch, expect when the person is downloading the CP from the "Honey Pot" they connection details are actually being recorded, and thus leave the various law enforcement agencies some nice big amounts of evidence, and enough information to trace the person back.

They can be set up in such a way that the average person who has no interest in CP won't accidentally stumble across the servers.

The only downside with this method? It doesn't inconvenience any innocent person, thus it misses out on the ability to build more paranoia.

 

[straitman]

harvyk,

It is good to see some calm returning to the thread.

 

[Mal]

What are some better more effective methods of catching the people who like \ distribute CP?

Some of the ways currently in use:
- Honeypots (as already discussed)
- Seizure of websites that distribute such material, analysis of logs and also credit card/paypal/other financial system records.
- Police visiting chat rooms/facebook etc pretending to be a certain age and seeing who "bites".
- Analysis of computers from known CP offenders, seeking links to others.
- Analysis of certain downloads from file sharing networks.
- Tip-offs from spouses/family members/upset friends etc.

There are plenty of techniques in use already to try to catch CP offenders.

 

[anat0l]

Some of the ways currently in use:
- Honeypots (as already discussed)
- Seizure of websites that distribute such material, analysis of logs and also credit card/paypal/other financial system records.
- Police visiting chat rooms/facebook etc pretending to be a certain age and seeing who "bites".
- Analysis of computers from known CP offenders, seeking links to others.
- Analysis of certain downloads from file sharing networks.
- Tip-offs from spouses/family members/upset friends etc.

There are plenty of techniques in use already to try to catch CP offenders.

The main things to consider for some of those options are:

• False positives, i.e. chances of "catching" someone who isn't a criminal. Although, that is pretty common across every kind of crime fighting technique.
• Moral and ethical implications of each technique. Just as there are moral implications about the potential for humiliation and perhaps distress with stopping people at customs, there are potential implications that exist for some of those other methods (such as police officers posing as children in chat forums, or planting material in P2P networks, or even computer tracking).
• Effectiveness of a technique, which is measured up against the morals and ethics of an option.

In saying that, I still think that the list of options you proposed - especially the first three - are more effective and active than screening random people at customs (which is IMO an ineffective passive method).

 

[blueflamenco]

It seems like a number of you are knowledgeable on the subject. Could anyone suggest why it would have been decided to carry out the inspections? I'm not sure of any of your qualifications or lines of work but surely if you are all aware of the more successful methods of catching these criminals then those who OK new customs measures would be too?

 

[samh004]

Some of the ways currently in use:
- Honeypots (as already discussed)
- Seizure of websites that distribute such material, analysis of logs and also credit card/paypal/other financial system records.
- Police visiting chat rooms/facebook etc pretending to be a certain age and seeing who "bites".
- Analysis of computers from known CP offenders, seeking links to others.
- Analysis of certain downloads from file sharing networks.
- Tip-offs from spouses/family members/upset friends etc.

There are plenty of techniques in use already to try to catch CP offenders.

Don’t forget how they caught that Canadian, by unmasking his face on the photo so it looked very similar to the perpetrator and then asking the public for help in identifying him. IIRC he was spooked and ran, only to be caught and extradited to Canada. He was teaching in a school.

As for the question above me posed by blueflamenco, I’d assume they’re looking to catch a different type of offender. Not necessarily someone even with CP, but just looking for cough that the government now deems offensive because they’ve become the morality police. In the process they’ll find a few cases of CP from casual sex tourists that don’t know any better, but on the whole they’re looking for the guys you see on border security that come back with DVD’s of bizarre acts.

The question (on the form) is just to help catch a few more out/raise awareness that Australia is cough-free, and perhaps something they can easily point to when they do want to seize a laptop and the passenger asks what for.