Child Porn, Morphing, and Pointers

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 2:40 PM 9/14/95, Rev. Ben wrote:

>> The bill would expand the definition of child pornography
>> to include any photograph, film, videotape or computer
>> image produced by any means, including electronically by
>> computer, if it depicts or appears to depict a minor
>> engaging in sexually explicit conduct.
>
>If I'm reading this correctly, if I Photoshop a kids face onto the body
>of the latest Playboy centerfold, I'm in violation of this proposed law?

I believe there have already been prosecutions along these lines. For
example, do you think a _comic book_ with child porn themes ("explicit"
art, situations) would not be prosecuted as child porn?

I strongly suspect that a _painting_ of a 7-year-old girl engaged in a sex
act would result in a prosecution.

Keith Henson, amongst others, has long suggested that a good test case will
be the _morphing_ of legal images to make them look like child porn.

This is not a legal list--for that there are several other fora/forums--but
it is clear that the child porn laws are not necessarily aimed at the
protection of specific minor children from "exploitation," as the laws
apply to porn imported from countries where the age of consent is lower,
apply to images of dead children (who can no longer be exploited by the
images), and to "created" images of children (morphing, cut-and-paste,
paintings, etc.)

The laws are clearly aimed at both extinguishing the _market_ for child
pornography and the _thoughts_ themselves, not at the protection of
specific children. (Advocates will argue that by suppressing the production
of child porn markets, future children may be protected....)

The main Cypherpunks theme I can find here is this: anonymous remailers and
Web proxies will be used to access offshore (or indeterminately located)
sites. The Feds will likely come down very hard on any remailers or proxies
found to be "trafficking" in such materials.

I'm going to post to this list a recent post I made to the Cyberia list
about whether pointers are the same as transfers.

--Tim May

---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
Corralitos, CA              | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^756839      | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."