Questions about porn, rotton and mp3s.

Pigman

Q1: If you have a typical FHM style pic of Gail Porter (or whoever) in a bikini on your harddrive does this constitute porn and can one be proseuted for having this 'porn' on a computer? Basically when does a pic of a woman cross the line and become 'porn' as opposed to just being 'glamour'? And is it all legal/illegal?

Q2: Also if I get an email link from someone telling me to visit a site which turns out to be a porno site can I get procecuted for having 'visited' the site? and as an addendum can I be accused of having 'downloaded' pictures because copies of what you see in front of you is automatically downloaded to the cache by the browser. I say this because I heard somewhere that it's not illegal to visit an adult site but it IS illegal to download pix which I pretty much see as unavoidable if you have a cache. Or does caching not count as downloading?

Q3: Can you be proceuted for visiting 'sick' sites like Rotton.com etc and for downloading pix / vid clips from said site

Q4: Is it illegal to have mp3s on your harddrive or recorded to cds? If so then might it be legal if you ripped them from a CD that you bought?

Q5: Mame, and other emulated game stuff is generally illegal but if one was caught with it would anyone even care due to it all being obsolete?

Q6: How do I format my harddrive? Just kidding

Victor

Porn, as such is not illegal (your boss, parents or partner might have other comments) - the "typical FHM style pic of Gail Porter (or whoever) in a bikini" is not porn, even without a bikini, it may not be porn.

Distributing obscence material is illegal. It is generally for a jury (of your peers) to decide what is obscene, as no law can adequately define all pornography.

Child porn will get you in serious hassle and is more clearly defined.

It is not illegal to have MP3s as such, however you may be in breach of copyright (or other rights or statutory prohibitions).

Much of rooton.com would come under the obscene bracket.

ecksor

There's a famous quote from a US supreme court judge that he couldn't define obscenity, but "I know it when I see it."

Runfree

Originally posted by Pigman
Q1: If you have a typical FHM style pic of Gail Porter (or whoever) in a bikini on your harddrive does this constitute porn and can one be proseuted for having this 'porn' on a computer? Basically when does a pic of a woman cross the line and become 'porn' as opposed to just being 'glamour'? And is it all legal/illegal?[/qoute]

This is not illegal. Having porn on your PC is not illegal unless it is child pornography or anything sick like that if you get me. But having pics of women and men over 18 on your PC is fine.

Q2: Also if I get an email link from someone telling me to visit a site which turns out to be a porno site can I get procecuted for having 'visited' the site? and as an addendum can I be accused of having 'downloaded' pictures because copies of what you see in front of you is automatically downloaded to the cache by the browser. I say this because I heard somewhere that it's not illegal to visit an adult site but it IS illegal to download pix which I pretty much see as unavoidable if you have a cache. Or does caching not count as downloading?

You should be ok with this one afterall what can ya do about it not much.

Q3: Can you be proceuted for visiting 'sick' sites like Rotton.com etc and for downloading pix / vid clips from said site

Why would this be illegal????

Q4: Is it illegal to have mp3s on your harddrive or recorded to cds? If so then might it be legal if you ripped them from a CD that you bought?

This is not illegal aslong as you have the CD of the artist yourself. You are however breaking the copyright law if you have not purchased the Music yourself. MP3's are fine but you are not allowed to copy them onto a CD(Mp3 or Cda format) and sell them or give them away. But you can copy it onto a billion cds and use it for yourself if you like.

Q5: Mame, and other emulated game stuff is generally illegal but if one was caught with it would anyone even care due to it all being obsolete?

Doubt it but ya always got to be carefull you are however breaking the law

Q6: How do I format my harddrive? Just kidding

very funny. go to ms-dos

type format c:\
press enter(return)
Are you sure you want to delete everything on this hard-drive Y / N
select Y

Now formatting harddrive ..% complete

Whoop tee Doo.

There are all your anwsers please ignore the last one as that will mess up your PC(it is a lost cause format, that whats I call it anyways )

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

tom-th3box

Originally posted by daveirl
Even if you format most of the data is recoverable. About the only way to completely wipe the HDD is to physicially melt it or something like that.

Data Removal from a HDD is quite easy if you know how, melting a drive would be such a waste of money and would make a really bad smell.


Information from magnetic media can be gotten back correct quite easy with the right programs, if it is not over written a certain number of time's, one can totally destory data by over writing the file a number of times with another file of the same name with no data.

How many times must your overwrite ?

It differs really on who is trying to get the information back, the like's of ontrack uk, the uk security service (mi5) use MFM it is said they can get data back after 2 to 3 over write's over seas who knows.

DoD standards for data Recovery can be viewed in the yellow book of the rainbow book collection written way back in 91.

http://packetstormsecurity.org/docs/rainbow-books/NCSC-TG-022.txt

There are many program's out there to wipe your harddrive logs, history cache etc..

Wipe By Berke Durak for Unix
http://packetstormsecurity.org/UNIX/secure_delete/wipe/wipe-0.16.tar.gz

Windows Washer by webroot for windows.
http://www.webroot.com/wb/download/trial/1/wwsetup1.exe



as for the Irish police they check your Recycle Bin

theciscokid

some say you can use pgp to erase remaining space etc..
and i have , easy to do

they* say three passes is enough but the wiping algorithms increase security up to 26 passes,

there is only one software erasing tool that works they* say, bar guiding a big filthy magnet along your hardrive innards


http://www.evidence-eliminator.com/



*"they" being higher powers of some sort

tom-th3box

Originally posted by theciscokid


http://www.evidence-eliminator.com/

Evidence - Eliminator I am not a big fan of.. the company is a rip off in price for one and has ran into tons of legal battle's in the U.S due to its adverting methods and products.

http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,50555,00.html

Many horror storys and hate sites for this product/service

http://evidence-eliminator-sucks.com/eesucks/

beinging one of em.


The E3 kit was in wide use back in the day... also from the same company its not too bad i guess. Not my cup of tea.

Couple of reviews for this product below

http://www.radsoft.net/resources/software/reviews/ee/e3/

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

lynchie

Another good tool is wipedrive. We had to use it to wipe down 50 pcs which had sensitive data on them. I know Ernst and Young in Dublin use this for wiping down HDD's when they are finished doing a security audit.

tom-th3box

Originally posted by lynchie
Another good tool is wipedrive. We had to use it to wipe down 50 pcs which had sensitive data on them. I know Ernst and Young in Dublin use this for wiping down HDD's when they are finished doing a security audit.

Ernst and Young

Aparently it is illegal to download obscene material such as child pornography, but not to just view it.
The law aparently states that, to download it , is to have possession of it, which is the illegal part.

That was what was reported anyhow recently when a Garda in GDA HQ was caught with obscene material.

mm

Kappar

Am I right in understanding that one is allowed to make a backup of one's CDs into MP3 format?

And if so if the Garda called asking where you got the mp3s from and you said that they are backups and you lost the CDs hence you are useing the backups

ecksor

hm, I should have known that bedlam would know how to delete pictures of Gail Porter.

BigEejit

We have several customers (h'internationally, doncha know) that insist that any drive removed from the premises leaves it in VERY small pieces (couple of millimeters squared) ... there is also a method called gaussing that effectively clears the drive but it kills the electronics ...
To be very sure some military customers do both.

Victor

Originally posted by BigEejit
there is also a method called gaussing

I think is in effect turning the disk surface into a magnet (i.e. all the particles are aligned).

spod

Originally posted by Victor
I think is in effect turning the disk surface into a magnet (i.e. all the particles are aligned).

Just like in cryptonomicon...

Karoma

I hate to break it to you, but nobody, especially the law, care that much about a few mp3's (unless perhaps you ripped off >000's for redistribution) and a few pics. The only people who may have a problem (As suggested previously) might be employers / partners... in which case, their rules specifiy what is and is not allowed and will most likely be enforced to a more effective manner than the law.

Today's post was brought to you by the words: 'paranoid' and 'delusional'.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

ecksor

Or if you're the bogeyman, yadda yadda.

Victor

Originally posted by Karoma
The only people who may have a problem ... might be .... partners... in which case, their rules specifiy what is and is not allowed

Women have the awful habit of being (a) fickle (b) strict when it comes to such matters

Originally posted by Karoma
and will most likely be enforced to a more effective manner than the law.

Effective? Not strong enough a word. Cruel and unusal punishment comes to mind.

sceptre

Originally posted by Kappar
Am I right in understanding that one is allowed to make a backup of one's CDs into MP3 format?

No, you're not (unless you don't live in this country & do all your ripping in the wonderful country in which you do live)

There's no fair use exemption in either Irish or UK law. Legally, you're not allowed to make an mp3 backup, a tape for the car or tape copyrighted shows of the telly (Universal v Sony doesn't apply here either)

See the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 for details (or rather lack of them - no exception/exemption and all that)

And if so if the Garda called asking where you got the mp3s from and you said that they are backups and you lost the CDs hence you are useing the backups

I doubt very much that the local copper would give a damn unless you had a CD burning factory out back.

malico

Best way to wipe a hard drive.. An industrial Autoclave machine.

Those things the use high pressure super-heated steam to sterilise medical instriments for surgical use.

Failing that, my good friends mr Black and mr Decker make a whole range of products for hard drive destruction.

hmm that said my good friend mr William Gates makes many products that makes your hard drives unuseable...

SouperComputer

yup, data can even be taken from a LLf'd drive!!! GRIND EM!

Phototoxin

best way not to be done for the >whatever*< you have is
i) not to D/L it,

ii) use a seperate computer attatched to some sort of explosive

or iii) boot from flash memory/cd and only use RAM - dont write anything to the hard drive.





*insert 1 or more of following prefixes : necrophilac-, pœdo-, hardcore-, donkey-, horse-, testicular-, pron-, porn-, prawn-, shrimp-, catfish-, tenticle-, naked-, wood-, john snow-

and 1 of the following suffixes : -wimmenz, -secs, -pics, -pix, -pronz, -cancer, -newt, -coat, -
brain, -anime, -shoe

7 years on, im pretty sure OP doesn't care anymore :P

Screaming Monkey

Boot And Nuke - http://www.dban.org/download is my fav

Otherwise for anything important grind'em

SM