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Man arrested for child porn after Google read his gmail

colonel_mortis
By colonel_mortis
in Tech News
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Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28639628

Google has revealed the identity of a user after discovering child abuse imagery in the man's Gmail account in Houston, Texas, according to a local news report.

It alerted a child protection agency, which notified the police and the man was arrested, KHOU 11 News reported.

The arrest raises questions over the privacy of personal email and Google's role in policing the web.

Police in Houston told the local news station that Google detected explicit images of a young girl in an email being sent by John Henry Skillern. After the existence of the email was referred to them by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the police obtained a search warrant and arrested the man.

The 41-year-old is a convicted sex offender. He has been charged with possessing child pornography, it was reported.

"I can't see that information, I can't see that photo, but Google can," Detective David Nettles said.

It's very interesting that Google reads your emails to the extent that it can detect this sort of thing, and also very worrying. I don't personally use Gmail, but for the large numbers of you that do, just remember that Google is always watching.

Remember Google's motto "don't be evil"... They did right this time (they were obligated by law), but have they also secretly broken it? We may never know.

HTTP/2 203

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Posted

-hides my horse porns- o-o

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Posted

Disturbing, althought this gentleman deserved it.

 

Definitely going to change my email though, any recommendations? I just don't like the thought that they have access to anything and everything in my inbox. 99% of which is school related, the other 1% is financial (which is my bigger concern)

 

-hides my horse porns- o-o

Pretty sure that's legal?

 

Won't be long before we start getting arrested for "thought crime"

Ketchup is better than mustard.

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you know what to be honest i dont mind google watching me and storing what i do as long and help me find crap on the interwebs and customize my adds and other crap i actually like that 

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough it will be believed.

-Adolf Hitler 

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Posted

Porn thread! time to shut it down.

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Posted

 

Pretty sure that's legal?

 

 

depends on the state

Case: NZXT Phantom PSU: EVGA G2 650w Motherboard: Asus Z97-Pro (Wifi-AC) CPU: 4690K @4.2ghz/1.2V Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 Ram: Kingston HyperX FURY 16GB 1866mhz GPU: Gigabyte G1 GTX970 Storage: (2x) WD Caviar Blue 1TB, Crucial MX100 256GB SSD, Samsung 840 SSD Wifi: TP Link WDN4800

 

Donkeys are love, Donkeys are life.                    "No answer means no problem!" - Luke 2015

 

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you know what to be honest i dont mind google watching me and storing what i do as long and help me find crap on the interwebs and customize my adds and other crap i actually like that 

And what happens when some random google employee decides to help themselves to your financial information?

Ketchup is better than mustard.

GUI is better than Command Line Interface.

Dubs are better than subs

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Posted

And what happens when some random google employee decides to help themselves to your financial information?

dont care as long as they dont abuse it and with that i mean make purchases under my name but if people at google read it i could not care less 

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough it will be believed.

-Adolf Hitler 

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Posted

Porn thread! time to shut it down.

Well this is related to tech because google reveled that guy through gmail. 

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Posted

this is not a very smart man

 

Pretty sure that's legal?

...well, I'm going to go ahead and say what at least half of us are thinking.

Depending on the uh, nature of his content, it may fall under animal abuse or "why do you have this" category.

I'm no lawyer so I don't know if footage of animal abuse is legal, but that sounds like a grey area.

He probably was a regular visitor to 4chan

being this uninformed, condescending, and generalizing

Error: 410

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dont care as long as they dont abuse it and with that i mean make purchases under my name but if people at google read it i could not care less 

That's what I mean, right now they do have access to it and look at it. How long before they decide to start getting loans/credit cards in someones name?

 

And it is porn related :P

Ketchup is better than mustard.

GUI is better than Command Line Interface.

Dubs are better than subs

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Soo...they can detect child abuse automatically? Someone HAS to be looking through flagged porn pictures that are private. 

muh specs 

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He probably was a regular visitor to 4chan

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I like the idea that they auto scan for pictures like this, I also like the idea that if a particular email address is offered to google as possibly being used for child porn that they scan a little more thorough.  What I don't like is randomly scan emails solely to serve ad content.

Grammar and spelling is not indicative of intelligence/knowledge.  Not having the same opinion does not always mean lack of understanding.  

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That's what I mean, right now they do have access to it and look at it. How long before they decide to start getting loans/credit cards in someones name?

 

And it is porn related :P

well if they do that then prepare for a lawsuit 

If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough it will be believed.

-Adolf Hitler 

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-hides my horse porns- o-o

Lucky for you that's legal in some states.

Shot through the heart and you're to blame, 30fps and i'll pirate your game - Bon Jovi

Take me down to the console city where the games are blurry and the frames are thirty - Guns N' Roses

Arguing with religious people is like explaining to your mother that online games can't be paused...

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Posted

Disturbing, althought this gentleman deserved it.

 

Definitely going to change my email though, any recommendations? I just don't like the thought that they have access to anything and everything in my inbox. 99% of which is school related, the other 1% is financial (which is my bigger concern)

 

Pretty sure that's legal?

 

Won't be long before we start getting arrested for "thought crime"

please google doesn't need anybody's money, as for switching well you have to look for a self hosted solution because everyone's EULA says the can see your account for "X" reason, MS did this early in the year to uncover a worker that leaked windows source code and got him arrested because it was indeed illegal

 

edit: you said what if a google employe see my info, well chance are the guys that works on that has massive amounts of surveillance on him at work and that they pay him well above the average

this is one of the greatest thing that has happened to me recently, and it happened on this forum, those involved have my eternal gratitude http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/198850-update-alex-got-his-moto-g2-lets-get-a-moto-g-for-alexgoeshigh-unofficial/ :')

i use to have the second best link in the world here, but it died ;_; its a 404 now but it will always be here

 

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Ha was convicted of child abuse earlier (atleast that's how I took it), so I am all for limited privacy for such persons. But I think that googly should only be allowed acces to earlier convicted people.

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To be fair to Google, I am quite doubtful that there are any other major mail providers
out there who don't also do this nowadays.
 
It is slightly disturbing. The entire process is almost definitely automated, but I doubt

that they would be willing to rely entirely on an automated service for such a thing.

So that makes me think that they'll have the ability to manually access the email

to verify their findings - and that makes me worried because you have to wonder

how easily such a thing can be abused.

 

Hm.

"Be excellent to each other" - Bill and Ted
Community Standards | Guides & Tutorials | Members of Staff

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please google doesn't need anybody's money, as for switching well you have to look for a self hosted solution because everyone's EULA says the can see your account for "X" reason, MS did this early in the year to uncover a worker that leaked windows source code and got him arrested because it was indeed illegal

I didn't say google needed the money, but that one disgruntled underpayed worker might.

Ketchup is better than mustard.

GUI is better than Command Line Interface.

Dubs are better than subs

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I didn't say google needed the money, but that one disgruntled underpayed worker might.

edited that info into my post just after you quoted, read again

this is one of the greatest thing that has happened to me recently, and it happened on this forum, those involved have my eternal gratitude http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/198850-update-alex-got-his-moto-g2-lets-get-a-moto-g-for-alexgoeshigh-unofficial/ :')

i use to have the second best link in the world here, but it died ;_; its a 404 now but it will always be here

 

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He probably was a regular visitor to 4chan

lol generalization much? Ya know, seeing as there are OTHER BOARDS on 4chan...

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lol generalization much? Ya know, seeing as there are OTHER BOARDS on 4chan...

Jokes

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