[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ONLINE PORNOGRAPHY: CLOSING THE DOOR ON PERVASIVE SMUT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
COMMERCE, TRADE, AND CONSUMER PROTECTION
of the
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 6, 2004
__________
Serial No. 108-90
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
house
__________
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
JOE BARTON, Texas, Chairman
W.J. ``BILLY'' TAUZIN, Louisiana JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan
RALPH M. HALL, Texas Ranking Member
MICHAEL BILIRAKIS, Florida HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
FRED UPTON, Michigan EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
CLIFF STEARNS, Florida RICK BOUCHER, Virginia
PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JAMES C. GREENWOOD, Pennsylvania FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
CHRISTOPHER COX, California SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia BART GORDON, Tennessee
RICHARD BURR, North Carolina PETER DEUTSCH, Florida
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
CHARLIE NORWOOD, Georgia ANNA G. ESHOO, California
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming BART STUPAK, Michigan
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico ALBERT R. WYNN, Maryland
JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona GENE GREEN, Texas
CHARLES W. ``CHIP'' PICKERING, KAREN McCARTHY, Missouri
Mississippi, Vice Chairman TED STRICKLAND, Ohio
VITO FOSSELLA, New York DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
STEVE BUYER, Indiana LOIS CAPPS, California
GEORGE RADANOVICH, California MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire CHRISTOPHER JOHN, Louisiana
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania TOM ALLEN, Maine
MARY BONO, California JIM DAVIS, Florida
GREG WALDEN, Oregon JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
LEE TERRY, Nebraska HILDA L. SOLIS, California
MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas
MIKE ROGERS, Michigan
DARRELL E. ISSA, California
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma
Bud Albright, Staff Director
James D. Barnette, General Counsel
Reid P.F. Stuntz, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
______
Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection
CLIFF STEARNS, Florida, Chairman
FRED UPTON, Michigan JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky Ranking Member
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
Vice Chairman PETER DEUTSCH, Florida
GEORGE RADANOVICH, California BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire BART STUPAK, Michigan
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania GENE GREEN, Texas
MARY BONO, California KAREN McCARTHY, Missouri
LEE TERRY, Nebraska TED STRICKLAND, Ohio
MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
DARRELL E. ISSA, California JIM DAVIS, Florida
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan,
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma (Ex Officio)
JOE BARTON, Texas,
(Ex Officio)
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
__________
Page
Testimony of:
Allen, Ernie, President and Chief Executive Officer, National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children.................. 53
Beales, J. Howard, III, Director, Bureau of Consumer
Protection, U.S. Federal Trade Commission.................. 12
Catlett, Charles E., Senior Fellow, Computation Institute,
Argonne National Laboratory................................ 42
Dunkel, Norbert W., Director of Housing and Residence
Education, University of Florida........................... 47
Koontz, Linda, Director for Management Issues, U.S. General
Accounting Office.......................................... 23
Lafferty, Martin C., Chief Executive Officer, Distributed
Computing Industry Association............................. 60
Lourdeau, Keith, Deputy Assistant Director, Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Cyber Division.............................. 18
Nance, Penny Young, President, Kids First Coalition.......... 57
(iii)
ONLINE PORNOGRAPHY: CLOSING THE DOOR ON PERVASIVE SMUT
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THURSDAY, MAY 6, 2004
House of Representatives,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade,
and Consumer Protection,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2322, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Cliff Stearns
(chairman) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Stearns, Whitfield,
Shimkus, Shadegg, Bass, Pitts, Terry, Ferguson, Issa, Otter,
Sullivan, Barton (ex officio), Schakowsky, McCarthy, and
Strickland.
Also present: Representative John.
Staff present: Chris Leahy, majority counsel; David
Cavicke, majority counsel, Shannon Jacquot, majority counsel;
Brian McCullough, majority professional staff; Will Carty,
lecislative Clerk; Gregg Rothschild, minority counsel; and
Ashley Groesbeck, staff assistant.
Mr. Stearns. Good morning, everybody. I think we'll start
our hearing.
I'm pleased to welcome all of you to the committee, the
Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection
hearing on online pornography. My colleagues online
pornography, both legal and illegal, is a growing problem for
legitimate Internet users and in particular, for the most
vulnerable among our nation, the children. The explosion growth
of online pornography material including the most revolting
child pornography continues to be a major issue for all of us.
According to a 2003 report done by the General Accounting
Office, there were over 400,000 commercial pornography websites
at that time. A subsequent private survey estimated that the
number of commercial pornography websites grew from 88,000 in
2000 to 1.6 million today. Now this rapid growth of online
pornography on the web becomes even more disturbing when we
learn that outright deception and fraud are frequently the
means used to dupe legitimate Internet users into exposure,
especially when those users are children.
Web pornographers are increasingly using online deception
and trickery to lure visitors to their websites. Domain names
are being manipulated to appear benign and mousetrap their
victims. Spam and fraudulent advertising are being employed to
lure unsuspecting visitors, and many of them are children, to
obscene material. And now distributed computing technology like
file sharing software applications known as peer-to-peer or P2P
software are quickly becoming a favorite medium, particularly
to lure our children from the perceived, safety of the family
living room out into the dangers of this Internet wilderness.
Especially popular with the most tech savvy, our kids, P2P
networks are similar in concept to web browsers, but rather
than enabling users to communicate and share information
through a central server or website, P2P allows network users
access to each others' computers hard drives to share files.
While this is an ingenious and a legitimate technology, the
chilling fact is that pornographers are now using these P2P
applications to target children and young adults with
pornographic materials by distributing files with deceptive
names that disguise a pornographic file, by labeling it with an
entity popular with children or young adults such as an example
would be Cinderella or Britney Spears.
According to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children,
who will be testifying before us today, from 2001 to 2002 there
was a fourfold increase in pornographic material being
distributed through P2P networks. This finding, coupled with
the fact that many P2P users are children and young adults,
makes the risk of inadvertent exposure of pornographic material
to children a very significant issue.
As several of our witnesses today will explain, it is very
important to recognize that distributed computing technology
that enables P2P software is legitimate and frankly a neutral
technology with tremendous potential to do good. But it also
spawned exciting new applications and it also spawns exciting
new applications for legitimate activity. For example, it can
enable the establishment of online communities, complete online
communities, enhance grid computing and in short, make the
market of ideas and information more accessible and obviously
more affordable to all Americans.
The power of P2P networks has already led to some
outstanding success in the sciences and in mathematics. I'd
like to commend my colleague, Mr. Pitts from Pennsylvania, for
his leadership in helping cast some light on the very real
problems of P2P technology and what it poses, including the
ways in which it can facilitate the illegal and disgusting
behavior of those that prey upon our children.
I would also like to especially welcome Mr. Norb Dunkel and
Mr. Rob Bird who were kind enough to travel from the University
of Florida to testify before us today. I am honored to
represent the University of Florida, an institution that is
innovative on many levels. And particularly, the University of
Florida has taken a novel approach to dealing with this misuse
of peer-to-peer technology by instituting a system called
Integrated Computer Application for Recognizing User Services
or ICARUS. ICARUS has successfully harnessed technology to
restrict illegal file sharing while preserving P2P for
legitimate academic and social activity over the University of
Florida's network.
And finally, my colleagues, I look forward to further
exploring ways we can ensure the doors to the Internet
wilderness remain locked for the sake of our children, unless
extreme care is exercised and proper safeguards are in place.
There is clearly no open door policy in cyberspace. As we
have seen open doors can also allow infestation by malicious
computer viruses, secret spyware downloads, as we learned last
week, and now the distribution of online pornography,
particularly child pornography.
And as we will learn from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the Federal Trade Commission, apart from our
parental responsibility to carefully supervise our children's
Internet activities, there's also need for vigilant and
aggressive enforcement measures and prosecution for those who
seek to victimize and exploit our children.
I welcome the witnesses today and I look forward to the
testimony.
With that, I'm very pleased to recognize Ranking Member
Schakowsky.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Chairman Stearns, for holding
this hearing on children being able to access pornography on
the Internet by using peer-to-peer or P2P networking. I'm
particularly glad this morning to see that there are a number
of young people. I want to point out there are some empty seats
for people to sit down, so if you ever wonder whether or not
anything we do here in this capital directly affects your
lives, this is a good example of one of them that does.
Like you, Mr. Chairman, I'm very concerned about protecting
children from the violation and abuse of child pornography and
when the Child Sex Crimes Wiretapping Act and the Child
Obscenity and Pornography Prevention Act were on the House
floor in the last Congress, I voted for them. I believe that
these bills would go a long way to safeguard our children from
pornography. And I'm also concerned about children's exposure
to pornography, in general. I believe that parents should be
able to guard against their children stumbling across it on the
Internet, but in ways that do not violate the first amendment.
As the testimony demonstrates, the user of P2P traffic and
child pornography continues to grow. And it is certainly
appropriate for the subcommittee to investigate and address
this problem. However, peer-to-peer networking is not the main
source for child pornography. As the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children CyberTipline found in 2003,
there were 840 reports of P2P being the source of child
pornography out of 62,369 tips received; websites with the
source of 45,035 of the reports.
Since 1998, P2P has been the source for only 1 percent of
online child pornography. P2P systems and the distributed
competing technologies behind it do not much more than serve
as--do much more than serve as access to pornography. Some uses
are interesting and innovative like using it for environmental
and biomedical research as Dr. Catlett from the University of
Chicago and Argonne Lab explains in his testimony. Other uses
are seriously distressing like the unauthorized downloading of
copyrighted materials and the spreading of spyware and viruses.
When discussing P2P, we cannot ignore these uses. I'm glad that
we have a number of witnesses here today who will go over these
points as well.
P2P is a lot like other issues we've had to deal with in
our subcommittee as with the data base bill and spyware, we
have to find ways to balance concerns. With P2P, we must make
sure that artists are compensated for their work and that
copyrights are not infringed upon. At the same time we should
examine the possibility of P2P as a legitimate way for artists
to distribute and market their work when they cannot get play
on the stations owned by mega conglomerates.
We also have to look at how to protect our children without
making the regulations of a potentially useful technology so
onerous that we could lose an innovative system. Although I
don't know, I don't have a suggestion at the moment where this
balance will fall, I'm very glad that we're here today
beginning a discussion on how best to approach the problems
that inevitably surface with evolving technologies.
Thank you.
Mr. Stearns. I thank the gentlelady and we have the
chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Barton, the
gentleman from Texas.
Chairman Barton. Thank you, Mr. Stearns, and thank you for
hosting this hearing. I want to commend you and Congressman
Pitts for your efforts in this area. It's an important and
timely topic as new technologies offer quicker and easier
channels for distributing pornographic images over the
Internet. Those involved in delivering pornography through
deceptive means have used many mechanisms to facilitate their
scams. This committee, along with the Committee on the
Judiciary has worked very hard to prevent the viewing of
pornographic content by unwitting e-mail users by developing
brown paper wrapper provisions in the CAN-SPAM Act. I
understand those provisions are going to be taking effect later
this summer. I expect that enforcement will receive significant
attention by both the FTC and the FBI.
What is less well known is the use of peer-to-peer networks
in distributing pornography. Children, as large numbers of
users of peer-to-peer networks are at significant risk of
inadvertent exposure to pornographic images. Some of the
pornographic content is disguised as files that look like
popular files that children might access. The GAO has reported
that searches on key words that might be used by children or
young adults have produced a high number of pornographic
images, specifically searches retrieved 56 percent pornography.
Less than half produced legitimate content sought by children
and most disturbing of all, a small, but not insignificant
percentage even contained child pornography.
These results highlight three issues that are significant
regarding pornography over peer-to-peer networks. Before I
close, I want to comment that I believe that the pornography
problem over the peer-to-peer network is a problem of illegal
behavior related to content, not necessarily the technology
itself. Distributed computing is more than just peer-to-peer
file sharing of music and other pop culture type files. It's an
exciting area with scientific benefits and medical benefits
that will accrue to our country's benefit for many years to
come.
I look forward to hearing about the other positive uses of
distributed computing and hope that this committee can weigh
the benefits of distributed computing as we look at ways to
solve the peer-to-peer sharing of pornographic files to
children.
I again want to thank Congressman Pitts for his attention
to this issue and I want to commend Chairman Stearns for your
willingness to hold a hearing on this important issue and I
yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Stearns. I thank the chairman and now the author of a
bill dealing with this subject from which we're having the
hearing, Mr. Pitts is recognized.
Mr. Pitts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this
important hearing on the dangers to our children from peer-to-
peer file sharing software. Before I start, I'd like to insert
into the record a letter.
Mr. Stearns. By unanimous consent, so ordered.
[The letter follows:]
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
May 4, 2004
The Honorable Timothy J. Muris, Chairman
The Honorable Mozelle W. Thompson, Commissioner
The Honorable Orson Swindle, Commissioner
The Honorable Thomas B. Leary, Commissioner
The Honorable Pamela Jones Harbour, Commissioner
Federal Trade Commission
600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20580
Dear Mr. Chairman and Commissioners:
We write to request that the Federal Trade Commission (the
``Commission'') determine whether various provisions of the Federal
Trade Commission Act (the ``Act'') are being violated by the designers,
publishers, distributors and operators of certain iterations of
software commonly known as ``peer-to-peer file-sharing software.''
These parties have distributed this software widely and for free--
frequently to unsupervised children. In fact, nearly half of the users
of this software may be children. This software not only enables
children and others to make ``free'' infringing copies of copyrighted
music, movies, software and games for their own use, but also may
unwittingly turn each user into an illegal re-distribution center for
both copyrighted works and child pornography.
Recently, a federal court found that certain publishers and
distributors of filesharing software ``may have intentionally
structured their businesses to avoid secondary liability for copyright
infringement, while benefiting financially from the illicit draw of
their wares.'' If this is true, then those distributing P2P software to
consumers and children may be failing to disclose profound risks
associated with foreseen, widespread uses of their products. If so,
then the Commission should consider the appropriate steps it may take
to protect our citizens and children from potentially unfair and
deceptive trade practices that mislead and endanger.
This software inarguably poses dangers even when it is used as
intended in ways that were foreseeable and have become common practice.
Many children use this software to download popular songs: They risk
significant civil penalties for copyright infringement and criminal
convictions for re-distributing infringing works to pirates around the
world. Many adults use this software to download adult pornography for
their own private viewing: They may risk criminal convictions for
distributing this pornography to minors. Something is horribly wrong
when millions use a product in ways that are illegal, dangerous to
them, and dangerous to others.
We stress that risks like them are not inherent in the use of
computers, the Internet, or even most software that can transfer files
between ``peer'' computers. Instead, they appear to arise when
particular file-sharing software is distributed with default settings
and other attributes that seem designed to facilitate widespread,
ongoing copyright piracy and trafficking in pornography. Two features
of such designs seem to generate these unusual risks.
First such software enables what might be called ``dark-alley file-
sharing'': Through a combination of unenforced use ``limitations'' and
licenses, pseudo-anonymity, and automatic program features that operate
without the user's intervention or knowledge, this type of software
creates shadowy ``dark alleys'' in cyberspace. In those dark alleys,
you can get things--though you aren't sure what they really are--from
strangers who cannot be later identified or held accountable.
Unsurprisingly, these dark alleys tend to become havens for piracy,
pornography and computer viruses.
Second, such software enables so-called ``viral'' redistribution:
By default, users of the software make all files downloaded available
for redistribution to other users. This ``viral'' redistribution can
thwart enforcement of the rights of artists because one infringing copy
of a popular work can quickly multiply over a network. ``Viral''
redistribution works by turning more consumers of content into
international distributors of content. As a result, people seeking
content to use at home can inadvertently incur all the complex and
unfamiliar risks of managing an international content-distribution
operation.
We cannot detail all of the risks to consumers that arise when
dark-alley file-sharing combines with ``viral'' redistribution. We
summarize only some of these risks, which may be grouped into three
broad categories: pornography, piracy and data security.
Pornography and Child Pornography: Recent research suggests that
pornography downloading has joined music piracy as a leading use of
much dark-alley file-sharing software. Much of this pornography is
disturbing and potentially obscene. It may depict hardcore sex, sadism,
masochism, violence, bestiality, or rape. The prevalence and nature of
this pornography endangers users of this software in at least three
ways.
First, filesharing is based on searchable lists, which may contain
deceiving file names, with the result that the program delivers graphic
pornography even to children searching for innocent content. Unenforced
end-user licenses frequently let the worst pornography link itself to
innocent subjects. For example, the Government Accounting Office (GAO)
reported to Congress that ``searches on innocuous keywords likely to be
used by juveniles'' retrieved images including adult pornography (34%),
cartoon pornography (14%), child pornography (1%) and child erotica
(7%). Searching some networks for terms like ``Olsen twins'' and
``Harry Potter'' will return files whose very names describe sex
crimes. ``Pokemon'' cartoons, music, and movies are designed to attract
young children--yet one search for ``Pokemon'' returned files
purporting to depict the rape of Pokemon's child-stars.
Some file-sharing software promotes ``keyword'' filters as a means
to protect file-sharing children from pornography. But``keyword''
filters can only prevent children from searching for pornography--not
from exposure to the pornography responsive even to innocuous searches.
For example, when one such ``Family Filter'' was engaged, a search for
the term ``horse'' returned images of graphic bestiality. Such can also
be easily disabled, even by children, In any event, unaccountable
pornographers can circumvent these filters by mislabeling pornographic
files with misleading filenames and metadata.
Second, file-sharing can expose unwitting children or adults to
profoundly disturbing child pornography that is illegal to possess,
view, or redistribute. Pedophiles use filesharing to distribute illegal
child pornography. Searches of popular filesharing networks have
returned files with names like ``13-year-old lolita raped and crying.''
Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota told the Senate Committee
on the Judiciary that one popular network distributed the videotaped
rape of a toddler in diapers. GAO has confirmed that some of this
illegal child pornography is mislabeled so it will appear in response
to innocuous searches.
Third, ``viral'' redistribution of any pornography can endanger not
only children, but also adults who want to view adult pornography. For
example, imagine a college student, who uses file-sharing software as
intended to download for private use a violent adult pornographic
image. Automatically, however, the P2P program itself makes the image
accessible for downloading by every other user of the file-sharing
software, including children or users who live in different areas of
the country with different community standards. As a result, this
student may redistribute violent pornography to children and others--
and risk criminal prosecution under state or federal criminal laws
governing pornography distribution. Both Congress and the Department of
Justice have advised prosecutors to target obscenity prosecutions
toward pornography distributors--particularly those who distribute to
minors.
Unfortunately, this is no hypothetical. It is happening now.
Otherwise law-abiding adults who may only have meant to view
pornography privately are--intentionally, negligently or unknowingly--
becoming pornography distributors who distribute worldwide, to children
and adults. We doubt that most such adults realize how ``viral''
redistribution of any pornography endangers both adults and children.
Copyright Infringement: File-sharing can also expose children and
consumers to severe penalties for copyright infringement. The enduring
prevalence of this piracy strongly suggests that some who profit from
it have failed to educate their users about the many dangers of
infringing copyrights.
Testimony and news reports show that some users of file-sharing
software--particularly children--do not yet realize that downloading
popular music or movies ``for free'' is usually unlawful. Many users
may not realize that downloading or redistributing infringing works can
be a federal crime, and may not know the severity of the penalties for
copyright infringement. These users cannot be adequately educated by
vague warnings to ``obey the law'': Review of the Copyright Act will
not disclose which files may be illegal to download, the prevalence of
infringing works on a network, or the risks of letting a clever
designer limit his own risks of liability by using your home computer
to house network search indices much like those that exposed the
original Napster to staggering secondary liability for infringement.
Data Security: Most dark-alley file-sharing software can
redistribute any kind of file, including audio, images, documents and
video. Such software can thus compromise the safety of any data stored
on the hard drive of a personal computer. People now use their
computers to store highly sensitive data, including personal finances,
tax returns, photographs, correspondence, business documents, and
emails. Much of this data--if broadcast to millions of other Internet
users--could facilitate identity theft.
Resarch by computer scientists Nathaniel Good and Aaron Kreckelberg
has revealed that (1) thousands of people seem to have inadvertently
shared profoundly personal data over filesharing networks, and (2)
malicious users are accessing files that seem to contain sensitive data
like credit card numbers. Other research conducted by the Committee on
Government Affairs of the House of Representatives reveals that
thousands are sharing data files that probably contain detailed records
of their personal finances, including account numbers, credit card
numbers, and individual financial transactions. Indeed, last year, PC
Magizine reported that downloading the inadvertently shared personal
data of others had become the latest filesharing ``fad.''
In addition to inadvertently sharing sensitive personal, business,
or government data, users may also compromise their security and risk
identity theft by downloading files that contain malicious viruses,
Trojan-horse programs or backdoors. New research by the security
company TruSecure has revealed that about 60% of the nearly 5000
executable files downloaded with popular filesharing software contained
such viruses, Trojan-Horse programs or backdoors. Some were concealed
in games popular among children. PC Magazine also recently reported
that one of the most recent widespread infections, the ``MyDoom [virus]
seems to have started on KaZaA, the popular peer-to-peer filesharing
service.'' PC Magazine also reported potential problems with the
antivirus program Kazaa that may have rendered it largely useless
during the MyDoom outbreak.
Finally, too much dark-alley file-sharing software helps its
creators profit from piracy and pornography by installing so-called
``adware'' or ``spyware'' programs. These programs can compromise the
privacy of every person who uses a given computer--even if they never
use filesharing software or consent to its installation. We commend the
Commission for opening an investigation of this issue.
In sum, the dangers of file-sharing software are real, and
consumers need to be protected. The Act directs the Commission to
protect consumers from ``unfair or deceptive acts or practices'' that
affect commerce. 15 U.S.C.A. 45(a)(1). If the designers, publishers,
and distributors of file-sharing have not adequately warned users about
the risk of using their software, and are intentionally distributing
the software in a manner that increases risks to end-users, then they
have endangered their customers--and our children. These entities--many
of whom profit primarily through adverting or sales of
``premium''versions--from illicit uses of their software--must
effectively educate even their youngest users about the dangers of
their software.
We request that the Commission investigate these issues during its
upcoming hearings. We further request that the Commission report back
on (1) the results of its investigation, (2) how it intends to redress
any problems disclosed under existing law, and (3) whether existing law
provides adequate authority to redress any and all problems disclosed.
We also request that the Commission commence and prosecute any
enforcement actions justified by any potential violations of the Act
disclosed.
Sincerely,
Patrick Leahy
United States Senator
Orrin G. Hatch
United States Senator
Barbara Boxer
United States Senator
Ted Stevens
United States Senator
Gordon Smith
United States Senator
Mr. Pitts. Thank you. There are millions of people using
peer-to-peer software at any given time. Approximately 40
percent of the users are children. Our children download peer-
to-peer software in hopes that they can get their hands on free
music or movies, but I'm not here to talk about copyrights or
what artists or musicians are entitled to. That's an important
and necessary discussion to have. But I'm afraid it has become
a smokescreen for a very real danger facing our children in the
use of peer-to-peer software. Kids log on to Kazaa or LimeWire
looking music. Instead, when they search for songs by their
favorite music group or pictures of their favorite baseball
player, they get porn, a lot of it illegal child pornography.
A search for files relating to children's characters such
as Elmo or Snow White, therefore yields an alarming amount of
pornography. One has to ask why are these files misnamed? An
adult looking for pornography isn't going to search for Elmo.
Maybe he would if he's a pedophile and it's code talk for
illegal material. Perhaps our friends at Kazaa would like to
let us know if that is happening. Children are the only
possible target of this false labeling.
I have a printout here, some printouts and they represent
the results of searches done on Kazaa on these topics and the
results are shocking. These searches were done using the adult
filter that Kazaa offers. If members want to see it for
themselves, I'll let you see this. If a child accidentally
downloads a file containing child pornography, the pedophile
distributing it has instant access to the child. He can easily
communicate with the child over the Internet, drawing the child
into his web. And that's exactly what they want. Pedophiles
often lure children into viewing pornography to encourage their
victims to engage in sex. This is the way pedophiles operate in
the real and cyber world.
As evidence of this trend, Suffolk County, New York last
year arrested 12 individuals in a sting operation. They used
Kazaa to distribute their child pornography. The confiscated
files that were distributed showed children being raped. One
had an audio with a child screaming ``stop, Daddy, stop.''
Now some proponents of peer-to-peer say that in proportion
to the Internet at large the amount of pornography on peer-to-
peer networks is meager. I agree that pornography is rampant on
the Internet, but this finger pointing is a pretty bad way to
pass the buck. If you go to the most popular search engine,
Google, and type in the same words, you don't get child porn.
You get what you ask for. You type in Cinderella or Pokeyman,
Snow White, baseball, you get information on Cinderella,
Pokeyman, Snow White and baseball.
Even if pornography comes up in these searches, it's far
down the list. And parents can rely on filters to block much of
that material from ever appearing on a computer screen. This is
not the case with peer-to-peer software. If you enter these
terms in your peer-to-peer search window, the results are
primarily pornographic material. Any time you have millions of
children having easy access to such horrible material, I don't
care if you claim someone else has more, if your product
facilitates or encourages illegal activity, if your product
allows predators, pornographers, pedophiles to prey on children
and leads to the abuse of just one child, while you stand idly
by, you have no excuse.
This is not about the recording industry. It's about the
peer-to-peer industry. Peer-to-peer distributors should be held
accountable for the smut that they actively put into the hands
of our children. They should be expected to allow parents to
protect their children, not ridicule their efforts to do so.
Now we'll hear today about peer-to-peer software's filters
and parents' passwords. They don't work. They do not protect
children from receiving pornography. This is because they are
key word filters that only prevent children from searching for
pornography. Just look at these printouts, these searches are
proof. They were done with the adult filter on and the results
are shocking because pornographers rename their files to sound
innocent. The filters are ineffective.
Further, parents think that they have existing Internet
filters that protect their children, but they don't work on
peer-to-peer software either. Netnanny doesn't work.
CyberPatrol doesn't work. And peer-to-peer filters don't work.
In fact, not only are they ineffective, they're easy to
circumvent. Any 13-year-old can turn them off. We need to
protect the millions of children using peer-to-peer software
and that is why last year my colleague, Chris John, and I
introduced H.R. 2885, Protecting Children from Peer-to-Peer
Pornography Act. This bill raises awareness of the dangers of
peer-to-peer software. It calls on the FTC to hold peer-to-peer
distributors accountable for the smut that they actively put
into the hands of our children and peer-to-peer networks may
not want to stop this because it means less users or less
material or less revenue.
Our bill would empower parents by giving them the tools
they need to cutoff the flow of harmful information into their
homes and it would aid the development of technology to block
peer-to-peer installation. This is a threat that harms our
kids. It's time to do something about it.
Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the hearing. I look
forward to hearing the testimony of the witnesses.
Mr. Stearns. I thank my colleague and if you don't mind I
think you could circulate that to the members so that they have
an opportunity to see it. And the gentleman from Nebraska, Mr.
Terry.
Mr. Terry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I'm anxious to hear
from our witnesses today. This is an important issue and I'll
just give you a story. Over the weekend, last week my son who
is 9 years old is becoming darn proficient in exploration of
the Internet with my supervision, said that he wanted to
download some music. He wanted some Aerosmith songs. That in
and of itself made me rather proud of him. Not Britney Spears,
Aerosmith, that's my boy. So I said all right, let's go on and
we're going to do this right. And so went to Real Music. We
paid for the four Aerosmith songs that I knew didn't have
sexually explicit language in them which even Aerosmith makes
some sexual references in their songs so we had a few, Sweet
Emotion, Dream On, not Love in an Elevator. But we did it the
right way. I wanted to make sure he did it the right way by
paying for this music. By the way, for the four songs he had to
sweep the patio and earn it. But the value of that these
artists and record companies have invested and their rights to
this music should be protected.
But also, I wanted to make sure that he wasn't on other
sites like Kazaa because even at 9 years of age his friends
know what Kazaa is and have gone on Kazaa. And when I see what
Mr. Pitts, my colleague from Pennsylvania has introduced here,
about how easy it would be for a 9-year-old boy to access hard
core pornography, in trying to do something as simple as
download a song for free.
When I talk to high school classes, and just like the
ranking member from Chicago mentioned, that we have a lot of
youth here and this is one of the areas that we show Congress
actually can effect, I ask high school students when I speak to
their class, how many of them download music? Inevitably about
80 percent of the class, no matter where I am in Omaha or my
District, 80 percent of the class will raise their hand. Then I
ask for those raising their hands, how many have paid for that
music? Probably two or three hands out of that entire class
will remain up which means this is what our high school
students are seeing on a daily basis.
And most of them are probably savvy enough to choose the
music versus the some rather explicit nature of the title here
for the pornography. But what also concerns me is not only the
volume of what our students are being exposed to, but also just
in the very fact that they disguise this and you don't have a
way like on some of the legitimate music, when you buy it, you
can click on it and they'll give you a 30 second demo so you
know what you're buying before you click on it. Here, you have
to click on it and download it before you know. So if they've
disguised it as a Britney Spears song, you don't know that
until you open up the file after it's been downloaded. Those
are some of the dangers that we're here to explore.
So I appreciate, Mr. Chairman, you holding this because
this is an important protection of our children in the cyber
age.
Mr. Stearns. I thank my colleague. The gentleman from New
Jersey, Mr. Ferguson.
Mr. Ferguson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for holding
this hearing on a matter that's of great concern to families
like mine and families as we've heard across this country. The
scourge of online pornography has allowed sexual predators bent
on luring our children into their perverse world to enter our
homes through our computers and the open doors of an Internet
connection.
A March 2003 GAO study found over 400,000 commercial
pornography sites on the Internet and more recent estimates
have found that the number is increasing exponentially. But
even more disturbing than the sheer volume of Internet
pornography outlets are the increasingly bold and pervasive
practices by sexual predators who attempt to lure children onto
their dangerous websites and we've heard some examples of that
already this morning.
As a father of three young kids, we have our fourth due
this summer. I'm concerned. Our kids don't use the Internet
yet, but they will. They'll have to if they're to operate in
our world today. I'm concerned about our children's ability to
use the Internet without being targeted by people who have
malicious intent. I mean I have AOL. Anybody who has AOL knows
that you get e-mails, unsolicited e-mails, you get spam e-mails
every day with unbelievable titles and subjects and trying to
lure you to these various sites.
I really look forward to hearing from our witnesses today
about what's currently being done, but really more importantly
about what can be done, what needs to be done in the future and
what we can do to protect our children from this kind of
menace.
I want to thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
hearing. I know we have some very distinguished panelists here
today, some of whom we know and we appreciate their work
outside of this committee room, but certainly appreciate them
being here today to share some of their experiences with us and
what we can be doing in the Congress to protect our children
across this country.
Thanks again, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Stearns. I thank my colleagues. The gentleman from New
Hampshire, Mr. Bass.
Mr. Bass. No opening statement.
Mr. Stearns. No opening statement. The gentleman from
Idaho, Mr. Otter.
Mr. Otter. I will submit my statement.
Mr. Stearns. By unanimous consent, so ordered.
[Additional statement submitted for the record follow:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Barbara Cubin, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Wyoming
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this timely hearing. Over the
past several weeks, this subcommittee has delved into several
concerning issues indirectly related to the constantly developing
technology available on the Internet. Today's hearing will provide us
with an excellent opportunity to examine what steps have been and
should be taken to limit the availability of pornographic material via
the Internet.
I would also like to thank the distinguished panelists who have
joined us today. The ladies and gentlemen who have agreed to appear
today are top experts in their fields. I look forward to their
testimony and first-hand insight to help this subcommittee shape a
better understanding of what role Congress may be able to play in
eliminating the spread of pornography via peer-to-peer file sharing
programs.
In the preceding weeks, this subcommittee has acquired an in-depth
understanding of the invasive and intrusive ways our families and
businesses can be affected by the Internet. The deceptive and
misleading tactics pornographic websites employ to attract unwitting
visitors to their sites cannot be tolerated, particularly when they
seek to victimize children. Congress has acted to make the pornographic
exploitation of children illegal, but the ever-increasing technology of
the Internet makes the enforcement of these laws exceptionally
difficult.
I look forward today to uncovering what steps are being taken to
regulate the dispersal of pornography via peer-to-peer applications.
Similar to the issues this subcommittee has addressed in previous
weeks, we must find a way to balance the valid, useful functions of
peer-to-peer networking with the need to regulate the illegal and
inappropriate uses of this technological infrastructure. I am certain
that the experts joining us today will impart valuable insight on how
Congress may be able to properly legislate in an effort to better
protect America's youth.
Thank you chairman and I yield back the balance of my time.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. John Sullivan, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Oklahoma
Thank you Chairman for holding this hearing. This is a most
important topic.
Pedophiles and Internet obscenity addicts are swapping thousands of
hardcore images of sexual abuse of women and children in a new form of
computer obscenity that police believe is feeding a demand for more
real-time victims of abuse.
Children are abused. Millions of children worldwide are abused
sexually, and then exploited further by having images and videos of the
abuse sold online. This is abuse of the most detestable kind. Both
obscenity and child pornography are illegal, and should be prosecuted
to the fullest extent of the law.
Women are exploited. Worldwide, women are trafficked across borders
for use in this material. They are brought to the U.S. and other
countries to be used in prostitution and for online obscenity, with
proceeds lining the pockets of criminals and no hope in sight for their
release from what is bondage, or modern slavery.
This is the very definition of evil.
Obscenity is illegal under federal law. Title 18 of the U.S. Code
clearly states that obscenity is illegal. Further, the Supreme Court
delineated in the landmark Miller vs. California ruling that obscenity
is both definable and illegal under federal law.
But resources available to police to tackle peer-to-peer obscenity
and child porn are limited and though they are catching some offenders,
it may take months or even years to track down the location of some
victims. In such cases, officers monitoring the images can only watch
as the women and children grow older and continue to be abused.
Americans continue to believe that the Federal laws against
Internet obscenity should be vigorously enforced, according to results
of a recent poll conducted by Wirthlin Worldwide for Morality in Media.
72% of Americans from all political perspectives strongly agreed that
obscenity laws should be vigorously enforced.
I have introduced H. Con. Res 298, a resolution stating the sense
of the Congress that federal obscenity laws should be vigorously
enforced throughout the United States. It is important that the House
go on the record against this hideous abuse, as the Senate has already
done. I will continue to work with my colleagues to see that the abuse
of women and children through pornography and obscenity, ENDS.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Stearns. I think we've finished with our opening
statements and we'll go to our first panel of witnesses. We
have Mr. Howard Beales, Director, Bureau of Consumer
Protection, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, welcome. We've
had you quite a number of times recently. We appreciate your
attending. Mr. Keith Lourdeau, Deputy Assistant Director,
Federal Bureau of Investigation, Cyber Division, welcome. And
Ms. Linda Koontz, Director for Information Management Issues,
U.S. General Accounting Office.
And Mr. Beales, we'll start with you with your opening
statement. Thank you.
STATEMENTS OF J. HOWARD BEALES III, DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF
CONSUMER PROTECTION, U.S. FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION; KEITH L.
LOURDEAU, DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF
INVESTIGATION, CYBER DIVISION; AND LINDA D. KOONTZ, DIRECTOR
FOR MANAGEMENT ISSUES, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE
Mr. Beales. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, it's always a pleasure
to be here. And thank you for providing the FTC with this
opportunity to submit testimony. My written testimony
represents the views of the Federal Trade Commission and my
comments orally do not necessarily reflect the views of the
Commission or any individual Commissioner.
I'm here today to discuss the Commission's law enforcement
efforts combatting Internet fraud and to discuss examples of
Internet fraud cases where the fraud involves tricking
consumers into viewing online pornography. Although the
Internet has empowered consumers with instant access to a
breadth of information about products and services that would
have been unimaginable 20 years ago, fraud artists have proven
adept at exploiting this new technology for their own gain.
They are the ultimate early adopters of new technology and
they've seized on the Internet as a ready vehicle to find
victims for their scams.
To combat these new frauds, the FTC has brought over 300
Internet-related enforcement actions. A number of these actions
were against alleged purveyors of online pornography. For
example, the Commission sued John Zuccarini who registered some
6,000 domain names that were misspellings of popular websites
for mousetrapping consumers. In a ploy designed to capture
teenaged and younger Internet users, Zuccarini registered, for
example, 15 variations of the popular children's cartoonsite,
cartoon
network.com. For example, if you typed in cartoon netwok
instead of network, you ended at one of his sites. He also
registered 41 variations in the name of teen pop star Britney
Spears. Surfers who looked for a site, but misspelled the web
address were taken to Zuccarini's sites. Once there, he took
control of their Internet browsers and forced the consumers to
views explicit advertisements for pornographic websites, as
well as websites advertising gambling and psychic services. The
obstruction was so severe in this case that consumers were
often forced to choose between taking up the 20 minutes to
close all the windows that opened or restarting their computer
and losing their pre-mousetrap work.
Mr. Zuccarini faced both our civil lawsuit as well as
criminal prosecution by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern
District of New York. The U.S. Attorney charged Zuccarini with
violations of the Truth in Domain Names Act which is part of
the Amber Alert law Congress enacted last spring. Mr. Zuccarini
pled guilty to 49 counts of violating the act and the one count
concerning the possession of child pornography. In February
2004, the Court sentenced Mr. Zuccarini to 30 months in prison.
In addition, the Commission obtained a permanent injunction
barring Zuccarini from engaging in mousetrapping and imposing a
$1.8 million judgment.
Similarly, unsolicited commercial e-mail, or spam, is a
nuisance, but is also a ready source of fraud, including
fraudulent methods that expose children to pornography. In a
recent case against a spammer, the Commission alleged that the
defendant sent e-mail messages claiming that the consumer had
won a free Sony PlayStation 2 or other prize through a
promotion that was purportedly sponsored by Yahoo. It was
another ploy that was particularly attractive to children.
Instead, in five mouse clicks you ended up on a pornographic
website connected to a 900 number and being charged $4 a
minute. The Commission obtained a Court order to end this
practice.
As the name of the CAN-SPAM Act implies addressing the
abuses inflicted on the American public by purveyors of
pornography was one of Congress' primary purposes in passing
the legislation.
The Act directed the FTC to adopt a rule requiring a mark
or notice to be included in spam containing sexually oriented
material. The purpose of the notice is to inform recipients and
to make it easier to filter out messages that recipients do not
wish to receive.
Our final rule requires that the phrase ``sexually
explicit:'' to be included in spam that includes either visual
images or written descriptions of sexually explicit conduct.
The rule requires this phrase both in the subject line and in
the electronic equivalent of a brown paper wrapper in the body
of the message. This brown paper wrapper must be viewed before
the user if it encounters any other information or images.
The rule's effective date is May 19 of this year, so
starting then failure to include the warning will result in
fines for violating the FTC AcT or Federal criminal
prosecution.
As documented by reports from the General Accounting Office
and the House Committee on Government Reform, another source of
pornographic content online is peer-to-peer file sharing
software. P2P file sharing software enables users to exchange
files with other users. The FTC has engaged in educational
efforts to assist consumers in protecting themselves from the
risk of harm when they're downloading and using this
technology.
To warn consumers, and particularly parents, about the risk
that P2P software can pose, in July 2003, the FTC issued a
consumer alert. In this alert, the Commission warned consumers
that file sharing software may be used to exchange pornography
as well as games, videos and music that may be inappropriate
for children. The FTC also alerted consumers to the security
risks of improperly configuring P2P file sharing software
including the risk that sensitive personal files inadvertently
may be disclosed.
We will continue to take action against fraud artists who
use technology to trap consumers into viewing sexually explicit
content. In just a few weeks, the CAN-SPAM rulemaking requiring
clear notice to consumers will take effect and those who use e-
mail to send such content had better take notice themselves.
Thank you, and I look forward to answering any questions.
[The prepared statement of J. Howard Beales III follows:]
Prepared Statement of Howard Beales, Director, Bureau of Consumer
Protection, Federal Trade Commission
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I am Howard Beales,
Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission
(``Commission'' or ``FTC'').1 I appreciate this opportunity
to provide the Commission's views on peer-to-peer file-sharing and
protecting consumers online. This testimony, among other things,
addresses the Commission's law enforcement actions against fraud
artists whose deceptive or unfair practices involve exposing consumers,
including children,2 to unwanted pornography on the
Internet.3 The testimony also recognizes that some peer-to-
peer file sharing services, as opposed to other content providers that
operate their own networks, may not provide sufficient opportunities
for labeling or other controls that parents may find useful in
protecting their children from objectionable content.
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\1\ The written statement presents the views of the Federal Trade
Commission. Oral statements and responses to questions reflect my views
and not necessarily those of the Commission or any individual
Commissioner.
\2\ As the Committee is aware, the Commission also enforces the
Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule, which requires Web sites,
primarily those directed to children, to obtain parental consent before
collecting personal information from children under the age of 13. Our
enforcement and education efforts under this Rule are not addressed in
the testimony.
\3\ The Commission has brought cases involving unfair or deceptive
acts or practices related to the dissemination of online pornography to
adults. See, e.g., FTC v. Brian D. Westby (FTC File No. 032 3030; Case
No. 03 C 2540; ND IL; filed Apr. 15, 2003; released Apr. 17, 2003).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Federal Trade Commission is the federal government's principal
consumer protection agency. Congress has directed the Commission, under
the FTC Act, to take law enforcement action against ``unfair or
deceptive acts or practices'' in almost all sectors of the economy and
to promote vigorous competition in the marketplace.4 With
the exception of certain industries and activities, the FTC Act
provides the Commission with broad investigative and enforcement
authority over entities engaged in, or whose business affects,
commerce.5 The FTC Act also authorizes the Commission to
conduct studies and collect information, and, in the public interest,
to publish reports on the information it obtains.6
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\4\ 15 U.S.C. 45.
\5\ In addition to the FTC Act, the Commission also has
responsibility under 46 additional statutes governing specific
industries and practices.
\6\ 15 U.S.C. 46(b) and (f). Section 46(f) of the FTC Act
provides that ``the Commission shall also have the power . . . to make
public from time to time such portions of the information obtained by
it hereunder as are in the public interest; and to make annual and
special reports to Congress . . .''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although the Internet has empowered consumers with instant access
to a breadth of information about products and services that would have
been unimaginable 20 years ago, fraud artists also have proven adept at
exploiting this new technology for their own gain. They are the
ultimate ``early adopters'' of new technology. And, they have seized on
the Internet as a ready vehicle to find victims for their scams. In
fact, the Commission's consumer complaint data show that consumers
increasingly report the Internet as the initial point of contact for
fraud, and that the Internet has now outstripped the telephone as the
source of first contact for fraud.
Many of these frauds are simply online variations of familiar,
offline scams. To combat these new frauds, the FTC has brought over 300
Internet-related enforcement actions, including actions against alleged
purveyors of online pornography. For example, the Commission sued John
Zuccarini, who registered some 6,000 domain names that were
misspellings of popular Web sites, for ``mousetrapping''
consumers.7 In a ploy designed to capture teenaged and
younger Internet users, Zuccarini registered 15 variations of the
popular children's cartoon site, www.cartoon
network.com, (e.g., ``cartoon netwok'' instead of ``cartoon network'')
and 41 variations on the name of teen pop star, Britney Spears. The
Commission alleged in its complaint that surfers who looked for a site,
but misspelled its Web address, were taken to the defendant's sites.
Once consumers arrived, Zuccarini's Web sites were programmed to take
control of their Internet browsers and force the consumers to view
explicit advertisements for pornographic Web sites, as well as Web
sites advertising gambling and psychic services. The obstruction
allegedly was so severe in this case that consumers often were forced
to choose between taking up to twenty minutes to close out all of the
Internet windows, or turning off their computers, and losing all of
their ``pre-mousetrap'' work.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ FTC v. John Zuccarini, No. 01-CV-4854 (E.D. Pa. 2002).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
After being sued, Mr. Zuccarini disappeared. Fortunately, as a
result of a cooperative working relationship between the FTC and the
United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York,
Mr. Zuccarini was arrested in a south Florida hotel room.8
The U.S. Attorney's Office issued an indictment charging Zuccarini with
violations of the Truth in Domain Names Act.9 He pled guilty
to 49 counts of violating the Act and to one count concerning the
possession of child pornography. In February 2004, the court sentenced
Mr. Zuccarini to 30 months in prison. In addition, the Commission
obtained a permanent injunction barring Zuccarini from engaging in
mousetrapping and imposing a $1.8 million judgment.10
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\8\ Benjamin Weiser, Spelling It `Dinsey,' Children on Web Got XXX,
N.Y. Times, Sept. 4, 2003, B (Late Edition), at 1. At the time of his
arrest, Mr. Zuccarini was surrounded by computer equipment and cash,
all of which was seized by criminal authorities. A United States Postal
Inspector served him with the Final Court Order in the Commission's
case.
\9\ The Truth in Domain Names Act makes it unlawful to knowingly
use a misleading domain name with the intent to attract a minor into
viewing a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct on the
Internet. See 18 U.S.C. 2252(B)(b). This Act is contained in the new
``Amber Alert'' law enacted in 2003.
\10\ See www.ftc.gov/opa/2002/05/cupcake.htm.
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Similarly, unsolicited commercial email, or spam, is a nuisance,
but it is also a ready source of fraud, including the fraudulent means
to expose children to pornography. In a recent case against a spammer,
the Commission alleged that the defendant sent email messages claiming
that consumers had won a free Sony PlayStation 2 or other prize through
a promotion purportedly sponsored by Yahoo, Inc., another ploy
particularly attractive to children.11 The Commission
alleged that the Web site link contained in the email instead directed
consumers first to a Web page that imitated the authentic Yahoo Web
page. The imitation Yahoo Web site instructed consumers to download a
program that supposedly would allow them to connect ``toll-free'' to a
Web site where they could enter their name and address to claim their
PlayStation 2. Consumers who followed the instructions were connected
to a pornographic Web site through a 900-number, where they incurred
charges of up to $3.99 per minute. The Commission obtained orders
barring the spammers from sending any email that misrepresents the
identity of the sender or the subject of the email. The Commission also
obtained a settlement with the company that created the modem software
used by the spammers in this scheme which includes the requirement that
it pay $25,000 in alleged ill-gotten gains.12
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\11\ FTC v. BTV Industries, No. CV S-03-1306-LRH-RJJ (D. Nev.
2004).
\12\ Id. The FTC's complaint against the software company, BTV
Industries, and its principals, Rik Covell and Adam Lewis, alleges that
the defendants violated the FTC's 900-Number Rule by failing to
disclose clearly to consumers using their software that they would be
connected to the Internet through a 900-number and would incur charges
of up to $3.99 per minute. The settlement permanently bars the
defendants from failing to disclose the cost of accessing any 900-
number pay-per-call service, as well as from misrepresenting that
consumers have won a prize, that consumers will be connected to any Web
site toll-free, and that any of BTV's products or services are
associated with a third party.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As the name of the CAN-SPAM Act implies (Controlling the Assault of
Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act), addressing the abuses
inflicted on the American public by purveyors of pornography was one of
Congress' primary purposes in passing that legislation.
Section 5(d) of the CAN-SPAM Act 13 directed the Federal
Trade Commission to adopt a rule requiring a mark or notice to be
included in spam that contains sexually oriented material. The purpose
of the notice is to inform recipients that a spam message contains
sexually oriented material and to make it easier to filter out messages
that recipients do not wish to receive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ 15 U.S.C. 7704(d).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The FTC's final rule prescribes the phrase ``SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT:''
as the mark or notice mandated by the CAN-SPAM Act 14 to be
included in spam that includes either visual images or written
descriptions of sexually explicit conduct.15 The final rule
follows the intention of the CAN-SPAM Act to protect email recipients
from exposure to unwanted sexual images in spam, by requiring this mark
to be included both in the subject line of any email message that
contains sexually oriented material and in the electronic equivalent of
a ``brown paper wrapper'' in the body of the message. This ``brown
paper wrapper'' is what a recipient initially will see when opening a
message containing sexually oriented material. The ``brown paper
wrapper'' will include the prescribed mark or notice, certain other
specified information, and no other information or images.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ The Commission published a notice of proposed rulemaking in
the Federal Register on January 29, 2004, and accepted comments until
February 17, 2004. The Commission received 89 comments, mostly from
individual consumers applauding the Commission's proposal and
expressing their concern about pornographic email to which they and
their children were being subjected. The final rule also excludes
sexually oriented materials from the subject line of a sexually
explicit email message.
\15\ CAN-SPAM defines ``sexually explicit conduct'' by reference to
the Sexual Exploitation and Other Abuse of Children Act (``Abuse of
Children Act''), 18 U.S.C. Section 2256, which in turn defines this
phrase to mean ``actual or simulated--(i) sexual intercourse, including
genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether
between persons of the same or opposite sex; (ii) bestiality; (iii)
masturbation; (iv) sadistic or masochistic abuse; or (v) lascivious
exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Rule's effective date is May 19, 2004, so starting then,
senders of spam email that contains sexually oriented material must
include the warning ``SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT: '' in the subject line or face
fines for violating the FTC Act or federal criminal law.16
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\16\ 18 U.S.C. Section 2256. The Department of Justice enforces
Section 2256.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As documented by reports from the General Accounting Office and the
House Committee on Government Reform,17 another distribution
channel for pornographic content online is Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-
sharing software. P2P file-sharing software enables individual users to
exchange files with other users. The FTC has engaged in educational
efforts to assist consumers in protecting themselves from the risk of
harm when they are downloading and using P2P file-sharing technology.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ See infra note 27.
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To warn consumers, including parents, about the risk that P2P
software can pose, including the risk of exposure to online
pornography, in July 2003, the FTC issued a consumer alert entitled,
``File-Sharing: A Fair Share? Maybe Not.'' 18 In this alert,
the Commission warned consumers that P2P file-sharing software may be
used to exchange pornography, as well as games, videos, and music that
may be inappropriate for children. The FTC also alerted consumers to
the security risks of improperly configuring P2P file-sharing software,
including the risk that sensitive personal files inadvertently may be
disclosed.19
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ See ``File-Sharing: A Fair Share? Maybe Not,'' at www.ftc.gov/
bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/share
alrt.htm.
\19\ In April 2004, the Commission likewise alerted businesses to
the potential security risks of P2P file-sharing programs. The Council
of Better Business Bureaus, with the cooperation of the Commission and
the National Cyber Security Alliance, produced and widely distributed a
brochure that provides a checklist of recommendations to help large and
small businesses improve their computer security, and specifically
alerts businesses to the possible risks associated with file-sharing
programs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Commission also recently examined other implications of P2P
file-sharing software at its workshop entitled ``Monitoring Software on
Your PC: Spyware, Adware, and Other Software'' held on April 19,
2004.20 This workshop was designed to provide us with
information about the nature and extent of the problems related to
spyware.21
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ 69 Fed. Reg. 8538 (Feb. 24, 2004), at www.ftc.gov/os/2004/02/
040217spywareworkshop
frn.pdf.
\21\ For the purposes of the workshop, the FTC staff tentatively
described spyware as ``software that aids in gathering information
about a person or organization without their knowledge and which may
send such information to another entity without the consumer's consent,
or asserts control over a computer without the consumer's knowledge.''
69 Fed. Reg. 8538 (Feb. 24, 2004), at www.ftc.gov/os/2004/02/
040217spywareworkshopfrn.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The testimony at the workshop and the public comments received
provide us with some insight concerning the relationship between P2P
file-sharing technology and the distribution of spyware.22
Workshop participants generally agreed that spyware often is bundled
with free software applications, including P2P file-sharing software.
In addition, participants noted that distributors of the free
software--including the disseminators of P2P file-sharing
applications--may not adequately disclose the bundling of spyware with
the free software.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ The FTC received 200 comments about spyware by the time of the
workshop, and public comment on this topic will be accepted until May
21, 2004. Public comments are posted on the FTC's Web site at
www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/spyware/index.htm#comments.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some have suggested restricting the downloading of P2P file-sharing
software applications to combat the distribution of spyware.
Participants at the workshop, however, emphasized that P2P file-sharing
technology itself is neutral--but some participants argued that
software applications may create harms for consumers. Accordingly,
participants generally expressed the view that government and industry
responses should focus on the spyware software that itself has adverse
effects on consumers.
The Commission will continue to review the information from the
workshop and related comments. Later this year, the FTC will issue a
comprehensive report addressing spyware, including the relationship
between P2P file-sharing software and spyware.
The FTC also has studied the effect of P2P file-sharing software in
connection with its long-standing oversight of the marketing of violent
entertainment to children. Since September 2000, the Commission has
monitored the marketing of violent entertainment products to children
by the motion picture, music recording, and electronic games
industries. The FTC has issued four reports setting forth its
findings.23
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ See, e.g., ``Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children: A
Review of Self-Regulation and Industry Practices in the Motion Picture,
Music Recording & Electronic Game Industries'' (Sept. 2000). To date,
the Commission has issued three follow-up reports--in April and
December of 2001, and in June of 2002.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In connection with its ongoing review of these industries, the
Commission staff recently examined four popular P2P file-sharing
services to assess what online disclosures, if any, were made regarding
the content of individual files shared by users of these
services.24 The four services examined offer consumers the
ability to download free software that enables them to share files,
including music downloads, with other users.25 The files do
not reside in a central location, but rather are stored on the hard
drives of the users of the software. None of the P2P file-sharing
services themselves label or otherwise provide notice about the content
of any file. Instead, each user of a particular P2P file-sharing
program places files in a shared folder on his or her own hard drive
and thus can label or designate the file in any manner he or she
chooses. Accordingly, each file, if labeled or otherwise described as
having explicit content, would have been labeled by the individual
user.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ These file-sharing software services reviewed were Kazaa,
Morpheus, LimeWire, and Overnet.
\25\ Such services may enable users to upload or download
copyrighted recordings without first obtaining permission from the
copyright holder.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Each of the P2P file-sharing programs offered some type of filter
to exclude unwanted content. Kazaa and LimeWire provided filters that
blocked access to materials that contained offensive or otherwise
adult-content related words in the description of the file. In
addition, all four services gave users the ability to create their own
filters by manually entering all the words that they wanted blocked
from search results. All of these filters, however, operate by only
examining language found in the title or descriptor of the file, rather
than the content of the file.26 Moreover, these filters may
not be effective when users label files inaccurately, which can result
in the transfer of files with pornographic or other unwanted
content.27
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ For example, music recordings that have been designated with a
parental advisory by a recording company would be blocked by the filter
only if a word in the title or descriptor of the file happened to be
offensive. A recording company may have decided to apply the Parental
Advisory Label to a particular recording for any number of reasons
other than the presence of offensive words in the title.
\27\ See, e.g., ``File-Sharing Programs: Peer-to-Peer Networks
Provide Ready Access to Child Pornography,'' General Accounting Office
Report to the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member, Committee on
Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives (Feb. 2003); and
``Children's Access to Pornography Through Internet File-Sharing
Programs,'' prepared for Rep. Henry A. Waxman and Rep. Steve Largent by
Minority Staff, Special Investigations Division, Committee on
Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives (July 27, 2001).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONCLUSION
The FTC thanks the Subcommittee for this opportunity to describe
how the Commission has used its authority under of Section 5 of the FTC
Act to attack deceptive and unfair practices in the distribution of
online pornography.
Mr. Stearns. I thank the gentleman. Welcome and your
opening statement.
STATEMENT OF KEITH L. LOURDEAU
Mr. Lourdeau. Good morning, Chairman Stearns, and other
members of the subcommittee. On behalf of the FBI, I would like
to thank you for this opportunity to address the FBI's role in
combatting the exploitation of children from the use of peer-
to-peer networks.
The FBI's Innocent Images National Initiative is comprised
of 2800 undercover operations. These operations involve FBI
Agents online in an undercover capacity to seek child predators
and individuals responsible for production and dissemination
and possession of child pornography. This is accomplished by
using a variety of techniques to include purchasing child
pornography from commercial websites, creating online personas
to chat in predator chat rooms and co-opting predators e-mail
accounts. The Innocent Images has grown exponentially between
fiscal year 1996 and 2003 with a 2,050 percent increase in
cases opened.
Between fiscal year 1996 and 2003, Innocent Images has
recorded over 10,510 cases opened. Recently peer-to-peer
networks were identified as a growing problem in dissemination
of child pornography. A GAO report published in September of
2003 indicated a fourfold increase in reports complaining of
child pornography in peer-to-peer networks. In 2001, the FBI
received 156 complaints about child pornography in peer-to-peer
networks. By 2002, the number of complaints had risen to 757.
This increase may be attributable among other things, the
popularity of peer-to-peer networks, as well as the overall
increase of child pornography available on the Internet. These
programs are free and are easy to install. In May of 2003,
Sharman Networks, a developer of a very popular file sharing
program reported that their software had been downloaded more
than 230 million times. This software and other file sharing
programs like it allow users to share files with anyone on the
network. This creates an environment of relative anonymity
among users. However, this anonymity is also perceived. Users
are not truly anonymous. Using peer-to-peer software users'
computers connect directly to one another to share files
without going through a central server.
Mr. Stearns. Mr. Lourdeau, just push the microphone a
little closer to you. There are some real nuances that you're
saying we want to make sure we get. Go ahead, thanks.
Mr. Lourdeau. Nevertheless, each time a computer accesses
the Internet it is associated with an Internet protocol or IP
address. Therefore, despite the fact that a peer-to-peer
connection is not facilitated by a central server, users can
still be identified in real time by the IP addresses associated
with their computers. IP addresses are the only way to
definitely identify a particular user on a peer-to-peer
network. In this environment, users of peer-to-peer often
believe they are anonymous. There is some degree of truth in
this assertion as peers in the networks are anonymous to each
other. That being said, they are not anonymous to law
enforcement. Through the use of covert investigative
techniques, administrative subpoenas, Agents can determine
which individual users possess and distribute child pornography
over these networks. Utilizing search warrants, interviews and
computer forensic tools, Agents can strengthen their cases and
these individuals are eventually indicted and prosecuted.
During the initial phases of several peer-to-peer
investigations, Agents have determined peer-to-peer networks
are one of many Internet havens for the open distribution of
child pornography. Several of the individuals using peer-to-
peer networks to distribute child pornography, openly describe
content of the material they share as illegal. This further
contributes to the feeling of anonymity in these networks and
leads users to become even more brazen in their conduct.
To combat this, the FBI has created an investigative
protocol for peer-to-peer investigations to begin aggressively
apprehending offenders. After developing peer-to-peer
investigative protocol, the Department of Justice's Child
Exploitation and Obscenity Section, a number of cases were
initiated to determine the technique's viability. Detailed
discussion of these cases could possibly jeopardize on-going
investigations, however, I'd like to assure the subcommittee
that the FBI is aggressively pursuing the trade of child
pornography on peer-to-peer networks.
In these investigations, Agents have found child
pornography to be readily available using most basic of search
terms. Often child pornography was easily available when
innocuous search terms were used such as Britney Spears, or the
word young. The FBI recently started a new initiative with
America's Most Wanted where photographs of unidentified
subjects involving child pornography are aired on the program.
John Doe arrest warrants are obtained and the unknown subjects
when located are arrested for their crimes. The FBI has
received outstanding support from the public in this
initiative.
The FBI, along with our law enforcement and private
industry partners, continue to combat the crime problem of
child pornography over the Internet. We have and continue to
target websites which host child pornography, Internet news
groups, file servers and subjects who utilize peer-to-peer file
sharing programs who exchange child pornography.
In closing, the FBI looks forward to working with other law
enforcement agencies, private industry and the Department of
Justice in continuing to combat this major crime problem. The
protection of our children requires the combined efforts of all
sectors of our society.
I would like to thank Chairman Stearns and the committee
for the privilege to be here before you and I'll answer any
questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Keith L. Lourdeau follows:]
Prepared Statement of Keith L. Lourdeau, Deputy Assistant Director,
Federal Bureau of Investigation
INNOCENT IMAGES NATIONAL INITIATIVE
The Innocent Images National Initiative (IINI), a component of
FBI's Cyber Crimes Program, is an intelligence driven, proactive,
multi-agency investigative initiative to combat the proliferation of
child pornography/child sexual exploitation (CP/CSE) facilitated by an
online computer. The IINI provides centralized coordination and
analysis of case information that by its very nature is national and
international in scope, requiring unprecedented coordination with
state, local, and international governments, and among FBI field
offices and Legal Attaches.
Today computer telecommunications have become one of the most
prevalent techniques used by pedophiles to share illegal photographic
images of minors and to lure children into illicit sexual
relationships. The Internet has dramatically increased the access of
the preferential sex offenders to the population they seek to victimize
and provides them greater access to a community of people who validate
their sexual preferences.
The mission of the IINI is to reduce the vulnerability of children
to acts of sexual exploitation and abuse which are facilitated through
the use of computers; to identify and rescue witting and unwitting
child victims; to investigate and prosecute sexual predators who use
the Internet and other online services to sexually exploit children for
personal or financial gain; and to strengthen the capabilities of
federal, state, local, and international law enforcement through
training programs and investigative assistance.
THE HISTORY OF THE INNOCENT IMAGES NATIONAL INITIATIVE:
While investigating the disappearance of a juvenile in May 1993,
FBI Special Agents and Prince George's County, Maryland, Police
detectives identified two suspects who had sexually exploited numerous
juveniles over a 25-year period. Investigation into these activities
determined that adults were routinely utilizing computers to transmit
sexually explicit images to minors, and in some instances to lure
minors into engaging in illicit sexual activity. Further investigation
and discussions with experts, both within the FBI and in the private
sector, revealed that the utilization of computer telecommunications
was rapidly becoming one of the most prevalent techniques by which some
sex offenders shared pornographic images of minors and identified and
recruited children into sexually illicit relationships. In 1995, based
on information developed during this investigation, the Innocent Images
National Initiative was started to address the illicit activities
conducted by users of commercial and private online services and the
Internet.
The IINI is managed by the Innocent Images Unit within the FBI's
Cyber Division at FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC. Innocent Images
field supervisors and investigative personnel work closely with the
Innocent Images Unit regarding all IINI investigative, administrative,
policy, and training matters. The IINI provides a coordinated FBI
response to this nationwide crime problem by collating and analyzing
information obtained from all available sources.
Today the FBI's Innocent Images National Initiative focuses on:
Online organizations, enterprises, and communities that exploit
children for profit or personal gain.
Individuals who travel, or indicate a willingness to travel, for the
purpose of engaging in sexual activity with a minor.
Producers of child pornography.
Major distributors of child pornography, such as those who appear to
have transmitted a large volume of child pornography via an
online computer on several occasions to several other people.
Possessors of child pornography.
The FBI and the Department of Justice review all files and select
the most egregious subjects for prosecution. In addition, the IINI
works to identify child victims and obtain appropriate services/
assistance for them and to establish a law enforcement presence on the
Internet that will act as a deterrent to those who seek to sexually
exploit children.
THE GROWTH OF THE INNOCENT IMAGES NATIONAL INITIATIVE:
Over the last several years, the FBI, local and state law
enforcement, and the public has developed an increased awareness of the
CP/CSE crime problem and more incidents of online CP/CSE are being
identified for investigation than ever before. In fact, currently more
personnel resources are expended towards violations worked under the
IINI than any other program within the FBI's Cyber Division. Between
fiscal years 1996 and 2003, there was a 2050% increase in the number of
IINI cases opened (113 to 2430) throughout the FBI. It is anticipated
that the number of cases opened and the resources utilized to address
the crime problem will continue to rise.
The increase in Innocent Images investigations demonstrated the
need for a mechanism to track subject transactions and to correlate the
seemingly unrelated activities of thousands of subjects in a cyberspace
environment. As a result, the Innocent Images case management system
was developed and has proven to be an effective system to archive and
retrieve the information necessary to identify and target priority
subjects. All relevant data obtained during an undercover session is
loaded into the Innocent Images case management system where it is
updated, reviewed, and analyzed on a daily basis to identify priority
subjects.
INNOCENT IMAGES NATIONAL INITIATIVE INVESTIGATIONS:
IINI undercover operations are being conducted in several FBI field
offices by task forces that combine the resources of the FBI with other
federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. Each of the FBI's 56
field offices has worked investigations developed by the IINI.
International investigations are coordinated through the FBI's Legal
Attache program, which coordinates investigations with the appropriate
foreign law enforcement. IINI investigations are also coordinated with
Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Forces, which are funded
by the Department of Justice. Furthermore, IINI training is provided to
all law enforcement involved in these investigations, including
federal, state, local, and foreign law enforcement agencies.
During the early stages of Innocent Images, a substantial amount of
time was spent conducting investigations on commercial online service
providers that provide numerous easily accessible ``chat rooms'' in
which teenagers and pre-teens can meet and converse with each other. By
using chat rooms, children can chat for hours with unknown individuals,
often without the knowledge or approval of their parents. Investigation
revealed that computer-sex offenders utilized the chat rooms to contact
children as a child does not know whether he or she is chatting with a
14-year-old or a 40-year-old. Chat rooms offer the advantage of
immediate communication around the world and provide the pedophile with
an anonymous means of identifying and recruiting children into sexually
illicit relationships.
Innocent Images has expanded to include investigations involving
all areas of the Internet and online services including:
Internet websites that post child pornography
Internet News Groups
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Channels
File Servers (``FServes'')
Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs)
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharing programs
FBI Agents and task force officers go online undercover into
predicated locations utilizing fictitious screen names and engaging in
real-time chat or E-mail conversations with subjects to obtain evidence
of criminal activity. Investigation of specific online locations can be
initiated through:
A citizen complaint
A complaint by an online service provider
A referral from a law enforcement agency
The name of the online location (such as a chat room) can suggest
illicit activity
The FBI has taken the necessary steps to ensure that the Innocent
Images National Initiative remains viable and productive through the
use of new technology and sophisticated investigative techniques,
coordination of the national investigative strategy and a national
liaison initiative with a significant number of commercial and
independent online service providers. The Innocent Images National
Initiative has been highly successful. It has proven to be a logical,
efficient and effective method to identify and investigate individuals
who are using the Internet for the sole purpose of sexually exploiting
children.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)
operates a CyberTipline at www.cybertipline.com that allows parents and
children to report child pornography and other incidents of sexual
exploitation of children by submitting an online form. The NCMEC also
maintains a 24-hour hotline of 1-800-THE-LOST and a website at
www.missingkids.com.
Complaints received by the NCMEC that indicate a violation of
federal law are referred to the FBI for appropriate action. A FBI
Supervisory Special Agent and four Investigative Analysts (IA) are
assigned full-time at the NCMEC to assist with these complaints. The
IAs review and analyze information received by the NCMEC's
CyberTipline. The IAs conduct research and analysis in order to
identify individuals suspected of any of the following: possession,
manufacture and/or distribution of child pornography; online enticement
of children for sexual acts; child sexual tourism; and/or other sexual
exploitation of children. The IAs utilize various Internet tools and
Administrative Subpoenas in their efforts to identify individuals who
prey on children. Once a potential suspect has been identified, the IAs
compile an investigative packet that includes the applicable
CyberTipline reports, subpoena results, public records search results,
the illegal images associated with the suspect, and a myriad of other
information that is forwarded to the appropriate FBI field office.
INNOCENT IMAGES STATISTICAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
Between fiscal years 1996-2004 (2nd Quarter), the Innocent Images
National Initiative has recorded the following statistical
accomplishments:
Number of Cases Opened..................................... 11,855
Number of Informations/Indictments......................... 3,358
Number of Arrests/Locates/Summons.......................... 3,682
Number of Convictions/Pretrial Diversions.................. 3,316
The FBI's Innocent Images National Initiative is comprised of
twenty-eight Under-Cover Operations. These operations involve FBI
Agents on-line in an undercover capacity to seek child predators and
individuals responsible for the production, dissemination, and
possession of child pornography. This is accomplished by using a
variety of techniques, to include purchasing child pornography from
commercial web sites, creating on-line personas to chat in predicated
chat rooms, and co-opting predators' e-mail accounts. Innocent Images
has grown exponentially between fiscal year 1996 and 2003 with a 2050%
increase in cases opened (113 to 2430). Between fiscal year 1996 and
2003, Innocent Images has recorded over 10,510 cases opened.
Recently, Peer-to-Peer networks were identified as a growing
problem in the dissemination of child pornography. A GAO report
published in September of 2003 indicated a four-fold increase in
reports complaining of child pornography in Peer-to-Peer networks. In
2001, the FBI received 156 complaints about child pornography in Peer-
to-Peer networks. By 2002, the number of complaints had risen to 757.
This increase may be attributable to, among other things, the
popularity of Peer-to-Peer networks, as well as the overall increase in
child pornography available on the Intenet. These programs are free and
are easy to install. In May of 2003, Sharman Networks, the developer of
a very popular file sharing program, reported that their software had
been downloaded more than 230 million times. This software and other
file sharing programs like it, allow users to share files with anyone
on the network. This creates an environment of relative anonymity
amongst users however, this anonymity is only perceived, users are not
truly anonymous.
Using Peer-to-Peer software, users' computers connect directly to
one another to share files, without going through a central server.
Nevertheless, each time a computer accesses the Internet, it is
associated with an internet protocol, or ``IP'' address. Therefore,
despite the fact that a Peer-to-Peer connection is not facilitated by a
central server, users can still be identified in real time by the IP
addresses associated with their computers.
IP addresses are the only way to definitively identify a particular
user on a Peer-to-Peer network. In this environment, users of Peer-to-
Peer often believe they are anonymous. There is some degree of truth in
this assertion as peers in these networks are anonymous to each other.
That being said, they are NOT anonymous to law enforcement. Through the
use of covert investigative techniques and administrative subpoenas,
Agents can determine which individual users possess and distribute
child pornography over these networks. Utilizing search warrants,
interviews, and computer forensic tools, Agents can strengthen their
cases and these individuals are eventually indicted and prosecuted.
Agents have determined Peer-to Peer networks are one of many
Internet havens for the open distribution of child pornography. Several
of the individuals using Peer-to-Peer networks to distribute child
pornography openly describe the content of the material they share as
``illegal''. This further contributes to the feeling of anonymity in
these networks and leads users to become even more brazen in their
conduct.
To combat this, the FBI has created an investigative protocol for
Peer-to-Peer investigations to begin aggressively apprehending
offenders. After developing a Peer-to-Peer investigative protocol with
the Department of Justice's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section ,
a number of cases were initiated to determine the techniques viability.
Detailed discussion of these cases could possible jeopardize ongoing
investigations, however, I would like to assure this subcommittee that
the FBI is aggressively pursuing the trading of child pornography on
Peer-to-Peer networks.
In these investigations, Agents have found child pornography to be
readily available using the most basic of search terms. Often, child
pornography was easily available when innocuous search terms were used,
such as 'Brittney Spears' or the word 'young'.
Additionally, the FBI is exploring the possibility of working with
Peer-to-Peer software clients to allow them to more effectively warn
users against the possession, distribution, or production of child
pornography. These industry members may also be interested in placing
icons or a pop-up link from their home page regarding subjects wanted
by the FBI for exploitation of children by use of the Internet.
While these efforts may not prevent someone from downloading the
material in question, it will put the user on notice that they are,
more than likely, violating the law. These efforts will also assist
investigations as it will eliminate the ability of the subject to claim
ignorance of the law.
In closing, the FBI looks forward to working with other Law
Enforcement agencies, private industry, and the Department of Justice
in continuing to combat this major crime problem. The protection of our
children requires the combined efforts of all sectors of our society. I
would like to thank Chairman Stearns and the committee for the
privilege to appear before you and for your interest in this major
crime problem.
Mr. Stearns. Thank you.
Ms. Koontz?
STATEMENT OF LINDA D. KOONTZ
Ms. Koontz. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank
you for inviting us to discuss our work on the availability of
pornography on peer-to-peer networks. As it's been discussed,
pornography, including child pornography, has become
increasingly available as it has migrated from magazines,
photographs and videos to the worldwide web. As you know, a
great strength of the Internet is that it provides a wide range
of search and retrieval technologies that make finding
information fast and easy. However, this capability also makes
it easy to access, disseminate and trade pornographic images
and videos.
Today, I would like to discuss work we conducted last year
at the request of the House Committee on Government Reform. Our
results were summarized in a February 2003 report. This work
focused on the availability of child pornography on peer-to-
peer networks and on the risk of inadvertent exposure of
juvenile users of peer-to-peer networks to pornography
including child pornography.
In this work, we found that child pornography, as well as
other types of pornography, is widely available and accessible
through peer-to-peer networks. We used Kazaa, a popular peer-
to-peer file sharing program to search for image files using 12
key words that were known to be associated with child
pornography on the Internet. Of over 1200 items identified in
our search, about 42 percent of the file names were associated
with child pornography images and about 34 percent with adult
pornography images.
In another Kazaa search, we worked with Customs
CyberSmuggling Center to use three key words to search for and
download child pornography image files. This search identified
341 image files of which about 44 percent were classified as
child pornography and 29 percent as adult pornography.
More disturbing, we found that there is a significant risk
that juvenile users can be inadvertently exposed to pornography
including child pornography. In searches on three innocuous key
words likely to be used by juveniles, we obtained images that
included a high proportion of pornography. Almost half of the
177 retrieved images were classified as pornography, including
a small amount of child pornography.
Mr. Chairman, Internet file sharing programs continue to be
popular and while there are no hard statistics, it is thought
that a large proportion of these users are juveniles. These
programs provide easy access to pornography, including child
pornography. Further, our work shows that the networks put even
the youngest users at significant risk of being inadvertently
exposed to pornography. In light of these factors, it will be
important for law enforcement to continue to devote effort to
peer-to-peer networks and for policymakers to continue to
highlight this issue to parents and to the public and to lead
the debate on possible strategies for dealing with it.
That concludes my statement. I would be happy to answer
questions.
[The prepared statement of Linda D. Koontz follows:]
Prepared Statement of Linda D. Koontz, Director, Information Management
Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: Thank you for
inviting us to discuss our work on the availability of child
pornography on peer-to-peer networks.
In recent years, child pornography has become increasingly
available as it has migrated from magazines, photographs, and videos to
the World Wide Web. As you know, a great strength of the Internet is
that it includes a wide range of search and retrieval technologies that
make finding information fast and easy. However, this capability also
makes it easy to access, disseminate, and trade pornographic images and
videos, including child pornography. As a result, child pornography has
become accessible through Web sites, chat rooms, newsgroups, and the
increasingly popular peer-to-peer technology, a form of networking that
allows direct communication between computer users so that they can
access and share each other's files (including images, video, and
software).
My testimony today is based on our report on the availability of
child pornography on peer-to-peer networks.1 As requested, I
will summarize the results of our work to determine
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ U.S. General Accounting Office, File-Sharing Programs: Peer-to-
Peer Networks Provide Ready Access to Child Pornography, GAO-03-351
(Washington, D.C.: Feb. 20, 2003).
the ease of access to child pornography on peer-to-peer networks;
the risk of inadvertent exposure of juvenile users of peer-to-peer
networks to pornography, including child pornography; and
the extent of federal law enforcement resources available for
combating child pornography on peer-to-peer networks.
We also include an attachment that briefly discusses how peer-to-
peer file sharing works.
It is easy to access and download child pornography over peer-to-
peer networks. We used KaZaA, a popular peer-to-peer file-sharing
program,2 to search for image files, using 12 keywords known
to be associated with child pornography on the Internet.3 Of
1,286 items identified in our search, about 42 percent were associated
with child pornography images. The remaining items included 34 percent
classified as adult pornography and 24 percent as nonpornographic. In
another KaZaA search, the Customs CyberSmuggling Center used three
keywords to search for and download child pornography image files. This
search identified 341 image files, of which about 44 percent were
classified as child pornography and 29 percent as adult pornography.
The remaining images were classified as child erotica 4 (13
percent) or other (nonpornographic) images (14 percent). These results
are consistent with observations of the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children, which has stated that peer-to-peer technology is
increasingly popular for the dissemination of child pornography. Since
2001, when the center began to track reports of child pornography on
peer-to-peer networks, such reports have increased more than fivefold--
from 156 in 2001 to 840 in 2003.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Other popular peer-to-peer applications include Gnutella,
BearShare, LimeWire, and Morpheus.
\3\ The U.S. Customs CyberSmuggling Center assisted us in this
work. Because child pornography cannot be accessed legally other than
by law enforcement agencies, we relied on Customs to download and
analyze image files. We performed analyses based on titles and file
names only.
\4\ Erotic images of children that do not depict sexually explicit
conduct.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When searching and downloading images on peer-to-peer networks,
juvenile users can be inadvertently exposed to pornography, including
child pornography. In searches on innocuous keywords likely to be used
by juveniles, we obtained images that included a high proportion of
pornography: in our searches, the retrieved images included adult
pornography (34 percent), cartoon pornography 5 (14
percent), and child pornography (1 percent); another 7 percent of the
images were classified as child erotica.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Images of cartoon characters depicting sexually explicit
conduct.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We could not quantify the extent of federal law enforcement
resources available for combating child pornography on peer-to-peer
networks. Law enforcement agencies that work to combat child
exploitation and child pornography do not track their resource use
according to specific Internet technologies. However, law enforcement
officials told us that, as they receive more tips concerning child
pornography on peer-to-peer networks, they are focusing more resources
in this area.
Child pornography is prohibited by federal statutes, which provide
for civil and criminal penalties for its production, advertising,
possession, receipt, distribution, and sale.6 Defined by
statute as the visual depiction of a minor--a person under 18 years of
age--engaged in sexually explicit conduct,7 child
pornography is unprotected by the First Amendment,8 as it is
intrinsically related to the sexual abuse of children.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ See chapter 110 of Title 18, United States Code.
\7\ See 18 U.S.C. 2256(8).
\8\ See New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747 (1982).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996,9
Congress sought to prohibit images that are or appear to be ``of a
minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct'' or are ``advertised,
promoted, presented, described, or distributed in such a manner that
conveys the impression that the material is or contains a visual
depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.'' In 2002,
the Supreme Court struck down this legislative attempt to ban
``virtual'' child pornography 10 in Ashcroft v. The Free
Speech Coalition, ruling that the expansion of the act to material that
did not involve and thus harm actual children in its creation is an
unconstitutional violation of free speech rights. According to
government officials, this ruling may increase the difficulty of
prosecuting those who produce and possess child pornography. Defendants
may claim that pornographic images are of ``virtual'' children, thus
requiring the government to establish that the children shown in these
digital images are real. Recently, Congress enacted the PROTECT
Act,11 which attempts to address the constitutional issues
raised in The Free Speech Coalition decision.12
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ Section 121, P.L. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009-26.
\10\ According to the Justice Department, rapidly advancing
technology has raised the possibility of creating images of child
pornography without the use of a real child (``virtual'' child
pornography). Totally virtual creations would be both time-intensive
and, for now, prohibitively costly to produce. However, the technology
has led to a ready defense (the ``virtual'' porn defense) against
prosecution under laws that are limited to sexually explicit depictions
of actual minors. Because the technology exists today to alter images
to disguise the identity of the real child or make the image seem
computer-generated, producers and distributors of child pornography may
try to alter depictions of actual children in slight ways to make them
appear to be ``virtual'' (as well as unidentifiable), thereby
attempting to defeat prosecution. Making such alterations is much
easier and cheaper than building an entirely computer-generated image.
\11\ Public Law No. 108-21 (Apr. 30, 2003).
\12\ S. Rep. No. 108-2, at 13 (2003).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE INERNET HAS EMERGED AS THE PRINCIPAL TOOL FOR EXCHAMGING CHILD
PORNOGRAPHY
Historically, pornography, including child pornography, tended to
be found mainly in photographs, magazines, and videos.13
With the advent of the Internet, however, both the volume and the
nature of available child pornography have changed significantly. The
rapid expansion of the Internet and its technologies, the increased
availability of broadband Internet services, advances in digital
imaging technologies, and the availability of powerful digital graphic
programs have led to a proliferation of child pornography on the
Internet.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ John Carr, Theme Paper on Child Pornography for the 2nd World
Congress on Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, NCH Children's
Charities, Children & Technology Unit (Yokohama, 2001). (http://
www.ecpat.net/eng/Ecpat--inter/projects/monitoring/wc2/yokohama--
theme--child--pornography.pdf)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to experts, pornographers have traditionally exploited--
and sometimes pioneered--emerging communication technologies--from the
dial-in bulletin board systems of the 1970s to the World Wide Web--to
access, trade, and distribute pornography, including child
pornography.14 Today, child pornography is available through
virtually every Internet technology (see table 1).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Frederick E. Allen, ``When Sex Drives Technological Innovation
and Why It Has to,'' American Heritage Magazine, vol. 51, no. 5
(September 2000), p. 19. (http://www.planned
parenthood.org/education/updatearch.html) Allen notes that
pornographers have driven the development of some of the Internet
technologies, including the development of systems used to verify on-
line financial transactions and that of digital watermarking technology
to prevent the unauthorized use of on-line images.
Table 1: Internet Technologies Providing Access to Child Pornography
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Technology Characteristics
------------------------------------------------------------------------
World Wide Web........................... Web sites provide on-line
access to text and
multimedia materials
identified and accessed
through the uniform resource
locator (URL).
Usenet................................... A distributed electronic
bulletin system, Usenet
offers over 80,000
newsgroups, with many
newsgroups dedicated to
sharing of digital images.
Peer-to-peer file-sharing programs....... Internet applications
operating over peer-to-peer
networks enable direct
communication between users.
Used largely for sharina of
diaital music, images, and
video, peer-to-peer
applications include
BearSharig, Gndtella,
LimeWire, and KaZaA. KaZaA
is the most popular, with
over 3 million KaZaA users
sharing files at any time.
E-mail................................... E-mail allows the
transmission of messages
over a network or the
Internet. Users can send E-
mail to a single recipient
or broadcast it to multiple
users. E-mail supports the
delivery of attached files,
including image files.
Instant messaging........................ Instant messaging is not a
dial-up system like the
telephone; it requires that
both parties be on line at
the same time. AOL's Instant
Messenger and Microsoft's
MSN Messenger and Internet
Relay Chat are the major
instant messaging services.
Users may exchange files,
including image files.
Chat and Internet Relay Chat............. Chat technologies allow
computer conferencing using
the keyboard over the
Internet between two or more
people.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO
Among the principal channels for the distribution of child
pornography are commercial Web sites, Usenet newsgroups, and peer-to-
peer networks.15
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\15\ According to Department of Justice officials, other forums and
technologies are used to disseminate pornography on the Internet. These
include Web portal communities such as Yahoo! Groups and MSN Groups, as
well as file servers operating on Internet Relay Chat channels.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Web sites. According to recent estimates, there are about 400,000
commercial pornography Web sites worldwide,16 with some of
the sites selling pornographic images of children. The child
pornography trade on the Internet is not only profitable, it has a
worldwide reach: recently a child pornography ring was uncovered that
included a Texas-based firm providing credit card billing and password
access services for one Russian and two Indonesian child pornography
Web sites. According to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the ring
grossed as much as $1.4 million in just 1 month selling child
pornography to paying customers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ Dick Thornburgh and Herbert S. Lin, editors, Youth,
Pornography, and The Internet, National Academy Press (Washington,
D.C.: 2002). (http://www.nap.edu/html/youth--internet/)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Usenet. Usenet newsgroups also provide access to pornography, with
several of the image-oriented newsgroups being focused on child erotica
and child pornography. These newsgroups are frequently used by
commercial pornographers who post ``free'' images to advertise adult
and child pornography available for a fee from their Web sites.
Peer-to-peer networks. Although peer-to-peer file-sharing programs
are largely known for the extensive sharing of copyrighted digital
music,17 they are emerging as a conduit for the sharing of
pornographic images and videos, including child pornography. In a
recent study by congressional staff,18 a single search for
the term ``porn'' using a file-sharing program yielded over 25,000
files. In another study, focused on the availability of pornographic
video files on peer-to-peer sharing networks, a sample of 507
pornographic video files retrieved with a file-sharing program included
about 3.7 percent child pornography videos.19
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\17\ According to the Yankee Group, a technology research and
consulting firm, Internet users aged 14 and older downloaded 5.16
billion audio files in the United States via unlicensed file-sharing
services in 2001.
\18\ Minority Staff, Children's Access to Pornography through
Internet File-Sharing Programs, Special Investigations Division,
Committee on Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives (July 27,
2001). (http://www.house.gov/reform/min/pdfs/pdf_inves/
pdf_pornog_rep.pdf)
\19\ Michael D. Mehta, Don Best, and Nancy Poon, ``Peer-to-Peer
Sharing on the Internet: An Analysis of How Gnutella Networks Are Used
to Distribute Pornographic Material,'' Canadian Journal of Law and
Technology, vol. 1, no. 1 (January 2002). (http://cjlt.dal.ca/vol1_no1/
articles/01_01_MeBePo_gnutella.pdf)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table 2 shows the key national organizations and agencies that are
currently involved in efforts to combat child pornography on peer-to-
peer networks.
Table 2: Organizations and Agencies Involved with Peer-to-Peer Child
Pornography Efforts
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Agency Unit Focus
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nonprofit
National Center for Missing and Exploited Child Works with the
Exploited Children. Unit. Customs Service,
Postal Service,
and the FBI to
analyze and
investigate child
pornography
leads.
Federal entities
Department of Justice........... Federal Bureau of Proactively
Investigation a. investigates
crimes against
children.
Operates a
national
``Innocent Images
Initiative'' to
combat Internet-
related sexual
exploitation of
children.
Criminal Division, Is a specialized
Child group of
Exploitation and attorneys who,
Obscenity Section. among other
things, prosecute
those who
possess,
manufacture, or
distribute child
pornography. Its
High Tech
Investigative
Unit actively
conducts on-line
investigations to
identify
distributors of
obscenity and
child
pornography.
Department of Homeland Security. U.S. Customs Conducts
Service international
CyberSmuggling child pornography
Center a,b. investigations as
part of its
mission to
investigate
international
criminal activity
conducted on or
facilitated by
the Internet.
Department of the Treasury...... U.S. Secret Provides forensic
Service a. and technical
assistance in
matters involving
missing and
sexually
exploited
children.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO.
a Agency has staff assigned to NCMEG.
b At the time of our review, the Customs Service was under the
Department of the Treasury. Under the Homeland Security Act of 2002,
it became part of the new Department of Homeland Security on March 1,
2003.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), a
federally funded nonprofit organization, serves as a national resource
center for information related to crimes against children. Its mission
is to find missing children and prevent child victimization. The
center's Exploited Child Unit operates the CyberTipline, which receives
child pornography tips provided by the public; its CyberTipline II also
receives tips from Internet service providers. The Exploited Child Unit
investigates and processes tips to determine if the images in question
constitute a violation of child pornography laws. The CyberTipline
provides investigative leads to the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), U.S. Customs, the Postal Inspection Service, and state and local
law enforcement agencies. The FBI and the U.S. Customs also investigate
leads from Internet service providers via the Exploited Child Unit's
CyberTipline II. The FBI, Customs Service, Postal Inspection Service,
and Secret Service have staff assigned directly to NCMEC as
analysts.20
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ According to the Secret Service, its staff assigned to NCMEC
also includes an agent.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two organizations in the Department of Justice have
responsibilities regarding child pornography: the FBI and the Justice
Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section
(CEOS).21
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ Two additional Justice agencies are involved in combating
child pornography: the U.S. Attorneys Offices and the Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The 94 U.S. Attorneys
Offices can prosecute federal child exploitation-related cases; the
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention funds the
Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program, which encourages
multijurisdictional and multiagency responses to crimes against
children involving the Internet.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The FBI investigates various crimes against children, including
federal child pornography crimes involving interstate or foreign
commerce. It deals with violations of child pornography laws related to
the production of child pornography; selling or buying children for use
in child pornography; and the transportation, shipment, or distribution
of child pornography by any means, including by computer.
CEOS prosecutes child sex offenses and trafficking in women and
children for sexual exploitation. Its mission includes prosecution of
individuals who possess, manufacture, produce, or distribute child
pornography; use the Internet to lure children to engage in prohibited
sexual conduct; or traffic in women and children interstate or
internationally to engage in sexually explicit conduct.
Two other organizations have responsibilities regarding child
pornography: the Customs Service (now part of the Department of
Homeland Security) and the Secret Service in the Department of the
Treasury.
The Customs Service targets illegal importation and trafficking in
child pornography and is the country's front line of defense in
combating child pornography distributed through various channels,
including the Internet. Customs is involved in cases with international
links, focusing on pornography that enters the United States from
foreign countries. The Customs CyberSmuggling Center has the lead in
the investigation of international and domestic criminal activities
conducted on or facilitated by the Internet, including the sharing and
distribution of child pornography on peer-to-peer networks. Customs
maintains a reporting link with NCMEC, and it acts on tips received via
the CyberTipline from callers reporting instances of child pornography
on Web sites, Usenet newsgroups, chat rooms, or the computers of users
of peer-to-peer networks. The center also investigates leads from
Internet service providers via the Exploited Child Unit's CyberTipline
II.
The U.S. Secret Service does not investigate child pornography
cases on peer-to-peer networks; however, it does provide forensic and
technical support to NCMEC, as well as to state and local agencies
involved in cases of missing and exploited children.
PEER-TO-PEER APPLICATIONS PROVIDE EASY ACCESS TO CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
Child pornography is easily shared and accessed through peer-to-
peer file-sharing programs. Our analysis of 1,286 titles and file names
identified through KaZaA searches on 12 keywords 22 showed
that 543 (about 42 percent) of the images had titles and file names
associated with child pornography images.23 Of the remaining
files, 34 percent were classified as adult pornography, and 24 percent
as nonpornographic (see fig. 1). No files were downloaded for this
analysis.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ The 12 keywords were provided by the Cybersmuggling Center as
examples known to be associated with child pornography on the Internet.
\23\ We categorized a file as child pornography if one keyword
indicating a minor and one word with a sexual connotation occurred in
either the title or file name. Files with sexual connotation in title
or name but without age indicators were classified as adult
pornography.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ease of access to child pornography files was further
documented by retrieval and analysis of image files, performed on our
behalf by the Customs CyberSmuggling Center. Using 3 of the 12 keywords
that we used to document the availability of child pornography files, a
CyberSmuggling Center analyst used KaZaA to search, identify, and
download 305 files, including files containing multiple images and
duplicates. The analyst was able to download 341 images from the 305
files identified through the KaZaA search.
The CyberSmuggling Center analysis of the 341 downloaded images
showed that 149 (about 44 percent) of the downloaded images contained
child pornography (see fig. 2). The center classified the remaining
images as child erotica (13 percent), adult pornography (29 percent),
or nonpornographic (14 percent).
These results are consistent with the observations of NCMEC, which
has stated that peer-to-peer technology is increasingly popular for the
dissemination of child pornography. However, it is not the most
prominent source for child pornography. As shown in table 3, since
1998, most of the child pornography referred by the public to the
CyberTipline was found on Internet Web sites. Since 1998, the center
has received over 139,000 reports of child pornography, of which 76
percent concerned Web sites, and only 1 percent concerned peer-to-peer
networks. Web site referrals have grown from about 1,400 in 1998 to
over 45,000 in 2003--or about a thirty-two-fold increase. NCMEC did not
track peer-to-peer referrals until 2001. Between 2001 and 2003, peer-
to-peer referrals increased more than fivefold, from 156 to 840,
reflecting the increased popularity of file-sharing programs.
Table 3: NCMEC CyberTipline Referrals to Law Enforcement Agencies, Fiscal Years 1998-2003
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of tips
Technology -----------------------------------------------------
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Web sites................................................. 1,393 3,830 10,629 18,052 26,759 45,035
E-mail.................................................... 117 165 120 1,128 6,245 12,403
Peer-to-peer.............................................. - - - 156 757 840
Usenet newsgroups & bulletin boards....................... 531 987 731 990 993 1,128
Unknown................................................... 90 258 260 430 612 1,692
Chat rooms................................................ 155 256 176 125 234 786
Instant Messaging......................................... 27 47 50 80 53 472
File transfer protocol.................................... 25 26 58 64 23 13
Total..................................................... 2,338 5,569 12,024 1,025 35,676 62,369
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Exploited Child Unit, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
JUVENILE USERS OF PEER-TO-PEER APPLICATIONS MAY BE INADVERTENTLY
EXPOSED TO PORNOGRAPHY
Juvenile users of peer-to-peer networks face a significant risk of
inadvertent exposure to pornography when searching and downloading
images. In a search using innocuous keywords likely to be used by
juveniles searching peer-to-peer networks (such as names of popular
singers, actors, and cartoon characters), almost half the images
downloaded were classified as adult or cartoon pornography. Juvenile
users may also be inadvertently exposed to child pornography through
such searches, but the risk of such exposure is smaller than that of
exposure to pornography in general.
To document the risk of inadvertent exposure of juvenile users to
pornography, the Customs CyberSmuggling Center performed KaZaA searches
using innocuous keywords likely to be used by juveniles. The center's
image searches used three keywords representing the names of a popular
female singer, child actors, and a cartoon character. A center analyst
performed the search, retrieval, and analysis of the images. These
searches produced 157 files, some of which were duplicates. From these
157 files, the analyst was able to download 177 images.
Figure 3 shows our analysis of the CyberSmuggling Center's
classification of the 177 downloaded images. We determined that 61
images contained adult pornography (34 percent), 24 images consisted of
cartoon pornography (14 percent), 13 images contained child erotica (7
percent), and 2 images (1 percent) contained child pornography. The
remaining 77 images were classified as nonpornographic.
FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES ARE BEGINNING TO FOCUS RESOURCES ON
CHILD PORNOGRAPHY ON PEER-TO-PEER NETWORKS
Because law enforcement agencies do not track the resources
dedicated to specific technologies used to access and download child
pornography on the Internet, we were unable to quantify the resources
devoted to investigations concerning peer-to-peer networks. These
agencies (including the FBI, CEOS, and Customs) do devote significant
resources to combating child exploitation and child pornography in
general. Law enforcement officials told us, however, that as tips
concerning child pornography on the peer-to-peer networks increase,
they are beginning to focus more law enforcement resources on this
issue. Table 4 shows the levels of funding related to child pornography
issues that the primary organizations reported for fiscal year 2002, as
well as a description of their efforts regarding peer-to-peer networks
in particular.
Table 4: Respurces Related to Combating Child Pornography on Peer-to-
Peer Networks in 2002
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Efforts regarding
Organization Resourcesa peer-to-peer
networks
------------------------------------------------------------------------
National Center for Missing and $12 million to act NCMEC referred 913
Exploited Children. as national tips concerning
resource center peer-to-peer
and clearinghouse networks to law
for missing and enforcement
exploited agencies.
children.
$10 million for
law enforcement
training
$3.3 million for
the Exploited
Child Unit and
the CyberTipline.
$916,000 allocated
to combat child
pornography.
Federal Bureau of Investigation. $38.2 million and According to FBI
228 agents and officials, they
support personnel have efforts
for Innocent under way to work
Images Unit. with some of the
peer-to-peer
companies to
solicit their
cooperation in
dealing with the
issue of child
pornography.
Justice Criminal Division, Child $4.38 million and The High Tech
Exploitation and Obscenity 28 personnel Investigative
Section. allocated to Unit deals with
combating child investigating any
exploitation and Internet medium
obscenity that distributes
offenses. child
pornography,
including peer-to-
peer networks.
U.S. Customs Service $15.6 million The center is
CyberSmuggling Center. (over 144,000 beginning to
hours) allocated actively monitor
to combating peer-to-peer
child networks for
exploitation and child
obscenity pornography,
offenses b. devoting one half-
time investigator
to this effort.
As of December
16, 2002, the
center had sent
21 peer-to-peer
investigative
leads to field
offices for
follow-up.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources: GAO and agencies mentioned.
a Dollar amounts are approximate.
b Customs was unable to separate the staff hours devoted or funds
obligated to combating child pornography from those dedicated to
combating child exploitation in general.
An important new resource to facilitate the identification of the
victims of child pornographers is the National Child Victim
Identification Program, run by the CyberSmuggling Center. This resource
is a consolidated information system containing seized images that is
designed to allow law enforcement officials to quickly identify and
combat the current abuse of children associated with the production of
child pornography. The system's database is being populated with all
known and unique child pornographic images obtained from national and
international law enforcement sources and from CyberTipline reports
filed with NCMEC. It will initially hold over 100,000 images collected
by federal law enforcement agencies from various sources, including old
child pornography magazines.24 According to Customs
officials, this information will help, among other things, to determine
whether actual children were used to produce child pornography images
by matching them with images of children from magazines published
before modern imaging technology was invented. Such evidence can be
used to counter the assertion that only virtual children appear in
certain images.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\24\ According to federal law enforcement agencies, most of the
child pornography published before 1970 has been digitized and made
widely available on the Internet.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The system, which became operational in January 2003,25
is housed at the Customs CyberSmuggling Center and can be accessed
remotely in ``read only'' format by the FBI, CEOS, the U.S. Postal
Inspection Service, and NCMEC.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\25\ One million dollars has already been spent on the system, with
an additional $5 million needed for additional hardware, the expansion
of the image database, and access for all involved agencies. The 10-
year lifecycle cost of the system is estimated to be $23 million.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In summary, Mr. Chairman, our work shows that child pornography as
well as adult pornography is widely available and accessible on peer-
to-peer networks. Even more disturbing, we found that peer-to-peer
searches using seemingly innocent terms that clearly would be of
interest to children produced a high proportion of pornographic
material, including child pornography. The increase in reports of child
pornography on peer-to-peer networks suggests that this problem is
increasing. As a result, it will be important for law enforcement
agencies to follow through on their plans to devote more resources to
this technology and continue their efforts to develop effective
strategies for addressing this problem.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be pleased to
answer any questions that you or other Members of the Subcommittee may
have at this time.
CONTACT AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
If you should have any questions about this testimony, please
contact me at (202) 512-6240 or by E-mail at [email protected]. Key
contributors to this testimony were Barbara S. Collier, Mirko Dolak,
James M. Lager, Neelaxi V. Lakhmani, James R. Sweetman, Jr., and Jessie
Thomas.
Attachment
Peer-to-peer file-sharing programs represent a major change in the
way Internet users find and exchange information. Under the traditional
Internet client/server model, access to information and services is
accomplished by interaction between clients--users who request
services--and servers--providers of services, usually Web sites or
portals. Unlike this traditional model, the peer-to-peer model enables
consenting users--or peers--to directly interact and share information
with each other, without the intervention of a server. A common
characteristic of peer-to-peer programs is that they build virtual
networks with their own mechanisms for routing message
traffic.26
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\26\ Matei Ripenau, Ian Foster, and Adriana Iamnitchi, ``Mapping
the Gnutella Network: Properties of Large Scale Peer-to-Peer Systems
and Implication for System Design,'' IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 6,
no. 1 (January-February 2002). (people.cs.uchicago.edu/matei/PAPERS/
ic.pdf)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ability of peer-to-peer networks to provide services and
connect users directly has resulted in a large number 27 of
powerful applications built around this model.28 These range
from the SETI@home network (where users share the computing power of
their computers to search for extraterrestrial life) to the popular
KaZaA file-sharing program (used to share music and other files).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\27\ Zeropaid.com, a file-sharing portal, lists 88 different peer-
to-peer file-sharing programs available for download. (http://
www.zeropaid.com/php/filesharing.php)
\28\ Geoffrey Fox and Shrideep Pallickara, ``Peer-to-Peer
Interactions in Web Brokering Systems,'' Ubiquity, vol. 3, no. 15 (May
28-June 3, 2002) (published by Association of Computer Machinery).
(http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/views/g_fox_2.html)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As shown in figure 4,29 there are two main models of
peer-to-peer networks: (1) the centralized model, in which a central
server or broker directs traffic between individual registered users,
and (2) the decentralized model, based on the Gnutella 30
network, in which individuals find each other and interact directly.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\29\ Illustration adapted by Lt. Col. Mark Bontrager from original
by Bob Knighten, ``Peer-to-Peer Computing,'' briefing to Peer-to-Peer
Working Groups (August 24, 2000), in Mark D. Bontrager, Peering into
the Future: Peer-to-Peer Technology as a Model for Distributed Joint
Battlespace Intelligence Dissemination and Operational Tasking, Thesis,
School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Air University, Maxwell Air Force
Base, Alabama (June 2001).
\30\ According to LimeWire LLC, the developer of a popular file-
sharing program, Gnutella was originally designed by Nullsoft, a
subsidiary of America Online. The development of the Gnutella protocol
was halted by AOL management shortly after the protocol was made
available to the public. Using downloads, programmers reverse-
engineered the software and created their own Gnutella software
packages. (http://www.limewire.com/index.jsp/p2p)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
As shown in figure 4, in the centralized model, a central server/
broker maintains directories of shared files stored on the computers of
registered users. When Bob submits a request for a particular file, the
server/broker creates a list of files matching the search request by
checking it against its database of files belonging to users currently
connected to the network. The broker then displays that list to Bob,
who can then select the desired file from the list and open a direct
link with Alice's computer, which currently has the file. The download
of the actual file takes place directly from Alice to Bob.
This broker model was used by Napster, the original peer-to-peer
network, facilitating mass sharing of material by combining the file
names held by thousands of users into a searchable directory that
enabled users to connect with each other and download MP3 encoded music
files. Because much of this material was copyrighted, Napster as the
broker of these exchanges was vulnerable to legal
challenges,31 which eventually led to its demise in
September 2002.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\31\ A&M Records v. Napster, 114 F.Supp.2d 896 (N.D. Cal. 2000).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In contrast to Napster, most current-generation peer-to-peer
networks are decentralized. Because they do not depend on the server/
broker that was the central feature of the Napster service, these
networks are less vulnerable to litigation from copyright owners, as
pointed out by Gartner.32
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\32\ Lydia Leong, ``RIAA vs.Verizon, Implications for ISPs,''
Gartner (Oct. 24, 2002).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the decentralized model, no brokers keep track of users and
their files. To share files using the decentralized model, Ted starts
with a networked computer equipped with a Gnutella file-sharing program
such as KaZaA or BearShare. Ted connects to Carol, Carol to Bob, Bob to
Alice, and so on. Once Ted's computer has announced that it is
``alive'' to the various members of the peer network, it can search the
contents of the shared directories of the peer network members. The
search request is sent to all members of the network, starting with
Carol; members will, in turn, send the request to the computers to
which they are connected, and so forth. If one of the computers in the
peer network (say, for example, Alice's) has a file that matches the
request, it transmits the file information (name, size, type, etc.)
back through all the computers in the pathway towards Ted, where a list
of files matching the search request appears on Ted's computer through
the file-sharing program. Ted can then open a connection with Alice and
download the file directly from Alice's computer.33
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\33\ LimeWire, Modern Peer-to-Peer File Sharing over the Internet.
(http://www.limewire.com/index.jsp/p2p)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The file-sharing networks that result from the use of peer-to-peer
technology are both extensive and complex. Figure 5 shows a map, or
topology, of a Gnutella network whose connections were mapped by a
network visualization tool.34 The map, created in December
2000, shows 1,026 nodes (computers connected to more than one computer)
and 3,752 edges (computers on the edge of the network connected to a
single computer). This map is a snapshot showing a network in existence
at a given moment; these networks change constantly as users join and
depart them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\34\ Mihajlo A. Jovanovic, Fred S. Annexstein, and Kenneth A.
Berman, Scalability Issues in Large Peer-to-Peer Networks: A Case Study
of Gnutella, University of Cincinnati Technical Report (2001). (http://
www.ececs.uc.edu/mjovanov/Research/paper.html)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the key features of many peer-to-peer technologies is their
use of a virtual name space (VNS). A VNS dynamically associates user-
created names with the Internet address of whatever Internet-connected
computer users happen to be using when they log on.35 The
VNS facilitates point-to-point interaction between individuals, because
it removes the need for users and their computers to know the addresses
and locations of other users; the VNS can, to a certain extent,
preserve users' anonymity and provide information on whether a user is
or is not connected to the Internet at a given moment. Peer-to-peer
users thus may appear to be anonymous; they are not, however. Law
enforcement agents may identify users' Internet addresses during the
file-sharing process and obtain, under a court order, their identities
from their Internet service providers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\35\ S. Hayward and R. Batchelder, ``Peer-to-Peer: Something Old,
Something New,'' Gartner (Apr. 10, 2001).
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3980.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3980.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3980.003
Mr. Stearns. I thank you. By unanimous consent, Mr. John is
recognized for an opening statement.
Mr. John. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I certainly
appreciate the latitude of Ranking Member Schakowsky and also
Chairman Stearns for providing me an opportunity to give an
opening statement. As a former member of this subcommittee and
the lead sponsor of the legislation to protect children from
online pornography, I really appreciate the opportunity to say
just a few words.
I want to thank my fellow colleague, Congressman Pitts, for
his leadership on this issue and offer my continued support for
his efforts to combat child pornography. I also want to thank
the panel. This is a little bit out of order to give an opening
statement after the panel, but I certainly appreciate the
remarks and a lot of the remarks that I have in my opening
statement were addressed or at least connected to some of your
statements, so I certainly appreciate that.
As a parent of twin 5-year-old boys, I know the challenges
that are faced by parents these days as kids go and log on to
the Internet. In fact, my boys love to go on and log and look
at Bay Blades and Yuggio cards and Power Rangers and a whole
host of other kinds of kids-related shows and merchandise that
are on these websites. And for the parents, it's a little
difficult to keep up with some of these toys that kids today go
a little crazy over. I guess what disturbs me more is the
proliferation of pornography online that uses these very same
kids' games, kids' toys, kids' characters to direct Internet
users to pornography sites and a lot of the testimony cited
that.
And it's all the more problematic when the kids are using
the P2P or peer-to-peer file sharing programs because the names
of these games and cartoons are often misspelled or look very
similar in a lot of ways to some of these sites. We probably
could spend an entire hearing, Mr. Chairman, on peer-to-peer
file network, file sharing, as a digital means of stealing
copyrighted material, but that battle will come and that's for
another time.
But today, I appreciate the witnesses addressing some of
the concerns that I have and I will continue my fight with Mr.
Pitts on this issue and I thank the chairman and ranking
member.
Mr. Stearns. I thank the gentleman for his attendance. I'll
start with my questions.
I guess the first question when you hear this, this is for
the Federal Trade Commission, seeing what Mr. Pitts has showed
us and going through some of the testimony on the panel, and
hearing your example, I guess the question is do you have
enough people? Do you need additional law enforcement support
to curb the spread of online pornography via the Internet or
the P2P?
Mr. Beales. We can always do more with more resources. We
have a very active program and I think one that's been very
effective in addressing a wide variety of problems. It is--we
don't have a particular request for additional resources. We'll
address that through the appropriations process.
Mr. Stearns. So you can say today that you think you have
sufficient resources to handle this problem?
Mr. Beales. Well, I think there is no amount of resources
that would eliminate this problem.
Mr. Stearns. We're not saying eliminate, but that you can
get to the bad actors, that you feel comfortable that you can
quickly and effectively get to these bad actors?
It seems to me if he puts up 6,000 sites, that's going to
take a lot of research on your part and that's just one
individual.
Mr. Beales. Well, it's the way a lot of these cases work.
He's got 6,000 sites registered under one name and once you're
on to the basic scheme, tracking down all the other names he's
registered is not that difficult. What's hard in some cases is
finding the scheme in the first place.
Mr. Stearns. Do you think there's anything we, as
legislators, that you would recommend that we do?
Mr. Beales. We don't have any legislative recommendations
at this point.
Mr. Stearns. So you have no opinion on the Pitts Bill?
Mr. Beales. We have no position on the Pitts Bill. We have
worked with Mr. Pitts' staff on technical issues and we look
forward to continuing that.
Mr. Stearns. Okay. Ms. Koontz, Mr. Lafferty has submitted
written testimony. He's on the second panel. He stated that in
using family filters at their maximum level, ``no files
retrieved on searches for popular terms like Britney, Pokeyman
and the Olsen Twins will contain pornography.''
Based on your work in this area, do you confirm his
statement?
Ms. Koontz. I can't confirm that that's the case. We
haven't done a study of the availability of pornography on the
larger Internet sort of situation. So--and we have not studied
the efficacy of filters either, although I would submit that we
know that filters, although they can be helpful, are rarely
perfect and usually do not eliminate all kinds of objectionable
files.
Mr. Stearns. Mr. Lourdeau or Mr. Beales, can you comment on
that, the fact that Mr. Lafferty says basically the family
filters work and they will prevent the pornography?
Mr. Lourdeau. I have not checked out the filters to see if
they work or not. I can't answer that.
Mr. Stearns. Mr. Beales?
Mr. Beales. We've not explored them in any detail either.
Mr. Stearns. Let me ask the FBI, in which of the follow
areas is child pornography most prevalent: Internet websites,
Internet news groups, chat rooms, file servers, bulletin board
systems or peer-to-peer file sharing programs? And also, to
which area is it trending, if you can tell us that?
Mr. Lourdeau. For the FBI, we have a priority listing of
how we attack child pornography and as you said, Mr. Chairman,
the websites is our No. 1 priority because of the international
and national flavor of the websites. We think that the FBI's
role is to try to go after organized groups that profit from
child pornography and that occurs in the websites, where you
can go into the websites and purchase child pornography and
people make money from that.
Is it more pervasive than the other sites? I can give you
countless examples of chat rooms where people go into chat
rooms and discuss luring young children, girls and boys, to
have sex with adults. So is it prevalent there? It's very
prevalent there. I don't know if there's any one site or one--
--
Mr. Stearns. Trending in any way?
Mr. Lourdeau. [continuing] or trend that is more prevalent
than the other. We know that there is a lot of legal file
sharing of pornography over peer-to-peer networks and that's
why we started our new initiative to address that crime
problem.
Mr. Stearns. Mr. Beales, the last question, are the P2P
files traceable so that the illegal pornographers can be
prosecuted? Is it easily traceable and has P2P software
hastened the spread of spyware and adware?
Mr. Beales. We have not been involved in circumstances
where we needed to track back P2P files. That is not something
that's come up in any of our cases and so I don't really know.
We did learn at our spyware workshop that a great deal of
spyware and adware is distributed bundled with P2P networks.
There are other distribution channels for it as well.
Mr. Stearns. My time has expired.
Ms. Schakowsky. I'm afraid I don't really understand the
technology, so you'll forgive me a little bit if I ask
questions that are silly.
I'm looking now at Mr. Pitts' handout and when I look at
Google which searches websites, am I correct about that? Okay,
that when you search a website and the filter is in place, we
find that there's no pornographic websites when you search for
Cinderella.
When we look at Cinderella on this P2P network, I don't
know what you call it, P2P file sharing, we get a lot of these
pornographic information. So what I'm trying to understand is
it a problem with the filtering system, I don't know what that
implies, that there could be better blocking on the P2P or that
the technology itself precludes that kind of blocking? And I
wondered if one of you could answer that.
Mr. Lourdeau. If I could just answer, maybe I could help
out is that with peer-to-peer, when you share the files that go
between one computer and another computer, individual
computers, so it's not a file server that goes between. So to
block out or use filters that would block one message from your
computer to my computer that would not work.
Ms. Schakowsky. There's no possibility for doing that kind
of filter?
Mr. Lourdeau. I can't address if there is a possibility or
not. I'm not a real technical person. So there might be some
way to do that and again, I think that's private industry's
position to come up with some type of block or filter to make
that work.
Ms. Schakowsky. Let me ask you the question that the
Chairman asked Mr. Beales. Are you able though to identify, I
thought I heard you say that in your testimony, that you can
identify the individual who does have this porn on their
computer, on their e-mail that e-mails it. You can identify
those individuals?
Mr. Lourdeau. We've come up with a protocol and
investigative technique that will identify individuals that are
sharing child pornography through peer-to-peer. Again, that's
part of our new initiative that we have on-going now, so I
don't want to get into too much of that, that would jeopardize
those investigations.
Ms. Schakowsky. Well, then let me ask you the question of
whether you think there are enough legislative tools, legal
tools for you to use or if you do think that we need more
legislation that would help?
Mr. Lourdeau. That's something I can review and get back
with the subcommittee, if you allow me to. We're always looking
for ways that would assist law enforcement in legislation and
I'd be more than happy to again review anything that the
subcommittee could help through legislation.
Ms. Schakowsky. Ms. Koontz, did you find that P2P is
necessarily more risky than other means of accessing pron on
the web? Or were you not comparing?
Ms. Koontz. Our study was focused on the availability of
child pornography on peer-to-peer networks as well as the risk
of inadvertent exposure to juvenile users. But that focused
solely on the peer-to-peer networks. We did not try to compare
either availability or inadvertent use to the Internet, to news
groups or to any other kinds of technology. This was beyond the
scope of what we were doing. However, we do note that we know
that pornography is pervasive on these other mediums and that
there is a risk of inadvertent exposure on them as well, but we
can't do the quantitative comparison that you're asking about.
Ms. Schakowsky. Let me ask you this, do any of you feel
that this will be the method of choice? You said that there's
been, I think everyone said there's been an increase in the
amount of pornography available through this P2P networks, but
I'm wondering if that is not also true of all the others, of
the websites, etcetera, or if we're seeing a trend now, this is
going to be the way that seems easiest or most desirable for
child predators or for purveyors of porn.
Mr. Beales. Congresswoman, I think the factor that will
limit expansion through this channel as opposed to others is
that it's a lot harder to make money from it in the peer-to-
peer context. In the website context, or in the e-mail context,
you can try to sell people something and that's often a lot of
the incentive to engage in the practice. You can't do that in
the same way over the peer-to-peer networks and that's not to
say it doesn't happen there, but it happens at a more
individual level and not at a commercial level.
Ms. Schakowsky. The motivation though for someone then to
use peer-to-peer might, in fact, be more the predators, rather
than people who are seeking a profit might go there. Is that
true?
Mr. Lourdeau. I think it is true. Predators get on peer-to-
peer networks and they know the terms to put in to obtain child
pornography images, so that is true.
Ms. Schakowsky. I have a lot more to learn. Thank you.
Mr. Stearns. Thank the gentlelady. The gentleman from
Pennsylvania, Mr. Pitts.
Mr. Pitts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I want to
thank the witnesses for their testimony. I want to thank the
FTC for all they do and resources they offer to help consumers,
especially parents, better understand the problems of
pornography on the Internet and peer-to-peer.
Regarding the filters on the peer-to-peer systems in your
opinion, Mr. Beales, do the filters provide clear and
conspicuous information on how the filters work, filtering
searches rather than content?
Mr. Beales. I don't know that we've looked at that in
detail as to exactly how they describe the use of the filter.
We have looked at some of the filters and what we found is the
way they work, as we understand it, is they just filter based
on the file title or description, rather than on the full
content of the file. I mean that would be unlike a web search
engine which can look at the whole webpage and look at the
content and not just the description.
Mr. Pitts. The FTC mission is to protect consumers against
unfair and deceptive practices in commerce. According to the
FTC an act is unfair if, among other things, the practice
causes injury to consumers. Does a child inadvertently
downloading pornography or even child pornography qualify as
harm to a consumer?
Mr. Beales. What we would typically focus on is how it
happened. Tricking a child into doing that, there's no question
that that's an unfair and deceptive act or practice and there's
an injury in that kind of a context.
The nature of the injury that's involved in child
pornography per se is really more of a criminal issue than
something that's a typical FTC issue.
Mr. Stearns. One of the dangers of peer-to-peer is when a
person or a child accidentally downloads a pornographic file,
if he or she immediately closes the file, but does not delete
it, he or she becomes a distributor of that file, therefore a
person can unknowingly become a distributor of child
pornography. This, of course, could lead to legal problems for
that individual.
Has the FTC looked into this aspect of peer-to-peer
technology? Does this meet the threshold of an unfair practice?
Mr. Beales. We have not looked into that at this point. It
is again, if we're talking about something systematic where
somebody is doing this on a large scale, to get kids to
download images, that would certainly be something that we
would be interested in that we think would be a violation.
There's one of our other recent spam cases is the Westby
case and what it involved, and I think it's a good example of
the kinds of things we're looking for in addressing this
problem. This case involves spam with deceptive subject lines
that try to trick you into opening the message and when you
did, there were pornographic images. We think that was a
deceptive practice. We think that's an unfair practice. We
think it's a fairly straight forward case for us to make and it
was in that particular instance, we prevailed in Court.
Mr. Pitts. Thank you. Mr. Lourdeau, with that illustration
I gave, could you speak to how this complicates law enforcement
efforts? There are probably thousands of people who are
unknowingly distributing pornography out there.
Mr. Lourdeau. And you're correct, sir. We have to prove
intent and for the violation of the crime and for--that's one
reason why the Bureau came out with a consumer letter that's
posted on our website notifying the public of the dangers of
peer-to-peer because of the bad potential, that if they are on
the network sharing files between each other, that they are
opening their systems up where somebody could come in and dump
child pornography on their computers and that's one of the
dangers of using the peer-to-peer programs.
Mr. Pitts. I think in your testimony you reference peer-to-
peer software industry members that were considering placing
icons or popups from home pages regarding subjects wanted by
the FBI for exploitation of child on the Internet. Could you
explain this concept a little bit more in detail?
Mr. Lourdeau. Again, we work with a lot of different
private industry companies because we have to because the
technology is moving ahead so quickly, we need the cooperation
of a lot of different private industries. We work with
financial sectors. We work with ISPs. We work with companies
involved in peer-to-peer software, just to help educate the
public, also to give us the information we need to identify
individuals that are using peer-to-peer.
We're in preliminary discussions with a number of different
companies on how to again be more proactive and not just react
to cases that come to the attention of individuals sharing
child pornography and again, those are preliminary discussions
and we haven't confirmed those yet.
Mr. Pitts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, my time is up.
Mr. Stearns. Mr. Terry.
Mr. Terry. Mr. Beales, can you help me work through and
explain the brown paper wrapper, in essence, putting some type
of a mark out there that I would understanding that that
particular file is--contains explicit images or content? Can
you tell me how that would work in the area of peer-to-peer? Is
there any overlap between our CAN-SPAM Act? Does it apply to
the peer-to-peer fields that are posted? Is there something
else that we need to do legislatively that would empower the
FTC to force these peer-to-peer fields to be forthcoming in
what the content is?
Mr. Beales. I think the thing that's difficult about the
peer-to-peer context is you're dealing with individual files
labeled by individuals. And to go after those one at a time or
to try to enforce brown paper wrapper kind of requirement one
at a time, is something that would be exceedingly difficult to
say the least. It's not like--because what you have is a single
file or maybe a set of files, but it's from a single user who's
posting those files on the Internet. And you'd be dependent on
that individual to take the steps to comply with that
requirement.
Mr. Terry. Mr. Lourdeau, do you have anything to add from
the FBI--do you agree that it is just too cumbersome, too large
to go after individually? Is there anything that the FBI in
that regard would require from us?
Mr. Lourdeau. It is a massive problem and again, our new
peer-to-peer initiative that we have underway addresses some of
that and it's going to go after individuals who are sharing
child pornography between each other and that's the initiative
and again, in about 2 weeks I can speak more on that
initiative.
Mr. Terry. All right, in the Washington Post today there
was a nice article that helped educate the public about peer-
to-peer and its hazards. It also mentioned that the FBI is
working with the BearShare, I think was mentioned and Kazaa had
a whole separate paragraph to itself, which it should,
considering that's probably one of the largest peer-to-peer
sites or software.
Are there, is it true that Kazaa is quote unquote
cooperating to make sure that you can find those who are
sharing child pornography and are you able to tell us if there
are some of those sites that aren't cooperating with you?
Mr. Lourdeau. Again, we do cooperate with a lot of our
industry partners because we have to. We need the cooperation
of private industry to identify some of the subjects that are
sharing files. The technology that the industry has and the
access to information they have, the government does not have,
so we need to cooperate with private industry.
We have had discussions with private industry on this
technology and we welcome the shared knowledge that they have
to help us address this crime problem. And to get into
discussions of which industry partners are more cooperative
than others, I don't know if this is the right forum for that.
Mr. Pitts. Okay. Is there a private forum that you would
let us know which ones are not?
Mr. Lourdeau. I'd be more than happy to give your staffers
and yourself a briefing, yes sir.
Mr. Pitts. I appreciate that.
Mr. Stearns. The gentleman yields back. Going to Mr.
Ferguson, the gentleman from new Jersey.
Mr. Ferguson. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Stearns. No questions. Next, Mr. Bass is not here. Go
to Mr. Otter. No questions. Mr. Whitfield.
Mr. Whitfield. Mr. Chairman, I'll just ask one brief
question. I was just curious, Ms. Koontz, whether or not you
all had followed up since your 2003 report to look specifically
at any new technologies incorporated into the P2P software?
Ms. Koontz. We have not.
Mr. Whitfield. Have not, okay. Thank you.
Mr. Stearns. Thank the gentleman. Mr. Sullivan?
Pass. And Mr. Shadegg. Pass.
Before we go, I just want to ask Ms. Koontz, just a
question. I understand the title of your GAO audit was ``File
Sharing Programs, Users of Peer-to-Peer Networks Can Readily
Access Child Pornography.'' Is that correct?
Ms. Koontz. That's correct.
Mr. Stearns. Is the risk of inadvertent exposure to
pornography to children increasing on the Internet today? Just
yes or no?
Ms. Koontz. I don't know.
Mr. Stearns. Can you tell us is child pornography
increasing on peer-to-peer, yes or no?
Ms. Koontz. It appears to be the case based on the number
of tips forwarded to the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children. It appears to be the case, yes.
Mr. Stearns. But in your actual study that you did, the GAO
study, did not show that there's a trend increasing on peer-to-
peer?
Ms. Koontz. Our study was at a point in time. We would have
to sample at another point in time to tell you what that
comparison was.
Mr. Stearns. Do you intend to do that or not?
Ms. Koontz. If we are asked to do so, we will.
Mr. Stearns. Okay. All right, I thank panel 1 and we'll now
call for panel 2.
We have Mr. Charles Catlett, Senior Fellow, Computation
Institute of Argonne National Laboratory. Mr. Martin Lafferty,
Chief Executive Officer of Distributed Computing Industry
Association. Mr. Norbert Dunkel, he's Director of Housing and
Residence Education, University of Florida in Gainesville. Mr.
Ernie Allen, President and Chief Executive Officer of the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; and last,
we have Ms. Penny Nance, President of Kids First Coalition.
So I welcome the second panel and thank you for your
patience and time and we look forward to your opening
statements and I think we'll start with Mr. Catlett, if you're
ready to go.
Mr. Catlett has a demonstration for us, so I think we might
need to turn down the lights a little bit, so that we can see
it clearly on the television.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES E. CATLETT, SENIOR FELLOW, COMPUTATION
INSTITUTE, ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY; NORBERT W. DUNKEL,
DIRECTOR OF HOUSING AND RESIDENCE EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF
FLORIDA; ERNIE ALLEN, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN; PENNY YOUNG
NANCE, PRESIDENT, KIDS FIRST COALITION; AND MARTIN C. LAFFERTY,
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING INDUSTRY
ASSOCIATION
Mr. Catlett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Stearns. Get it right close to you. Sometimes these
people drop their voice and then you can't hear them.
Mr. Catlett. I've been working in the Internet for 20 years
and I'm honored to be here and talk to you today about this.
I'm also a father of three and these are things that concern me
quite a bit, inappropriate material on the Internet.
I want to spent a little bit of time as a software and
Internet expert telling you about some of the interesting
things that we're doing on the Internet and specifically with
distributed computing. I'm speaking as the Executive Director
of the TeraGrid project which is funded by the National Science
Foundation. We're building a distributed system with about 10
universities across the country. And I'm also the chair of an
international group called the Global Grid Forum and this is
about 200 organizations, 75 companies, worldwide. We develop
specifications and standards for distributed software primarily
for commercial and science applications.
Speaking of software, it's very difficult to classify
software. We talk about distributed systems and that's any
computer software that talks to another piece of software
across a network. There are three kinds of distributed systems
we generally talk about. One is client server. A client server
system is like a web browser talking to a website.
Grid computing is what we talk about in the sciences
because we want to combine resources that are not all available
in one location, to be able to do an advanced application. I'll
speak a little bit about three such applications.
And peer-to-peer tends to be desktop computers talking to
one another and these tend to be much larger networks than the
other, than the grid computing types.
One of the partners that we work with with our TeraGrid
project is from the University of Oklahoma. This is the Center
for Analysis and Prediction of Storms. And the goal of this
project is to combine weather sensors that are Internet
connected, doppler radar and things like that with super
computers and data bases to be able to take our weather models
and accelerate or increase the amount of time that citizens
have available to them to take shelter in the case of a tornado
or severe storms.
I live in Illinois. I'm told that the average time between
a warning and the time you actually have to hit the cellar is
13 minutes. With a program like that, we can increase that to
an hour or 2 and actually predict the path of a tornado through
a city like you see here. This is Fort Worth from 1998.
A second project is a medical project. This is very similar
to peer-to-peer, but the content here is medical data, MRI
data, protein data bases and the point of this project is to
give people who are investigating brain diseases, give clinical
researchers and academic researchers access to many more data
bases than they might be able to have access to otherwise, do a
single search, ask a complex query of 50 or 60 data bases that
are federated or connected together using similar to peer-to-
peer technology on the Internet. This is led by the University
of California at San Diego.
And the third project is working with EPA and specifically
the National Exposure Research Laboratory. We're investigating
whether we can use the same technology that companies use to
model say airflow over the body of a car, whether we can use
that air flow model technology to model air flow through a
city, an urban area. So if we could take a model of a city and
we have data from a disaster, an explosion, a plume of smoke,
toxins, airborne toxins, we're investigating the use of peer-
to-peer and Internet technology to be able to bring that
capability to the point where you might use it to guide
emergency workers on the ground, if this plume of smoke is
going to go this way and not that way.
I'd like to close with just a word or two about H.R. 2885,
again, I appreciate being able to be here and talk to you about
this because this is a concern I have as well. I think there's
some very good ideas in this bill. The required warnings,
standard notices for consumers allowing me as a consumer to
make a choice about what the software is doing, not having some
of the software that sneaks in and does things, I think that's
excellent.
I would say also that in the Internet technology, 12 months
is almost like a decade in other technologies and a lot can
happen in 12 months. The language in this particular bill
concerns me slightly because it's very broad and as I read it,
it actually encompasses almost all of the software that is
running on my computer right here. So I think with some
precision, I think this would be very helpful and a strategy of
working with software providers to actually harness the
innovation and the technology that's available to combat this
problem, I think is a very good approach. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Charles E. Catlett follows:]
Prepared Statement of Charles E. Catlett, Senior Fellow, University of
Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory Chair, Global Grid Forum
Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members of the Committee. Thank you for
allowing me this opportunity to comment on the use of the Internet and
distributed computing technologies. I am Charles E. Catlett, a senior
fellow at the Computation Institute at the University of Chicago and
Argonne National Laboratory. I am the executive director of the NSF
TeraGrid project, which is constructing one of the world's most
powerful distributed computing systems, scheduled to be completed in
October of this year. I am also the founding chair of the Global Grid
Forum, an international standards body that brings together distributed
computing researchers, commercial software providers, and end users to
create software standards for distributed computing on the Internet. I
have been involved in the evolution of the Internet since 1984, doing
research in both advanced network technologies and the practical
applications that these technologies enable. My work has been aimed at
providing increasingly powerful information technology tools for the
science and education community.
I am also a father of three, and I pay very close attention to what
my children are able to do with the Internet and Peer-to-Peer software
in particular. I am very encouraged by your interest in these issues,
which involve very complex technology and which have far-reaching
impact on our Nation, and I am honored to speak with you about this
technology.
I have prepared some brief remarks regarding what types of
applications are possible with the increasing availability of broadband
Internet and distributed computing software capabilities, and several
examples of the kind of benefit we are seeing from these capabilities.
1. Peer-to-Peer and ``Grid'' Computing
Many terms have substantial overlap and cause confusion in
discussions about the Internet and related software, so I would like to
start with straightforward definitions of four such terms.
``Distributed computing'' is a general term that refers to any set
of computers that work together, using a network, to provide some form
of capability. Most distributed computing software used on the Internet
falls into three categories:
``Client-Server'' computing involves a person using a program (a
``client'') on a home or office computer, interacting over a network
with a larger computer, or ``server.'' The server provides information,
applications, or services to many clients. A Web browser is an
illustration of a client, and the Google search site is an example of a
server. Thus the Web is essentially a client-server system.
``Peer-to-Peer'' could fairly be described as ``client-to-client''
computing, where the participating clients run on home or office
computers, and where there may be tens of thousand or even millions of
computers involved in sharing information or computing capabilities.
``Grid'' is a term that is used increasingly often to refer to what
we might call ``server-to-server'' computing. In a Grid system, shared
resources such as powerful servers, databases, or scientific
instruments are integrated to support applications that need powerful
capabilities not available at a single location. Users of Grid systems
may access them via client-server approaches.
All three forms of distributed computing share the Internet as
their communications utility, and have many attributes in common. It is
also difficult to classify many applications into only one of these
three categories, because the most powerful applications tend to
combine aspects of all three forms.
For this reason, it is important to consider a wide range of
application types in order to determine the impact that would be felt
with the introduction of regulations aimed at a particular software
genre. This is not unlike the work that we do in the Global Grid Forum,
where we consider the broader impact of any changes to a protocol or
interface standard.
As with other Internet technologies such as the World Wide Web, it
is difficult to predict what new applications will be enabled with new
capabilities. Peer-to-peer technology is a good example, and in the
research community we find a number of promising applications that are
being developed and evaluated.
We see potential uses of ``peer-to-peer'' technology in many venues
where information--whether scientific, clinical, or educational data--
is shared among a large population of potential users. For example, the
``OceanStore'' project at the University of California-Berkeley is
using peer-to-peer techniques to provide highly available, virtually
``indestructible'' storage systems that assume the underlying servers
will be neither reliable nor secure. Groove Networks is a commercial
software firm that uses peer-to-peer technology to create secure
collaboration services for distributed teams, allowing individuals to
work closely ``together'' despite being spread across many time zones.
And many Grid applications share some aspects of peer-to-peer, as I
discuss below.
2. Practical Scientific Applications Using Distributed Computing
Technologies
I would like to focus on three applications of distributed
computing technology. These are illustrative of the type of
applications being developed on today's Internet, each of which uses a
variety of distributed computing technologies. In each of these cases,
peer-to-peer software has the potential for extending data sharing
capabilities to a much broader audience than the current scientific
collaborations, however none are using peer-to-peer software today.
The first involves predicting and response to severe weather, which
causes hundreds of lost lives and some $13B in economic loss annually.
Here I describe the work of Professor Kelvin Droegemeier, director of
the Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms, and his colleagues.
Weather applications are aimed at improving the nation's infrastructure
for predicting and preparing for severe weather.
The second involves biomedical research aimed at understanding
brain-related disease ranging from Alzheimer's to attention deficit
disorder. Dr. Mark Ellisman, director of the Biomedical Informatics
Research Network (BIRN), and collaborators at twelve U.S. universities
are using the Internet to create highly secure, nation-wide research
and clinical data-sharing capabilities. The BIRN project uses the
Internet and distributed computing and information technologies to
create infrastructure aimed at improving biomedical research by
enabling researchers throughout the United States to collaborate on
large-scale studies of human disease with unique, multi-resolution
tools. BIRN uses technology that is quite similar to peer-to-peer
software, albeit with much greater control over security, access and
authorization.
The third application is the analysis of urban air quality and
airflow, seeking to understand the impact of both existing pollutants
and potential effects of airborne toxins from events such as fires or
explosions. This application includes the work of Dr. Alan Huber and
colleagues from the Environmental Protection Agency's National Exposure
Research Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory's Environmental
Assessment Division, and Fluent, Inc., a commercial software provider.
2.1 Severe Weather Prediction and Early Warning
The Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms (CAPS) at the
University of Oklahoma engages in basic and applied research in storm-
scale data assimilation and numerical weather prediction, with several
ongoing programs in collaboration with colleagues around the country.
The work is aimed at integrating weather sensors and computer models,
using high-performance computers and the Internet, to rapidly model
evolving weather patterns in order to predict destructive storms in
time to provide advanced warning.
Beginning in 1998, for instance, CAPS worked with the University
Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) Unidata Program, the
University of Washington, the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL),
and the WSR-88D Operational Support Facility (now the Radar Operations
Center ROC) to establish the Collaborative Radar Acquisition Field Test
(CRAFT) project. The goal of CRAFT was to demonstrate the real time
compression and Internet-based transmission of NEXRAD data from
multiple radars with a view toward nationwide implementation. CAPS is
currently working with the National Weather Service to transition the
CRAFT system into an operational service.
To further advance sensor capabilities, CAPS is working with the
Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA) at
the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, to revolutionize the remote
sensing of the lower troposphere, initially via inexpensive, low-power,
phased array Doppler radars placed on cell towers and buildings. A
unique component of this project is that the sensors interact with one
another, using the Internet to dynamically adjust their characteristics
to sense multiple atmospheric phenomena while meeting multiple end user
needs in an optimal manner. These communications and data sharing
techniques are similar to what is typically classified as peer-to-peer.
Computer models have been used to predict long-term weather trends
for several years. However, in order to predict severe weather with
sufficient precision and in a time frame to allow for early warning,
high-performance computing systems are essential. Several years ago
CAPS developed computer-based storm prediction capabilities to identify
severe thunderstorm activity with roughly 4 hours notice. This amount
of time was sufficient, for example, to inform airlines of pending
thunderstorms at major hubs, allowing those airlines to delay flights
prior to takeoff in order to ensure that landing would be possible,
greatly reducing the cost of diverting aircraft once in the air.
Today CAPS also leads an NSF-funded project called Linked
Environments for Atmospheric Discovery (LEAD), which aims to create
capabilities for analysis tools, forecast models, and data repositories
to function as dynamically adaptive, on-demand systems. These systems
will change configuration rapidly and automatically in response to the
evolving weather, responding immediately to user decisions based on the
weather problem at hand, and enabling the steering of remote observing
systems to optimize data collection and forecast/warning quality. The
goal of such systems is to provide precise information about the
predicted path of destructive weather, such as tornados, in a timeframe
that permits citizens to prepare for, rather than react to, such
weather.
2.2 Nationwide Sharing of Biomedical Research Data
The Biomedical Informatics Research Network (BIRN) is an initiative
sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National
Center for Research Resources (NCRR). BIRN fosters large-scale
biomedical science collaborations by utilizing emerging distributed
computing technologies and the Internet, including applications
distributed among high-performance computers, databases, and new
software and data integration capabilities developed within the project
and elsewhere.
The BIRN currently involves a consortium of 12 universities and 16
research groups participating in three testbed projects centered on the
brain imaging of human neurological disease and associated animal
models. Some
BIRN groups are working on large-scale, cross-institutional imaging
studies on Alzheimer's disease, depression, and schizophrenia using
structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Others are
studying animal models relevant to multiple sclerosis, attention
deficit disorder, and Parkinson's disease through MRI, whole brain
histology, and high-resolution light and electron microscopy.
These studies are being used to drive the definition, construction,
and daily use of a ``federated data system.'' Federation presents
biological data held at geographically separated Internet sites to
appear as a single, unified and persistent data archive. Data is
securely accessed across institutional boundaries to address issues of
data privacy and automatic translation of data formats. Most of the
groups participating in the BIRN have traditionally conducted
independent investigations on relatively small populations, using site-
specific software tools.
The promise of the BIRN is the ability to test new hypotheses
through the analysis of larger patient populations and unique
multiresolution views of animal models through data sharing and the
integration of site independent resources for collaborative data
refinement. To accomplish these goals, the BIRN project will continue
to rely on innovative distributed computing technologies on the
Internet.
2.3 Air Quality and Impact of Airborne Biological or Toxic Agents
Understanding the pathway of toxic air pollutants from source to
human exposure in urban areas is of critical interest to the US
Environmental Protection Agency, and has been an ongoing activity.
Rapid assessments of risk, such as the migration of toxic gases related
to major fires or chemical spills, are vital to first responders, local
officials, federal officials, and the public. The scientific
shortcomings are especially serious for incidents that occur in an
urban center where the understanding of airflow around large buildings
is poor.
Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations have long been used
in the aerospace and automotive industries to evaluate airflow around
planes and cars, and increasingly in biomedical applications such as
the modeling of blood flow through the heart. CFD techniques also have
the potential to be employed to describe the flow of pollutants (be
they a plume from an event such as an explosion or fire, or be they the
dispersion of some pollutant or agent) in the complex terrain that our
urban areas represent.
EPA scientists in the National Exposure Research Laboratory are
working with Argonne National Laboratory's Environmental Assessment
Division and Fluent, Inc. in a computational laboratory setting to test
and use high fidelity CFD simulations of the spread and transport of
contamination in urban building environments. In addition, the EPA-
Argonne collaboration will also explore the possibility of developing
or adapting the products from CFD simulations to support rapid exposure
and risk models to potentially guide urban emergency response and
emergency management for chemical, biological or radiological attacks
or accidents.
As part of this investigation, EPA and Argonne scientists will use
the Internet to exchange databases, simulation results, and other types
of data. Experiments will be done using several forms of distributed
computing on the Internet. One approach to be explored is the use of
Fluent's Remote Simulation Facility, a Web-based ``portal'' that allows
users to upload data from their computers to run a simulation on
Fluent's computers. Another will be to use supercomputers at Argonne in
client-server mode, and a third approach will attempt to couple
Fluent's portal with supercomputers in NSF's TeraGrid project. All of
these approaches are likely to be useful for some types of work, and
some may employ technology that has functionality similar to peer-to-
peer software.
Concluding Remarks
As a father and as a citizen I am very concerned about the
availability of inappropriate material on the Internet. I would like to
make several comments specifically regarding H.R. 2885.
The proposed requirements for clear and prominent notice would, in
my view, be useful for software in general. Typical software end user
license agreements are incomprehensible to average people. We have
standard labels on food products to help consumers determine
nutritional value, and dangers. A similar program for software could be
designed to cover the disclosure proposed in H.R. 2885 as well as
disclosure regarding privacy and security risks.
It is also very important to provide the user with clear and
prominent notice regarding information sharing status and to require
that file sharing be explicitly enabled at the user's discretion, not
without their knowledge. Indeed some of the peer-to-peer software I
have seen in recent months has already moved in this direction.
The proposed ``do-not-install'' beacon is an interesting idea, and
I would encourage the committee to engage leaders from the software
industry in exploring this idea and possible implementations.
I note that the H.R. 2885 definition for ``peer-to-peer'' software,
as written, covers nearly all Internet software that I am aware of,
including Web software, instant messaging software, and file transfer
programs. In addition, the exclusion of software that is ``marketed and
distributed primarily for the operation'' of networks implies that
functionality built into computer operating systems (such as Windows or
MacOS) would be excluded from these requirements. In practice, this
would place a greater software engineering and support burden on small
companies developing Internet software than would be placed on large
companies adding new functions to operating systems software. This
would put small software companies at a distinct disadvantage relative
to their larger competitors.
In summary I would like to commend this committee for taking on
this complex set of issues. I would also respectfully encourage the
committee to engage leaders and experts from the software industry to
work together toward achieving what I believe to be a common goal of
protecting our children, and our privacy, while continuing to encourage
innovation in this country using the Internet. This will require much
more precision in the definition of the software to be regulated. Thank
you very much for the opportunity to speak with you.
Mr. Stearns. Thank you. Mr. Lafferty. Do you want me to
take Mr. Dunkel and come back to you? That would be fine.
Mr. Dunkel, welcome. We'd like your opening statement, if
you could.
STATEMENT OF NORBERT W. DUNKEL
Mr. Dunkel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the
subcommittee. Good morning. I am Norb Dunkel, Director of
Housing and Residence Education at the University of Florida.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee
in order to provide you with information regarding the
education of resident students and providing stewardship to our
technological resources.
Many of you likely lived in a residence hall while
attending college or university. Today's residence halls
possess many, many more amenities and services than when I or
you went to college. The electric typewriter that I brought was
a hit to the guys on the floor. Well, now students are each
bringing color TVs and stereo DVD players and refrigerators and
videogame systems and desktop computers and laptop computers,
along with their blackberry or cell phone or their PDA or other
devices.
Now there are approximately 2 million students living in
residence halls on campuses in the United States. One of the
greatest additions to residence halls in the recent years is
high speed ethernet connection. This high speed connection is
used to support the institution's mission by allowing students
to access online classes, replaying video classes, accessing
class syllabi, signing up for classes online and the like. We
are seeing connection speeds that only 6 or 8 years ago were
the slow dial up modems to now 1,000 megabits which equals one
gigabit connection.
As a comparison, with a dial modem it would take a person
about 29 hours to download a 2-hour movie. With a gigabit
connection, it takes about 6 seconds to download that same 2
hour movie. Downloading music files are inconsequential at that
speed. The speed and efficiency is tremendous and will only get
better and faster.
As housing professionals, we have two duties regarding the
data connections we provide for residence students. First, we
have a duty to educate our residence students as to the
acceptable use of their computer and the network. Second, we
have a duty to be good stewards in maintaining the
technological infrastructure that we provide to students.
Housing operations need to take an active role in educating
residence students. A colleague and I recently found that 93
percent of institutions with high speed connections actively or
passively educate their students. Some institutions, such as
the University of Delaware, require students to take a
responsible computing exam before they can obtain a network ID
and password. The exam covers copyright resources, computer
security, spam and harassing e-mail, bandwidth measurement and
commercial and charitable use. The University of Hawaii in
Manoa has residents sign for handbook accepting responsibility
for reading and following the rules contained within.
At the University of Florida, residents register their
computer online and electronically sign that they have read,
understood and will abide by the policies governing acceptable
use. For many students, this is all they will ever need. They
will accept the policies and make no attempt to circumvent the
policies. For other students, we need to be more active. To be
good stewards of our technological infrastructure, my staff
developed software to serve as a new network management
program. We had to develop this software because the network
could no longer support the academic needs due to high peer-to-
peer volume. One tool available through this program mitigates
peer-to-peer file sharing, while continuing to simultaneously
educate students all while maintaining a network service free
of illegal copyright sharing behaviors.
We wanted residents to understand that when they arrive on
campus, and move into a residence hall, a new level of personal
behavior and responsibility on the use of their computers and
Internet would be expected. Most freshmen students arrive on
campus having unabated access to the network. No knowledge of
installing virus protection and they would allow anyone to use
their computer. The education taking place on campuses stresses
that students need to take responsibility for their computer
and the use of their computer.
With me today is Mr. Rob Bird, the architect of the
software program called ICARUS. I have sent you an advance,
more detailed information on this program and its features, as
well as the very successful outcomes. Rob is also available to
answer your questions surrounding the technology and I would be
happy to respond to your questions regarding the education.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Norbert W. Dunkel follows:]
Prepared Statement of Norbert W. Dunkel, Director of Housing and
Residence Education and Rob Bird, Coordinator for Network Services,
Department of Housing and Residence Education, University of Florida
I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the
subcommittee to provide you information regarding the education of
resident students and a new approach to mitigating Peer To Peer (P2P)
file sharing. With me is Mr. Rob Bird the architect of the software
program ICARUS which is an acronym for Integrated Computer Application
for Recognizing User Services.
Many of you likely lived in a residence hall while attending a
college or university. Today's residence halls possess many more
amenities and services than when I attended Southern Illinois
University at Carbondale. I came with a suitcase, box, and electric
typewriter. The other students could not believe I had an ``electric''
typewriter.
There are approximately 2 million students living in residence
halls on campuses in the United States. Today, students are moving into
residence halls where suites and apartment style living is becoming
increasingly available. The amenities that exist in residence
facilities today include enhanced studying and recreational facilities;
contemporary dining accommodations; and larger rooms with more storage
to name a few. However, one of the greatest additions to residence
halls is high speed Ethernet connection.
The primary purpose for providing Ethernet connection in residence
halls is to support the academic mission. Many institutions, including
the University of Florida, utilize this high-speed residential
connection for on-line classes; accessing on-line services (i.e., class
registration, room sign-up, ordering class textbooks, etc.); replaying
video classes; accessing class syllabi; and working on group projects.
We have seen connection speeds grow in six or eight years from slow
dial up modems to 10 MB to 100 MB to 1000 MB (1 Gigabit) speeds. As a
comparison, with a dial up modem it would take a person about 29 hours
to download a two hour movie. With a Gigabit connection, it takes about
6 seconds to download a two-hour movie. The speed and efficiency of
this technology is tremendous.
As housing professionals, we have two duties regarding the data
connections we provide to students. First, we have a duty to educate
our resident students as to the acceptable use of their computer and
the network. Second, we have a duty to be good stewards in maintaining
the technological infrastructure that we provide students.
EDUCATION
In educating the resident students, we see many of our housing
operations across the United States having integrated the academic
community within the residential setting. Institutions have residence
halls with live-in faculty, ``smart'' classrooms, faculty offices,
space for tutoring, and space for academic advising. We see science-
based (i.e., engineering, math, etc.); education-based (teaching,
etc.); and fine arts-based (i.e., architecture, dance, theatre, etc.)
residential academic communities. These types of arrangements and
others lead to increased grade point averages for residents, increased
graduation rates, increased respect for faculty, and increased
psychosocial development. The education of our students is no longer
taking place only in the classroom environment. The classroom
environment is now in the residential setting.
Accompanying the residential academic environment is the need for
housing operations to assist in the education of resident students on
acceptable uses of the technology available to them. In an on-going
study (J. Haynes and N.W. Dunkel, 2004), we have found that of the
institutions surveyed with high speed connections in residence halls,
92% actively or passively educate their residents on the acceptable use
of their computer and the Internet.
There exist a number of different approaches to this education. The
information that is shared with residents may be as simple as defining
terms and providing answers to frequently asked questions. The
information may provide a general overview of the various aspects of a
network and computer usage. At the University of Delaware, students
must take a responsible computing exam before they can obtain a network
ID and password. The exam covers copyright resources, computer
security, spam and harassing e-mail, bandwidth measurement, and
commercial and charitable use. At the University of Hawaii in Manoa,
residents sign for the handbook accepting responsibility for reading
and following the rules contained within. At the University of Florida,
residents register their computer on-line and electronically sign that
they have read, understand, and will abide by the policies governing
acceptable use.
We know that for some students, reading the policies is all they
will ever need. They will accept the policies and make no attempt to
circumvent the policies. For other students, we need to be more active
in our oversight and education.
STEWARDS OF TECHNOLOGY
Housing professionals must be good stewards of the technological
infrastructure provided to students. The information that follows
provides a summary of the ICARUS program developed by Mr. Rob Bird.
ICARUS is a network management tool and one of the tools available is
the mitigation of P2P file sharing.
Introduction
The University of Florida Department of Housing and Residence
Education's Mission Statement is to provide well-maintained, community-
oriented facilities where residents and staff are empowered to learn,
innovate, and succeed. As staff worked to develop a software program to
mitigate P2P file sharing, discussion continued on how to
simultaneously educate resident students while maintaining a network
service free of illegal copyright sharing behaviors. This was a
daunting task as most first-year students arrive to campus having
practiced P2P file sharing at home during their high school years.
According to students, during high school years very little education
on illegal file sharing was provided and student behavior remained
unchecked. University of Florida housing staff wanted resident students
to understand that when they arrive on campus, a new level of personal
behavior and responsibility on the use of their computer would be
expected.
ICARUS
ICARUS ``pulls information from commercial and open-source tools
used to monitor the network and spots traffic patterns that look like
P2P transfers. ICARUS then tracks down the user's IP address, flashes a
pop-up warning and limits its access to the internal campus network. An
e-mail alert is sent to the student, who must agree to suspend use of
the offending P2P desktop software to regain full Internet access'' (p.
40, Network Computing). ``There is no debate about ICARUS'
effectiveness. Before it was turned on, there were as many as 3,500
simultaneous violators at any given time on the Gainesville campus,
school officials say. On the day the switch was flipped, 1,500
violators were caught. There were only 19 second time violators and no
third-time violators. Purged of the digital cholesterol of media files,
the network saw an 85% drop in uplink data volume'' (p. 42, Network
Computing).
Department of Housing and Residence Education Network Architecture--
Technical
The University of Florida Department of Housing and Residence
Education computer network (DHNet) consists of Cisco Catalyst 4000/
5000/6000-series switching equipment, and supports standards-compliant
TCP/IPv4-services for its residents. The fully-meshed OC12 ATM LANE
core network consolidates edge switches via OC3 & OC12 connections. A
campus-wide VTP domain is maintained, managed by multiple central VMPS
servers. Virtual LANs are deployed on a per-building basis to provide
proper segmentation and encompass multiple levels of access granularity
(Table 1). Specific services are subsequently provided by the UF DHNet
and UF HRE web sites, depending on the source of access.
Table 1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Requires Destination TCP/IP Services
Access Level Registration? Restrictions? Routed? Provided? DHNet web site role Notes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guest............................... No Yes Yes Yes, private IP Network registration, Allows access to HRE
addressing. computer configuration registration &
support and policy information sites only
education.
Restricted.......................... Yes Yes Yes Yes, private IP Judicial policy Allows access to
addressing. violation handling. University resources
Automatic recognition only
of restricted user.
Quarantine.......................... Special Yes No Yes, private IP Distribution of tools, Allows access to local
addressing; DNS patches and updates. network quarantine
redirection; local web Automatic recognition resources
services via 802.1q of quarantined user.
trunks.
Black Hole.......................... Special Yes No No..................... None, no local or Provided to leave
routed access provided. systems actively
connected for security
analysis
Normal.............................. Yes No Yes Yes, public IP Network information, Typical user
addressing. user forums, security,
network policy and
configuration
information.
Terminated.......................... No Service No Service No No Service............. No Service............. Last resort
Service
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Development and Deployment of ICARUS
Beginning in December of 2002, the Department of Housing and
Residence Education Network Services group initiated the development of
a system to aid in the enforcement of its computer security policy. The
system that was created was known as ICARUS, (Integrated Computer
Application for Recognizing User Services).
ICARUS was designed to meet three primary design goals. First, to
create a framework that allows for the collection of information from a
variety of disparate sources so that the data can be evaluated and
acted on in a unified fashion. Second, to create a system that allows
for the real-time identification, containment, and education of managed
network users while striving to minimize the impact on their academic
use. Third, to leverage the use of GPL and BSD-licensed software, where
possible. To this end, ICARUS consists of three main modules: (a) a
data collection and parsing module intended to homologate information
from SNMP, security tools, logging sources and non-traditional data
sources such as debug output into a central database; (b) a data mining
and analysis module which references external databases, performs
signature analysis and other pertinent tasks; and (c) an action module
that allows for the execution of any Perl-scriptable action.
Initial development of ICARUS focused on three core tasks. First,
it was necessary to build a system for identifying users and tracking
hardware movement within the network while allowing for the flexibility
required of a residential system. The initial system comprised three
levels of access and did not include a registration process for
residents. While this system was adequate for private residence port
authorization in light of the UF HRE judicial responsibility policy, it
did not adequately support the use of public access ports, nor did it
provide for a bulk way to handle the containment of security outbreaks.
This solution was also deemed inefficient due to its heavy reliance on
SNMP. Later, this system was expanded to six levels of access to
address these additional operational requirements, and moved to
leverage VMPS for superior access management. User registration was
also added to more positively establish authorization without the use
of network logon technologies, which are often cumbersome in ``always-
on'' residential environments. Second, development was focused on
containing P2P application use as an example of ICARUS' ability to
detect and react to complex network management situations. By combining
data from a variety of tools, it became possible to take a multi-
faceted approach to application recognition. This approach allows
ICARUS to react very quickly to both changing applications and policy
requirements by removing reliance on a single application's ability to
fully identify and contain unacceptable P2P use. In essence, it
establishes a framework which allows for the ready automation of
analysis and action that traditionally had to be performed with manual
intervention. Third, development was focused on building Pearl actions
for ICARUS to take, namely those involving VMPS, Windows Messenger
Service, SMTP (internet email), and assorted SNMP actions. These
actions were then customized to support the active network education
plan created by HRE.
Education of Resident Students
The education of resident students takes place passively and
actively. The passive educational program includes four steps: (a)
Staff distributes an acceptable network use brochure during the check-
in process. This brochure contains information on the overview of the
housing network; relays the fact that housing aggressively enforces its
ISP policies; briefs the student on servers, copyrights, and the DMCA;
provides information on the housing network monitoring and service
restriction process; provides answers to frequently asked questions;
and provides information on how student computer behavior is a part of
the University of Florida Student Code of Conduct. (b) Staff places
informational stickers by each housing data port. These informational
stickers provide instructions to resident students on how to register
on to the housing network. (c) The paraprofessional residence hall
staff are trained prior to student check-in. These training sessions
provide basic information so that staff are able to answer many of the
student questions regarding the housing network. (d) The UF DHNet web
site contains all the information regarding HRE Network Services.
Students can read the information prior to their arrival at the
University of Florida to understand what is expected and necessary when
they register on to the housing network.
The active educational program designed by HRE is powered by ICARUS
and supported by the UF DHNet and HRE websites. When ICARUS detects
user activity deemed unacceptable by policy, an appropriate series of
actions are performed. In the case of a violation of the HRE P2P
policy, for example, the user in question is sent a notification pop-up
message to their machine, a notification email to their official
University email account, and all the computer systems owned by that
resident are promptly restricted to campus-only network access (Table
2). This restriction is in effect regardless of where the resident
physically goes within the HRE network, preventing abuse by those using
public access ports. Simultaneously, an entry is created in the DHNet
violation system, HAMMER. A snapshot of the user's activity, including
all evidentiary data, is then added to the database, and correlated
with past violations (if any). Residents are required to then visit the
DHNet website in order to restore their access. When the resident
visits the website with any of their computers, the page automatically
recognizes them, and presents the resident with the list of violations.
Instructions are provided for remedying each violation, and then a
violation-dependent policy presentation is provided. Student violators
are then presented with the terms of their restriction. It should be
noted that the time counter for restriction does not officially begin
until they have signed the on-line form with their University ID
(access was still restricted before, however).
Table 2
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Additional
Violation Level Duration of Campus- Requirements for
Only Restriction Restoration
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1*.............................. 0--Immediate None
restoration
following
completion of
educational
presentation.
2*.............................. 5 days............ None
3............................... Indefinite........ Meeting with the
HRE Coordinator
of Judicial
Affairs
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Special Handling Exception--Any resident with a prior DMCA complaint is
automatically escalated to level 3 if the violation is sharing related
in any way. Violators with new DMCA complaints are automatically level
3 for the purposes of ICARUS.
Residents who ignore the restriction and take no action automatically
have their network access terminated after 10 days.
Similar action scenarios exist for a variety of situations from
virus/worm quarantining to the active notification about available
operating system patches to the active control of malicious activity.
Outcomes of ICARUS Deployment
The impact of ICARUS' deployment has been profound and immediate.
Over the course of the six week Summer A term (608 Resident Users) and
six week Summer B term (2435 Resident Users), 863 total P2P violations
were detected and restricted by ICARUS. What is most striking, however,
is the recidivism rate at each violation level for P2P use (Table 3).
Table 3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recidivism Rate vs. Recidivism Rate vs.
Violation Level Number of Violations Previous Level Total User Base
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1............................................. 769 .................... 25.3%
2............................................. 90 11.5% 2.9%
3............................................. 4 4.4% 0.13%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Additionally, ICARUS had a marked effect on overall internet
bandwidth utilization. The HRE network experienced a drop in upload
utilization of almost 83%. Perhaps more impressive was the 3% increase
in download utilization versus previous periods. Analysis demonstrated
conclusively that the slight increase was due to people searching for,
and finding, new legitimate sources of rich content. Furthermore, there
was a notable increase in the viewing of online streaming video
content.
I am pleased to provide you with this information. Housing
professionals do have a responsibility to educate resident students on
the acceptable use of their computers and the network. There exists
numerous opportunities for students to use technology with legitimate
purposes. Educating students to these purposes is part of our
responsibility and stewardship.
References
Haynes, J., & Dunkel, N.W. (in process). P2P resident education in
the United States.
Joachim, D. (2004, February 19). The enforcers. Network Computing,
pp.40-54.
Mr. Stearns. Thank you and we obviously want to welcome Rob
here and if we have more technical questions on this software
works relative to the dorms and how you filter it out, we'll be
doing that.
Mr. Allen, I'll come to you next.
STATEMENT OF ERNIE ALLEN
Mr. Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In 1982, the Supreme
Court of the United States said that child pornography was not
protected speech, it was child abuse. And as a result, child
pornography largely disappeared. It disappeared from the
shelves of adult bookstores, the Customs Service crackdown on
its importation, the Postal Service focused on its distribution
through the mails. With the advent of the Internet, all of that
has changed.
Since the advent of the Internet, we at the National Center
have been operating the congressionally mandated CyberTipline.
We have handled to date, 240,000 leads regarding child sexual
exploitation; 215,000 of those leads have related to child
pornography. In fact, we are convinced that its explosion on
the Internet has been a direct result of the relative anonymity
that a distributor or a trader could have online. And in fact,
that's why we're so concerned about the problem with child
pornography via P2P. We have handled, as was mentioned earlier,
about 2100 reports. Now as a share of the 215,000, that's very
low, but it's clear to us from anecdotal reports and
discussions with law enforcement leaders around the world, that
thousands of individuals are currently trading child
pornography via peer-to-peer programs. And that these
distributors could be found in every State and worldwide.
Why? Peer-to-peer programs make it more difficult to
identify the users. In the past, we were able to easily
identify offenders on the web because their Internet protocol
of IP addresses were visible and they were required to reveal
their e-mail addresses. That's no longer the case. When we
receive P2P reports via our CyberTipline, it's almost
impossible to identify the perpetrators responsible for trading
the files. And law enforcement faces numerous challenges.
There's no central data base of files, nor an organized
network. There are no centrally held logs on these systems to
record activity. Most of the popular file sharing programs are
free, so there's no subscriber information available to
subpoena to determine the user's true identity. Content and
users change very rapidly. And this often requires law
enforcement officers to be online at the very moment that the
offense occurs.
As Keith Lourdeau from the FBI mentioned earlier, tracking
users trading illegal content on peer-to-peer is difficult, but
not impossible. Savvy computer users can use certain commands
to attain an IP address of a user sending a file. Also,
proactive law enforcement agencies have begun to use secondary
programs to identify the IP address of the perpetrator sharing
the illegal files. However, these programs must be active at
the exact moment of the file transfer and depending on the
particular peer-to-peer program, if a user accidentally
downloads an illegal file, there is no way for that user to
document where the file originated. Considering the massive
amounts of files being shared at any given moment, this
anonymity provides a cloak of security for those criminals
trading images of children being sexually abuse.
In our judgment, the extensive swapping of child
pornography images on peer-to-peer would be reduced if users
knew that recipients of the images or movies could easily
attain their IP address.
Mr. Chairman, we don't come here today with quick, easy
solutions, but it is our conclusion that the use of peer-to-
peer networks for the distribution of child pornography is
growing dramatically and further, we suspect that it will
continue to increase as child pornographers search for lower
risk avenues where the possibility of being identified is far
less.
Federal, State and local law enforcement are more
aggressive on this issue than ever before, but they face
significant barriers. I hope you can help us remove some of
those barriers and help us identify and prosecute those who are
misusing the Internet and misusing a very positive technology
resource for criminal purpose.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Ernie Allen follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ernie Allen, President and Chief Executive
Officer, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I am pleased to appear
before you today and express the views of the National Center for
Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) regarding the issue of Peer-to-
Peer networks and the distribution of child pornography.
Let me first provide the Committee with some general background on
NCMEC and why we are so concerned about this issue. NCMEC is a not-for-
profit corporation, mandated by Congress and working in partnership
with the U.S. Department of Justice as the national resource center and
clearinghouse on missing and exploited children. NCMEC is a true
public-private partnership, funded in part by Congress and in part by
the private sector. NCMEC's federal funding supports specific
operational functions mandated by Congress, including a national 24-
hour toll-free hotline; a photo distribution system to generate leads
regarding missing children; a system of case management and technical
assistance to law enforcement and families in the search for and
recovery of missing children; training programs for federal, state and
local law enforcement; and much more.
While we are perhaps best known for our work in the field of
missing children, NCMEC is also a leader in the battle against child
sexual exploitation and has become the epicenter of the war against
child pornography. How did we become such a central figure in the child
pornography battle?
The Child Porn Tipline was launched in June 1987 as a service for the
U.S. Customs Service and subsequently for the U.S. Postal
Inspection Service. In partnership with the U.S. Customs
Service and U.S.P.I.S., NCMEC has received and processed 11,000
such leads.
In 1994, months before the nation or the news media viewed online
victimization as a problem, NCMEC first printed the brochure,
``Child Safety on the Information Highway,'' a publication
discussing online child safety. Subsequently, a number of
children were lured away to meet adults they'd met online, and
suddenly online victimization became front-page news. Because
we were the only child advocacy group at the time with solid
tips on how to prevent online victimization, the news media and
families turned to NCMEC for help.
On January 31, 1997, in response to the increasing prevalence of
child sexual victimization, NCMEC officially opened its
Exploited Child Unit (ECU). The ECU is responsible for receipt,
processing, initial analysis and referral to law enforcement of
information regarding the sexual exploitation of a child.
In 1997 the Director of the FBI and I testified before the Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State and the
Judiciary. The committee asked how serious was the problem of
Internet-based child sexual exploitation. Director Freeh and I
agreed that it was a serious and growing problem that we were
just beginning to recognize and address, and that much more
needed to be done at the federal, state and local levels. As a
result of that hearing, Congress directed NCMEC to establish an
Internet-based, reporting mechanism for child pornography,
online enticement of children, child molestation, child
prostitution and child sex tourism. Congress also directed the
Justice Department to establish multi-jurisdictional Internet
Crimes Against Children Task Forces across the country.
On March 9, 1998 NCMEC launched its new CyberTipline,
www.cybertipline.com, the ``911 for the Internet,'' to serve as
the national online clearinghouse for investigative leads and
tips regarding child sexual exploitation. NCMEC's CyberTipline
is linked via server with the FBI, Homeland Security's Bureau
of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Postal
Inspection Service. Leads are received and reviewed by NCMEC's
analysts, who visit the reported sites, examine and evaluate
the content, use search tools to try to identify perpetrators,
and provide all lead information to the appropriate law
enforcement agency and investigator. The FBI, ICE and Postal
Inspection Service have ``real time'' access to the leads, and
all three agencies assign agents who work directly out of
NCMEC, and review reports. The U.S. Secret Service has assigned
three analysts who assist in the review and prioritization
process. The results: to date (through May 2, 2004), NCMEC has
received and processed 237,147 leads, 215,599 of which were
reports of child pornography, resulting in hundreds of arrests
and successful prosecutions.
In December 1999, Congress passed the Protection of Children from
Sexual Predators Act, mandating that Internet Service Providers
report child pornography on their sites to law enforcement,
subject to substantial fines for failure to report. Again,
Congress asked NCMEC if it could handle the reports through its
CyberTipline. NCMEC agreed. While the reporting mechanism is
being formalized, NCMEC has entered into agreements with 122
major ISPs, including industry leaders America Online and the
Microsoft Network, who are already reporting child pornography
on their sites voluntarily.
Currently, NCMEC receives and analyzes CyberTipline leads in seven
categories, the final category added as a result of passage of
the PROTECT Act in 2003:
possession, manufacture, and distribution of child pornography;
online enticement of children for sexual acts;
child prostitution;
child-sex tourism;
child sexual molestation (not in the fam)ly);
unsolicited obscene material se.t to a child; and
misleading domain names
Today, NCMEC is receiving hundreds of reports and tips re#arding
child pornography from across America and around the world each week,
and it is pursuing those leads agressively with the appropriate law
enforcement agencies. We are proud of the progress. Following the
Supreme Court's 1982 Ferber v. New York decision holding that child
pornography was not protected speech, child pornography disappeared
from the shelves of adult bookstores, the Customs Service launched an
aggressive effort to intercept it as it entered the country, and the
U.S. Postal Inspection Service cracked down on its distribution through
the mails. However, child pornography did not disappear, it went
underground.
That lasted until the advent of the Internet, when those for whom
child pornography was a way of life suddenly had a vehicle for
networking, trading and communicating with like-minded individuals with
virtual anonymity and little concern about apprehension. They could
trade images with like-minded individuals, and in some cases even abuse
children ``live,'' while others watched via the Internet.
However, in recent years law enforcement began to catch up, and
enforcement action came to the Internet. The FBI created its Innocent
Images Task Force. The Customs Service expanded its activities through
its Cyber Crimes Center. The Postal Inspection Service continued and
enhanced its strong attack on child pornography. The Congress has
funded forty Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces at the state
and local levels across the country. Child pornography prosecutions
have increased an average of 10% per year in every year since 1995. We
were making enormous progress.
On the subject of today's hearing, the trading of child pornography
via peer-to-peer networks, NCMEC's Cyber Tipline has received 2,100
reports. However, we are convinced that is in no way descriptive of the
real scope of the problem. Through anecdotal reports and conversations
with law enforcement officials across the country, it is clear to us
that thousands of individuals are trading child pornography via peer-
to-peer programs, and that the people utilizing this method of
distribution can be found in every state and in countries around the
world.
Peer-to-peer programs have made it more difficult to identify the
users. In the past we were able to easily identify offenders trading
child pornography using peer-to-peer programs because their Internet
Protocol (IP) addresses were visible and they were required to reveal
their email addresses. This is no longer the case. When we receive
reports to the CyberTipline, it is almost impossible to identify the
perpetrators responsible for trading the illegal files. The anonymity
of recent peer-to-peer technology has allowed individuals who exploit
children to trade images and movies featuring the sexual assault of
children with very little fear of detection.
Law enforcement agencies face numerous challenges including:
There is no central database of files nor organized network
There are no centrally-held logs on these systems to record activity
Most of the popular file-sharing programs are free so there is no
subscriber information available upon subpoena to determine the
user's true identity
These are dynamic systems where content and users change very
rapidly. This often requires law enforcement officers to be
online at the very moment the offense occurs.
Individuals from all over the world use these peer-to-peer programs.
While tracking users trading illegal content on peer-to-peer has
become increasingly difficult, it is not impossible. Savvy computer
users can use certain commands to attain an IP address of a user
sending a file. Also, several proactive law enforcement agencies have
begun to use secondary programs to identify the IP address of the
perpetrator sharing the illegal files.
However, these programs must be active at the exact moment of file
transfer. Depending on the particular peer-to-peer program, if a user
accidentally downloads an illegal file, there is no way for that user
to document where the file originated. Considering the massive amounts
of files being shared at any given moment, this anonymity provides a
cloak of security for those criminals trading images of children being
sexually abused.
It is quite likely that the extensive swapping of child pornography
images on peer-to-peer networks would be reduced if users knew that
recipients of the images/movies could easily attain their IP address.
At NCMEC we have had some success when we learn about child
pornography trading via peer-to-peer networks. Let me cite two recent
cases where there was a successful resolution from peer-to-peer
CyberTipline reports:
The CyberTipline received an anonymous complaint about a website in
which one could share media files using a peer-to-peer network.
The reporting person indicated that images of child pornography
were available on this site. NCMEC analysts found numerous
images of child pornography and determined that one of the
suspects posting and distributing child pornography was using
an IP address registered to the University of California. NCMEC
analysts contacted Campus Police. Because the images were found
on the peer-to-peer network, detectives were initially unable
to locate the images because the suspect was off-line. As a
result, analysts worked with a university detective and
assisted in locating the images.
Subsequently, university detectives, working with detectives from
the Santa Barbara Co. Sheriff's Department High-Tech Crime
Unit, were able to verify the existence and location of the
operation. A 21-year old suspect was identified and detectives
executed a search warrant at his apartment located off campus
and seized his computer. A forensic search of the computer
found numerous child pornography images. The suspect confessed
and the District Attorney's Office filed felony charges of
distributing child pornography.
NCMEC received a CyberTipline report indicating that a suspect was
offering child pornography through a peer-to-peer program. This
reporting person was highly skilled with computers and used
commands to document the IP address of the person trading the
child pornography images. Using detailed information provided
by the reporting person, ECU analysts determined that this IP
address originated in Kansas.
NCMEC contacted Kansas law enforcement officials and provided
documentation of the suspected illegal files being traded. The
police apprehended the suspect and charged him with 500 counts
of possession/distribution of child pornographic material,
sexual exploitation of a child, and indecent liberties with a
child. The suspect admitted to raping, sodomizing and sexually
abusing his own daughter.
It is unlikely this predator would have been arrested if a
concerned citizen hadn't known the steps to take when she
accidentally received one of his images. It is troublesome to
imagine the number of offenders who are not reported because
the average citizen does not know how to collect the necessary
information. Peer-to-peer program developers could make great
strides in protecting children if they allowed the software
programs to allow users to log the origination of files.
Mr. Chairman, I don't come before you today with a quick, easy
solution to this problem, but I can state unequivocally that
the problem of illegal child pornography has exploded with the
advent of the Internet and that the use of peer-to-peer
networks for the distribution of child pornography is growing
dramatically. Further, we suspect that it will continue to
increase as child pornographers search for lower risk avenues
where the possibility of being identified is far less.
Federal, state and local law enforcement are more aggressive than
ever before, but they must overcome significant barriers. I
hope that you can help us remove some of those barriers and
help us identify and prosecute those who are misusing the
Internet for insidious, criminal purposes. Too many child
pornographers feel that they have found a sanctuary, a place
where there is virtually no risk of identification or
apprehension.
In the area of peer-to-peer dissemination of child pornography, I
fear that we have only scratched the surface. Far more must be
done. NCMEC is willing and eager to play an even larger role in
addressing this problem.
Mr. Stearns. Thank you, Mr. Allen. Thank you for all that
you do.
Ms. Nance, welcome.
STATEMENT OF PENNY YOUNG NANCE
Ms. Nance. Thank you, gentleman and ladies, for convening
this hearing. It's very important. I appreciate it.
My name is Penny Nance, I'm the President of the Kids First
Coalition which is a nonprofit educational and advocacy group.
Mr. Stearns. Penny, I'm going to have you move it just a
little closer.
Ms. Nance. That I founded with the idea of protecting
children and families. I sit before you not only a pro-family
advocate, but also a mother of two small children and also as a
victim of attempted rape by someone who was deeply involved in
pornography.
I also represent Concerned Women for America Today who has
over 500,000 members across the country and I have with me the
Salvation Army, American Association of Christian Schools, it's
a broad group of pro-family people who really feel strongly
about this issue.
Most of you are probably unaware from May is Victim of
Pornography month and I guess it's sadly no more appropriate
than we discuss this issue at this time.
Today is the wild west of the Internet with an estimate by
Forbes Magazine of $1.5 billion in global sales per year. One
must understand exactly what defines hard core pornography and
obscenity that are on these kind of sites. It's not Playboy. It
encompasses depiction of bestiality, bondage, domination, gang
rape, urine and excrement, sexual murders, child sex and
torture. It's vile and it's hurtful. It is not loving and sexy.
And all of it is just a click away from our kids. We as parents
know instinctively that simply viewing pornography of any kind
can be damaging to children.
Illegal obscenity is overwhelming available on the internet
and a long with this vile image await large numbers of
disturbed individuals, huge strides in this area.
Thank you for allowing me to testify today.
[The prepared statement of Penny Nance follows:]
Prepared Statement of Penny Young Nance, President, Kids First
Coalition
Hello, my name is Penny Nance and I am the President of Kids First
Coalition, which is a non-profit educational and advocacy group I
founded with the goal of protecting children and advancing pro-family
legislation. I sit before you not only as a pro-family advocate but
also a very concerned mother of two young children and a victim of an
attempted rape that was connected to pornography. I am sincerely
passionate about this issue. Most of you probably are unaware but May
is ``Victims of Pornography Month'' and a sadly appropriate time to
discuss Internet safety.
Today is the wild west of the Internet with an estimate by Forbes
of $1.5 billion in global sales per year. One must understand what
exactly defines hard-core pornography or obscene material on the
Internet. It's not Playboy! It encompasses the depiction of bestiality,
bondage, domination, rape, gang rapes, urine and excrement, sexual
murders, child sex and torture. It is vile and hurtful, not sexy and
loving. And all of it is just one click away from our kids. We as
parents know instinctively that simply viewing pornography of any kind
can be damaging to children.
The 1986 Meese Commission on Pornography, and countless law
enforcement and behavioral scientists say there is a direct link
between pornography and sexual violence. My experience of attempted
rape by a strange man deeply involved in pornography confirms this
belief. A topic for another day is the undeniable connection between
pornography and violence against women and children.
Today, I am here to represent the members of my organization,
(mostly moms who have downgraded professional careers to raise kids) as
well as the countless parents in this country who seek to protect their
children from graphic sexual images on the Internet.
Although this hearing today is centered on peer-to-peer
pornography, Kids First Coalition is also concerned about all types of
Internet pornography and the safety of children. We have worked to
combat this pervasive problem in a number of areas including advocacy
for Truth in Domain names, tighter laws on porn spam, a ban of virtual
child porn and better enforcement of current law.
Kids First Coalition has worked closely with the Bush
administration and the Department of Justice to urge a reversal of the
Clinton Administration's policy to ignore obscenity crimes on the
internet. I am pleased to say that DoJ listened and is currently
actively prosecuting cases that four years ago would have gone
unnoticed. We urge each of you to support the President's Budget which
contains about $33 million and about $13.8 million in new funds to
specifically pay for law enforcement. The budget contains $14.5 million
for the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) program, which helps
state and local law enforcement agencies develop effective responses to
Internet child enticement and child pornography cases. It also contains
$3 million for the Innocent Images National Initiative, which will
support existing Innocent Images undercover operations and
investigations designed to ferret out child predators.
Illegal obscenity is overwhelmingly available on the internet. And,
along with these vile images await large numbers of disturbed
individuals seeking to prey on our children. Predators lurk in chat
rooms, instant messaging, websites and peer to peer sites. Today's
parents must be more vigilant in protecting the safety and innocence of
their children then ever before in our history.
Most children are not looking for pornography, but far too often
pornography is looking for them. Pornography will come uninvited and
unannounced into your home and will prevail upon your unsuspecting
children the moment you turn your back even for a second. The Kaiser
Family Foundation found that 70 percent of online youth between the
ages of 15-17 say they have stumbled across pornography online, and of
those exposed to such content, 49 percent were upset by the experience.
The study also found that young people agree: ``[Stumbling upon
pornography] is upsetting to many young people--especially young
girls--and most think it is a serious problem.''
The most common ways kids stumble into porn is by innocent searches
on computers without filter. Pornographers use misspelled search terms
to lure young people into their sites. The pornography industry was way
ahead of Joe Camel in working to addict customers at an early age.
Fortunately, most internet service providers are actively working
to provide both filters that shield kids from viewing explicit
materials and closed systems that would disallow kids to even enter
parts of the internet. Protectkids.com is a great resource for parents
to educate themselves on safety resources. Unfortunately, most
estimates show that about half of all family computers lack any safety
precautions.
And those parents that do utilize filters may still not be doing
enough to protect their kids. Peer to peer computer sites do not use a
central server so normal filtering will not keep kids out.
They are a source of serious concern to American parents. I've
spoken to hundreds of concerned parents around the country, and
conducted over fifty radio interviews on this subject, I have
discovered that peer-to-peer networks are a place where unsuspecting
kids can access pornography far too easily.
As a way of background, peer-to-peer networks are programs that
allow computer users to share electronic files with one another,
usually in the form of downloading free music or images. KaZaA is the
most popular site (with over 4 million users at any one time) but other
sites include Grokster, Morpheus, and Gnutella. While many parents
assume their children are downloading free, non-offensive music or
images on these networks, in actuality these children can be in direct
contact with child and adult pornography and sexual predators. A recent
GAO study said that kids searching with innocent keywords like Britney
Spears or Pokemon would find either graphic adult pornography or child
pornography 56% of the time. (This report is available on gao.gov,
report number GAO-03-351).
The owners of peer to peer sites like to say that only a fraction
of the child and adult porn available on the Internet exist on their
sites. This doesn't absolve them of the problem nor does it take into
account some factors that make peer to peer sites in some ways more
dangerous than the Internet overall. As one dad told me, ``On Google
you have to ask to see something. On Kazaa, you ask for Elmo and they
push porn at you . . .''
1) According to a GAO study, normally Internet users must actually
pay to view pornography (using a credit card), but peer-to-peer sites
are generally free.
2) since peer-to-peer files do not go through a center server, most
child-protection filters are ineffective and the filters on the peer-to
peer sites are flimsy and can be easily dismantled by computer-savvy
kids, and
3) Most importantly, these sites are considered hip and popular
places for kids to go and are therefore more heavily visited by
children. According to the GAO, 4 million people are on Kazaa alone at
any one time and 40% of those are kids. Therefore about 1.6 million
kids are on KaZaa at any one time and who knows about all the other
sites.
Pedophiles are not ignorant of this. What is more alarming is that
instant messaging is also available on these networks, which gives easy
access to child predators to communicate with unsuspecting children.
Pedophiles can pose as kids in order to begin a dialogue with children
on-line.
Let me walk you through a scenario that will help you to understand
what is happening in America numerous times every day. Jenny is a
spunky ten-year-old who is sitting in her mom's bedroom, typing on her
mother's lap-top computer with the intention of downloading the latest
song that her friends are singing in school. She goes onto a peer to
peer website and, in just a few seconds, several ``hits'' are received.
She double-clicks on the first one, and in an instant, she downloads a
virus that automatically downloads child pornography onto her computer
that saves it as a permanent screensaver! This is a true story that was
told to me by a caller on a radio show.
Here's another true story. A very intelligent dad, who is a former
judge with an M. Div and a Juris Doctorate shared with me that his
computer is down. I asked him why and he sheepishly said his kids had
been playing on a site called KaZaa and a virus ate his hard drive. I
thought he would faint when I informed him that the site contains often
mislabeled porn. He kept saying, ``I had no idea.''
David Wilson, professor of criminology at the University of Central
England in Birmingham, said: ``Peer-to-peer facilitates the most
extreme, aggressive and reprehensible types of behavior that the
Internet will allow.'' (Tuesday November 4, 2003--The Guardian)
I would like to close my testimony by stating, we know from volumes
of research that people who view child pornography often eventually act
out their fantasies and molest or rape children. We also know that
pedophiles usually share graphic porn with young children to break down
their modesty and resistance.
New technology is so valuable to us as a country, but with it comes
new challenges and responsibilities. I always tell parents that they
must be the first line of defense and remain vigilant against all
threats including dangers on the Internet. The family computer should
be kept in the family room where parents can intervene if a problem
occurs. Computers in homes, schools and libraries need to utilize
filters to block graphic images. Children should be kept from chat
rooms and instant messaging without direct parental supervision.
The companies profiting from the technology must also share in the
responsibility. Just as the ISPs are working to tighten its content and
shield kids so must the peer to peer systems take responsibility. The
FTC should use its authority to force companies to give parental
warnings and to screen viewers of pornography by requiring ID. We
should also make illegal the free teasers that pornographers use to
lure in viewers without ID
Last July our country was sickened by an AP story on the indictment
of twelve Suffolk, NY residents on charges of child pornography.
Apparently the pedophiles had been using Kazaa, a peer to peer file
sharing program, as a means to pass around vile images of their own or
someone else's rape of toddlers. Congress needs to answer with passage
of H.R. 2885, ``The Protecting Children from Peer to Peer Pornography
Act'' or P4 bill by Joe Pitts (R-PA). Thank you for allowing me to
testify before you today.
Mr. Stearns. I thank you.
Mr. Lafferty, you think you're all set? Welcome you for
your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF MARTIN C. LAFFERTY
Mr. Lafferty. The DCIA is a trade group founded last July
to commercially develop peer-to-peer file sharing for
legitimate purposes. Our charter calls for balanced membership
among content providers, software suppliers and platform
companies. We currently have 15 members and are actively
expanding.
The internet is of great value as a productivity tool,
enabling low cost conductivity, fast data transfers and a
highly efficient marketplace. But it is neutral as whether such
commerce may be legal or not.
Peer-to-peer file sharing, one of the internet's newest
advances, replaces costly and relatively slow centralized
servers with client software search engines that access other
PCs for both discovery and delivery of content. The
entertainment industries have generally failed to stay current
with technology. And in the absence of authorized mainstream
content, the internet so far as attracted a disproportionate
amount of pornography. Dissemination of criminally obscene
content, as well as legal adult material is facilitated by
internet browsers, search engines, e-mail, instant messaging,
websites, peer-to-peer software, chat rooms and news groups
used regularly by tens of millions of U.S. citizens.
And with an increasingly decentralized internet, users
themselves are frequently the sources of content and
distribution. Porn websites have increased by 17 times since
the year 2000, from 88,000 to 1,600,000 today. Thirty-four
million Americans visit them monthly. But reports of peer-to-
peer child pornography are down. From 2 percent in 2002 to 1.4
percent in 2003 with the vast majority of the remaining 98
percent coming from websites and chat rooms. And unlike
websites, there is no commercial child pornography on peer-to-
peer.
To demonstrate, leading file sharing software suppliers
provide tools enabling parents to protect their children to
exposure to undesirable content. Users can choose options to
block adult content which is a default setting, add more key
words to be blocked, prevent all video and images from being
downloaded and password protect their filter settings.
Use of these tools and monitoring of use by parents must
remain the primary means protecting children. The peer-to-peer
family filters set at the maximum levels, no files retrieved on
searches for terms like Britney, Pokeyman or Olson Twins will
contain pornography or child pornography. by contrast, MSN will
return nearly 9,000 Olson Twins porn results; Google, some
820,000 Pokeyman porn results; and Yahoo, 1,260,000 for Britney
porn.
Peer-to-peer companies have also worked proactively with
law enforcement to prosecute criminals, abusers of their
technology and on deterrence and education to further combat
child pornography. Companies distributing file sharing software
have responded to other issues identified by Congress with
steady improvements. Examples include the integration of
powerful anti-virus software and the implementation of default
settings to prevent inadvertent sharing of private data.
The DCIA is now working with the FTC and others to address
spyware. Leading peer-to-peer companies certify that their
programs are spyware free. They offer consumers a choice of
paid or ad supported versions. Their targeted ads collect no
personally identifiable information and up to 40 times more
efficient than traditional online ads.
But the real obstacle to realizing the potential of file
sharing is the refusal of major labels and movie studios to
license their content for legitimate paid distribution by peer-
to-peer and it is this which deserves to be examined by
Congress. At 50 million licensed files per month, DCIA members
alone are now the web's largest legal distributors of
copyrighted music, movies and games. This is accomplished
through agreements with small, independent suppliers while the
majors continue their boycott.
The entertainment industries lobby Congress with claims
that file sharing is perilous to children. At the same time,
these entities intentionally bombard them with shameful
material. But it cannot be supposed that major labels have
taken on partner and substance abuse, child abandonment,
robbery, date rape or homicide as social missions. The
entertainment industries' campaign to destroy peer-to-peer
companies and to strangle file sharing technology is based on
the assertion that they are suffering great economic harm
through copyright infringement by individuals and that is
simply not true.
Their emphasis on peer to peer pornography is unreflective
of the much larger amount transmitted by e-mail and instant
messaging, not to mention far greater risk of obscenity on
websites and predatory dangerous in chat rooms and it is so
dismissive of peer-to-peer suppliers' efforts to work with law
enforcement and provide parental controls that takes on the
character of a red herring.
Both copyright infringement and exposure of children to
pornography are real problems and we condemn them, but how much
more beneficial for all parties it would be if Congress adopted
an alternative such as rights holders who wish to monetize
digital distribution of their copyrighted works, must provide
nondiscriminatory terms and conditions for all media.
Once the carrot of licensed content distribution can be
offered, then the stick of enforcement focused where it should
be on creators and disseminators of illegal material to be
revisited.
Thank you. I'll be glad to answer your questions.
[The prepared statement of Martin C. Lafferty follows:]
Prepared Statement of Martin C. Lafferty, CEO, Distributed Computing
Industry Association (DCIA)
Chairman Stearns and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify at this hearing. The Distributed Computing
Industry Association (DCIA) is a trade organization, established in
July 2003, for the purpose of commercially developing peer-to-peer file
sharing and more advanced distributed computing applications for
legitimate purposes. Our charter calls for representative membership
among content providers, software suppliers, and platform companies. We
currently have fifteen (15) members (listed alphabetically with links
to their websites on the Join page at www.dcia.info) and are actively
recruiting to expand our balanced and solutions-focused membership.
(1) The Internet is of immense value to society, particularly
through its evolving and increasingly varied and decentralized usage as
a tool for productivity, enabling exponentially faster and lower-cost
means for connecting individuals globally, facilitating the exchange of
all types of data, and creating a radically more efficient marketplace
for commercial transactions. As with prior great communications
inventions, Internet technology is neutral--facilitating communication
without regard to whether content, or a transaction itself, may be
deemed legal or illegal. Peer-to-peer file sharing, one of the newest
advances of the Internet, is accomplished by client software search
engines, returning queries from file directories, replacing costly and
relatively slow centralized servers for both discovery and delivery of
content, with an infinitely scalable number of participating PCs.
(2) Some content rights holders in the entertainment industries
have failed to stay current with technology advancements, and not taken
reasonable precautions to protect their products from unauthorized
copying and online redistribution. They have confused the public by
selectively enforcing their rights, and have boycotted prospective and
willing new distributors rather than licensing them. In the absence of
their broadly authorizing mainstream content online and labeling it to
protect users from inadvertent exposure to inappropriate material, as
in offline media, the Internet overall has attracted a disproportionate
amount of pornographic content, and adequate safeguards to consumers
are for the most part not yet being provided.
(3) Many computer users believe that the content they encounter on
the Internet has been licensed and authorized as in other media that
they routinely use such as television, radio, online subscription
services, and various recording and playback devices. In Congressional
hearings, computer users who have been sued by the record industry for
alleged copyright infringement associated with online music
redistribution, for example, have testified that they felt abused,
prompting at least one US parent to sue the RIAA under RICO laws.
Pornography on the Internet was initially limited by low bandwidth and
limited sources. Those restrictions disappeared as modem speeds
increased, broadband services proliferated, and pornography websites
and chat-rooms multiplied. It has been challenging for Congress to
balance consumer protection from undesired exposure with First
Amendment rights issues. Credit-card routines intended to keep under-
age users from accessing commercial pornography, for instance, have
unfortunately proven easy to circumvent.
(4) More broadly, the dissemination of pornography, ranging from
legal adult material to criminally obscene content, including the most
pernicious category of child pornography, is facilitated online by such
increasingly sophisticated electronic means as Internet browsers,
search engines, e-mail, instant messaging, websites, peer-to-peer
software, chat-rooms, and news groups, which technologies are now used
regularly by tens of millions of US citizens.
(5) Such trafficking in pornography creates new challenges for
content rights holders, computer manufacturers, software developers,
and Internet service providers, to help protect minors from inadvertent
exposure to such material online, and to educate the public, deter
potential abusers, and enforce laws against dissemination of illegal
material.
(6) In light of these considerations, responsible content providers
and legitimate technology companies have an increasing opportunity to
collaborate to protect consumers from inadvertent exposure to
undesirable and illegal content, through appropriate and applicable
technical solutions, business practices, and educational programs. All
stakeholders should be encouraged to explore such measures in good
faith as well as adopting business models for legitimate content to be
digitally distributed.
(7) With the increasingly decentralized topology of the Internet,
users themselves, including consumers of pornography, now serve
frequently as the sources of content being entered into distribution,
as well as being the recipients of it. Therefore, unfortunately, it is
not remarkable that pornography is being distributed through many
online technologies. As this activity has grown, it has become more
difficult to obtain accurate data as to exact quantities and the
precise nature of such content. Nevertheless, the following studies and
reports demonstrate salient facts regarding such pornography on the
Internet:
(A) April 2004 reports from Websense, Nilesen/NetRatings,
BigChampagne, and WebSpins indicate that pornography websites
have increased seventeen-fold (17X) from eighty-eight thousand
(88,000) in 2000 to nearly one-million six-hundred thousand
(1,600,000) today; thirty-four million (34,000,000) people or
about one-in-four US Internet users visit them monthly, and
thirty-seven percent (37%) have visited a porn-site at work;
approximately four and one-half percent (4.5%) of downloaded
peer-to-peer content is pornographic images, while
approximately nineteen and three-tenths of a percent (19.3%) is
pornographic videos.
(B) A November 2003 supplemental report from the General
Accounting Office (GAO) to the Senate Judiciary Committee
stated that the risks of inadvertent exposure to pornographic
content using peer-to-peer file-sharing software are no greater
than those posed by other uses of the Internet (such as
browsers, e-mail applications, instant messaging, websites,
chat-rooms, news groups, or commercial search engines). Some
840 instances of reported child pornography were attributed to
peer-to-peer software usage out of a 62,000 yearly total.
45,035 were on the Web, 12,043 were by e-mail, and 1,128 were
on Usenet bulletin boards.
(C) According to the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children (NCMEC), reported child pornography on peer-
to-peer was down from 2% in 2002 to 1.4% in 2003, with the vast
majority of the remaining 98%+ coming from websites and chat-
rooms.
(D) Further, as confirmed by DCIA member reports, unlike
websites, there is no commercial child pornography distributed
by means of peer-to-peer applications.
(8) Thus, while the use of file sharing software for the
distribution of pornography is regrettable, it is less of a problem
than activity in many other online environments. Finally, the leading
file-sharing software suppliers provide tools enabling parents to
protect their children from exposure to undesirable content. Users can
choose options to block adult content, which is the default setting,
add more keywords to be blocked, prevent all video and images from
being downloaded, and password-protect their filter settings. While
parental controls designed for search engines and other Internet
applications, or distributed as stand-alone programs, may not
automatically work with peer-to-peer software applications, the
customized filtering solutions that have been incorporated in the
leading file-sharing software programs are unexcelled in the levels of
protection they provide and are setting the standard. Use of these
tools and monitoring of use by parents and custodians must remain the
primary protection of children from inappropriate Internet content.
(9) Beyond the provision of parental control tools, leading peer-
to-peer software companies have also worked cooperatively and
proactively with law enforcement agencies on programs to facilitate
prosecution of abusers of their technology, who attempt to distribute
criminally obscene content. It should soon become apparent to
distributors of such material that sharing it via peer-to-peer public
folders is the best way to expose themselves to identification and
prosecution. Leading peer-to-peer software companies are also working
voluntarily on deterrence and education programs to further combat
child pornography before enforcement actions are necessary. The DCIA,
for example, is focusing its resources on a collaborative program to
enable peer-to-peer users to recognize, report, and remove criminally
obscene content from their computers.
(10) While no amount of child pornography can be tolerated, the
charge made by entertainment interests that peer-to-peer software
exposes even children conducting unfiltered searches to a greater
amount of pornography than those using an unfiltered Internet search
engine is unsupported by evidence. Furthermore, in contradiction to
these disingenuous allegations, using family filters included with
leading peer-to-peer software applications set at the maximum level, in
direct refutation of specific entertainment industry allegations, no
files retrieved on searches for popular terms like ``Britney'',
``Pokemon'', and ``Olsen Twins,'' will contain pornography, child
pornography, or child erotica. By contrast, searching on these same
terms using unfiltered search engines will yield many thousands of
pornographic and criminally obscene results.
(11) Entertainment industry comparisons of relative growth of
pornographic files are also misleading. Their cited peer-to-peer
figures typically correspond to the period of greatest growth in the
consumer adoption of peer-to-peer software and actually represent a
more than fifty percent (50%) reduction in the complaint-to-user ratio.
By contrast, websites, chat-rooms, news groups and bulletin boards,
already well established and relatively mature, represented more than
ninety-seven percent (97%) of reported incidents in this period. The
record demonstrates that these issues have been and are being
addressed, despite the greater challenges posed by a decentralized,
user-generated file-sharing environment, resulting in a user experience
comparable to, if not better than, that of surfing the Internet
generally. While this concludes comments on the specific subject of
this hearing, the following addresses other issues raised by the
Subcommittee.
(12) The innovative companies developing and distributing publicly
accessible file-sharing software have also responded to other issues
identified by Congress and through self-regulatory processes by making
steady improvements. Additional relevant examples of their commendable
track record include the integration of strong anti-virus software with
peer-to-peer file sharing applications, and the implementation of
default settings and procedures to prevent inadvertent sharing of
private or confidential data. Users can flexibly select the frequency
of updating virus definitions; leading peer-to-peer companies promptly
alert users of known attacks; and protected users help shield other
users of file-sharing applications. With respect to safeguarding
private information, current leading peer-to-peer software requires
users to take multiple affirmative steps in order to share files that
may include personal data. Peer-to-peer software suppliers have
affirmed their commitment to further reduce risks and enhance both the
safety and value of the user experience on behalf of their consumers
and the public at large.
(13) The DCIA is currently addressing spyware/adware, in part by
working with two DCIA member companies in the Center for Democracy &
Technology (CDT) led Consumer Software Working Group (CSWG) since its
inception. The DCIA also testified at the Federal Trade Commission's
workshop in April 2004. At this event, it was made a matter of public
record that leading peer-to-peer file-sharing suppliers, in addition to
integrating powerful anti-virus software, now also certify that their
programs are spyware-free. In addition, these suppliers offer consumers
a choice of paid or ad-supported versions of their programs, with no
pop-up ads appearing in the paid versions. Targeted advertising in the
ad-supported versions collects no personally identifiable information,
provides clear attribution as to its source, and is up to 40 times more
efficient than traditional online advertising, meaning far fewer
intrusions for users. Notifications are provided to consumers pre-
installation, at download, and during operation; and the uninstallation
of peer-to-peer programs, along with any associated advertising
software, follows the same standard add/remove procedure as other
legitimate applications. The DCIA readily acknowledges that more needs
to be done to achieve its goal of establishing best practices in this
area, and welcomes the opportunity to also coordinate with Congress on
this issue.
(14) As noted earlier, however, the real obstacle to realization of
the full potential of peer-to-peer technology is the refusal of key
content owners to license their content for legitimate, paid
distribution via peer-to-peer file sharing. In this regard, the DCIA
commends the Subcommittee for scheduling a hearing on HR 107 ``The
Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act'' on May 12, 2004, in contrast to
the Judiciary IP Subcommittee's introduction and reporting in a single
day, with no hearing, of HR 4077, a measure that could criminalize
millions of young Americans, given its vague negligence standards, for
merely storing digital music on a networked device. The entertainment
industries' strategy is to combine their refusal to license content
with their aggressive attempt to demonize peer-to-peer technology, in
an attempt to crush what they erroneously view as a threat to their
interests. This is the same time-dishonored strategy they tried in the
futile fight against photocopiers, video recorders, and many other
innovations that have brought great benefits both to consumers and to
the companies that at first opposed them. And it is this which deserves
to be the subject of Congressional investigation.
(15) DCIA members alone represent, with an average of 50 million
licensed files now distributed monthly, the largest form of
distribution of legally traded copyrighted music, movies, software, and
video games on the Internet. This is accomplished primarily through
agreements with small independent content suppliers, while the major
studios and music labels continue their boycott of peer-to-peer.
Nevertheless, licensed content distribution continues steadily to
increase via peer-to-peer software programs. The challenges presented
by digital content are indeed multifaceted, and no single response is
sufficient. But among the different solutions that have been tried by
the major music and movie rights holders, the most glaring omission is
the most obvious one--providing consumers with legitimate choices in
each digital medium, including peer-to-peer.
(16) However, the continuing failure of the major labels and movie
studios to license the peer-to-peer distribution channel exposes these
users to potential lawsuits from the record industry for copyright
infringement. This is the only unique threat that users of these
applications face, and Congress should urge major labels and movie
studios to swiftly license their content for all digital media,
including peer-to-peer, in furtherance of the public interest.
(17) The full potential of peer-to-peer technology to benefit
consumers has yet to be realized, and will not be achieved until
content rights holders license their copyrighted works on a non-
discriminatory basis for legitimate distribution by means of file-
sharing applications. The ongoing boycott by major music labels and
movie studios poses an increasingly serious threat, causing substantial
damage to consumers, who are being harassed and threatened
unnecessarily with lawsuits; to their shareholders, to whom they are
denying a promising new revenue stream; and to content creators,
particularly the independent labels and filmmakers seeking to monetize
their copyrighted works using peer-to-peer distribution channels. The
widespread availability of unprotected content from the majors severely
disadvantages the independents from competing to sell their products
using this most advanced and cost-effective distribution method.
(18) The companies that develop and distribute peer-to-peer file-
sharing software have made energetic efforts to license content from
the major labels and movies studios, but have been consistently
rebuffed, in what may constitute a collusive refusal to deal. Related
to this, a technical amendment to HR 1417, providing a blanket anti-
trust exemption for music in all digital media, was passed without
hearing, resulting in a thousand-fold windfall benefit to record
labels.
(19) The current legitimate digital music marketplace is inadequate
to properly serve consumers. Pricing at now licensed online music
stores, for example, is maintained at artificially high levels so as
not to compete with offline CD sales through an entrenched distribution
infrastructure. Online store technology represents an older generation,
less efficient centralized architecture. The quantity and quality of
digital files made available for online sale are kept low so as not to
be competitive with CD sales. Comparatively few users access these
stores and fewer purchase files from them. The legitimate digital music
marketplace needs to be expanded to encompass current and future
technologies, including not only the latest Internet-based application,
peer-to-peer file sharing, but also future technologies, with the
requirement that music rights holders, and copyright holders generally,
who wish to monetize their content in the digital realm, license it on
non-discriminatory terms for all digital media.
(20) Returning to the subject of this hearing, the entertainment
industries are lobbying Congress with claims that file sharing is
perilous to children and that peer-to-peer companies, though they have
no control over user actions, should be responsible for the content of
files some users independently share. At the same time, these entities
intentionally and continuously bombard impressionable children and
youth with shameful material. Major labels peddle hate-filled and
reprehensible lyrics condoning, even promoting, criminal conduct, from
drug trafficking and matricide to rape and theft. By their actions,
these companies demonstrate they are motivated by a determination to
protect their revenues and not by any tenderness for the young. Their
conduct goes beyond unclean hands to a pernicious business model that
should be reviewed by Congress as part of its media indecency
initiative. Can it be that to incentivize the creation of a wide range
of responsible entertainment we must at the same time make wealthy
those bloodless cynics who shamelessly trade children's innocence for
money and who undermine values such as faithfulness, work, sacrifice,
selflessness, tolerance and self-discipline? Is this what the framers
of the Constitution had in mind when they authorized the creation of
copyright laws?
(21) There can be no doubt that the ultimate motivation for such
works is money. It cannot be supposed that any artist or corporate
official has taken on partner abuse, child abandonment, robbery, date-
rape, homicide, or revenge as social missions that they would pursue
absent the lure of dollars. Yes, such expressions are protected under
the First Amendment, but where is the policy that says we must also
facilitate the enrichment of their creators and promoters by imposing
draconian measures on the citizenry? While this last line of argument
takes us beyond the parameters of this hearing, the astonishing
hypocrisy of the entertainment industries in this regard had to be
pointed out.
(22) A primary reason the DCIA has felt compelled to comment at
such length is that the entertainment industries' ongoing campaign to
destroy the peer-to-peer software companies and to strangle file-
sharing technology has gone largely unanswered. It is based upon the
unproven assertion that labels and studios are suffering great economic
damage through the copyright infringement of individual users. The
DCIA's mission is to develop and promote the legitimate uses of P2P
functionality, and to help foster business models that make partners,
rather than litigants, of content owners, technology companies,
Internet service providers, peer-to-peer software companies, and
consumers.
(23) The entertainment industries' continuing emphasis on peer-to-
peer pornography is unreflective of the much greater relative presence
of pornography on the Web, and of the much greater ease of transmitting
pornography via e-mail and instant messaging attachments, not to
mention the far greater risks of criminally obscene content available
on websites, and of predatory dangers in chat-rooms. And it is so
dismissive of peer-to-peer providers' efforts to work with law
enforcement and to incorporate parental control software into their
products that it starts to take on the character of a red herring. The
inaccurate pornography charge too, is one of the pillars of the
entertainment companies' platform for destroying the nascent
distributed computing industry, oblivious to the damage wrought by
their own intentional and shameful role.
(24) Both copyright infringement and exposure of children to
pornography are real problems, and we condemn them. However, we also
encourage Congress to consider the possibility that the entertainment
industries' ceaseless chant of piracy, and their unbalanced and
diversionary claim of pornography, are not such issues as demand an
inexorable tightening of the legislative screws on millions of
Americans, young and old, by an angry Congress on behalf of unworthy
supplicants. Instead, we commend to you the idea that these campaigns,
on which so much money and so many words have been spent, are excuses
that serve the purpose of shielding poor management from investor
scrutiny, and of substituting for a lack of strategic business vision
and for a lack of artistic creativity, and for an inability to learn
from the lessons of the past regarding the development of earlier media
distribution technologies.
(25) How much more beneficial and constructive it would be for the
United States and all of its citizens, and for the entertainment
companies themselves and their shareholders, if as the next step in
development of the new and rapidly changing decentralized digital
distribution marketplace, Congress were to adopt an alternative along
these lines: ``To be effective on the date of initial publishing of a
copyrighted work, any rights holder who wishes to monetize the digital
redistribution of such work on the Internet and otherwise, shall be
required to provide in advance terms and conditions on a non-
discriminatory wholesale basis to all distributors, including software
suppliers and individuals, who may wish to engage in such
redistribution.'' Once the law has been modified in such a way to
ensure that the ``carrot'' of legitimate licensed content
redistribution can be supported given the realities of technical
advancements now affecting the topology of the Internet itself, then
the ``stick'' of enforcement could reasonably be revisited, with more
appropriate requirements for commercial parties who may then be
expected to bear increased responsibilities for protecting the new
forms of commerce so enabled. These would logically include appropriate
labeling and warnings for adult content, actions to combat criminally
obscene content, and other measures to fully legitimize online
entertainment distribution.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony. We would
be pleased to answer your questions and arrange a peer-to-peer
technology demonstration at your convenience.
Mr. Stearns. I thank you. Well, I think we have a classic
debate here between the P2P, peer-to-peer here saying that it's
a neutral technology and has great worth and we're not sure
that some of the solutions perhaps that have been offered in
the Pitts Bill are practical, isn't that what you're saying,
Mr. Lafferty? You're saying that the Pitts Bill is not
something that you support?
Mr. Lafferty. Well, we've worked with----
Mr. Stearns. Yes or no, would you support the passage of
his bill?
Mr. Lafferty. We'd like to work with them on it more so. In
its current form, we can't support it.
Mr. Stearns. You could not support it in its current form.
Mr. Lafferty. I'd like to explain.
Mr. Stearns. Let me ask you this, though, you can put
filters on it, but can the filters actually look into the
content of a file? I mean I can put the filters on all day
long, but if I'm--if the server, the IP is--he can put a name
and that name comes in and then bingo, you've got pornography,
child pornography. So the filters really don't work in the
sense that they can't detect what's actually the image or the
graphics or what's inside. Isn't that true that the content
can't be detected through a filter?
Mr. Lafferty. Correct. These are key word filters. The
parents can add their own key words as they discover content
that's problematic to block out both the title of the file and
the metadata that goes to describe the file. So the best
solution right now is for parents of young children to use the
block all video and images mode where everything is blocked.
Mr. Stearns. So all images would have to be blocked to make
the filter work right.
Mr. Lafferty. Which it does have.
Mr. Stearns. Mr. Dunkel, you at the University of Florida
now had this peer-to-peer in all the dorms. The University of
Florida has 46,000 students and you can imagine before you got
involved with the program you had all this pornography and
movies and everything going and you found it so disruptive, as
you told me, that it slowed down the whole system because
everybody was downloading all the time. So you put in your
software and I guess the obvious question would be would the
software that you use be effective for the family? Maybe you
can talk about that you and your associate on how that would
work for a family and should this be a software program that
they can buy and how would it actually prevent the content and
give a filter--how did you do it so that you just blocked all
video, is that the way you did it?
Mr. Bird. What we chose to do was we chose to prohibit the
mass distribution of content from individual machines. We felt
that that was an appropriate use.
Mr. Stearns. What does that mean, the mass distribution of
content?
Mr. Bird. Well, many years ago, in fact, about seven years
ago, we created policy that said we're not going to allow
servers to run in our residence halls and that essentially
means is at that time we were facing a problem of commercial
abuse of our resources in the residence halls. So as an
extension of that, we noticed that there was rampant abuse of
these peer-to-peer applications for one person's ability to
distribute content to millions of other folks. And what we
found is that the connections are so significantly faster than
your average home broadband user that actually residential
users on college campuses have tremendous opportunity to
distribute in a way that even your best home user cannot.
What we chose to do was we chose to stop the distribution
of essentially all files by those mechanisms, so we stopped
websites, we stopped peer-to-peer applications, we stopped a
large number of things and redirected the residents to
appropriate resources for their needs.
Mr. Stearns. So you just put up a wall?
Mr. Bird. We basically put up a wall, but that wall is very
difficult to maintain without an application like this.
Mr. Stearns. And I don't know if that would be a practical
application. I guess it could be for a family if young
children, but that wall also prevents peer-to-peer for music if
a student wanted to download music or a video, for legitimate
concerns.
Mr. Bird. Correct. The one thing that we found is that the
wall that we have in place at the University of Florida is not
specific to ICARUS, so the application itself can be used in a
variety of different ways. It's not specifically a block all or
nothing sort of scenario. It could easily be customized for
home use and in fact, the version that we're working on
presently does just that.
Mr. Stearns. That seems to me the key that if you had a
software that's not either or that it could still have the
nuance to allow legitimate--
Mr. Bird. Correct.
Mr. Stearns. I guess the real key would be to be able to
actually survey the content. You could have a filter that says
okay, based upon name, but once a name came up and allowed it
in, it actually looked at the content. Now I don't know how you
technologically, that's not available yet where you can
actually survey the content of these downloaded programs.
Mr. Bird. It would be possible to build a variety of
databases that might cover certain file formats, for example,
that's been done in the copyrighted music industry. Certain
commercial companies have built databases that will detect the
transmission of copyrighted materials explicitly, but it
essentially is impossible to monitor and block explicitly on
content because content can be compressed, it can be encrypted
and there's no way to actually analyze that.
Mr. Stearns. Well, my time has expired, but I would say to
Mr. Allen, I guess a hopeful sign would be if the University of
Florida can detect and prevent peer-to-peer in a negative way,
and ISPs are required by law to report any child pornography on
its sites, perhaps two of these processes could come together
to help you, wouldn't you think?
Mr. Allen. Mr. Chairman, I think it would be enormously
helpful and let me thank you and the Members of the Committee.
The fact that Congress mandated in 1999 in the Protection of
Children From Sexual Predators Act that ISPs have to report
child pornography on their sites to law enforcement. Through
our CyberTipline at the National Center has produced hundreds
of prosecutions and arrests and is generating thousands of
leads. So I think the combination of technology and we're very
much in support of filters and other technologies. Ms. Nance
pointed out most parents still don't use them. But I think it's
a great tool. It's just not a panacea. Enforcement has to be a
key element to the equation.
Mr. Stearns. Thank you. My time has expired. Ranking
Member?
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Lafferty, a
few moments ago you noted that you couldn't support the Pitts
Bill in its current form and I wondered if you just take a
minute to explain what legislation you could or what changes
you feel need to be made.
Mr. Lafferty. We welcome the opportunity to work with
Congressman Pitts' staff on those issues. A couple of points,
one is that that bill seemed to say in its subtitle, it singled
out peer-to-peer, the subtitle was to ban peer-to-peer. So of
course, that's a problem for us.
When we talked about the real intent of the bill which is
to protect children, given that there's so much more of child
pornography and obscene content on websites and chat rooms, we
felt strongly that that bill should be broadened to cover other
instances of child pornography and criminally obscene content
on other parts of the internet. And there's some technical
questions about the notion of a beacon which the bill contains.
So we think the way to go is to continue on the path of
developing more and more powerful family filters as we've been
discussing this morning and apply it to the internet as a
whole. And we would welcome the chance to work more on a bill
to protect children from pornography on the internet.
Ms. Schakowsky. You also had a different interpretation of
what was available on the internet. And that the Google
searches that you were talking about produced a good deal of
pornography. Was the filter in place when you did that? How
come there's such a discrepancy between what Ms. Nance found
and what you found, Mr. Lafferty?
Mr. Lafferty. The commercial search engines generally don't
provide a filter, so it's a third party filter like the
NetNanny that could be added as separate software, where as the
P2Ps actually integrate a family filter into their software
that downloads it into default position. I didn't do that
search. I can't comment. We did the one that we did and we
compared using the family filter integrated with Kazaa with
just a straight search on Google, Yahoo and MSN and those were
the results.
Ms. Schakowsky. Ms. Nance, you said that a filter was in
place when you did the Cinderella search.
Ms. Nance. It was in place and it was the adult filter that
Kazaa provides, but I want to say even if parents were able to
think of all the possible search terms that some person could
possibly some twisted person could come up with to try to snare
in kids, if I could think of all of those and I could passport
it and I could put it on there, the only thing that happens is
that the kid put in the password is a popup dialogue box that
says would you like to disable the filter and it's a yes or no.
Or, if you've got a savvy, curious 13-year-old that gets on
there and it popups and says or he can't get into what he
wants, all he has to do is redownload Kazaa or one of these
sites and in two minutes he's back in business without any kind
of filter at all.
Ms. Schakowsky. Mr. Catlett, you were suggesting all these
really wonderful uses of the P2P network. What would happen to
those if, as written, the legislation were to pass?
Mr. Catlett. I'm frankly not sure that the applications
that I showed would be impacted by this bill. I'm not a
lawmaker, and so I may not be reading it correctly, but so I'm
not sure my applications that I showed would be impacted, but I
think it's possible depending on the implementation of the bill
that--I'll give you an example, the bill describes peer-to-peer
software in a way that, as I said, includes instant messaging
and other things on my computer.
It has an exclusion for operating system software like the
McIntosh operating system I run here or Windows on this
machine, as I read it. And that would make me a little bit
nervous because if we exempt the operating system then a large
company that provides an operating system could build new
technology into their operating system under a different set of
rules than a small company developing software whether it's
peer-to-peer or something else.
I look at that bill and I read the bill and I just
absolutely am thrilled that you are taking this one and I see
some very good ideas in there and I think with the turn of a
crank, with collaboration with some software companies that it
could be a reasonably good bill.
Ms. Schakowsky. So that even those of you who oppose the--
who have some problems anyway with the legislation as written,
feel that technologically we can address adequately the
situation of children getting access to this pornography?
Mr. Catlett. If I can answer, I think one of the things
that we're seeing here is peer-to-peer technology is very new
compared to web searches and it doesn't have the jump. Web
searches have been around for 10 years. Ten years ago when my
16-year-old daughter was in second grade I had her whole
classroom come in to where I worked at the time at the
University of Illinois and I wanted to use our classroom there
was internet connected to do a scavenger hunt to show the kids
the internet. The night before I typed into one of the search
sites ``Barbie'' and I forgot to put the E on the end and I got
a different kind of Barbie that I thought I was going to get.
So I worked the whole curriculum to constrict what the kids
were able to search for the next day when they did that.
I wouldn't have to do that today the way I did before, but
I would if I were using peer-to-peer technology say a year ago.
I'm not sure what's happening lately with peer-to-peer
technology, but it does change a lot in a short amount of time.
I also did extensive research last week in that I asked my
16-year-old how this works for her. I said how often is it that
you are using Kazaa and she like to downtown television shows
that she missed and things like that. How often do you get
inappropriate content when you search? She said well, at first
I saw some inappropriate things maybe last year, but I've built
up my filters to the point where I never get inappropriate
things any more with one exception, she said, there was one
time she downloaded what was supposed to be a sitcom, a Friends
show or something like that and it was actually something else
and she figured out from the title when the movie started that
it wasn't the kind of the thing--so it's not full proof, but
it's come a long way and that's what I said earlier. Harnessing
the innovation and technology in the software field to address
this problem I think is really a good approach. And also the
idea--so my 8-year-old can pick up a snack and he says Dad,
this has a lot of fat in it because he understands these simple
labels. What I wish my 8-year-old could download software and
say hey, Dad, I think this software has some privacy issues,
maybe we shouldn't install it. So simple labels and
notification would be tremendous and not just for this
software, but all software.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
Mr. Stearns. The gentlelady's time has expired. The
gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Pitts.
Mr. Pitts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you to the
witnesses for your testimony.
Mr. Catlett, first of all, I appreciate your comments on
our Bill, H.R. 2885, in your written testimony. In your opinion
is it technologically possible to develop a do not install
beacon?
Mr. Catlett. I think it is. I read that part of the bill
and I was intrigued by that idea. Depending on how it's
implemented, it just simply has an impact on the software
engineering costs and support costs of companies that are doing
software and operating systems. And so is it technically
possible, certainly. Depending on how it's implemented, it
could be either very easy or it could be very onerous for
software developers.
Mr. Pitts. You expressed concerns about how peer-to-peer is
defined. Would you be able to provide us in writing your
recommended revisions to the definition? I'd like to work with
you to ensure that the definition is not so broad as to have
unintended consequences for legitimate peer-to-peer uses.
Mr. Catlett. Certainly, I'd be happy to try to look at that
and even engage some of my colleagues. One of the things about
that is it's very difficult to precisely define software, but
I'm not if it's impossible or not, but it's very difficult. I
made my comments because I would like to help, yes.
Mr. Pitts. Thank you. Mr. Lafferty, in your testimony you
mentioned the music industry, they should also be held
accountable. I know that the music industry has to go before
the FTC for the approval on their content. Do peer-to-peer
distributors go before the FTC for the content they distribute?
Mr. Lafferty. The peer-to-peer software does not distribute
content. It's a technology. The content is put there by the
consumers. We appeared on the FTC panel on spyware. We're
working closely with the FTC on that issue and expect to
continue to work on that to establish industry best practices
that will be acceptable to society.
Mr. Pitts. Now you mention in your written testimony that
there 840 instances of reported child pornography that were
attributed to peer-to-peer software usage. Have your member
groups acted proactively to make sure pornographic material is
not on their network? If so, what steps have you taken to
proactively help law enforcement?
Mr. Lafferty. We've been working with the FBI for a number
of months and not to step on anything, covert operations that
can't be disclosed, it should be apparent to all that P2P is
the dumbest place to put illegal materials like standing in the
middle of a town square and saying look at me, I have something
illegal. You will get caught and quickly and prosecuted. So
we're very pleased with that aspect of it.
We're also working with them on deterrence and education
programs to help users recognize, remove and report criminally
obscene content and using new technology that's not the keyword
filter, but a collaborative filtering approach to be able to
cleanse the P2P services from objectionable content with the
users engaged in doing so.
Mr. Pitts. You mentioned users again choose options to
block adult content which is the default setting. How does the
adult filter work? The filter works by blocking search terms,
right, not actual files based on content. And, what search
terms trigger the adult filter on Kazaa?
Mr. Lafferty. And it is a bit of a blunt instrument at this
point. Yes, it's a very new industry. We're less than 10 months
old, not to make excuses, because no amount of child
pornography is acceptable, but it works in two modes. You can
enter key words that are in the title of the file, put there by
the individual who distributed that file and the metadata that
describes the file. So if there are adult words in that, it
will block it out.
The second mode which is what I recommend for parents with
young children, it blocks all images, blocks all video. So
really two modes, blocking words up to a certain point and then
stronger mode, maximum level to block all video and images to
fully protect children.
Mr. Pitts. If you search by a term that does not trigger
the adult filter, such as baseball. Does the filter block
pornographic material?
Mr. Lafferty. Only if the metadata had some reference in it
that would trigger that adult level or if the parent had added
the word baseball to block that. Again, it's a keyword filter.
It has limitations. I think it's been developed as far as it
can be to be as effective as it is, which is why the separate
higher level of blocking all video images is also provided.
Mr. Pitts. Now if you use the maximum level, I think you
used that term which means images and video filter set, you
can't download movies or concert videos or pictures of Barry
Bonds hitting his 600th home run, right?
Mr. Lafferty. Correct.
Mr. Pitts. What is a parent or child for that matter,
doesn't want to block all images. They want maybe a G-rated
movie. Is the adult filter the only other way to block adult
content?
Mr. Lafferty. Currently, that's correct. We're working on--
we're not resting on any laurels here by any means and member
firms are working on collaborative filtering which I mentioned
which is a new technology that allows users to tag a file as
being objectionable or criminally obscene and then it will be
pushed out of distribution on a particular P2P software
application. That's new and it's coming along. In addition,
working with the FBI on deterrence popups to warn users and on
education programs, further education programs to help
consumers recognize, report and remove content.
Again, it's a new technology and certainly we're pleased to
see that the incidents dropped from 2 percent of all of the
reports to 1.4 percent last year, but we won't be satisfied
until it's zero. It's just a continuing effort to fight, to
combat child pornography and get it off of these services.
Mr. Pitts. My time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Stearns. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from
Ohio, Mr. Strickland.
Mr. Strickland. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to
thank the witnesses. Mr. Lafferty, if I understood your answer
correctly to Mr. Pitts, you are responsible for the peer-to-
peer technology. You are not responsible for materials that may
be made accessible or available through the use of that
technology. Is that correct?
Mr. Lafferty. We're a trade association, but answering for
my members who are peer-to-peer software suppliers, speaking
for them, that's correct. They provide the software and then 99
percent of the content is put there by users, put in a shared
folder and shared with other users.
Mr. Strickland. So you accept no responsibility for
whatever content may be made available through the use of your
technology? Is that a correct statement?
Mr. Lafferty. I wouldn't, no. There's a difference between
knowledge and control of what the content is and providing
parental tools to protect children. There are warnings, clear,
conspicuous warnings about copyright infringement. There are
any number of things being done to try to have this software be
implemented for proper, legal uses, legitimate uses. That's
what we're dedicated on doing.
Mr. Strickland. Excuse me for interrupting you. I didn't
intend to do that. You don't feel though that you should be
held liable for illegal materials. I'm talking about child
porn, specifically, that would be made available to children
through the use of your technology. It's not a trick question.
I'm just trying to discern what your position is.
Mr. Lafferty. Not to answer a question with a question, but
it's--should Microsoft Windows Outlook be accountable for every
single e-mail that all of its hundreds of millions of users can
sort every day. The nature of the software is that individuals
can put whatever they want on there and that's the problem
we're having with the music industry that popular music is
ripped and put online with no copy protection, no upload
protection and it's there.
Mr. Strickland. That brings me a question that I have for
Mr. Dunkel.
Mr. Dunkel, you talked about the University of Florida's
student body overwhelming downloading music and movies before
you changed your policy. And I know we're here to talk about
child pornography, but I think we cannot talk about this
technology without bringing up another relevant matter which
involves honesty and legality and all of that. And that has to
do with copyright protections. I would be interested in hearing
a little more, if you could tell me, what you at the University
of Florida are doing in regard to your computer policy and
steps you may be taking to educate students regarding the
morality or legality of their behavior regarding copyright
laws.
Mr. Dunkel. Certainly. When ICARUS was originally turned on
to date which is less than one year, we had discovered 3,700
first time violators. So these were students who were using
their desktop knowingly or unknowingly as a server with music,
video or images and once we identify a student so Mr.
Strickland, we've identified your computer and whether you knew
it or not, you had a file server program working on your
computer, we would then terminate you from the internet. You
would still have access to the University of Florida, so you'd
have access to your courses and teachers and so forth, but not
the greater internet. We would direct you to a website within
our operation and it would take you through educational
information to identify why what you're doing is not within our
acceptable use policy, what you need to do and walk you through
the steps to take care of that. We would then time you out for
30 minutes. So you've had a first time violation. You have 30
minutes now that you're no longer on the internet. If we find
you violating that a second time, you go through the same steps
and you're timed out for five days. A third time, and you go
through the University of Florida's Judicial Affairs process.
So a record then, in Judicial Affairs is maintained by the
University and a sanction is applied accordingly.
For most students, those 3,700 first time students, that
would be the only time they ever hear of that. Three hundred
fifty were second time violators and only 32 were third time
violators and that included students who had viruses and worms
hosted on their computers and they wouldn't take the steps to
clean their computers. So we also deal with viruses and worms
going through that program.
Mr. Strickland. Let me congratulate you. It sounds like
you've taken appropriate action to deal with what I consider a
very legitimate problem.
If I could ask any other member of the panel, do you think
that there's any responsibility on the part of those who make
this technology available to also provide some kind of
educational component to the user regarding what is and is not
legal and appropriate in terms of copyright infringements?
Mr. Lafferty. We clearly think there is and we're working
with our members and glad to work with Congress, the FTC and
others to do that, do exactly that.
Mr. Allen. Yes.
Mr. Dunkel. I would add just a further word that clearly
the University of Florida as any other institution of higher
education is in the business of educating students. We have to
do that actively. We have to do that passively, so whether
we're handing a brochure out or placing a sticker on their
dataport or doing something on line, clearly, we have a
responsibility to educate.
Mr. Strickland. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time
has expired.
Mr. Stearns. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Shimkus.
Mr. Shimkus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm glad I had a
chance to make it up here after my--the other hearing we had.
Let me ask--all of you are really tech savvy and understand
what's out there. Let me ask a question to each one of you.
Is there a spot on the worldwide web where a parent can
direct their children to go that is safe, that's reviewed, that
does not allow peer-to-peer, would not allow spyware
applications and is safe by the Federal definition, not harmful
to minors under the age of 13?
Mr. Catlett, do you know of a place like that?
Mr. Catlett. Well----
Mr. Shimkus. Basically, yes or no. Is there a site right
now where parents can go for kids under the age of 13 to search
for information that has no hyperlinks, in essence, no internet
messaging, no chat rooms available?
Mr. Catlett. I think you could set up a web browser so that
it would----
Mr. Shimkus. The question is is there a site now, do you
know?
Mr. Catlett. Sure.
Mr. Shimkus. Do you know the name?
Mr. Catlett. I would guess somewhere like I'll say lego.com
wouldn't have any links off the site, but I couldn't verify
that.
Mr. Shimkus. I would doubt that.
Mr. Catlett. It may have links off the site.
Mr. Shimkus. It sure does. They all do. Let's just go down,
Mr. Lafferty?
Mr. Lafferty. I am encouraged by KidsOnline which is a
service of AmericaOnline, a subsidiary of AOL and we would like
to have such a site using the P2P technology with the filter
fully engaged, a kids Kazaa, which is completely safe and where
the content is absolutely locked and----
Mr. Shimkus. You failed the test too. Mr. Dunkel?
Mr. Dunkel. Our work does not venture in that area. I could
not answer that question.
Mr. Shimkus. You should know them and we're going to
educate you in a minute. Members usually don't educate.
Mr. Bird?
Mr. Bird. I'm not aware of any technology like that.
Mr. Shimkus. Mr. Allen?
Mr. Allen. No.
Mr. Shimkus. Ms. Nance?
Ms. Nance. There is no place I can turn my back on my
children and allow them alone on the computer.
Mr. Shimkus. The answer there is a site, enacted in the
law, signed by the President, 18 months ago. It's interesting
that we have competing hearings today because we just came from
the hearing. Kids.us. Safe site for kids on the internet.
Doesn't allow peer-to-peer. Doesn't allow instant messaging. No
hyperlinks. Information-based only. It's positive, voluntary
and it's a site where we need help in getting people who want
to provide safe information for kids. So pro-family
organizations and groups ought to be hounding the private
sector and the public sector to get up on the site. We have 13
active sites. They go from the smithsonian.kids.us, abckids.us.
We have--in essence, there's 13 in total.
And what we are fighting is the chicken and the egg battle.
NewStar manages the site. They have, I think, kids.net oversees
the site. NTIA can pull down the site if there's anything that
sneaks on that is inappropriate. Part of the job that I'm
doing, as part of the author, along with Chairman Upton and
Chairman Markey, Ranking Member Markey and then Ranking Member
Dingell and Chairman Tauzin at the time when we passed this
legislation is when you pass legislation you just can't let it
go, I mean if you really want it to be successful. So I use the
bully pulpit. I'm allowed to do that and that's what I'm doing
now.
When we had the pornography hearings on the Super Bowl I
looked at the network guys and I said how come you don't have a
.kids site, a kids.us site? Guess who is now up, abckids.us.
So my plea is--the University of Florida ought to have one.
If you want to educate children about the great aspects of the
University of Florida in a safe arena for kids, so that maybe
one day they may want to be a Gator, you ought to be there and
so this is--I know you're here to educate us. There's serious
problems.
In the hearing today I asked the question when I ended up
and it was a very good hearing because it's the difference.
Here we're trying to react to problems. We have a safe site now
for kids and we're not promoting it. No spyware. You can't put
spyware on a kid who is on the kids.us site. No peer-to-peer,
information-based only and is reviewed by both the government
and private sector contracted agency with ability to pull the
plug.
So I'm using the bully pulpit. Thank you for being here.
Spread the word.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
Mr. Stearns. Gentlemen, we have your site right up on the
screen to help you promote the site that your legislation
originated and that you support and we're a strong advocate and
the President signed your legislation and I thank you for your
comments.
Gentlelady, Ms. McCarthy?
Ms. McCarthy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Panel
and apologize for being late to your testimony. I had another
full committee and subcommittee simultaneously.
But I am intrigued by the thought that there might be
wisdom on other legislative alternatives that we could employ
to address this, not only the unauthorized download of
copyrighted information which is an infringement and
punishable, but also to require porn sites to enforce laws or
be terminated. And the RIAA recently brought lawsuits against
university students for copyright infringement.
I wondered if any of you, particularly, Mr. Dunkel and Mr.
Bird from the University, I'm very impressed with your effort.
I wonder what the effect on students it might have potentially
or have had with regard to the private sector weighing in with
consequences just as you have chosen as an administration and a
university and whether that is something that we should be
looking at as a legislative alternative, the encouraging of
such partnerships and such efforts, and what role the Federal
Trade Commission could have or what more power they would need
to be an effective partner in such an alternative. I would just
welcome your thoughts.
Mr. Lafferty, you're welcome to weigh in.
Mr. Dunkel. Certainly, I could share with you that prior to
last summer, there are various agencies that would send out
notice to educational institutions that a particular user is
violating a copyright law and they would send out a DMCA
violation letter. So a digital millennial copyright act
violation letter. It would say Ms. McCarthy at this certain
port and so forth, you're violating a certain part of the
copyright law.
When we deployed ICARUS, prior to deploying ICARUS, our
institution was receiving approximately about 60 or 70 of those
per month. When we deployed ICARUS, we have not received one
since that time. So I think we've worked very effectively with
industry in helping to educate the residents and the program
seems to be working well.
Ms. McCarthy. Any other ideas from any panelists on what
other legislative alternatives we should be pursuing with the
private sector and government regulatory bodies?
Ms. Nance. I would just suggest, you know, there are
probably things within Mr. Pitts' bill that we could all agree
on like perhaps parental warnings. I mean they're willing to
put up parental warning for copyright infringement, why not
pornography?
Very simply things that can just alert parents to what is
happening. I would urge people to sit and talk to Mr. Pitts and
for all of us to come together on the areas that we can agree
on and to go forward because it's a serious problem.
Ms. McCarthy. Thank you very much, Ms. Nance.
Mr. Lafferty. You brought up the copyright issue. We have
helped convincing the major labels and large movie studios to
embrace this new technology and begin licensing their content
for legitimate distribution so it can commercially develop. I
mean the only unique threat that users have on P2P now, given
all the other threats of other aspects of the internet is an
RIAA lawsuit and the notion of bludgeoning your customers and
trying to terrorize consumers is the wrong approach.
We need to have them legitimately license their content for
pay distribution. We'd love to be working with the RIAA members
on a program for this fall for college, to provide college
students with a way to purchase songs, legally, at attractive
prices and that would be a terrific solution. It will be a
revenue generator on a voluntary basis, not some kind of a tax
on students that the university has to put in place and not a
cost, an expansion of commerce.
Ms. McCarthy. Thank you and I quite agree. My concern
remains that a young person would be going up on a peer-to-peer
situation to download a Britney Spears song and while there, is
confronted with pornographic pictures of a Britney Spears of
some sort and how to separate those two. But I don't know that
that's a legislative solution as much as it is just the
industry and others working together as they have been doing to
try to address it and I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Stearns. Thank you. The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr.
Ferguson.
Mr. Ferguson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a couple of
questions for Mr. Lafferty.
Mr. Lafferty, it's common for one of these services and I
begin by saying that I'm not familiar with Kazaa. I've never
used it, so I'm a little bit ignorant on the actual use of some
of these and peer-to-peer technology as well, but frequently, I
would imagine for some of the folks that you represent and I
know for some of these services there are these end user
license agreements and they say, one of them that I saw says
that you state that they do not allow their users to distribute
obscene or illegal material to other users of the product.
That's pretty common, I would imagine.
Mr. Lafferty. Correct.
Mr. Ferguson. How is that enforced? It's obviously not
true. There are obscene materials being distributed from one
user to another. How is that agreement enforced? It sounds
hollow to me.
Mr. Lafferty. The way to enforce it is working with the
FBI, as we are, on these covert operations to identify, capture
egregious users who are inserting criminally obscene content
into the system in which case they'll be terminated because
they're in violation of the agreement, but it's, as I mentioned
to Congressman Strickland, the sheer volume of content, think
of if you had to deal with Windows Outlook on all the e-mails
being written every day and somehow have knowledge and control
of that, probably Microsoft would go into bankruptcy trying to
do that. It's that type of issue. So when we see a problem work
with law enforcement, identify it, prosecute the abusers and
terminate them.
Mr. Ferguson. How many folks have been terminated?
Mr. Lafferty. I can't comment on that because it's
private--it hasn't been announced yet.
Mr. Allen. Could I comment?
Mr. Ferguson. Could I ask, have any? Is that private?
Mr. Lafferty. So far the number of busts, prosecutions have
been not great, but that's going to change and I think you soon
will see that P2P is the dumbest place to try to disseminate
criminally obscene content.
Mr. Ferguson. Why is the bust rate, as you call it, why has
it not been very good?
Mr. Lafferty. I think we're getting into some
confidential--we'd like to talk about it privately with the FBI
and not public.
Mr. Ferguson. By your own description, the monitoring of
this has not been particularly good, is that a fair
characterization?
Mr. Lafferty. I think law enforcement thinks that
perpetrators of illegal content on P2P, it's like--in their
words, it's like shooting fish in a barrel.
Mr. Ferguson. But what has the industry done to monitor
itself?
What have the companies done to monitor--if--what does the
FBI do to monitor these things? They get people to start
surfing the net and being users. Can't companies do that as
well? If the company has an agreement that says you're not
allowed to do this, doesn't the company have some
responsibility to monitor itself?
Mr. Lafferty. Sure.
Mr. Ferguson. And do the companies do it at all?
Mr. Lafferty. The companies are most familiar with the
technology and see the scale of the issue and so they attack it
through other technology means such as the family filters which
have come to a point of blocking all video and images.
Mr. Ferguson. Forgive me, my time is short. The filters
tend to be useless, don't they? I mean can't kids go in and
can't you just download Kazaa again if your parents have put a
filter on it? Can't you just go and download it again and get
around the filter?
Mr. Lafferty. That's really an operating system, a browser
issue.
Mr. Ferguson. But the question is doesn't that render the
filter useless?
Mr. Lafferty. Once the parents put the password in it locks
that particular setting and you need to know the password to be
able to break that setting.
Mr. Ferguson. Can children get around these settings?
Mr. Lafferty. There's always going to be hackers----
Mr. Ferguson. I'm talking about a 12-year-old kid?
Mr. Lafferty. Unless they find out the password, it works.
Mr. Ferguson. But do the companies feel like their
responsibility has been met simply by putting filters on that
can be hacked through?
Mr. Lafferty. Absolutely not. This is a moving target.
We're not going to rest until we've really defeated child
pornography and cleanse these networks. It's abhorrent and
horrendous. So that's why other steps are being taken and
deterrence, education, additional forms of filtering that are
more sophisticated and the work continues. It's a very new
industry. It's less than a year old. It's 10 months old.
Mr. Ferguson. I appreciate that. And as you can tell and as
I've said I'm not familiar with it, partly because it is so
new.
Mr. Lafferty. What's happened is the consumer adoption rate
has been fantastic. This has taken everyone on the content side
of the table and the technology side of the table by surprise.
It's taken our breath away and we're playing catch up to
civilize it and to do the right thing.
Mr. Ferguson. Let me just close since my time has ended,
let me just close by urging you to work with your companies to
take a more active role in monitoring themselves to help the
FBI. I know you're working with law enforcement to do that. But
if law enforcement can do that, the private sector has a
responsibility here too and we're talking about legislation now
and you've said that you can't support the legislation as it's
currently written.
I don't speak only for myself. There are a lot of Members
on both sides of the aisle in this body and certainly on this
committee who are very concerned about this issue, feel that
the industry has a real responsibility to continue to monitor
itself, to do a better job of monitoring itself and it's our
hope that you can continue to make progress on that and working
with law enforcement because legislation is coming and if you
don't like the legislation you've got to be willing to either
work with us to make that legislation better and/or make it so
that legislation is not necessary by doing the work yourself.
If, in fat, you don't like the legislation that we're
considering, you can help that. You can change that. The
industry can do it itself and I would urge you to work with
your members and the folks that you represent to do that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Allen. Mr. Chairman, could I comment, just very
briefly?
Mr. Stearns. Absolutely, sure. Go ahead.
Mr. Allen. I think Mr. Ferguson's point is incredibly
important because this has not been like shooting fish in a
barrel. Working these cases on P2P has been very difficult and
it's very important and encouraging that this industry has
stepped up in the last few months and is working with law
enforcement, but the reality is people are fleeing, those
predators who prey upon children and use child pornography are
fleeing websites because of the increasing presence of
enforcement. The ISPs now have an obligation to report child
pornography on their sites. What we have to do to preserve the
integrity and the potential of peer-to-peer and distributed
computing is to make sure that it is not allowed to become a
sanctuary for those who are seeking ways to operate in
anonymity and violate and avoid the law. I think the steps
they've taken are really important, but your message is one
that the whole industry needs to hear loud and clear.
Mr. Stearns. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Allen, just
following up on that, do you think that--would you advocate
that the peer-to-peer companies have to register with the
Federal Trade Commission?
Mr. Allen. I think that's really beyond our expertise. The
one thing that I think is really important and in the early
days of the internet, the ISP community was concerned as well--
--
Mr. Stearns. You advocate, you support the idea of the
ISPs, have been mandated by Congress to report pornography and
child pornography. Do you support that kind of idea for the
peer-to-peer?
Mr. Allen. I think it's an excellent model that ought to be
examined.
Mr. Stearns. Well, Mr. Lafferty, I think you've heard sort
of Mr. Ferguson's comments and I think everybody in this room
has agreed in the goals of this subcommittee is to protect our
children from pornography, child pornography. How we do it,
whether we do it through Federal legislation or we do it
through best practices, how many companies are there in the
peer-to-peer organization now that you have?
Mr. Lafferty. We have 15 members and about 5 of them are in
the peer-to-peer space. Five are content, five are service
support.
Mr. Stearns. How many do you think there are in the United
States peer-to-peer?
Mr. Lafferty. Internet is global, so I can't--120 known
peer-to-peer software service----
Mr. Stearns. And that's another point I point out to my
Members, cross-border fraud is very prevalent and this is a
global market, so you have companies outside of the United
States. It's very difficult. We passed a cross-border fraud and
deception out of this committee at the request of the Federal
Trade Commission. It's gone to the House. We don't have it out
of the Senate. We'd like to pass that bill which would give the
Federal Trade Commission reciprocity with other nations where
we could actually go after those companies, bad actors. But it
is all going to come down, I think as Mr. Ferguson has pointed
out is whether your association is going to have a best
practice, have a standard and actually work hard to make sure
that the peer-to-peer technology is used in a useful way and we
don't have the bad actors, but I think as you can see, we're so
strong about this issue, all of us having children, that we're
willing to consider legislation.
And Mr. Catlett, I'd appreciate if you would talk to Mr.
Pitts and perhaps you can suggest things that would make it
more feasible for it.
Is there anything in concluding? Ms. Nance, anything that--
Mr. Allen, anything anyone would like to say before we close?
Ms. Nance. Thank you again for convening this hearing and
yes, I just want to agree with your last point. I think it
absolutely--they should be obligated to report back to the DOJ
any incidents they find of obscenity or pornography, and I just
think that's the minimum they can do to help our families. So
thank you.
Mr. Ferguson. Mr. Chairman, can I just add one thing? I
just want to thank Penny Nance, too, for the work she's done.
She's done an enormous amount of work, pro family work for a
number of years here on the Hill and around the country and
starting this organization, she speaks for so many moms and
dads and folks across this country who are working so hard,
concerned about their kids, worried about what they're seeing
on the internet. Our kids, as I say, are not old enough for
using the internet yet, but they will and it's coming. It's--
there are certain things we can do on the legislative side, but
as we know, there are certain things that need to be done by
moms and dads and groups and associations of families who will
speak up for people around the country who frankly sometimes
feel like they don't have quite that voice that they want. We
try to give them that voice through our representation, but
there are organizations like hers which are doing a great job
and I thank her for that as well.
Mr. Stearns. Any other comments before we close? Mr. Pitts,
anything?
Mr. Pitts. I'll just second those comments. Thank you very
much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Stearns. Thank you very much for your patience during
this hearing and the subcommittee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:31 p.m., the hearing was concluded.]