Penet Bites the Dust

[Mike Duvos]

An interesting Net tidbit.  Note that the "International Conference
on Child Sexual Exploitation" in Stolkholm which served as a platform
for these accusations and various coordinated stories in numerous
media outlets is simply a circus put on by ECPAT, a well-known
pressure group whose propaganda is modeled after the now-defunct 
National Coalition on Pornography, and whose spurious and laughable
claims about child pornography and vast pedophile conspiracies would fill 
volumes.  The only odd thing here is that the mainstream press is
presenting this gathering with a perfectly straight face, as if it were
some sort of credible event, which of course it is not. 

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   HELSINKI (Reuter) - A Finnish Internet specialist said on Friday he
   was closing his remailer, or anonymous forwarding system, after
   rejecting allegations it was being used as a conduit for child
   pornography.
   
   Johan Helsingius, whose remailer is one of the largest in the world
   with over half a million users, said in a statement he was closing
   down the system because the legal issues governing the Internet in
   Finland are unclear.
   
   ``The legal protection of users needs to be clarified. At the moment
   the privacy of Internet messages is judicially unclear,'' said
   Helsingius, who said he set up and ran the remailer in his free time
   partly as an initiative to help abused children.
   
   Internet remailers are computers which receive and forward messages
   with a pseudonym or anonymous source.
   
   There are about five large ones in the world, and they exist to enable
   anonymous discussion of sensitive subjects -- for instance by victims
   of child abuse, potential suicides or people in politically repressed
   societies.
   
   Helsingius, supported by Finnish police, earlier this week dismissed
   claims in Britain's Observer Sunday newspaper that his remailing
   system handled up to 90 percent of child pornography on the Internet.
   
   ``I have also personally been a target because of the remailer for
   three years,'' he said on Friday. ``Unjustified accusations affect
   both my job and my private life.''
   
   The newspaper reported the charges, by a U.S. policeman and FBI
   adviser, as Belgian police were investigating horrific child sex
   crimes and ahead of an international conference in Stockholm on the
   commercial sexual exploitation of children.
   
   In Helsingius's statement, Helsinki police sergeant Kaj Malmberg was
   quoted as saying he had found no evidence of child porn being
   transmitted from Finland.

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     Mike Duvos         $    PGP 2.6 Public Key available     $
     mpd at netcom.com     $    via Finger.                      $