Are you actually responsible for what you view on the internet?

nitromaster

In short, I say no.

I find it very comical that you could be prosecuted for browsing illegal content such as child porn even if in fact the defence mightn't have actually browsed this content themselves. Granted this would be a rare occurence at the moment but could increase in the future. I don't think this excuse of "but I didn't browse that" would hold up to well in court.

Take boards for example. Anyone could post an illegal image in a topic which you then view. You'd be liable as far as I understand for prosecution as you accessed the content.
Even if it was posted with height/width both equal to 1, and you not knowing the image even existed or knew it was loaded onto your computer, still be liable.

What if a site like boards (again) got hacked (not likely) ?
Someone could easily post illegal content as the main page, or iframe sites containing stuff you'd get in trouble for accessing.
Even going further, what if there was different iframes on each page of the hacked site? It would look like you accessed the homepage of the illegal content (on the iframe on homepage of hacked site) and then proceeded to browse successive pages (via successive iframes).

That would show up as you with your computer/ip address browsing this illegal content. If a search was made on your computer over the incident then it would (likely) show cookies from the respective *bad* sites.
That really wouldn't hold up in your defence.

Anyone got any thoughts on this?
I'm basically trying to say that you aren't responsible for what you view as you don't control the internet, only your beginning destination.

FruitLover

nitromaster wrote: »

I'm basically trying to say that you aren't responsible for what you view as you don't control the internet, only your beginning destination.

If someone visits several sites specifically set up for child porn, and repeatedly views pictures of naked kids over several internet sessions, are you going to say they're not responsible for what they're viewing?

In short: You've phrased your point (and your post) badly.

Also, I doubt anyone will be convicted over one or two cached images. A child porn case is very difficult to even get a prosecution on, never mind get a court conviction. There would need to be reasonable evidence of intentionally downloading illegal material.

nitromaster

FruitLover wrote: »

If someone visits several sites specifically set up for child porn, and repeatedly views pictures of naked kids over several internet sessions, are you going to say they're not responsible for what they're viewing?

In short: You've phrased your point (and your post) badly.

Also, I doubt anyone will be convicted over one or two cached images. A child porn case is very difficult to even get a prosecution on, never mind get a court conviction. There would need to be reasonable evidence of intentionally downloading illegal material.

Hmm, my point was phrased pretty badly tbh. I don't just mean stuff like child porn, downloading music illegally would be another thing that could be controlled by an outside force. (Downloads start automatically in some browsers, especially safari, there was an issue over safari automatically download exe files to the desktop or something on windows)

Maybe here downloading music for example wouldn't be looked into but I'm pretty sure that the government in the uk has begun plans to trace illegal downloading of copyrighted content.

What about trojans and the like? What if you got a trojan which everyday without your knowledge downloaded content which wouldn't be deemed legal where you live?