Google has revealed the identity of a user after discovering child abuse imagery in the man's Gmail account in Houston, Texas, according to a local news report. It alerted a child protection agency, which notified the police and the man was arrested, KHOU 11 News reported. Google told the BBC it would not comment on individual accounts. The arrest raises questions over the privacy of personal email and Google's role in policing the web. Police in Houston told the local news station that Google detected explicit images of a young girl in an email being sent by John Henry Skillern. After the existence of the email was referred to them by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the police obtained a search warrant and arrested the man. The 41-year-old is a convicted sex offender. He has been charged with possessing child pornography, it was reported. "I can't see that information, I can't see that photo, but Google can," Detective David Nettles said. Google also refused to say whether it searched its users' Gmail content for other illegal activity, such as pirated content or hate speech.
First they came for the *****s and I didn't speak out cos I wasn't a nonce. Then they came for the rapists and I didn't speak out cos I wasn't a beast. Then they came for the casual drug takers. Then, I shat myself
Well done Google says I, I don't give two ****s if some ***** gets his emial looked at. As I have nothing to hide I don't care but *****s and racists will be looking over their shoulders (Metaphorically) from now on.
Me too. But that's how things start, innit? You clamp down on a common enemy everyone can agree on (*****s, terrorists), then apply it to the populace. I hope this guy suffers in the jail but I don't for one minute think that the ability to scan and share private information for criminal purposes will stop at the things that I think are bad.
It's a slippery slope. On one hand you would like *****s and terrorists and such like caught by having their emails scanned, but it's a high price to pay in personal privacy for everyone else.
That's the world we live in. Big Brother is a reality and I don't really have to be careful because I know i'm doing **** all wrong, even if I was it's a price i'm willing to pay to get these ****s banged up in the Nonce House where they belong. Well in truth they actually belong in a Cemetry 6 feet under, but one step at a time.
Scanning email will invade normal people's privacy. The real bad guys know that they should encrypt anything stored on the Internet. The only ones caught will be morons too stupid to do that.
The Morons are a good starting point, pretty soon we'll catch the smart *****s too. (If there are any)
The erosion of personal privacy is a very high price to pay for catching a few morons. The real bad guys use encryption and bespoke software to do what they do.
Personal Privacy is a thing of the past anyway, I know not everyone will see it my way but as long as i've nothing to hide I could care less about them raking through my email.
I have a spare few minutes from my busy schedule Toby so let's analyse your statement shall we? Is being an "addict" a crime? (Not that I am an addict in the first place). Is that how you see things in your silly, strange wee world? Drug Addicts are on the same Level as Terrorists and *****s?
I imagine that Google have a blacklist of images after they get reported through Google images etc - and they obviously have the search technology to compare images automatically. So if they run a computer algorithm which scans all their servers (including things outside of email, such as their social network etc), and it finds child porn stored in various places - should they not report it to the police? - or should they have not made the search to make sure their servers are not storing child porn in the first place?
No, but they're all illegal. You quoted me twice so you were obviously sitting there dribbling with anticipation for a reaction from me.
It's good that he's been caught but it's bad that Google has grassed him in. It raises so many questions it's hard to know where to start but ultimately, the police should have known that a convicted ***** is looking a kids pics, it's not Google's place to police the web.
