A Supercomputer Goes Porn-Hunting: Fighting Pedophiles the Geeky Way
As the world’s second most powerful computer, the Jaguar has been called on to do many things, particularly for the US Department of Energy. In 2011, it will be asked to use its tremendous power to fight crime. It’s going pedophile hunting. Scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee where Jaguar is housed are working with local and national law enforcement to put Jaguar’s incredible processing abilities to work with Artemis, a program that finds pornographic images and videos on computers and networks. Named after the Greek goddess of the hunt, the program quickly scans computers for flesh-colored pixels that could be pornography. “Across the globe criminals are using technology to facilitate the sexual exploitation of children,” said Grier Weeks, executive director of the National Association to Protect Children, or PROTECT. “Police are overwhelmed and outnumbered. These Oak Ridge scientists are the good guys we’ve been waiting for. Their computers will become child rescue engines.” It can take the search process down from weeks to hours, expediting arrests and prosecutions. It could also prevent crimes like the murder of Somer Thompson. A cyber crimes unit began forensic analysis on Jarred Harrell’s computer on October 9, 2009. 10 days later he allegedly kidnapped Thompson. Artemis on Jaguar may be able to prevent such cases as early as late-2011. “With the current process, it could take weeks for law enforcement to track someone down,” said Robert Patton, a scientist at Oak Ridge who, along with Carlos Rojas, runs the Jaguar and pedophile project. “Right now we could probably do it in a few days. What we want is to do it in a few hours.” While Artemis is already being used directly on suspects’ computers and has been involved in 30 arrests, Jaguar is not expected to be ready to use it until the end of 2011. Currently, Patton’s team is testing and simulating on Jaguar. Investigators are eager to see it live as soon as possible.
LOL, to bad it cant look into password protected rar files cause that what they all use now. No one with an ounce of common sense leaves unencrypted pics of that nature on their hard drives.
ultimate-privacy.edu.tc
yes but it narrows down the suspects exponentially and then can be further reviewed by a human being…
Besides simply looking for flesh colored pixels. Why not have jaguar examine all the pictures in the national police database to examine all the metadata in the pictures and videos and attempt to organize them by producers and than go through the photos looking for clues as to where the pictures and such was taken. What year and the like.
Get those sons o bitches. I worked closely with addicts for a few years and the 1 thing alot of the chronic relapsers had in common -male and female – that I think destroyed them as people was being sexually abused when they were young.
Computers can’t tell the difference between what’s actually child porn and what isn’t. It’s prone to errors and could get alot of innocent people in prison.