Peer-to-peer networks may link to porn sites

WASHINGTON — Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has a new warning for parents: Peer-to-peer networks, or P2P, that youths use to share files via the Internet — including music — may also bring unexpected child pornography.

He said they present a "great risk of inadvertent exposure to these materials by young P2P users" because sometimes files labeled as containing something innocuous actually have pornography — or contain embedded commands that will later unexpectedly link computers to pornography sites.

In response, Peer-to-Peer United, a new trade association for the Internet file-sharing industry, said it is forming a "Parent-to-Parent Resource Center" to teach parents how to protect children. It also called for Congress not to attack P2P networks but the criminals that misuse them.

"Like all right-thinking people, our members are sickened by child pornography and regard misuse of the Internet for its dissemination as reprehensible," said Adam Eisgrau, director of that association. "The answer is not to restrict the technology, because technology isn't the perpetrator — criminals are."

In research requested by Hatch's committee, the U.S. General Accounting Office reported Tuesday that it tried searching for files to download on the Internet using the KaZaA program and 12 words it had been told might lead to child pornography.

"Of the 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 non-pornographic," testified Linda D. Koontz, GAO director of information management issues.

The GAO report added, "Searches on innocuous keywords likely to be used by juveniles (such as the names of cartoon characters or celebrities) produced a high proportion of pornographic images; in our searches, the retrieved images included adult pornography (34 percent), cartoon pornography (14 percent), child erotica (7 percent) and child pornography (1 percent)."

Doug Jacobson, an Iowa State University professor who heads an Internet filtering company called Palisade Systems, said, "You don't have to look for pornography on peer-to-peer networks; it will find you. There are no effective controls regarding content provided on a peer-to-peer network, the only information you are given is a file name."

Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General John Malcolm said the Justice Department has established a High Tech Investment Unit to go after child pornography on the Internet, including "in the relatively new area of P2P technology."