article
Lauren Desveaux
CURTIS RUSH
STAFF REPORTER THESTAR.COM
This article is an example of the possible negative impacts of the
internet. It is unfortunate, but there are some sick individuals out
there that would go to the lengths of downloading and viewing child
pornography. This is one of the worse things to come out of the use of
the internet. The degradation and portrayal of innocent children caught
in horrible sexual acts with older adults is made available world wide
by the internet. In this article, the man charged, Walter Nowakowski,
was actually downloading child pornography off a very popular and widely
used sharing program, KaZaa. The man was caught driving in his car,
naked from the waist down with a lap top on the passenger seat depicting
a video of a young girl performing a sexual act on an older man. The
use of KaZaa to download these images is a shocking revelation, as I
always presumed that the availability of child porn would not be this
easy to find. This revelation means that literally anybody could find
and download illegal child pornography as quickly as you could download
a song. It is unfortunate that this is possible, and great lengths
should be made to make this disgusting use of the internet impossible.
Although the internet has brought new and wonderful opportunities, this
is just one example of the awful things that also come with the use of
the internet. The article also pointed out that this man was one of the
first people to be charged with the theft of telecommunications because
of the wireless Internet signal he used.
Blaise Bolland
Lauren Desveaux <lbde...@student.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
I strongly agree that child pornography should not be permitted on the
internet. However the problem is that the internet is a free domain
that anybody can post web pages and comments.It is each persons own
personal opinion, and because of this it is to the viewers discretion on
what to view on the internet. When it comes to allowing children to view
pornography, this schould not be allowed and this should be controlled
using new parental features. Which do not allow people to access certain
sites.
James McMartin
Lauren Desveaux <lbde...@student.math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
You have to ask yourself why people always focus on the negative when it
comes to the net and technology. Sure, repititive strain injury is bad.
Yes, we can become lazy due to the conveniences of the net. And, of
course, no-one likes child pornography. However, these things are a
relative rarity. Doesn't the advantage of, for example, email outweigh
the threat of child pornography which must account for less than 1% of
net traffic? A psychologist might wonder why people don't realize the
benefits of technology and instead always focus on the pornography, etc.
Further, what is your main point? Should we shut the internet down
because of this? Is child pornography due to the internet? It's like
those folks that blamed the Matrix film for the Columbine massacre.
Wasn't the blame there really due to poor parenting? Psych 101:
correlation does not prove causation. If you can prove that the internet
causes child pornography I am sure all Internet users would gladly join
you in shutting it down. Until then, this type of emotional
hand-wringing just adds to the hysteria.