Meus Renaissance
Member
I've always thought some of this stuff was shady when the characters look so young and often dress in school uniforms.
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Developer from Precursor Games (Shadows of the Eternals) arrested for child porn
- Thread starter GulAtiCa
- Start date
plagiarize
Banned
I expect there to be more to it than that, however it doesn't need to happen the way you described at all.
If you're downloading a torrent that is child porn, you are distributing it before you've even finished downloading it. Hypothetically, you start downloading something that isn't what you think it is. While you are downloading it, you are distributing it. Once it has finished downloading you have possession of it. When you open it and start watching it, you have consumed it.
Think about it. Seeding child porn is helping to make it more available. If there is only one single count it's easier to think this might have been a mistake, but we'll see what else, if anything, shakes out.
One count prevents me throwing him in the stocks right away, but it doesn't in any way shape or form make me think he's innocent. It's a clear 'wait for more information' flag.
shady? absolutely but it shouldn't be illegal. it isn't in the US. it is in Australia and maybe Canada too from the sounds of this thread, but free speech in Australia is kind of a joke. child porn is a special case where it's creation involves the molestation of children, and it's consumption encourages the further molestation of children. hentai is drawings and adult voice actors doing shit they have agreed to, whatever message it promotes.
to say drawings of Bart and Lisa Simpson having sex is the same as child porn (as they did in Australia) is a massive fucking insult to the true victims of it.
If he has still to be declared guilty, I think is a really bad move from Precursor to unaffiliate this guy considering how important he is for the intended project. If he was found guilty of owning real children porn, that's the correct thing to do, but I think the decision was early and unfair due to the uncertainty of the acusation.
If he's is being accused because of hentai/loli stuff I really don't know how I would face the issue if I was Precusor staff. But I think it's safe to assume Shadow of the Eternals will find even greater problems to be funded if they try it again.
If he's is being accused because of hentai/loli stuff I really don't know how I would face the issue if I was Precusor staff. But I think it's safe to assume Shadow of the Eternals will find even greater problems to be funded if they try it again.
Meus Renaissance
Member
Technically, torrent clients offer you the ability to disable seeding the torrents you're downloading by setting the upload speed to 0.
SolidsnackooFoxhound
Banned
Make a kickstarter to bail him out.
Which ones do this? Most of the ones I've used, except I think Transmission on Linux, default to 1 and won't let you go below it.
AtomskEater
Member
Those are some serious charges. I feel bad for everyone else at the company, even if he;s proven innocent just the accusation carries a lot of weight.
plagiarize
Banned
right. but he's been charged with one count of distribution. the most logical thing to draw from all that is that he didn't turn the upload speed down to 0. if you're downloading child porn, unwillingly or even willingly, I don't think you're going to go 'if I get caught, I only want to get done with possession and consumption to save my reputation, so I better not seed'.
he may have had much more, we will find out... but one count is very unusual. hence me deciding to wait for more information.
flatearthpandas
Member
Yeah, that's why most Lovecraft-inspired movies and games are as good as Eternal Darkness! Because writing easy!
abstract alien
Member
Whoa, that is a heavy, HEAVY charge. I want to believe this is some huge misunderstanding, but fuck.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
If only there was a GAF member who was involved professionally in cyber-forensics with a law enforcement agency to give his professional opinion about typically what kind of circumstances are involved in charging someone with this kind of stuff, it'd clear up the disagreement people have been having with Neuromancer for the 100 posts or so.
Dictator93
Member
Hell.. a lot of people were very quick to judge... regardless of whether he "actually" committed a crime or not. It has yet to be proven in court... so any condemnation is irrational and actually in bad spirit.
Neuromancer
Member
Well in my experience in cases like this we get the warrant for the house that the IP address comes back to, serve the warrant and preview the computers and media looking for CP. If we find CP there that makes it more likely for us to make an arrest; even then though we don't usually arrest the guy unless there are other factors such as prior convictions, access to children, statements made at the scene and so on.
That's just my office and how we do things, I can't speak for every law enforcement agency. Still though I find it unlikely as I said before they would make that arrest unless they found something troubling. Otherwise I would imagine they would wait until forensics were finished until charging the guy.
In the 7 years I've been doing these cases I've never once seen a guy who just downloaded one file. That's why I find this torrent scenario people are coming up with so unlikely. Not to say its impossible though, I just doubt it very much.
Also just because it's just one count, doesn't mean it's just one file that was found. It's just easier to charge the guy for that initially, they can add more later.
plagiarize
Banned
Stump, the sharing doesn't have to happen when the file has finished downloading to count. It can happen while the file is downloading if the file was a torrent. Legally speaking, that still counts as distribution.
And it should.
Neuromancer isn't going to disagree with me there. I was just pointing out that the scenario he laid out isn't the only possible one.
Does he know everything I said already? Given his job, I'm sure I just came off like a patronizing asshole, but I don't google every single person I'm talking to on neogaf.
And don't presume I have no professional experience with the field either. I provide IT support to a computer forensics department. I've worked with them on shit I wish I hadn't.
I do too. But the one count by itself makes me want to hear more before I decide for myself if this guy is guilty or innocent. It'll probably come back that he had loads of stuff, but I'm not comfortable forming an opinion until we know. That's all. Normally when these charges are reported they also cite how much shit they found.
Neuromancer
Member
Well yeah. Innocent before proven guilty of course!
I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he had one file on his computer that he downloaded off a torrent or something that was actually porn? Maybe it was a thumb nail or something and he never clicked it? ...or maybe he had a ton on his computer. It's a disturbing and sad thing to be charged with and really sucks for the company.
plagiarize
Banned
Well, no
I'm not a court of law. I get to decide for myself no matter what the courts think but I don't feel I have enough evidence to make up my mind one way or another yet.
Fake Charlemagne
Member
Dude is kinda screwed either way. I firmly believe that he's innocent until proven guilty, but even if this is a wash you don't bounce back from accusations like this. The mere fact he was charged at all is going to follow him for the rest of his life. Either way his life is basically over. The only difference is that if he's guilty I'll be happy he's in jail and bad things are happening to him. Even among criminals stuff like this isn't tolerated.
everyone is 'innocent until proven guilty' so that makes no sense.
plagiarize
Banned
legally, sure. however personal opinions do not have to comply with such standards. cf; the OJ Simpson trial.
public opinion doesn't and likely never will follow suit.
Fake Charlemagne
Member
On paper and (ideally) within the system that is of course how it works. I was referring more towards public opinion, where it tends to be the opposite. Merely charging an individual is enough to convince many that the suspect is guilty until proven innocent.
FaustsBoon
Member
I feel dirty, and creeped out...
I knew Ken a few years ago, and he was involved throughout my interview process with SK, as he was as close to a chief of writing, as they had. We ended up speaking outside of that process a few times as well.
What creeps me out is how normal, creative, and likeable he seemed. I know it is naive to expect monsters to be what you would expect, but it is more disconcerting knowing that the monsters can make themselves invisible (insert ED baddie here...).
As someone who was a victim of abuse as a child... I feel really upset about this... as if somehow I should've known about this... sensed it.... whatever.
Yuck...
I knew Ken a few years ago, and he was involved throughout my interview process with SK, as he was as close to a chief of writing, as they had. We ended up speaking outside of that process a few times as well.
What creeps me out is how normal, creative, and likeable he seemed. I know it is naive to expect monsters to be what you would expect, but it is more disconcerting knowing that the monsters can make themselves invisible (insert ED baddie here...).
As someone who was a victim of abuse as a child... I feel really upset about this... as if somehow I should've known about this... sensed it.... whatever.
Yuck...
plagiarize
Banned
as if we didn't have enough reason to hope these allegations are false. for your sake especially I hope they are.
Guilty or not, I wouldn't want that shit associated with my company in any way. He had to be let go, there's no other real option.
I'd just like to note that while OJ Simpson was not found guilty of murder, he was found guilty of wrongful death. The need for proof is lesser in tort law than in criminal law.
dancingphlower
Member
As if this saga couldn't get any worse...
IdreamofHIME
Member
Well his life is finished, no one will want to touch him with a 10ft pole after the dust settles. No matter what charge he finally accepts.
Dyack is a walking curse.
Dyack is a walking curse.
When I spoke to him a few weeks ago, he said there will be some stuff to announce about the project a little bit after e3... Now I don't think that it is recoverable and even Nintendo (who they were in regular contact with) will want to throw some bones their way.
Sucks for everyone involved and.... I'm still at a loss for words.
Sucks for everyone involved and.... I'm still at a loss for words.
TouchMyBox
Member
Or just browse /b/ at the wrong second and technically you've just downloaded child porn.
Then it's not truly innocent until proven guilty, which is a damn shame.
Ninja Scooter
Member
Innocent until proven guilty is for the court of law. Public opinion doesn't work the same way. A company that is tighrope walking on the line of relavance like Precursor can't afford to wait things out and let this hang over there heads. They are having a hard enough getting consumer funding to stay afloat.
Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Actually if it was just one wrong torrent and he didn't even want to download / upload the material, I don't think this is a reason to fire him. Actually I think that although it probably has to be illegal (since you can't find out easily if someone intended to download something), it's morally not wrong to fall for a foul torrent. I've read a few articles on German GMX (so not shure if it was legit) about a new virus that makes the computer download child porn and thus making the owner of the computer commit a crime according to German laws.
BlastProcessing
Member
Thats very interesting and very depressing.
Go to the classics section of a tube porn site and you could accidentally stumble upon a thumbnail of Traci Lords getting railed.
Strickland
Member
Did anyone think of:
A) Someone hacked him and planted those materials in his computer.
B) someone used his computer one day and downloaded the materials without him knowing.
C) he downloaded something off a torrent website and in the contents of the file there were child porn in them without his knowledge?
A) Someone hacked him and planted those materials in his computer.
B) someone used his computer one day and downloaded the materials without him knowing.
C) he downloaded something off a torrent website and in the contents of the file there were child porn in them without his knowledge?
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
He was the main writer behind Blood Omen, one of my favourite games ever. It's going to be hard to forget about that now. Ugh, I really hope he's proven innocent.
There is a massive difference between Child pornography and naked people. Pornography mean that it suggest sex or include sex. Naked people are just naked, its not porn in any way shape or form. Its totally legal to have pictures of naked childrens on your computer, if they are in your family and you dont have picture of other childrens of course.
Nudist see naked children all the time, that do not mean they are into child porn at all. Being naked is nothing sexual, its simply that since we wear clothe, there is a mystery of the human body and now its taboo to see somebody naked.
I heard speculation that Little Girls - Oingo Boingo is a song about old men having 18-19 yo girls as girlfriend, which make sense. It draw a parallel what it would look like if 40 yo men had girlfriend who are 30 years younger.
It's also a pretty catchy song.
R
Retro_
Unconfirmed Member
"Innocent until proven guilty" is a principle of law. It simply means the burden of proof is on the prosecution, not the defendant.
It's not a moral code and it's not intended to dictate social situations outside of court. So a private company making the decision to fire an employee as a result of accusations like this does not contradict the principle of "innocent until proven guilty". It has absolutely nothing to do with the US legal system
Portugeezer
Member
You're the first person in the thread to mention these things.
Neuromancer
Member
Those are all classic defenses. An alternate explanation is he could have been into child porn.
Strickland
Member
Well it certainly beats wishing he gets anally violated like some other poster suggested. benifit of a doubt for a guy who would basically be ruined for the rest of his natural life if proven guilty.
King Tubby
Member
Oh man, that shit was a banner ad on some tube sites (probably still is). I hope nobody gets their life fucked up because they were watching a regular hardcore video.
Didn't the season premiere of Mad Men have a closeup of some baby's ass and balls? In any event it's not pornography if it isn't meant to sexually arouse, which is itself an iffy distinction. Is the cover to Virgin Killer child pornography?
What did the others do? Is it more likely that the rest didn't know or like the director of the Pianist where everyone knows but carries on anyway?
Mad Bowser
Banned
This is disgusting! Child porn? For gods sake!!