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Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

It shouldn't be illegal. Possession of information - be it a book, a video, a picture, or text, should never be illegal in itself. Production and distribution of certain kinds should be absolutely illegal, but they already are, I don't think there's any discussion here.

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> Possession of information [...] should never be illegal in itself.

It certainly makes for an interesting discussion, however, your view is fringe here -- the laws of virtually every free democracy on the planet encapsulate the idea of some information being illegal.

HOWEVER: the gp point wasn't coming at it from your perspective there. They were saying (as I understood it) the fact that integers are "just numbers" meant that banning them was nonsensical. By extension, the illegality of distributing them would also be nonsensical.

> the laws of virtually every free democracy on the planet encapsulate the idea of some information being illegal.

Illegal to disseminate, not to own. There should be no punishment for being able to access or possessing information; Liability should squarely sit with the publisher, intentional or otherwise.

Most places have indecency laws which cover things like video of murders and extreme pornography; privacy laws that make acquisition and retention of data/imagery illegal; etc..

We (you) are conflating issues. Creating, distributing, profiting from, and possessing are all separate issues. Possession of information of any kind should not be illegal, as information is in and of itself not harmful; It's how you use it which should confer liability. If I download instructions on making a nuke, for example, that shouldn't be illegal. It should be illegal to make a nuke, to use a nuke, and to distribute them onward, but not to own them.

Most judicial systems would conclude that if for example you had extreme snuff porn on your computer, or the private personal records of another person, that there could be no legitimate procedure by which you could have obtained them. I don't think claiming that you extracted them from Pi, or 'could have done so' would be taken seriously as a defence.

The law for all it's flaws is ultimately a practical discipline, not abstract logic. Unless you're against all laws in general, which is a thing for some people.

>If I download instructions on making a nuke, for example, that shouldn't be illegal. It should be illegal to make a nuke, to use a nuke, and to distribute them onward, but not to own them. //

According to your assessment here you're an accessory to a crime - a willing and necessary participant. You said (hypothetically) you downloaded it, but that distribution should be illegal. Distribution and reception are linked, you can't get it without the distribution.

Demand for distribution fuels the supply.

I absolutely would maintain the illegality of ownership of some types of information (mitigations aside) - child pornography, imagery of rape or assault are obvious ones.

Freely allowing the supply and acquisition of details on making nukes is fine, because acquiring the components is difficult and can be controlled.

My quandary is that I want to be liberal to allow curiosity and educational intent to be fulfilled; but realise that there are elements who abuse the free acquisition of information that enables great harm (how to make a fertiliser bomb, how to make ricin).

Would you be okay with someone possessing nude photos of yourself? After all, "holding information isn't in itself harmful", as you state. What about, god forbid, pornography starring your underage child. Is it still "just information"?

Being a reasonable person, I don't see any reason I would care if someone has nude photos of myself, even if I was a child at the time the photos was taken. The photos are not harming me, nor will they be harmful to me in any sense other than random chance. I know there is a photo of me pissing into the sea when I was young, it doesn't bother me a bit.

It's good that you don't care, but don't I (or anyone else) have a right to care and not want those photos?

And I don't believe that you wholly don't care. I'm almost certain you must have some photos, or potentially may have some situations, if you were photographed, that are embarrassing and that you wouldn't want the general public (parents, coworkers, boss) to see.

Did he say that you don't have the right to care? He did not.

You can care, you may not want these photos to be where they are, and you may attempt to have them removed if it is possible, but you don't have the right to punish people for not caring, and you don't have the right to force people to care for the things you do.

I personally hate being on photos, so I try to avoid it to my best ability. I also asked someone to have a photo of me removed from somewhere. This is all understandable. The problem occurs when you are trying to dictate other people's lives by threatening to use violence against them for not conforming to your beliefs, etc. No need to resort to violence, come on.

I have a feeling you would attempt to beat me up for my tone alone because you perceive it to be hostile. Not cool. :P

If I make those photos available then yes, of course I would be happy. If they were taken without my consent, that is different. If I do not take adequate measures to protect them from accidental or malicious release, that is also different. I am specifically saying that owning knowledge should not be illegal. Creation, distribution, profiting from... All different things. Possession of data at rest should not be a crime, regardless of content. It's what's done with it that changes legality, in my opinion.

That's reducing things to a logical extreme and removing all considerations of practicality. In the end, that's not a good way to look at law, or the nitty-gritty of the world for that matter. If you find someone with nude photos of yourself, and you didn't give them to them, then you can conclude that those photos were obtained illegally. That fixation on the distinction between "technically just posession" and "creation/distribution/etc." is not really helpful.

Under current law that is already legal as long as they hold copyright. There is a grey area deciding what is artistic and what is prurient, but if ruled artistic, they could publish it in a book and sale in on Amazon.

But I think we should consider a major division between the rules of sharing information and the rules of possessing information. If I know how to make something bad, that shouldn't be wrong. If I share that for the sake of a discussion, that shouldn't be wrong. If I share it with someone who will use it to cause harm, knowingly aiding them in causing harm... well isn't that where we should say wrong has been done?

Interestingly enough, in the US, for the specific case of nuclear weapons design information, you don't even have to download it for it to be illegal. This class of information ("Restricted Data" as defined by the Atomic Energy Act) is "born secret" - even if you write it yourself, you're not allowed to have it.

(It should be pointed out that it's not been shown that this would actually be upheld by the courts).

If anybody is conflating things, it's you. And what you seem to be conflating is the meaning of the word "is", with that of the word "should".

You might be quite right in that no information should be illegal to posses. That, however, does not make it so. There's plenty of information that is illegal to posses. The fact that you don't like it doesn't make it less so.

If possession is not illegal, why is distribution? You point makes no sense.

Consider your argument with respect to privacy and data issues - obviously possession of information can be in and of itself harmful because it can be something that other people have a right to restrict your access to.

> Possession of information of any kind should not be illegal, as information is in and of itself not harmful;

And how does one come to possess information without creating or receiving (distributing) it?

This is about distribution. The whole concept of media is inherently related to distribution (of information). It's in the very etymology of the word.

Absolutely, but to use books as the example here - should we ever send people to jail for owning a book? Like, just sitting in their home library - should you ever go to jail for one? If yes, why yes? If no, what if the book is Mein Kampf? What if it contains graphic descriptions of child rape? What if it contains nuclear codes for US army stockpile? What if it describes how to make bombs and conduct terrorist attacks?

Or maybe....we should look at who is distributing material that we have a problem with, and target it there? As a society we should never be putting people in jail for just owning a certain piece of information, would you not agree?

If someone has videos of child rape on their hard drive, do you think they should be arrested and charged with a crime?

Nope, unless they participated in creation of such video. If they just downloaded it off the internet, then no - maybe they should be sent for mandatory psychiatric evaluation, but to prison? No.

Let me put it this way - you can go on google right now, type in "two teenagers kill man with screwdriver", and very quickly(on dailymotion) find an EXTREMELY graphic video of two guys killing a person with a screwdriver, picking out his eyeball and playing with it, while he's still alive etc etc. It's absolutely sickening and it shows a horrendous crime being committed. Yet watching and/or downloading such a video is not a crime in itself. If police ever found such a video on your drive they would probably go "wtf dude" but nothing would happen to you. How is that different from the video you described? Because someone might wank to it? What if someone gets off on the one I described? Is it a crime before or after you get aroused?

Instead, like I said - simply having a video/picture/text/drawing of literally anything shouldn't be a crime in itself.

The reason for criminalizing ownership of child pornography is not just fighting about vice. It's also understanding that people consuming such media are creating demand for it, and where there is demand, there soon is also supply. Because child sexual abuse is considered to be a horrible thing, fight against people who commit that abuse happens both at the supply and demand end.

I'm not sure this is actually true - but if you have sources, I would happily give them a read. It seems almost common sense that pedophiles abuse children because they want to abuse children. It gives them pleasure, so they do it - if they create a video at the same time, it's almost incidental. Unless we assume that there are people out there who wouldn't normally abuse a child, but they do it because they want to make a video and put it on the internet - then yes, demand for such videos creates supply. I find that unlikely though.

That actually is often why they do it. Obviously, they are also sexually attracted to children and are evil. Those two are also requirements, but the third is the audience.

Consider this - how many people do you think make YouTube style vlogs then DON'T upload them to YouTube? Not many right - the audience is part of the inventive for making the video. Among paedophile communities first generation IIOC are highly prized.

Source: I am a criminal investigator who works exclusively on CSE

But if they are sexually attracted to children and are "evil", then the creation of the videos and photos are just a "side-effect", the abuse probably would have taken place regardless, right? I had people telling me that possession of child pornography leads to child abuse, what do you think? I watch gore videos[1] sometimes online and I don't want to hurt people. I watch them to remind me that there are many violent people and places out there, that not everything is butterflies and sunshine. It makes me introspect. It makes me value the society that I live in that shelters me, and makes me realize how lucky I am.

EDIT: Actually, I'm trying to come up with reasons that apply to child pornography but without any success. Not saying that they are not going to offer you a "reasonable" insight, but at this moment I can't think of anything. Perhaps something anatomy related? Medical value/curiosity?

On another note: yeah, people do crazy shit for the likes and subscribers, it's pathetic and sickening. All those challenges, etc. Ugh. I try to avoid that side of the Internet. Is it just me or is there really a decline? Yesterday I read how in UK schools they had to remove analog clocks because kids couldn't tell the time off it.

I don't know, I know so many parents who are doing a great job. Their kids don't care much about social media, they are not interested in getting likes, not interested in being YouTubers, know the potential dangers of the Internet, and so on.

[1] Albeit I don't download them, but at the same time you can probably do the same with child pornography, though from a technical point of view you probably have them cached which could be considered possession I guess.

Isn't the possession of eg. pedophile drawings, or (theoretically) CGI / AI-generated pedophile movies also criminalized?

Ah, finally someone with a more positive tone (in contrast to mine) and a better way to articulate my thoughts. Thanks. :)

> If no, what if the book is Mein Kampf?

Incidentally there isn’t a single country (as far as I could find) where owning Mein Kampf is or was illegal. There’s a common misconception that its possession is or was illegal in Germany. However, this was never the case. Until 2016 the state of Bavaria owned the exclusive copyright and prohibited its publication. But that’s it.

That's kind of my point - Owning it is not a crime. If police finds a copy in your house, you're not automatically going to jail just because you have it. At the same time, its publication and sale is either prohibited because of copyright issues or under laws which prevent sale of Nazi paraphernalia.

Fair enough. I was just adding this trivia since the item stuck out of your list: all the other items may (under some jurisdictions) be illegal to possess.

I don't see the problem with banning or otherwise regulating certain representations if that is a useful tool against the production you are trying to stop.

This sort of "everything is allowed" arguments just seems like a way to avoid having to think carefully about what restrictions are reasonable, and what constitutes responsible use of information. Simply lazy irresponsibility.

Except it's not "everything is allowed", and the "ban and regulate everything" mentality seems to be more harmful, useless, waste of time and money in reality.

Regarding responsibility: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16933814

I have commented before about A/B testing the law to achieve statistical outcomes, and I absolutely do see a problem with it. It tosses principles and liberties out the window. Legislating things that are correlated with the thing you want to avoid is a utilitarian bridge too far for me.

So you'll be fine with DUI? After all, it's not the alcohol we're trying to avoid - it's the accidents, which are correlated with alcohol (for obvious reasons).

Truth is, often correlations are the only things we can go after to fight the things we don't want.

I think that reaching for legislation as the tool to minmax any desirable societal metric is a bad doctrine. That does not mean I am against every possible instance of it. DUI is very immediate. It's like putting one round in the chamber and pointing it at a public space. But, for example, I am opposed to restricting speech and free association as a less expensive proxy for stopping various things.

Should possession of anything be illegal?

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