Teenagers naked brownies

[snopes]

Comment: There is one I heard recently that has become somewhat of an
urban legend. Although I can't vouch for the accuracy of the story, it's a
perfect example of the sorts of things that we now hear happening all the
time. Apparently, last year a priest from Utah sent E-mail to his sister
in Boston. In his message he mentioned that some local teenagers had
stopped by his church that day and baked him brownies. Hoping to impress
his sister with his technological wizardry, he borrowed the church's new
digital camera and took a photo of the brownies. Then he attached the
photo to his E-mail and sent it off. Of course everything should have been
fine.

Alas, it was not. In a cruel twist of fate, while typing his E-mail the
priest made a single typo that changed his life forever. While writing the
phrase "teenagers baked brownies", instead of typing "B" for baked, he
missed and hit the letter "N" (the letter directly next to the "B"),
resulting in the phrase "teenagers naked brownies."

Because he had unknowingly typed the words "naked" and "teenagers" next to
each other in his E-mail, his message was flagged by a secret government
computer scanning for child pornographers on the Internet. To make matters
worse (much worse) the priest had attached a photo to his E-mail, so his
transmission was flagged top-priority for immediate analysis.

When the task force went to examine the photo, however, they found that
the file was corrupt and could not be opened. All they knew was that the
photo was entitled "Brownies", and it was sent by a priest who was writing
about naked teenagers. They tracked the priest's identity through his
Internet service provider and secretly began investigating his church.
They found to their horror that both the Cub Scouts and the Brownies met
at there on a regular basis. They concluded that this priest had been
sending pictures of naked Brownies... a felony. They arrested him.

[lynnejanet]

Huh. I've never heard this before, but I'm skeptical. First, his message was "flagged" and analysed before they identified his ISP? I guess he could have been using a web-based email program. Does the technology exist to "flag" emails based on their subject lines?

They arrested him based on circumstantial evidence (the Brownie meeting) and a single corrupted file? They may have arrested him, but such a charge would never stick, in the absence of any more evidence.

Finally, why would they suspect him at all, when he was sending the supposed pornography to his sister? Ot did that just make it worse, somehow (oooh - we can get him for incestuous weirdness, too)!

I vote modern UL.

They concluded that this priest had been
sending pictures of naked Brownies... a felony. They arrested him.

I'm no lawyer but it seems to me that the conclusion isn't backed up by anything solid at all. They have a corrupted file that they couldn't look at and could only speculate was pornography and the fact that Cub Scouts and Brownies meet at the church (which is true for a great many churches). No tangible evidence at all other than the title of an e-mail that was typed in error and would probably easily be shown to be an error if it ever went to court. I don't believe this one for a second.

[Amigone201]

Apparently the police wherever this made-up story takes place don't have enough to worry about, which is why they're going fishing for a malicious prosecution suit.

[vanilla]

I thought this looked familiar.

Old board discussion.

[Richard W]

Originally Posted by Class Bravo

I'm no lawyer but it seems to me that the conclusion isn't backed up by anything solid at all. They have a corrupted file that they couldn't look at and could only speculate was pornography and the fact that Cub Scouts and Brownies meet at the church (which is true for a great many churches). No tangible evidence at all other than the title of an e-mail that was typed in error and would probably easily be shown to be an error if it ever went to court. I don't believe this one for a second.

And wouldn't the body of the email have contained some sort of text explaining what the picture actually was? Maybe he mistyped that too - "This is a photo of some brownies teenage girls naked me - I ate them in the vestry, yum!"...

Brownies as in junior girl guides aren't teenagers anyway, are they?

[diddy]

Originally Posted by Class Bravo

I'm no lawyer but it seems to me that the conclusion isn't backed up by anything solid at all. They have a corrupted file that they couldn't look at and could only speculate was pornography and the fact that Cub Scouts and Brownies meet at the church (which is true for a great many churches). No tangible evidence at all other than the title of an e-mail that was typed in error and would probably easily be shown to be an error if it ever went to court. I don't believe this one for a second.

There is no way they would arrest anybody if there was a corrupt image because of a couple of glaring omissions.

1) Because the image is corrupt they have no way of determining what the picture is of. The judge would block the evidence. Any competent lawyer could contend that the subject line was either an error or a joke.
2) The word "teenager" does not mean that the person was underage.

Even if their was some government computer that was doing this, nobody would bother investigating this because their is nothing to suggest underage activity and the image itself was corrupt. Even if they went to court with this the DA would be made a laughing stock when the Judge would discover that the case didn't even remotely meet prima facha (or however its spelled).

[Troberg]

If the police were to investigate every email that contained the words "naked teenagers" or something to that effect, they would need to hire the entire population of China just to sort out the spam...

[DemonWolf]

Originally Posted by diddy

There is no way they would arrest anybody if there was a corrupt image because of a couple of glaring omissions.

1) Because the image is corrupt they have no way of determining what the picture is of. The judge would block the evidence. Any competent lawyer could contend that the subject line was either an error or a joke.
2) The word "teenager" does not mean that the person was underage.

3) Brownies are for girls aged 7-11, they aren't teenagers.
4) the mesage was "flagged" by a "secret government computer" (as opposed to forwarded to the FBI by the ISP).

So basically what we have here is a secret government computer reading the emails of private citizens without any warrent or just cause and an arrest made on the basis of a groundless supposition and no evidence.

Pass the tinfoil.

[Salamander]

[gollum]The stupidity of the query hurts us, we hates it! Hates it![/gollum]

[Hepcat]

I agree with Troberg. That criterion for flagging email is way too broad. This secret government computer would flag too many emails to ever check.

I also had to add that Salamander cracked me up. That was funny.

Well, it's not exactly a secret (unless they are still using it - which isn't out of the question - this administration has repeatedly shown contempt for rule of law), but Carnivore does have a great deal of potential for abuse.

This particular story is most likely ficticious (and there are ways to get a glimpse of corrupted files), but the potential for government agencies to sniff through emails is very real.

[BluesScale]

A single image wouldn't be regarded as being worth investigation. The computer forensics specialists are constantly looking for systems to classify images faster because a machine siezed as evidence may have more than 50,000 images on it. I have heard of cases where more than 500,000 images were found on a single raided volume.

The prosecution would typically proceed with 50-200 sample images.

Blues

[Eddylizard]

Originally Posted by Citizen James

Well, it's not exactly a secret (unless they are still using it - which isn't out of the question - this administration has repeatedly shown contempt for rule of law), but Carnivore does have a great deal of potential for abuse.

This particular story is most likely ficticious (and there are ways to get a glimpse of corrupted files), but the potential for government agencies to sniff through emails is very real.

If we take the stated facts on face value:

Carnivore was only capable of intercepting messages from targeted suspects. A suspect had to come to the attention of the FBI by other means, then Carnivore could be used to intercept the suspects traffic.

Perhaps you are thinking of Echelon which allegedly monitors all electronic traffic worldwide, looks for keywords and flags messages containing those keywords for follow up.

In which case, if 'teenagers naked' is on the list, anyone contributing to this post can expect a knock on the door.

[Amigone201]

Originally Posted by Eddylizard

In which case, if 'teenagers naked' is on the list, anyone contributing to this post can expect a knock on the door.

18 and 19 year olds are still teenagers, but looking at naked pictures of them isn't a crime.

[Eddylizard]

Originally Posted by Amigone201

18 and 19 year olds are still teenagers, but looking at naked pictures of them isn't a crime.

Nor is looking at or distributing pictures of a plate of biscuits, my point being that if our hypothetical priest got arrested merely on the basis of his subject line, then so could we all.

In other words I doubt it happened.

Also they say the file was corrupt. It would have to be a hell of a corrupted file if they couldn't piece together the data, virtually all corrupt files are at least partially recoverable with the right software.

[Richard W]

Originally Posted by lazerus the duck

Also they say the file was corrupt. It would have to be a hell of a corrupted file if they couldn't piece together the data, virtually all corrupt files are at least partially recoverable with the right software.

I think I've worked out what happened. The location given in the story is wrong - this must have happened in the UK, and the prosecutors were relying on the old legal definition of pornography as material "liable to deprave and corrupt".

Since the file was corrupted, the image (whatever it was) was clearly "liable to corrupt". They didn't need to determine what the image had actually been. They got him bang to rights. Throw away the key, I say!

[Grand Illusion]

If I were vectoring this particular UL, I would eliminate the word "teenage" from the equation. It doesn't add anything to the problem the tale creates and, in fact, it creates a problem of its own because Brownies (as said before) are young Girl Scouts, not teens.

[diddy]

Originally Posted by Grand Illusion

If I were vectoring this particular UL, I would eliminate the word "teenage" from the equation. It doesn't add anything to the problem the tale creates and, in fact, it creates a problem of its own because Brownies (as said before) are young Girl Scouts, not teens.

I think your confused here. per the OP:

In his message he mentioned that some local teenagers had
stopped by his church that day and baked him brownies.

In other words, teenagers (not of any particular group, just teenagers) came over to bake the priest these.