[Info-vax] OT: Townshend

[johnwallace4 at yahoo.co.uk]

On Mar 7, 8:52 am, hel... at astro.multiCLOTHESvax.de (Phillip Helbig---
remove CLOTHES to reply) wrote:
> In article
> <bc131ff6-0a1a-4f76-b86f-bf8f56d97... at r34g2000vba.googlegroups.com>,
> "John H. Reinhardt" <johnhreinha... at yahoo.com> writes:
>
> > In 2002 Townshed had a run in with British authorities concerning
> > child pornography.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Townshend
>
> Yes, that's true, but you make it sound like he was a producer,
> distributor or consumer of child pornography.  Actually, he said he was
> doing some research connected with his autobiography.  I tend to believe
> him, for two reasons.  First, at least as far back as Tommy, child abuse
> has been a theme in his work.  Second, he has more than enough money so
> that he could access illegal stuff through a middleman if he wanted to.

For information, not necessarily for discussion...

Townshend was arrested (as were around four thousand others around the
same time, although less than half of them were ever charged) as part
of a UK police operation based on a list of credit card numbers
provided by US sources, numbers which had been used to pay for access
to illegal websites. The UK operation was somewhat controversial: well
known IT security person Professor Ross Anderson at Cambridge
University said in 2007: "In this operation, hundreds (and possibly
thousands) of innocent men were raided by the police on suspicion of
downloading child prngraphy, when in fact they had simply been victims
of credit card fraud. The police appear to have completely
misunderstood the forensic evidence; once the light began to dawn, it
seems that they closed ranks and covered up." There were over thirty
suicides among those arrested.

More on Professor Anderson's team's blog at
http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2007/04/20/extreme-online-risks/