DOJ Makes Its First Known Arrest For AI-Generated CSAM (engadget.com) 98
In what's believed to be the first case of its kind, the U.S. Department of Justice arrested a Wisconsin man last week for generating and distributing AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Even if no children were used to create the material, the DOJ "looks to establish a judicial precedent that exploitative materials are still illegal," reports Engadget. From the report: The DOJ says 42-year-old software engineer Steven Anderegg of Holmen, WI, used a fork of the open-source AI image generator Stable Diffusion to make the images, which he then used to try to lure an underage boy into sexual situations. The latter will likely play a central role in the eventual trial for the four counts of "producing, distributing, and possessing obscene visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct and transferring obscene material to a minor under the age of 16." The government says Anderegg's images showed "nude or partially clothed minors lasciviously displaying or touching their genitals or engaging in sexual intercourse with men." The DOJ claims he used specific prompts, including negative prompts (extra guidance for the AI model, telling it what not to produce) to spur the generator into making the CSAM.
Cloud-based image generators like Midjourney and DALL-E 3 have safeguards against this type of activity, but Ars Technica reports that Anderegg allegedly used Stable Diffusion 1.5, a variant with fewer boundaries. Stability AI told the publication that fork was produced by Runway ML. According to the DOJ, Anderegg communicated online with the 15-year-old boy, describing how he used the AI model to create the images. The agency says the accused sent the teen direct messages on Instagram, including several AI images of "minors lasciviously displaying their genitals." To its credit, Instagram reported the images to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which alerted law enforcement. Anderegg could face five to 70 years in prison if convicted on all four counts. He's currently in federal custody before a hearing scheduled for May 22.
Cloud-based image generators like Midjourney and DALL-E 3 have safeguards against this type of activity, but Ars Technica reports that Anderegg allegedly used Stable Diffusion 1.5, a variant with fewer boundaries. Stability AI told the publication that fork was produced by Runway ML. According to the DOJ, Anderegg communicated online with the 15-year-old boy, describing how he used the AI model to create the images. The agency says the accused sent the teen direct messages on Instagram, including several AI images of "minors lasciviously displaying their genitals." To its credit, Instagram reported the images to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which alerted law enforcement. Anderegg could face five to 70 years in prison if convicted on all four counts. He's currently in federal custody before a hearing scheduled for May 22.
Messaging minors with porn is illegal (Score:4, Informative)
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"Real girl, but fake images."
that's a specific thing in US federal law.
erotic drawing of 14 year old fictional character "Harry Potter", legal. erotic drawing of 14 year old real human "Daniel Radcliff", illegal.
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I know it sounds an awful lot like Thought Crime, but, I too believe that if a person plays out these sorts of scenarios in their head long enough, they will be
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Not easy, but... (Score:2)
And let's not forget about other forms of art. I knew a Freshman when I was a Junior that was a pretty amazing artist. He could take one look at a person and sketch them with pencil on paper. It looked almost like a black-and-white photograph it was so damn good. He had a crush on a girl. He was 16, she was 15....and one day someone snatched his notebook and opened it to find a ton of drawings of this girl (and other people) naked. Real girl, but fake images. Should government be allowed to destroy his life?
Tough moral questions.
Your friend was a minor. I don't think he'll go to jail and sorry, not every edge case can be codified. That's why we have judges. If you're in your 40s and trying to make a 15yo horny by sending them porn, presumably to have sex with them down the road, that's obviously very illegal for very good reasons and we all agree on that. Your concern is how do we determine if things are child porn or not?...well, like many vague laws, there's some prosecutorial and judicial discretion. Disturbing the peace is
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Yes. It appears that the government is actually trying to use the Terrible facts in this case to get a Bad precedent set.
They should Put the guy in jail for a very long time over what he showed to minors and did or tried to do with actual minors, But dismiss all the Charges related the status of Non-existent persons depicted in the images.
Transmitting obscene Content and sending to minors, yes.. book him, give him 20 years.
Creating fake CS for his own edification.. Weird and disgusting, but this sho
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If sharing a hand drawn sketch of lewd subject matter is fine, and an oil painting of lewd subject matter is fine, and a photoshop created drawing of lewd subject matter is fine, and a human commissioned photoshop created drawing of lewd subject matter is fine, then this remains a human commissioned via an art software tool created drawing of lewd subject matter.
Sharing said content with minors is against the law.
As a sex trafficking survivor,
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FWIW, sexual visual representations that are indistinguishable from an actual and identifiable child are illegal (jurisdictions draw the lines a bit differently, but it's illegal or in a grey area in most of the US AFAIK).
Somewhere along this line:
If sharing a hand drawn sketch of lewd subject matter is fine, and an oil painting of lewd subject matter is fine, and a photoshop created drawing of lewd subject matter is fine, and a human commissioned photoshop created drawing of lewd subject matter is fine, then this remains a human commissioned via an art software tool created drawing of lewd subject matter.
... it is not fine according to the law.
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then this remains a human commissioned via an art software tool created drawing of lewd subject matter.
Sharing said content with minors is against the law.
If that's where you are headed... You actually made the law Unconstitutional. The ruling of the supreme court requires that material Must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value, In order to be obscene. If the Material is actually Art as you argue, then that would mean the obscenity exception the court carved out to the 1s
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Why are you using caps in such a bizarre (and incorrect) way? It's distracting...
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It matters. Get him only for the real counts (luring the minor). What he generated with AI on his own computer is not a crime.
Re: Messaging minors with porn is illegal (Score:2)
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From the summary:
> four counts of "producing, distributing, and possessing obscene visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct and transferring obscene material to a minor under the age of 16."
AI generated material can easily fit this description.
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How do you train a model to create child porn without a bunch of child porn?
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The same way that a human artist would start drawing such material.
Nudity is not illegal per se, and porn of adults is legal and neither are photos of how joints, arms and legs are moving, thus the model has the individual components of what to draw. A human would be able to combine these as well.
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Good thing I only ask for 18 year old porn and not even 17.5 years old! Oh yes, and I sure hope Stable Diffusion recognizes the difference, DOWN TO THE DAY, because that's what the law would care about! LOL!!!
BS headline-arrested for sending, not creating (Score:5, Informative)
Re:BS headline-arrested for sending, not creating (Score:5, Informative)
I'd assume that the interaction with an actual minor were most likely to be what initially attracted attention to his case; but he is very much charged for the production and possession of the porn as well.
Re:BS headline-arrested for sending, not creating (Score:5, Informative)
That's just wrong. The indictment is here [justice.gov]. One of the 4 counts was for transfer of obscene material to minors(section 1470); the other three were related to the generated porn(section 1466A).
I'd assume that the interaction with an actual minor were most likely to be what initially attracted attention to his case; but he is very much charged for the production and possession of the porn as well.
All four counts involve interstate transportation or distribution. Only one count is partially for production.
Count 1: production and interstate transportation
Count 2: distribution (interstate)
Count 3: distribution to a minor
Count 4: possession of material produced via interstate transportation
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Count 1
knowingly produced at least one visual depiction that depicted a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct and was obscene, and attempted to do so, and any visual depiction involved in the offense had been shipped and transported in interstate and foreign commerce by any means, including by computer, and was produced using materials that had been mailed, and that had been shipped and transported in interstate and foreign commerce by an
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This guy is being prosecuted for sending porn to an underage boy, not generating AI porn.
Oh really? Good thing we have you to tell us that.. I guess the Federal Indictment paperwork is full of shit.....
https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1352606/dl
Almost everything YOU said is B.S.
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After all, their fetish is locking up people in inhumane environments. Or as they would call it "extreme bondage play."
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1) if you can't tell the difference between an adult and a 15 yo...
2) the recipient was harmed, a minor
3) wut? Uh no. All you'll do is generate a market for "real CP" vs "fake CP"
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1) Try looking at some Anime and you tell me what age the characters are.
2) Yes, and as long as this is the crime, it's a non-story. It seems, though, that they want to muddle the waters here and make creating the fake porn the crime.
3) Who exactly is the victim in a fake CP "crime"? Last I checked electrons don't have feelings.
To its credit, Instagram reported the images (Score:2, Flamebait)
Why to its credit? I would say the opposite.
And why does the use of AI matter here at all? The entire article is focused on the AI aspects even though they are irrelevant, that is when the article is not praising corporate vigilantism.
"He's currently in federal custody before a hearing scheduled for May 22."
And yet an ex-President guilty of espionage and treason is not.
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And yet an ex-President guilty of espionage and treason is not.
Convicted in the court of MSNBC, I presume?
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I mean he freely admits to crimes all the time. Like this one. https://newrepublic.com/post/1... [newrepublic.com]
Or this https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/09... [cnn.com]
Or this https://fortune.com/2023/10/10... [fortune.com]
Or this https://www.forbes.com/sites/s... [forbes.com]
How about inadvertently revealing the resolution of a spy satellite? https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]
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Literally a crime, but do go on.
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Not a crime, or you can be sure, some Democrat somewhere would have charged him for it. I mean, he "admitted to it," right?
The left has gone batshit insane.
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One doesnt need MSNBC to see that man as treasonous. There are recorded conversations of Trump attempting to subvert our democracy both by trying to get lower officials to "find" votes so he can win and by the lining up of fake electors to vote contrary to the will of the voters. Both crimes are still in the courts so we'll see how they play out but actual recordings seem pretty damning to me.
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When he said "find" votes he literally meant he thought they had been stolen and he wanted him to find the stolen votes.
You guys use the most uncharitable, most twisted, most dishonest possible interpretation of every word he utters, and have done so for 8 years now.
I remember a month ago Trump talking about the 'bloodbath' that in the automotive industry that would happen if Biden got a second term, and how the entire MSM report only "bloodbath" and left out the automotive part, claiming he was threatening
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When he said "find" votes he literally meant he thought they had been stolen and he wanted him to find the stolen votes.
Except Trump never had any evidence of stolen votes. It's a fiction he invented, notice all of the massively unsuccessful lawsuits over it. I dont think any of them even went to trial and some were so frivolous the lawyers that brought them were disbarred.
You're all freaking insane. YOU extremists are the threat to our democracy. At least the right wing conspiratards will never have any serious power.
Right, I'm an extremist because Trump invented a conspiracy and then acted on his invention.
I notice you havent touched the fake electors charge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] by the way. Cant figure out a way to twist reality to your liking in regards
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When he said "find" votes he literally meant he thought they had been stolen and he wanted him to find the stolen votes.
Except Trump never had any evidence of stolen votes. It's a fiction he invented
No, it's stuff he believed, as he still claims today.
He was trying to convince the Georgia secretary of state to not certify the election until his claims were investigated, something which he has EVERY right to request. Even if they were wrong, you cannot throw him in jail for exercising his right to free speech.
You're all freaking insane. YOU extremists are the threat to our democracy. At least the right wing conspiratards will never have any serious power.
Right, I'm an extremist because Trump invented a conspiracy and then acted on his invention.
No, you're an extremist for trying to prosecute a man for challenging the validity of an election, and the rest of the insanity of the last 8 years.
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Also, there are NO 'fake' electors.
https://thefederalist.com/2023... [thefederalist.com]
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That article is bullshit fringe theory being pushed after the fact by ideologs trying to get him off the hook that even our conservatively stacked supreme court is unlikely to accept. Here's a nice breakdown on the reality Trump is facing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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That legal analysis was publish on The Federalist, no 'fringe' rag.
And it was written by Margot Cleveland, graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, recipient of the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor.
So how is it a 'bullshit fringe theory?'
Trump's team merely followed to the 'T' the exact approach required by law, one which JFK also employed, appointing his own set of Democrat electors who also cast their votes for him after the Secretary of State in Hawaii already certified the result fo
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garbage story (Score:2)
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Read the fucking indictment.....
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I'm just going to assume you're blind because.....
knowingly produced at least one visual depiction that depicted a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct and was obscene
Do you see the word "produced"? That is the very first line under the asshole's name.
produce
verb
1. make or manufacture from components or raw materials.
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4 out of 5 counts were for the generation of the images. It'll be interesting to see how they prove a drawing is underage.
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They're probably going to pull up whatever "prompt" texts used to create the images. And find words that could be associated with directions on Age.
And if he threw in some negative prompt words like 'mature' or 'adult'
Although that is not exactly how Stable Diffusion works... you enter a prompt and the algorithm Infers noise patterns more like X, but if he put some inputs into the prompt that can be seen as Age indicators; they can make an argument that age Hints in the prompt are the Age of the resu
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Irrelevant. He could draw minors in Photoshop all day long. We're talking about the most disgusting use of free expression here. And the DOJ is trying to criminalize it. I sincerely doubt it's going to fly given the broad, terrifying constitutional implications.
However, when it comes to distributing the materials to a minor, attempting to lure a minor, really everything relating to his actual contact and conduct with minors, dude ought to burn. But the creation and possession of artificial representations o
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My point is that is irrelevant. It's still not a depiction of an actual person.
What if the guy had asked a human to do the drawing, of a hypothetical person who doesn't exist?
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A bunch of pixels have no age, no feelings and cannot be abused.
Laws MUST in all cases and for all eternity be restricted to actual humans being affected or endangered. Maybe animals and the planet, too, if you must. But pixels cannot be underage, abused or affected.
Please for the love of all that is good, do never give in to the temptation of convicting people based on their morality alone. It will be a slippery slope down fast from there, because then everything can be made out of nothing, and people gett
Attempted Molestation is Doing Heavy Lifting Here (Score:2)
Even if no children were used to create the material, the DOJ "looks to establish a judicial precedent that exploitative materials are still illegal,"
The DOJ says 42-year-old software engineer Steven Anderegg of Holmen, WI, used a fork of the open-source AI image generator Stable Diffusion to make the images, which he then used to try to lure an underage boy into sexual situations. The latter will likely play a central role in the eventual trial for the four counts of "producing, distributing, and possessing obscene visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct and transferring obscene material to a minor under the age of 16."
It really feels like the supposed child pornography generation crime is being smuggled in here, especially if it's being combined with "attempting to lure a child" (i.e. an actual child, not an image) into (four of) a single crime (and charge).
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I think you forgot you have been blind since birth. That was you own mom you were doing those things to.
Too much emotion (Score:5, Insightful)
You shouldn't care if a pedo is whacking it to child porn.
You should care whether real children were harmed in the production.
You should care whether it is statistically more likely to increase or decrease offense rates against real children.
Whether AI child porn is illegal should be based on those previous two items and those two items only, if you're really thinking of the children and not just getting a justice boner over the idea of hurting someone. Whatever results in the best net income for children. That's supposed to be the point, right?
But I never see studies quoted to support these laws, just emotional arguments.
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The problem is that CSAM is also in LAION (used for Stable Diff) training dataset and in others too most likely.
Then you should be arresting the people training the Stable Diffusion datasets who ended up sourcing the material.
Re:Too much emotion (Score:4, Informative)
You shouldn't care if a pedo is whacking it to child porn.
You shouldn't, but if you don't want it you'll need to get the law changed. https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... [cornell.edu] Words "cartoon" and "sculpture" appear several times here, as does a special non-requirement (c) that says the person in the image doesn't need to exist.
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The law does say what it says, but that's not the whole story. There is currently one controlling SCOTUS opinion on the subject, Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition. Currently, fake CP is legal so long as it's not obscene. So as long as it's artsy, you're fine. That is also directly stated in the law you referenced. That law doesn't outlaw everything you think it does. What's illegal must be obscene to be illegal, which means it must have no artistic, literary, or scientific value. That's a pretty low bar for
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I think you're conflating two things. Fake CP is legal. The Ashcroft vs Free Speech Coalition focused on COPA, which is a completely different law to the one being discussed here.
The law here isn't about owning something (which was what SCOTUS's opinion was on). The law was about interstate distribution (which is what this person is being charged with).
Re:Too much emotion (Score:5, Insightful)
The way to deal with it is to offer treatment. Anonymous, and kept out of medical records etc. Give people who are attracted to minors a way to get help that doesn't risk ruining their lives.
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The way to deal with it is to offer treatment. Anonymous, and kept out of medical records etc. Give people who are attracted to minors a way to get help that doesn't risk ruining their lives.
Oh ... so treatment can change sexual preferences?
Re:Too much emotion (Score:5, Insightful)
It's irrelevant if it is a preference or hard wired. Either way, sexual activity with minors is rightly illegal, so it makes sense for people who feel that they want it to get treatment.
While conversion therapy is harmful, I think even if it were concluded that being attracted to minors is inherent and that the treatment is harmful, it could still be justified on the basis of protecting children and keeping the patient out of an even more harmful situation: prison. And we are nowhere near making that conclusion, by the way.
Even if we accepted that people should be allowed to indulge any and all fantasies in private, using purely AI generated material, there would be a strong case for offering treatment to help people keep those fantasies separate from real life.
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The government should just give pedophiles realistic sex dolls. It's cheaper than the court costs and incarceration and there is the scarily higher than should be expected correlation between a
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I don't think anyone argued that it was impossible.
You can change all sorts of preferences with treatment, depending on how much you loosen the definition of 'treatment'.
You could enforce treatment of certain political beliefs if you wanted to. Are you eager to give the government that power? Or should we leave it with just things that are illegal. Or do you want to maybe have 'currently illegal plus the one thing that I've been told by the media that I need to be scared of / angry about today'?
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You shouldn't care if a pedo is whacking it to child porn.
You should care whether real children were harmed in the production.
You should care whether it is statistically more likely to increase or decrease offense rates against real children.
In a society horribly addicted to bad news that has no problem never forgetting even a false accusation, you should also care whether or not reducing the creation of child porn down to a damn script, will increase rates of false accusations as well.
Particularly in a legal system that barely knows how to spell “technology”.
If we thought false accusations from the Me Too movement was bad, just imagine.
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You shouldn't care if a pedo is whacking it to child porn.
You should care whether real children were harmed in the production.
You should care whether it is statistically more likely to increase or decrease offense rates against real children.
Whether AI child porn is illegal should be based on those previous two items and those two items only, if you're really thinking of the children and not just getting a justice boner over the idea of hurting someone. Whatever results in the best net income for children. That's supposed to be the point, right?
But I never see studies quoted to support these laws, just emotional arguments.
"You shouldn't"? "You should"?
But where does this "should" come from, kemo sabe?
Oh, from your morality? Why "should" I care about that?
(I do care, of course ... and morality is what we base laws on, not just downstream outcomes. Oh, wait ...)
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The should and shouldn't were a product of the implied "think of the children" argument. My feelings on the subject are not relevant here, I was discussing the matter of consistency between desired outcomes and the laws supposedly designed to obtain them.
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> Oh, from your morality?
> Why "should" I care about that?
He was making a purely utilitarian argument and explained it well.
Where did you find morality?
Or do you mean preventing harm to children is an arbitrary moral stance?
I hope not - we used to exile people like that.
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I agree in principle, but:
not just getting a justice boner over the idea of hurting someone.
The actual reason is that our society is still deeply ingrained with the essentially religious concept of punishing what the majority considers despicable. This is a form of social control, of keeping all individuals within a common framework. It is flexible over time, for example for most of human history slavery was perfectly acceptable, but it changes very slowly.
Child porn is one of the especially despicable things. Therefore, no amount of rational argument, no matter how corre
Story Is Wrong, But Maybe Fake Kiddie Porn Is.. (Score:2)
Better than real kiddie porn. I personally think if that is your mindset that you should be set on fire, nevertheless, fake AI kiddie porn is better than physically carrying it out and maybe there is a way track them down for fuel.
I blame anime as the latest incarnation of 'acceptable' entertainment that exploits this sickness.
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In the same way Sunday morning cartoons exploit violence, right?
Ban Looney Tunes! :D
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No. Violence was needed to keep the perverts afraid. Little kid might fuck you up if you try to rape them.
But I commend your attempt at de-focusing. Gives me a clue about your real intentions.
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No freaking idea what you're going on about. But what are my "real intentions?" Enlighten us, oh clairvoyant one!
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I personally think if that is your mindset that you should be set on fire
So burn the (perceived) heretics huh? Not so sure if you're any better than those you accuse.
maybe there is a way track them down for fuel.
That's entrapment.....
I blame anime
Blames a culture that is different from their own as the root of all evil.
Yep, no doubt about it. There's something seriously wrong with you.
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It's possible to give _you_ that mindset by causing just the right interaction with just the right part of your brain. Should you still be set on fire after that has been done to you?
Odd (Score:1)
The images, however, are problematic in that if there isn't a real person. How can they tell the age? I mean, that's the first easy argument..basically prove the age. How is the prosecution going to do that? What legal trickery will be created here? I feel like this is designed to go to the supremes, where those numbskulls who don't even understand double jeopardy, might just go along wit
Good (Score:2)
Some things are just wrong in and of themselves. There doesn't always have to be some kind of secondary or downstream harm.
And all laws are based on morality ... the only question is whose morality.
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Uh... Off topic, but no. Laws are NOT based on morality. They are based on defining a behavior to be punished after it is committed.
At no point is the morality of the law promised, nor is the fairness. Many are based on consolidating power.
thought crime (Score:2)
Sounds like this is purely a thought crime. Ugly thoughts, but still just thoughts.