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Supercomputer Joins Hunt for Child Predators - ABC News
Jaguar Supercomputer Has Already Helped Arrest Dozens of Criminals
The tragedy of seven-year-old Somer Thompson's 2009 murder was that it didn't have to happen.
Somer's assailant, Jarred Harrell, 24, was in police custody in 2009. The police also had Harrell's computer, which contained child pornography. But investigators hadn't seen the material, which would have kept him locked up. He was released, and on Oct. 19 Harrel abducted the Florida child on her way home from school.
Two days later Somer's body was found in a Georgia landfill.
Now scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, along with local and national collaborators, are working to save the life of the next Somer Thompson.
With the aid of the Jaguar supercomputer, the second most powerful computer in the world, Oak Ridge scientists hope to find child pornography faster than ever and then trace and arrest pedophiles quickly before they abuse or kill more children.
"These guys are on the verge of changing history," said Grier Weeks, executive director of the National Association to Protect Children. "There is no tool to interrupt child sexual abuse on a scale like this."
New Program Can Lead to Quicker Prosecution, Arrest
Every year U.S. law enforcement arrests between 2,000 and 3,000 individuals for charges related to child pornography, said Weeks. That's out of an estimated 300,000 people authorities suspect are engaged in this kind of criminal activity.
There is currently technology, developed last year by ORNL's Thomas Potok and Shaun Gleason, that could have helped investigators find the pornography on Harrel's computer, although they didn't have it. Still the new program, called Artemis, after the Greek goddess of the hunt, has helped make a dent in the local population of pedophiles.
When investigators, such as Tom Evans from the Knoxville Police Department, enters a suspect's home, they carry with them a copy of Artemis, which they run on the suspect's computers to find images with flesh-colored pixels, which could be child pornography.
Artemis has already helped the Knoxville Police Department in the roughly 30 child sex crime related arrests it has made this year, said Evans. "It can lead to a quicker prosecution and a quicker arrest," he said.
Jaguar Most Likely Won't Start Catching Pedophiles Until End of 2011
While Artemis does in seconds what would ordinarily take hours or even days to find, it only works when police have an actual suspect. And finding a suspect is the hard thing to do, according to Michael Teague, a forensic psychologist and retired Director of Psychological Services for the Raleigh Police Department.
Tips from concerned parents, girlfriends and other citizens go a long way to identifying pedophiles, said Teague. But these people often operate in networks, sharing images and video with one another over the Internet. Finding these people, and especially the people producing the images and video, is more difficult. This is how the Jaguar supercomputer can help.
"With the current process, it could take weeks for law enforcement to track someone down," said Robert Patton, a scientist at Oak Ridge who, along with Carlos Rojas, runs the Jaguar and pedophile project. "Right now we could probably do it in a few days. What we want is to do it in a few hours."
What Patton means is that from the time a child pornographer uploads a series of new pictures or video onto a network, the Jaguar supercomputer could find that file, see who has downloaded it, and track it down to an actual physical address source, all in a few hours.
Once police have that information they could raid the home, arrest the pedophile, and, hopefully, save the life of a child.
"The quickness is what would be so important," said Teague.
These criminals have molested and abused a child or children; kidnap or murder is not beyond them, as Somer Thompson's case so tragically illustrated. If a child becomes uncooperative or tries to run away it is easier to kill the child or move than risk being caught.
While Artemis has been running for a while now, Jaguar most likely won't catch pedophiles until the latter end of next year, said Patton. Right now they are running simulations and testing the programs on Jaguar before they use it in the real world. But the investigators hope that soon Jaguar will chase down pedophiles and prevent the death of the next Somer Thompson.
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Wikileaks: Pope Blocked Sex Abuse Investigation
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Wikileaks: Pope Blocked Sex Abuse Investigation
Speaking after the two churchmen met at the Vatican last month, Campbell said the pope had "put Williams in an impossible situation" and the archbishop's cautious reaction — meant to avoid harming relations with Rome — angered some Anglicans.Diaz ended the cable asking "whether the damage to inter-Christian relations was worth it — especially since the number of disaffected Anglicans that will convert is likely to be a trickle rather than a wave."Another cable dated November 9, 2009 said Campbell told Diaz that the Catholic Church would face "unforeseen obstacles" if many traditionalist Anglicans took up Benedict's offer."A large transition of Anglican converts could overwhelm the financial resources of many dioceses," it cited him as saying.No consideration for Church of EnglandThe Anglicans most likely to make the switch were the most conservative, he said."In uniting traditionalist Anglicans with the Catholic Church, the pope is bringing together two groups strongly committed to defending Europe's Christian heritage — a theme he strongly champions," it added.The cable cited an unnamed source as saying Williams was probably informed about the offer only a day before it was announced. When he expressed concern about it, he was told the Vatican had made its decision and was going ahead.According to the November 30 cable, Campbell felt the Vatican had acted without considering what its move would mean for the Church of England, mother church for the world's 80 million Anglicans, or their spiritual leader Williams."The Vatican decision seems to have been aimed primarily at Anglicans in the U.S. and Australia, with little thought given to how it would affect the center of Anglicanism, England, or the Archbishop of Canterbury," it said in relating his view.The Vatican announced last month that its first so-called ordinariate for Anglican converts would be established in Britain. Bishops and priests would join the Church in the first half of the year, followed by lay people wanting to switch.Reuters, The Associated Press and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.
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Bernie Madoff's Son Found Dead
Amplify’d from www.hapblog.com
Bernie Madoff's Son Found Dead
myfoxnyMark Madoff, the son of convicted Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, was found dead in his SoHo apartment of an apparent suicide.
Officers were called to 158 Mercer Street to respond to a report that Mark Madoff was hanging in his apartment.
He was found at 7:30 a.m. by his father-in-law. The NY Post reported that he was hanging from the ceiling with a dog collar.
The younger Madoff, 46, had been "unalterably bitter" over his father’s deception, a spokesman told the Wall Street Journal recently.
Mark Madoff and his brother, Andrew, were sued this week by Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee recovering assets for the victims of Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme.
Tomorrow is the two-year anniversary of Bernard Madoff’s arrest. He’s now serving a 150-year prison sentence over his $65 billion Ponzi scheme.
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Bernie Madoff's Son Mark Found Dead in Apparent Suicide
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Mark Madoff, the 46-year-old son of Bernie Madoff, was found dead in his Manhattan apartment this morning in an apparent suicide. Earlier this week, Mark (left) and his brother Andrew were sued by the trustee handling Bernie's victims' claims. [NYP]
Send an email to Jeff Neumann, the author of this post, at jeff@gawker.com.
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Richard Nixon Was Even More Racist Than You Thought
Amplify’d from gawker.com
We already know that Richard Nixon was a racist dick. He also liked to record conversations — like the 265 hours that were released this week by the Nixon Presidential Library. Hint: He didn't think much of blacks or Jews.
Nixon wasn't very fond of anyone who wasn't white and/or heterosexual. He thought the Jews were all commies who wanted to legalize weed, and "Negro bastards" only wanted to "live like a bunch of dogs" on welfare. He even called ancient Greeks and Romans "fags." But that's old news! The new set of tapes, from February and March of 1973, made available online this week through the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, have plenty of nuggets for people to pick through.
The New York Times pulled some of the juiciest quotes, like Nixon on black people:
Bill Rogers has got — to his credit it's a decent feeling — but somewhat sort of a blind spot on the black thing because he's been in New York," Nixon said. "He says well, ‘They are coming along, and that after all they are going to strengthen our country in the end because they are strong physically and some of them are smart.' So forth and so on.
"My own view is I think he's right if you're talking in terms of 500 years," he said. "I think it's wrong if you're talking in terms of 50 years. What has to happen is they have be, frankly, inbred. And, you just, that's the only thing that's going to do it, Rose."
Nixon on Jews:
The Jews are just a very aggressive and abrasive and obnoxious personality."
And...
I don't want any Jew at that dinner who didn't support us in that campaign," he said. "Is that clear? No Jew who did not support us."
And famous Jew Henry Kissinger, on Russian Jews:
The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy," Mr. Kissinger said. "And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern."
"I know," Nixon responded. "We can't blow up the world because of it."
Boy! There were some strong opinions about a whole lot of people in the Nixon White House, huh?
[Image via AP]
Send an email to Jeff Neumann, the author of this post, at jeff@gawker.com.
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