Testimony of Mark M. Ishikawa CEO BayTSP.com

Testimony of Mark M. Ishikawa, CEOBayTSP.com, Inc. Before the Commission On Online Child Protection" Other Technologies and Methods"

San Jose State University
San Jose, CA
August 4, 2000
3150 Almaden Expressway, Suite 234
San Jose, CA 95118
Phone: 408-979-7900, Fax: 408-979-7969

(Editor's note: This guy, Mark Ishikawa, is the kind of Net scum that endanger the freedom, privacy and Constitutional rights of online users, while justifying it in the name of children's protection. If all he was going after was child pornography, no one would have a problem with him. But he envisions BayTSP as the net enforcer of the world, for hire by any company or government agency with enough dough, enforcing the DMCA, and I am sure any other piece of Net legislation that comes down the road. He and his company, BayTSP.com, make a tidy profit from denying people's rights.

Recently, Bob Cringley wrote a column on BayTSP http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020919.html, which details why the scum regularly hide from everyone to conduct their business.

To quote from it: "Not even Osama bin Laden can escape the gaze of BayTSP. According to Ishikawa, the FBI thinks terrorists are sharing information by hiding it in images posted on eBay using a process called steganography. Doesn't that sound a little too sophisticated for al-Qaida? Can that picture of a dented Ford F-150 pickup with a For Sale sign really be saying, "Bomb the infidel Cringely's house?" Maybe, maybe not. "The FBI has us looking for certain specific things," says Ishikawa, "but we haven't found anything yet." End of Article

Yeah, I know you havent found anything yet, because that whole stenography thing was a big scare with no substance, dummy. Shame on Bob Cringley for letting him get away with this.

Here is what Net World Fusion had to say at http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/fileshare/2002/01383309.html "BayTSP has so far, been unable to sell one of its kiddie porn locating systems to law enforcement. But eventually, it will probably succeed in convincing some agency that analyzing and matching the files on your computer is the same as making matches in a fingerprint or DNA database.

Computer users should brace themselves for more intense surveillance of the data they store and trade. And they should expect that someone, somewhere, will eventually create a backdoor to BayTSP's surveillance system to find out if they are being spied on."

In other words, Mark is out on the lecture circuit, trying to scare the world into buying up his products. The articles written by him and about BayTSP are advertisments, pure and simple, and poor Bob Cringley fell for it.)

Begin testimony:

Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony and answer questions aboutthe developing technological methods, tools, and software applications that are availablefor the protection of children online. My name is Mark Ishikawa and I am the Chief Executive Officer and cofounder of BayTSP.com. Over the course of twenty years in thecomputer services industry I have engineered and managed database, networking,branding, and encryption systems for organizations ranging from the U.S. Department ofDefense to Hewlett Packard.Founded in June of 1999, BayTSP.com is a San Jose, California-basedcorporation and developer of a patent-pending solution and provider of a service fortracking online content to deter its theft, prosecute those engaged in copyrightinfringement, and ensure compliance with Federal anti-child pornography and childexploitation laws, including the record keeping law 18 U.S.C Section 2257. We recently began marketing our services and are now developing a client base, which includes The Whitehouse News Photographers Association (WNPA), the Professional Photographers Association (PPA), and workbook.com.

We have met with numerous organizationsincluding Sony, Paramount, Mandalay Films and the Motion Picture Association ofAmerica (MPAA). We are also currently discussing a joint venture with the HyundaiCorporation to bring our technology into Korea and Asia.BayTSP.com now also markets some of the available technologies to webmasters,specifically several of the adult online companies to which the requirements of the ChildOnline Protection Act are directed. BayTSP.com can provide an inside view of theindustry and its available capabilities, as well as supply the Commission with insight into the potential and planned technical tools that will, or could be made available to the adultand other online businesses in the furtherance of protecting children. There is no individual solution alone-- be it an increase in parental control,additional legislation, filtering and blocking systems, or the .xxx domain--that will adequately solve the problem of reducing the exploitation of children and keepingharmful matter from minors. BayTSP.com proposes a global cooperative solutioncombining the efforts of technology professionals, law enforcement, parents, and theadult industry.

BayTSP.com strongly believes the solution lies in all of the pieces workingtogether to create the most efficient system to protect children, privacy, and firstamendment rights. BayTSP.com's technological solutions are available to aid in theenforcement of existing laws, ensure that the adult industry complies with these laws, andassist parents, educational institutions and libraries to keep harmful matter from children.

Law Enforcement

Congressman Gary Miller of California recently testified before Congress,and compared the number of prosecutions of illegal pornography in the Clinton administration with the Reagan and Bush administrations. He indicated that since President Clinton has been in office, prosecution of illegal pornographers and obscenity has gone down 75%. In addition, he expressed his frustration that in 1997 there were only a total of 6 prosecutions of illegal pornographers by all 93 U.S. Attorneys.

The problem doesn't lie in the fact that new laws need to be created to deal withillegal material available on the Internet; the laws exist, they just need to be enforced. In fact, the government found it necessary to propose a bill-- H.R. 4710-- which provides additional funding to enforce existing obscenity and child exploitation laws. Title 18 of the United States Code contains laws that pertain to the enforcement of illegal pornography, including both obscenity and the sexual exploitation of children.

18 U.S.C. 2257 requires adult content creators and web masters keep records on file at theirplace of business, indicating that each performer in their library of material is over 18years of age. Regrettably, due to the lack of enforcement, this has created a "who cares" attitude by webmasters, many of whom have said "there is a greater likelihood of being run over by a bus than of law enforcement asking for such legal documentation." Lawyers in the industry have told us 95% of adult web masters are not in compliancewith the laws. BayTSP.com's 2257BrandSM, and the accompanying suite of applications and services, present content providers and webmasters with the only truly effective means tocomply with existing Federal anti-child pornography laws.

Developed with theassistance of one of the nation's top Internet, Intellectual Property and First Amendmentlaw firms-- Brull, Piccionelli, Sarno, Braun, and Vradenburgh-- the 2257 system embedscompliance documentation into each image, making age verification records availableelectronically to content providers, web masters and law enforcement, simply at the rightclick of a mouse.

BayTSP.com's 2257 compliance products and services have been specifically designed to address the records keeping and documentation requirements for18 U.S.C. 2257 and 28 C.F.R. 75 in a complete, manageable, and cost effective manner.By employing BayTSP.com's 2257 products and services, and enforcing theselaws, the amount of illegal material available on the Internet can be substantially reducedand will create a move toward self-regulation by those in the adult entertainment business.

A further problem with enforcing laws is the efforts of law enforcement officials to combat the high incidence of illegal pornography are highly fragmented. Federal,state, and local agencies are independently conducting child pornography investigations,and there is little centralized coordination among these agencies-- investigative resourcesare not being maximized. Dialog between agencies is rare, and the potential forduplication of investigative efforts not only exists, but also is highly likely.

Congresswoman Judy Biggert expressed her support for H.R. 2708, which allows ISPsand web users to report incidents of child pornography to the CyberTipline at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Similar bills have been introducedto make U.S. Customs the central location for the training of enforcement officials aswell as a central depository for known pornographic pictures and, even further, to make the FBI's Innocent Images Center the central force for the investigation and prosecutionof child pornographers.

BayTSP.com supports bills that promote the centralization of information andtechnology, and coordination between agencies. Various law enforcement agencies haveaccess to tens of thousands of "known images" that have been deemed childpornography. BayTSP.com's copyright infringement technology could be employed totrack these images more effectively if one central agency were responsible.Briefly, BayTSP.com's technology extracts the DNA equivalent from knownchild pornography content and compares it to all the images on various newsgroups andwebsites throughout the Internet.

The process can effectively identify the location of thecontent, and enable prosecution of those who are responsible making the illegal images available. And unlike watermarking and other tracking methods, which embed or hide information in the file, the technology can locate images which may have been distributed days, months, or even years ago. BayTSP.com also has the ability to spider hard drives seized by the government todetect known child pornographic content. Searching a hard drive with BayTSP.com's technology involves minutes to receive conclusive results, versus current manualinvestigative forensic examinations that can take months, to achieve only limited results.

BayTSP.com is actively pursuing partnerships with local and federal lawenforcement agencies in this effort to eliminate child pornography and clean up theInternet. By utilizing BayTSP.com's suite of applications law enforcement will nowhave the ability to recognize content that is not in compliance with anti-childpornography laws, as well as locate on the Internet known images that have already beenclassified as child pornography.

The Adult Industry

Previously, solutions have focused on filtering and blocking the adult industry andits content, but no one has yet addressed the possibility of working with that industry tohelp protect children. Most of the major players in the adult industry are against childpornography, would prefer to self regulate, want to comply with local obscenity laws, andwant to be able to effectively block children from accessing their sites.

For example, BayTSP.com will be working with Andrew Edmond of FlyingCrocodile in the near future to spider its free web hosting sites and newsgroups for childpornography and copyright violations. The results of this joint effort will then bereported to the appropriate authorities for prosecution. This is a perfect example of the adult industry wanting to combat this problem and expressing the willingness to worktogether to achieve a solution.

The Web is a global village, without geographic barriers, that links people,businesses, and governments around the world, but does not take community standardsinto account. Unfortunately, local communities that want to restrict access to certaintypes of material, by minors and adults, due to the content's inappropriate or obscenenature (as defined by those communities), have been unable to do so without requiringeveryone on the Internet to abide by the community's standards.

At the same time, adult webmasters often risk obscenity prosecution in those areas that have more restrictivelocal standards. BayTSP.com has developed a product to address this very issue. 2257 FilterSM allows webmasters to make specific files available based on the geographic location ofthe user. Webmasters who utilize this "electronic stop light" that has been embedded in online graphic, video, text, and audio files can automatically filter out "obscene" material, as defined by the user's local community standards, and have this material replaced by content that is more acceptable.

This technology benefits local communitiesby blocking inappropriate material to its residents. Currently, there is not an effective method of preventing minors from accessing inappropriate and obscene material on the Internet. In fact, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reluctantly upheld an earlier ruling by a lower court judge, who found that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) violated the First Amendment right to free speech,partly because web site owners had no effective means of screening out minors.Products that block URL's and Internet addresses exist, but are not completely effective. Every day 2,000 new adult sites go up on the web. It is very difficult, if not impossible, for the filtering technologies to keep up with the amount of material posted.Kids are also able to easily circumvent filtering technologies.

For example, web sites such as anonymizer.com allow children and others to secretly access any site in the world, defeating most filtering systems. Yet another concern with filtering systems isthat they could block access to informational or educational sites such as those that applyto health issues, abortion, gay rights, etc.

Age verification systems (AVS) create a breach of privacy as the user's activities including geographical location, interests, browsing habits, and even the computer beingused can be tracked. Many web sites and ISPs log this information, compile dossiers ontheir users, and sell such information to advertisers and marketing firms.Web site owners are reluctant to implement any mandatory registration becausethey believe it would drive away their users. Web users are hesitant to give out personal information unless they are prepared to make a purchase.

The BayTSP.com Age Verification System (AVS) will allow parents to disclose the age category of their children and the type of material they do not wish to be viewed as well as the type of material they wish to filter, while protecting the identity of the user. Using this anonymous method makes the tracking of the user's identity and surfing habitsdifficult, if not impossible, to identify.

BayTSP.com's patent pending AVS system allows parents to create a profile fortheir children indicating the child's age only. The profile interacts with adult web sitesprior to displaying the page. Users under the age of 18 will be denied access to this site,and in some instances will be redirected to another site more appropriate for the age group. This technology is unique because the only information exchanged is the age ofthe user, not any personally identifiable information such as name, address, or credit cardnumber. For public locations such as libraries the system can interface with an AgeVerification System or, with the use of a magnetic stripe reader, verify the age of a userfrom the magnetic stripe on the back of, for example, a drivers license, to prevent minorsfrom gaining access to inappropriate material. The cooperation from web masters is essential to prevent the viewing ofinappropriate material.

Restrictions placed on web sites by the federal government havebeen met with resistance as web publishers have successfully claimed that theselimitations would negatively affect their income stream, and they would be subjected tothe most restrictive community standards in order to avoid criminal liability.Giving web masters "safe harbor" from certain types of prosecution when theyinclude an appropriate type of filtering system could induce voluntary compliance.Similar to 47 U.S.C., Section 223, web masters would be provided an affirmative defenseto prosecution if they had "taken, in good faith, reasonable, effective, and appropriateaction under the circumstances to restrict or prevent access to minors" to those whoimplemented a suitable blocking or filtering system.We at BayTSP.com are evaluating the possibility of giving the end usercomponent of this system free of charge to government agencies (Schools, libraries, etc.),and selling it to the public in a non-profit model. We would license the servercomponents of the system to the web masters for a reasonable fee.

Parental Control

Any system that effectively blocks material from children must ultimately giveparents the control of the types of material they want their children to view. To date, thecourts have leaned towards placing the burden of online censorship with the parents, as itconstitutes a less restrictive alternative than government regulation and guarantees theprotection of adult free speech. While there are alternative means at assisting parents inlimiting minors' access to inappropriate material, these user-based blocking programs failto screen all objectionable content and are of little value in areas of public access,locations such as schools and libraries. Nonetheless, the main responsibility for makingthese choices should ultimately be placed on the parent.

This point bears repeating: The most vital feature of any technology is the powerto determine which material is suitable for children must inevitably be left to the parents. BayTSP.com's software, which will be available to parents for under $20, will be easy to install, simple to use, and the only truly effective means at restricting content andempowering parental control. BayTSP.com intends to offer this software to the government, public libraries, and all educational institutions free of charge.

BayTSP.com's unique solution for the elimination of child pornography and thesexual exploitation of children must include the cooperative efforts of parents, law enforcement, the adult industry, and technology. BayTSP.com's technological solutionsare available to aid in the enforcement of existing laws, ensure the adult industrycomplies with these laws, and assists parents, educational institutions and libraries tokeep harmful matter from children without infringing on an individual's freedom of speech.