Tweet
from:
http://www.pattayaghost.com/2008....posters
http://www.pattayaghost.com/2008....posters
If you thought your password made it safe for you to post nude photos of your Thai teerak on a Pattaya Internet message board, think again. Pattaya police not only have €œLevel 2″ access, but some enterprising officers are hunting down amateur pornographers and their models and demanding payoffs under threat of jail time.
€œThey€™re going around all the bars looking for the girls and then getting the girls to tell them who shot the photos,€ said New Living Dolls One owner Shane (aka €œAlan Lad€). €œThen they€™re hitting the girls up for small amounts of money and the farangs for big money.€
Shane was summoned to his go-go one afternoon last week to meet with an officer well-known to Pattaya Waking Street bar owners. The officer came armed with color printouts of Internet message board pages featuring nude, hotel shots of a former NLD1 dancer and wanted copies of her ID card and her current address.
Shane said he refused to cough up the ID card copies and sent the officer on his way after telling him he didn€™t know where the woman currently worked.
Shane said, however, his found his former dancer about two days later and learned the police had found her working for her current Soi Diamond employer. €œHer face just fell when she saw me,€ he said. The dancer said the officer had threatened to arrest her on pornography charges unless she paid a fine and told him who shot the photos, where and when.
Police have increasingly been monitoring all Thailand internet traffic since the passage of the new Computer Crime Act last year. Under the new law, police or government officials can seize computers from homes and offices without a warrant if the machines are suspected of containing pornographic material or evidence connected to criminal activities or cyber crimes.
The new law has already spawned widespread abuse, with owners of Internet cafes all over Thailand complaining that police are seizing computers after planting porn on the machines during €œinspections€ and then demanding large payoffs to get the computers back.
Message boards such as the market-leading Pattaya Secrets and some others do not allow nude photos to be posted on the €œopen€ Level 1, which anyone can access with a simple e-mail address. Members are promoted by board administrators to higher levels where explicit photos can, and regularly are, uploaded.
However, €œLevel 2€ only offers a false sense of security, as Secrets continually fights a tide of members showing Level 2 and even exclusive €œLevel 3€ posts to non-members, other boards and even girls whose photos are taken without permission. Complaints lodged with police by the victims of such photos are suspected to be one reason why all the message boards are now under the police microscope.
The police officer€™s printouts clearly showed police have gained access to a €œLevel 2″ somewhere, most likely by obtaining passwords from the increasing numbers of Pattaya ex-pats arrested on sexually-related crimes.
This month€™s arrest of American Todd Arthur Williams on Internet pornography charges is just an example of how the police are working to stamp out Net porn. Williams has been identified as a member of Pattaya Secrets, Teak Door, Pattaya Addicts and probably other Pattaya and Thai boards. According to the more than four dozen comments posted here on The Pattaya Ghost€™s article on Willaims€™ arrest, Williams is now thought to be cooperating with police, providing names of other Net pornographers and passwords to various free and for-pay online forums.
Tourists are obviously less at risk of police persecution than locals, provided they post their sexy photos after they€™ve left the country. Yet if police track down the hotel at which the photos were taken, they can obtain copies of passports and passport numbers, making it possible the tourist might be blacklisted or arrested upon return to Thailand.
For ex-pats the risks are even higher. Guys who delight in showing off their latest conquest now run a real risk of getting an unwelcome knock on the door.
€œThey€™re going around all the bars looking for the girls and then getting the girls to tell them who shot the photos,€ said New Living Dolls One owner Shane (aka €œAlan Lad€). €œThen they€™re hitting the girls up for small amounts of money and the farangs for big money.€
Shane was summoned to his go-go one afternoon last week to meet with an officer well-known to Pattaya Waking Street bar owners. The officer came armed with color printouts of Internet message board pages featuring nude, hotel shots of a former NLD1 dancer and wanted copies of her ID card and her current address.
Shane said he refused to cough up the ID card copies and sent the officer on his way after telling him he didn€™t know where the woman currently worked.
Shane said, however, his found his former dancer about two days later and learned the police had found her working for her current Soi Diamond employer. €œHer face just fell when she saw me,€ he said. The dancer said the officer had threatened to arrest her on pornography charges unless she paid a fine and told him who shot the photos, where and when.
Police have increasingly been monitoring all Thailand internet traffic since the passage of the new Computer Crime Act last year. Under the new law, police or government officials can seize computers from homes and offices without a warrant if the machines are suspected of containing pornographic material or evidence connected to criminal activities or cyber crimes.
The new law has already spawned widespread abuse, with owners of Internet cafes all over Thailand complaining that police are seizing computers after planting porn on the machines during €œinspections€ and then demanding large payoffs to get the computers back.
Message boards such as the market-leading Pattaya Secrets and some others do not allow nude photos to be posted on the €œopen€ Level 1, which anyone can access with a simple e-mail address. Members are promoted by board administrators to higher levels where explicit photos can, and regularly are, uploaded.
However, €œLevel 2€ only offers a false sense of security, as Secrets continually fights a tide of members showing Level 2 and even exclusive €œLevel 3€ posts to non-members, other boards and even girls whose photos are taken without permission. Complaints lodged with police by the victims of such photos are suspected to be one reason why all the message boards are now under the police microscope.
The police officer€™s printouts clearly showed police have gained access to a €œLevel 2″ somewhere, most likely by obtaining passwords from the increasing numbers of Pattaya ex-pats arrested on sexually-related crimes.
This month€™s arrest of American Todd Arthur Williams on Internet pornography charges is just an example of how the police are working to stamp out Net porn. Williams has been identified as a member of Pattaya Secrets, Teak Door, Pattaya Addicts and probably other Pattaya and Thai boards. According to the more than four dozen comments posted here on The Pattaya Ghost€™s article on Willaims€™ arrest, Williams is now thought to be cooperating with police, providing names of other Net pornographers and passwords to various free and for-pay online forums.
Tourists are obviously less at risk of police persecution than locals, provided they post their sexy photos after they€™ve left the country. Yet if police track down the hotel at which the photos were taken, they can obtain copies of passports and passport numbers, making it possible the tourist might be blacklisted or arrested upon return to Thailand.
For ex-pats the risks are even higher. Guys who delight in showing off their latest conquest now run a real risk of getting an unwelcome knock on the door.
That link is blocked so far...
Comment