how safe are we????

I have heard reports of people being arrested for looking at certain sites?? they were traced and the police turned up at there house???

is this possible?? does this happen?? this was not related to terrorism or the U.S.A.......

is this just an urban myth????

It's possible, but I'd want a lot more details before I'd worry. Like what the hell kind of sites are you talking about? Once you have more details about the story check out http://www.snopes.com/

put it this way, if your legit in accidentally stumbling on a site, surely you cannot be held responsible for anything, being purley and accident.

you must think that some people get caught doing stupid things deliberatly.

these reports, do you have a source or any further informatioN?

For stuff like Child porn, the feds may track you down. Depending on exactly how much you look at and whether or not you're making it. But beyond that, theres not many sites which are illegal to see.

**Edit:
Bleh, you both got to it before me.

Police arrest people that place and distribute child porn on the net, also for trying to hook up with children over the net. That is probably about all I know.. If you put illegal content up like if you work for a government agency for example and you distribute classified **** you could be arrested too

It was to do with looking through porn sites.........not kidding ones just normal tgp sites.
this happened in thailand ............are there really resources for this?

so in otherwords, if you dont break the law in normal circumstances whether it be via the internet or not. your safe. but if you do, you will probably get caught. and the ones who dont will spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders.

CTO

it also happened on the image section of alta vista and google?

Thailand's laws are not the same as the USA's, most of use could not comment on them. Anyone here from Thailand that would care to comment?

Well laws vary from country to country, but the most likely cause of being arrested for visiting a site is because you hacked into it, or it contains child pornography.

Now, the people who own these sites are doing it for money, and/or it is a private "ring". I very much doubt if you will find anything "that" bad either by accident of for free. The authorities monitor for payments to the webmasters, and for people who "post" (upload) onto these sites.

They are unlikely to secure any sort of conviction against someone who just stumbles across it.............they are looking for people who go there every day.

I don't have the link anymore but that is a rough precis of an article I read by one of our senior police officers.