Child Sexual Predator Project, launched by Northwestern DA David Sullivan, monitors sex offenders in Hampshire, Franklin counties

Caught Red-Handed, see how folks under supervision are closely monitored esp. on their computers.

10-22-2012 Massachusetts:

"Keith" is a 25-year-old Franklin County man who lives with his parents, works less than 20 hours a week and says he spends much of the rest of the time in his room playing video games.

He also is classified by the state as a Level 3 sex offender, previously convicted of indecent assault on a minor. Under the terms of his probationary sentence, he wears an electronic ankle bracelet and is not supposed to drink, do drugs or be viewing pornography.

And, that is a problem, because an external hard drive just found on his computer during a surprise visit by police and probation officers contained video files of some pretty graphic, hard-core sex scenes downloaded from various adult websites.

“What’s all this stuff?” asks Frank M. Glenowicz, chief probation officer for Franklin Superior Court. “‘Girls Slut Party?’ “Public Pickups?’”

Keith, not his real name, kind of shrugs in a sort of “I dunno” way, but his body language conveys the universal language of someone who has just been caught, both red-handed and red-faced, with something he shouldn’t have.

The visit was a compliance check for Level 3 sex offenders in Hampshire and Franklin counties in a program, the Child Sexual Predator Project , initiated last year by the office of Northwestern district attorney David E. Sullivan. The goal is to better monitor sex offenders who live in the two counties. At last count, there were more than 450 Level 2 and Level 3 sex offenders in the two counties.

All people convicted of a sexual offense are required to register with the state Sex Offenders Registration Board, which assigns them to one of three categories of risk.
Level 1 offenders are of low risk, Level 2 of moderate risk and Level 3 offenders are those considered to pose a high risk to re-offend.

“If there are Level 2s and Level 3s out there, we check up on them,” said assistant district attorney Christine Tetreault, project director. “We want to make sure these people are where they are supposed to be.”

On a recent afternoon of the spot checks in Franklin County, The Republican and MassLive.com were allowed to tag along; the only condition was that the names and addresses of the offenders would not be used and photographs of their faces not published.

By teaming up with the Department of Probation, the DA’s office hopes it can ensure that sex offenders are living where they are supposed to be and also make sure they are complying with the terms of their release. If not, they could wind up back in jail.

The visit to Keith’s home began with Glenowicz and state police Sgt. Thomas F. Bakey giving him a Breathalyzer in his mother’s kitchen, checking to see who he had called on his cell phone, and asking if he has been keeping up with his court-ordered sexual therapy sessions.

Keith blew a 0.0 on the Breathalyzer, indicating no recent alcohol use, his telephone checked out and he assured them he was attending therapy.

And, then, they asked to see his computer.

Bakey carried with him an ordinary thumb drive which contains what he calls “newish software” developed by the FBI. Plug it into any computer, run the program, he said, and, in 20 minutes or so, it will conduct a review of all recent activity on the computer.

In particular, it will scan through all photo and video files in search of pornographic images, it will analyze Internet web addresses that were visited and red-flag ones that are questionable. And, it checks the contents of all emails and attached files, Bakey said.

It even reviews the search terms entered into a search engine. For example, if someone had used Goggle to search the phrase “hot teenage girls,” Bakey’s thumb drive would make note of it.

“We’re looking for obvious contraband, such as child pornography,” Bakey said. “But a lot of these sex offenders are not even supposed to have adult pornography without the consent of
their therapist.”

The software can even tell when an external memory device has been plugged into the computer, and this proves to be Keith’s undoing.

The scan showed a clean hard drive, but it also showed that at some point an external memory had been plugged into and then removed from his computer. When Bakey asked for it, Keith started hemming and hawing over its whereabouts while shuffling papers around on his desk in an attempt to find it.

Bakey felt around the top of the computer under his desk and came up with the external memory.

“Is this it?”

...continued... by Patrick Johnson, The Republican

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Sex offender nabbed seeking computer service facing new charges

OK, let no one misconstrue my point, I do not support child porn, but study this article closely. Guy takes computer to store for repair, rather than repairing the computer, the employee spent his time SEARCHING whatever pictures were on the computer. What gives him authority to do such? Its the same as, hiring someone to clean your carpets, and they search through your personal draws looking for whatever, no difference.

7-29-2010 Massachusetts:

A Level 3 sex offender convicted of multiple child sex crimes in Michigan is set to appear before a judge today for a bail hearing on new child pornography charges in the Bay State, prosecutors said.

____, 48, of Chelsea, was charged in April with four counts of possession of child pornography after an employee at a Revere Staples found pornographic pictures of a young blond boy on the supsect’s computer, said Jake Wark, a spokesman for Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley.

Wark added ___ had taken the computer to Staples to be repaired.

The employee contacted Revere police, who turned the computer over to state police for a forensic examination, Wark said. The examination also revealed links on ___’s computer to pedophilia chat rooms.

___ was released on $1,000 bail at his district court arraignment. He was indicted last week by a Suffolk County grand jury and ordered held by a clerk magistrate without bail pending today’s hearing, Wark said. He has pleaded not guilty.

___’s Sex Offender Registry Board online flier indicates he was convicted of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 in 1991 and convicted of assault with intent to rape in 1992.

In 1993, ___ was convicted of two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, the online record shows.

He is represented by attorney David Burgess. The bail hearing is scheduled to take place at 2 p.m. in Suffolk Superior Court. ..Source.. Laura Crimaldi

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Sex Offenders! They Show Up Everywhere!

6-19-2010 Alaska:

In 1996 a Federal law went into effect which required all states to require convicted sex offenders to register, and to make that information available to the public.

Many people carry the new Internet enabled “smart phones“; programs are easily downloaded that tie into the State registry site and show where registered sex offenders are in relation to you and your smart cell phone.

These programs DO NOT tie into State registry sites, they work from OLD copies of information gathered from improperly accessing State registries (See notes in this article). These copies of OLD information are rarely up to date and what folks see is more likely an over-population of red-dots. This is intended to scare the public when -in fact- the information shown is not sufficient to make any proper judgment of who may be a problem and who is not a problem.

It would appear as if the list of people registered as sex offenders has exploded over the past 15 years! This isn’t because the number of high-risk perpetrators is increasing, but that we have lowered the bar of what constitutes a sex offender. A person can wind up on the sex offender registry for urinating in public or, in 32 states, for “streaking” in public. A person who gets caught with a prostitute can be placed on the list.

Probably the most problematic group of “sex offenders” are teens. Teen boys that get caught having sex with younger girlfriends can be classified as a crime, even if it’s consensual. In Texas alone, there are 4,000 registrants who landed on the list as juveniles.

A recent assessment of registered sex offenders in Georgia found that less than 1 percent were “predators,” defined as people who are driven by compulsion to commit sex crimes.

Round-the-clock media coverage of high profile abductions and murders has contributed to the general sense that society has run amok, when in fact violent crimes rates in most areas are generally lower now thane been since the ’70’s.

Sex offender registries are controversial by nature and some say, can generate more confusion than clarity. For example, there are a growing number of cell phone apps that take information from the State registry site and place dots where the registered offenders are around your location. With this widely available technology people can get the idea some neighborhoods are much “scarier” than they might really be.

It’s been said that a better list would be to limit the list to the 1% of truly creepy individuals who really are offenders, rather than the teenager who made some poor choices on the list or the goof-ball who thought it would be cute to streak across the stadium naked.

The dots on your cell phone app might lead you believe the area of town you are in is worse than it may really be. ..Source..

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Test Drive an iPhone App about Sex Offenders

Folks may remember my review of these programs which covers exactly WHERE, HOW and WHEN they get the information!

11-20-2009 Colorado:

COLORADO SPRINGS - Another proof-positive to make sure you don’t believe everything you read on the internet or on your phone. I did some research on a popular iPhone application that’s called the Offender Locator. You load it on your phone, set a location and within a mile you find out which registered sex offenders are living near you. I took this app for a spin and discovered it had some flaws.

I used the free app that only allows you to get 10 offender addresses. Colorado Springs Police Sgt. Bill Dehart researched the ten names that I got back from the Offender Locater. Of the 10, six addresses of the people on the Offender Locater were wrong. Another surprising revelation of the list one of the offenders was dead and had been for a year, others moved and another was in jail.

The Colorado Springs Police Department had the right information about all these registered sex offenders, Offender Locator did not.

I contacted Offender Locator CEO, Trip Wakefield, to make sense of the discrepancies. He told me that his company constantly updates their information.

“There are 50 states, it’s not an easy task to keep it updated.” Wakefield added, “That’s why if you read our terms and conditions it spells it out clearly, this is more of a guide.”

At first Wakefield and another company executive didn’t know where the information was coming from during my conversations with them. I asked specifically if it was from law enforcement. Both told me it was from something they referred to as a “registry.” I kept pressing and finally one day before my story aired, I received an email that said the information was from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Wakefield added in the email, “Colorado is just one of the states that is being updated and by Friday, November 20th it will be the freshest state we have on record.”

I checked the CBI site and the iPhone app Thursday night to see if there was still any discrepancy. Previously, there were six names wrong on the Offender Locator a week ago when I checked. As of right now, four of them are still on the iPhone app including the man who died. The CBI site has all the names right.

You can always get the most current Registered Sex Offender lists in your area. ..Source.. by News Channel 13 KRDO.com

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Tracking Sex Offenders on Your Phone: Smart or Paranoid?

9-24-2009 National:

A hot new iPhone App uses GPS technology to track registered sex offenders everywhere. Are they keeping you safe, or profiting off paranoia?

For a few days this past August, one of the top ten most popular paid iPhone apps of the summer suddenly went missing.

The POM Offender Locator, a product of ThinAir Wireless, hit the scene on June 2, a nifty little way to keep track of registered sex offenders using GPS technology. ("POM" stands for "peace of mind.") The paid app, which cost 99 cents, provided the convenient capacity for "anyone living in the United States to view Registered Sex Offenders living in their area," according to its official description.

"Knowledge = Safety" it read, followed by the following sales pitch:

"They know where you and your family are … Now it's time to turn the tables so that you know where they live and can make better decisions about where to allow your kids to play."

The app, whose avatar features a creepy cartoon face with menacing eyebrows, quickly became one of the top-selling downloads of the summer -- the sixth most downloaded app on the iPhone by late July. It was written up by ABC, USA Today, and assorted techie blogs.

There was only one problem, it turned out: It might not be legal.

At least that was the impression of numerous users and online commenters. On the website TechCrunch, one person argued on July 25th, "This app is not legal, at least under CA law. Selling the personal information of people (even ex-criminals) for profit is forbidden."

This remark, along with other questions posted online concerning the legality of the POM Offender Locator, was evidently enough to alert Apple that there might be a problem with the wildly popular app. The company wrote to ThinAir Wireless warning that the sale and distribution of the POM Offender Locator might be unlawful in some territories. The paid app came down, with only the free version -- Offender Locator Lite -- remaining.

Less than a week later, however, the app was back, virtually the same as before, with a few differences. Among them: It no longer included data from the state of California. Also, now it cost $1.99.

Is It Keeping You Safe?

On August 15, a California attorney named R. Sebastian Gibson wrote a letter to ThinAir Wireless CEO Trip Wakefield in response to a request that he provide "a legal opinion letter as to the legality of the POM Offender Locator in the State of California."

Gibson advised his client that "the key here is not only to obtain [law enforcement] authorization to disclose the Megan's Law information" -- "Megan's Law" being the 2004 legislation behind the state's current sex offender database -- "but also to obtain permission to disclose the information in the manner and scope your Application allows for it to be distributed."

In Gibson's legal opinion, this permission hinged on ThinAir Wireless's ability to convince California authorities that the primary purpose of the POM Offender Locator is to keep the public safe. Wakefield, he advised, should "obtain from the law enforcement agency a statement that the purpose of the release of information is to allow members of the public to protect themselves and their children from sex offenders and anyone who is or may be exposed to a risk of becoming a victim of a sex offense committed by a sex offender."

This should also be included in any product description or disclaimer, he wrote.

Reviewing California law shows this to be pretty sound advice. The state used to have strict limits on the dissemination of its records on sex offenders. But with the introduction of Megan's Law and its vast offender database, which includes profiles for some 63,000 registered sex offenders, these restrictions were rolled back the logic being that if it was good for public safety, it made sense to make such information public. The privacy rights of sex offenders largely dissolved, trumped by the right of the public to protect itself from them.

According to California Penal Code 290.45, "any designated law enforcement entity may provide information to the public about a person required to register as a sex offender … by whatever means the entity deems appropriate, when necessary to ensure the public safety based upon information available to the entity concerning that specific person."

However, according to California Penal Code 290.46, "a person is authorized to use information disclosed ... only to protect a person at risk." Using the information on the Megan's Law website for discriminatory purposes such as the denial of health insurance, loans, credit, employment, education, housing or benefits is prohibited.

"How Accurate is That Data, Anyway?"

Speaking with AlterNet, the California Department of Justice was reluctant to make a definitive statement about the Offender Locator. According to DOJ press secretary Christine Gasparac, the California Justice Department has "no reason to comment," given that "we did not force the provider to [remove California's sex offender data]. That was actually done by Apple."

"What we do is provide the information on our website," she said. "I can't comment on whether it's legal for someone to take that information and sell it."

However, she added, "We would discourage that, because we update the information on the database every 24 hours, whereas the [Offender Locator App] only updates, like, every month. So, this app, the information that it would be providing, wouldn't be current."

Not only would this be a problem for customers, it would also make the app "a liability for the providers," she said, "in the sense that they might be providing people who have downloaded it with inaccurate information."

Indeed, states across the country have struggled to keep their ever-expanding sex offender registries current, meaning that the data appearing in the POM Offender Locator could be even more backlogged.

"Information changes," says Gasparac. Registrants often relocate, or are removed from the database altogether.

"How accurate is that data, anyway?" asks Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation. "From what I'm told, a lot of that data is out of date. People who are relying on it may believe someone is somebody who they are not. Or they may think that because they moved into a [certain] neighborhood … they are living near a sex offender. I don't know how much independent verification there is of of that data, I don't know how often it is updated; data quality, data integrity -- all of this is an issue."

To get a sense of what kind of disparities might exist between the data offered by the Offender Locator and the official stats maintained by the state of, say, New York, where I live, I visited the recently revamped POM Offender Locator website and entered my zip code. I got 49 hits, complete with a photo, address, date of birth, etc. But entering the same zip code in the official New York database produced only 26 profiles -- and a handful of them were duplicates.

Public Safety or Private Profit?

ThinAir Wireless CEO Howard J. Wakefield III, otherwise known as Trip, describes himself as a born-again Baptist and "serial entrepreneur," who, according to one professional profile, has "had a few successes, some spectacular failures but learned from each of them." Based in Houston, TX, his professional goal is to "Positively Impact 20 Million People By The Year 2020." It's not clear exactly how he would measure his progress, but it probably has something to do with getting people to buy his products, which include tracking devices for "children, pets, and vehicles." (Currently, "by becoming part of that mission, you can save up to 50% on both the POM Pilot GPS Tracker and the POM Altert System.")

Wakefield and fellow developers of the POM Offender Locator argue that their product is all about public safety. On its official Facebook page, which has 24,890 monthly active users and more than 5,000 fans, they make the case:

Due to the overwhelming increase in registered sexual predator's (sic) living among us, it just makes sense to want to help everyone to have the tools and foresight necessary to be able to make the right decisions about where they allow their kids to play.

By not knowing where Registered Sex Offenders live, it is like playing "Russian Roulette" with the safety of your loved ones. These individuals know who you are, and worse, know who your kids are!

It's time to "turn the tables" so that we can all make the best decisions about our kids' safety and keep them from becoming another statistic. They are counting on us to protect them, because they, like you, have no idea with whom they might inadvertently mingle and these predators tend to repeat their offenses at an alarming rate.

"Together we can make a difference!" the Facebook page says. "We have made it so easy for you to do your part, by first educating yourself, then helping to educate others by sharing this application."

Sharing the application via Facebook may be free, but at $1.99 a pop, it's hard to separate the iPhone version from the countless games, news sites, and assorted gimmickry available to iPhone consumers, all of which have been designed with a different aim in mind: profit.

This spring, the Christian Science Monitor ran a story about the money to be made off of iPhone apps, describing the dash to design them as "a high-tech gold rush."

"Since Apple opened the [App Store] through iTunes in July 2008, it's been a mad rush to get apps onto the store," it reported. And no wonder: "The most popular iPhone applications have been downloaded sometimes at a rate of 10,000 times a day. And at an average rate of 99 cents per download, Apple is generating serious money. It takes a 30 percent cut from what the App earns and the rest goes to the developer."

That means big bucks for those lucky enough to break into the Top Ten, as the POM Offender Locator did this summer.

Even free apps are reportedly moneymakers, thanks to advertising and their ability to up-sell consumers. According to data released in May by the iPhone advertising platform AdWhirl, free apps that make it into the top 100 most popular can earn between $400 to $5,000 a day -- "a wide range to be sure, but even at the low end that works out to around $12,000 a month," pointed out a blogger at TechCrunch.

Like many free apps, the complimentary version of the POM Offender Locator is a thinly veiled way to rope customers into purchasing the $1.99 one. Upon downloading it, you are immediately invited to "Download the full version" -- and sticking with the free version doesn't get you very far. Upon entering your address or allowing it to use your current location, it provides you with ten names, along with photos, physical descriptions, addresses, etc -- but that's it.

After browsing the names for a few minutes, it informs you: "No more free searches are available today please retry tomorrow or purchase the full version."

Feedback in the iPhones App Store reflect this (along with no small amount of frustration). Although the app gets a rating of four and a half (out of five) stars -- there are plenty of reviewers who rave about it, citing its usefulness for women and people who live by themselves -- others argue that it is merely a way to turn fear into profit.

"Just another excuse to make the general public to spend their money on their (sic) parinoia," wrote a commenter named Master Mac on Sept 17. "Hope the public are able to go out of the front door after being so scared & paranoid for their safety.")

Another commenter calls it a "Money making app."

"Kicks u out of this app if u dont purchase the full version. Only allows u to view 10 offenders around ur house ... dont waste time find another app who ares about ur safety than ur money!"

"The makers of this want you to pay money for this information when if they cared about safety they wouldn't limit the number of 'criminals' or the times of day you can use it," said another commenter, who also called it "a bit stalkerish."

According to a recent press release, ThinAir Wireless says it intents gives a small percentage of its profits to organizations like Stop Child Predators. ("Our mission is to positively impact families and help them create a safer environment for their loved ones," said Wakefield.)

As with state sex offender databases, the actual offenses listed in the Offender Locator are a little confusing; in my New York zipcode, the sampling ranged from "Actual sexual contact;" to "No designation applies" to two instances of "Lifetime Registration Subject to petition for Relief” (which may explain the discrepancy between the app and the state database.)

Critics of sex offender registries have long argued that they may encourage vigilantism against people who have ostensibly already paid their debt to society, and it's not hard to see how, particularly now that this information is available in such a mainstream, mobile form. Wakefield says this is not his intention. "Our goal is not to try and reconvict," he told the Wall Street Journal this summer, while also acknowledging that there are some people who don't belong on the sex offender database to begin with. Ultimately, he argues, "We're taking data that's already public, and we're just making easier to access.”

In his legal letter, Sebastian Gibson holds he knows of no law that prohibits selling this kind of personal information for profit -- an opinion echoed by EFF attorney Tien. Besides, Gibson argues, "ThinAir is not really selling the information. ThinAir is selling its Application which combines the data from all 50 states and allows a user of the App to learn whether he or she or their children live, work, play or go to school near Registered Sex Offenders.”

“The names and likenesses of the Registered Sex Offenders are not being utilized to sell coffee mugs or t-shirts," he says.

Maybe not, but others warn that the app is putting out unverified information in a haphazard, even dangerous way.

“When you play with and put out apps that use these kinds of labels and use this kind of data, and exploit this kind of fear and concern," says Tien, "that's volatile data." ..Source.. by Liliana Segura, AlterNet.

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"Anonymized" data really isn't—and here's why not

9-17-2009 National:

Companies continue to store and sometimes release vast databases of "anonymized" information about users. But, as Netflix, AOL, and the State of Massachusetts have learned, "anonymized" data can often be cracked in surprising ways, revealing the hidden secrets each of us are assembling in online "databases of ruin."

The Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission had a bright idea back in the mid-1990s—it decided to release "anonymized" data on state employees that showed every single hospital visit. The goal was to help researchers, and the state spent time removing all obvious identifiers such as name, address, and Social Security number. But a graduate student in computer science saw a chance to make a point about the limits of anonymization.

Latanya Sweeney requested a copy of the data and went to work on her "reidentification" quest. It didn't prove difficult. Law professor Paul Ohm describes Sweeney's work:

At the time GIC released the data, William Weld, then Governor of Massachusetts, assured the public that GIC had protected patient privacy by deleting identifiers. In response, then-graduate student Sweeney started hunting for the Governor’s hospital records in the GIC data. She knew that Governor Weld resided in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a city of 54,000 residents and seven ZIP codes. For twenty dollars, she purchased the complete voter rolls from the city of Cambridge, a database containing, among other things, the name, address, ZIP code, birth date, and sex of every voter. By combining this data with the GIC records, Sweeney found Governor Weld with ease. Only six people in Cambridge shared his birth date, only three of them men, and of them, only he lived in his ZIP code. In a theatrical flourish, Dr. Sweeney sent the Governor’s health records (which included diagnoses and prescriptions) to his office.

Boom! But it was only an early mile marker in Sweeney's career; in 2000, she showed that 87 percent of all Americans could be uniquely identified using only three bits of information: ZIP code, birthdate, and sex.

Such work by computer scientists over the last fifteen years has shown a serious flaw in the basic idea behind "personal information": almost all information can be "personal" when combined with enough other relevant bits of data.

That's the claim advanced by Ohm in his lengthy new paper on "the surprising failure of anonymization." As increasing amounts of information on all of us are collected and disseminated online, scrubbing data just isn't enough to keep our individual "databases of ruin" out of the hands of the police, political enemies, nosy neighbors, friends, and spies.

If that doesn't sound scary, just think about your own secrets, large and small—those films you watched, those items you searched for, those pills you took, those forum posts you made. The power of reidentifiation brings them closer to public exposure every day. So, in a world where the PII concept is dying, how should we start thinking about data privacy and security?

Don't ruin me

Examples of the anonymization failures aren't hard to find.

When AOL researchers released a massive dataset of search queries, they first "anonymized" the data by scrubbing user IDs and IP addresses. When Netflix made a huge database of movie recommendations available for study, it spent time doing the same thing. Despite scrubbing the obviously identifiable information from the data, computer scientists were able to identify individual users in both datasets. (The Netflix team then moved on to Twitter users.)

In AOL's case, the problem was that user IDs were scrubbed but were replaced with a number that uniquely identified each user. This seemed like a good idea at the time, since it allowed researchers using the data to see the complete list of a person's search queries, but it also created problems; those complete lists of search queries were so thorough that individuals could be tracked down simply based on what they had searched for. As Ohm notes, this illustrates a central reality of data collection: "data can either be useful or perfectly anonymous but never both."

The Netflix case illustrates another principle, which is that the data itself might seem anonymous, but when paired with other existing data, reidentification becomes possible. A pair of computer scientists famously proved this point by combing movie recommendations found on the Internet Movie Database with the Netflix data, and they learned that people could quite easily be picked from the Netflix data.

Such results are obviously problematic in a world where Google retains data for years, "anonymizing" it after a certain amount of time but showing reticence to fully delete it. "Reidentification science disrupts the privacy policy landscape by undermining the faith that we have placed in anonymization," Ohm writes. "This is no small faith, for technologists rely on it to justify sharing data indiscriminately and storing data perpetually, all while promising their users (and the world) that they are protecting privacy. Advances in reidentification expose these promises as too often illusory."

For users, the prospect of some secret leaking to the public grows as databases proliferate. Here is Ohm's nightmare scenario: "For almost every person on earth, there is at least one fact about them stored in a computer database that an adversary could use to blackmail, discriminate against, harass, or steal the identity of him or her. I mean more than mere embarrassment or inconvenience; I mean legally cognizable harm. Perhaps it is a fact about past conduct, health, or family shame. For almost every one of us, then, we can assume a hypothetical 'database of ruin,' the one containing this fact but until now splintered across dozens of databases on computers around the world, and thus disconnected from our identity. Reidentification has formed the database of ruin and given access to it to our worst enemies."

Because most data privacy laws focus on restricting personally identifiable information (PII), most data privacy laws need to be rethought. And there won't be any magic bullet; the measures that are taken will increase privacy or reduce the utility of data, but there will be no way to guarantee maximal usefulness and maximal privacy at the same time.

There are approaches that can reduce problems. Instead of releasing these huge anonymized databases, for instance, make them interactive, or have them report most results in the aggregate. (But such techniques sharply limit the usefulness of the data.)

Ohm's alternative is an admittedly messier system, one that can't be covered with simple blanket laws against recording Social Security numbers or releasing people's name and addresses. Such an approach has failed, and now looks like playing "Whac-A-Mole" with personal data. "The trouble is that PII is an ever-expanding category, writes Ohm. "Ten years ago, almost nobody would have categorized movie ratings and search queries as PII, and as a result, no law or regulation did either." Expanding privacy rules each time some new reidentification technique emerges would be unworkable.

Instead, regulators will need to exercise more judgment, weighing harm against benefits, and the rules may turn out to be different for crucial systems like healthcare. At the same time, the US needs comprehensive legislation on data privacy to set a minimum threshold for all databases, since Netflix, AOL, and others have made clear that we have no real idea in advance which pieces of seemingly harmless data will turn out to identify us and our secrets. ..Source.. by Nate Anderson

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iPhone Sex Offender Locator App

9-8-2009 National:

What's great about the iPhone is if you want to check for registered sex offenders in your neighborhood, there's an app for that. I'm not making this up. The iPhone sex offender locator app is called Offender Locator and uses the GPS in your iPhone to locate registered sex offenders living near your current location.

The iPhone sex offender locator app will also allow you to see if any registered sex offenders live near any of your contacts (just in case you wanted to warn any of your friends or business associates) and also let's you look up a specific address.

Once the iPhone sex offender locator app discovers a registered sex offender in your area, it will display a photo of the sex offender and list all the offenses that person has committed. The location of the sex offenders are shown on a map in the form of a red bubble with a green bubble signifying your current location.

So far, testing on the iPhone sex offender locator app has proven to be fairly accurate. However, at this time, the iPhone sex offender locator app is not interactive meaning you cannot touch on a red bubble to access a particular registered sex offender's information. You can only access that information from the Offender List screen. I'm sure that will change sometime soon.

So just how useful is the iPhone sex offender locator app? Well, for example, let's say you're out spending the day at the park with your kids and there is some creepy guy hanging out that looks like he has no business being at a kids park, just fire up the iPhone sex offender locator app and see if his picture pops up. You get a match, you may want to think about rounding up the little kiddies.

Read carefully what he says, because unless the "creepy guy (which does not fit the description of 99% of RSOs)" is a LOCAL registered sex offender (Local being within a mile or so of the park you are in) those being the only pictures that will be displayed, there is no way to tell if the "creepy guy" is a registered sex offender. So the iPhone application has EXTREMELY LIMITED value, if any, for personal safety.

Sex offenders who do recidiviate, do not recidivate where they live. Garrido's crimes were 160 miles away from where he lived, and a Minnesota DOC study also showed offenders commit their crimes away from their homes.

..Source.. by Gabriel Dorman

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iPhone app tracks sex offenders near you

8-20-2009 National:

EUGENE, Ore. --It’s called the Sex Offender Locator, and it is one of the iPhones latest applications.

The limited version, with just a few searches a day, is free. The expanded version is just a dollar.

It is one of the iPhones top-selling applications.

“I think it is something good for people to be aware of,” Beth Anne Burrowes said. She is the mother of a four year old.

"It is actually something I have wondered, if we ever moved, or even in my own neighborhood," she added.

It works by using GPS technology to find out all the sex offenders in your area after you input your location or another address.

KVAL News put it to the test and confirmed two named sex offenders as legitimate offenders with Oregon’s Sex Offender State Registry.

But it’s not 100 percent accurate. The applications itself even claims that just as state registry Web sites can sometimes make mistakes, this application should only be used as a guide.

The software vendor claims inaccuracy due to the registry, but is that true? Folks must remember that these applications are not working from the registry, instead are working from a copy of the registry. The copy could have been made months ago, there is no known update frequency to these PRIVATE data bases. Every iPhone application follows this same procedure, each making its own copy. Accordingly one could conceivably get different answers from different applications.

“I feel like everyone should be aware of the types of people in their neighborhood, obviously you can’t know everything but I feel like this should be known,” said Melanie Reicher, a parent.

What about murders, burglars, car thieves, domestic violence offenders, drug crimes esp. those selling drugs to kids in schools, etc., etc. I guess one day they too will have their own application?

..Source.. by Addison Taylor KVAL News

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The iPhone Sex Offender locator: considered harmful

8-13-2009 California:

On the California Megan's Law Web site, which maintains a publicly accessible database on our state's registered sex offenders -- where they live, what they look like, what they were convicted for -- the word "masturbate" is spelled incorrectly. On the page that lists the extensive catalog of penal codes detailing offenses for which one would have to register and give up personal privacy for all the world to see, offense 311.3(b)(3) is, in fact, "Sexual exploitation: masterbation."

I highly recommend that if you're hauled downtown and readied for conviction under 311.3(b)(3) that you bring a dictionary. Then you can pull it out (the dictionary) and say, "But no, Your Honor. I was engaged in masturbation."

Hey, at least they spelled "penal" correctly.

If it seems like I'm making light of a serious situation, it's just my hysteria seeping out about how absolutely broken our system is around dealing with sex crimes. I mean specifically predatory, violent, awful, and nonconsensual sex crimes -- the kind that should be illegal, which are illegal and punishable. However, take a trip down Megan's List and you'll never run Bay To Breakers again when you see 314.1 -- "Indecent exposure." Granted, take a closer reading of Section 314.1 and you'll see it expressly "prohibits conduct that is intended to direct public attention to his or her genitals for purposes of sexual arousal, gratification, or affront where there are other persons present to be offended or annoyed." (Citation: In re Smith (1972) 7 Cal.3d 362, 366. PDF) Simple nudity such as sunbathing or skinny dipping is not prohibited under 314.1. But annoy someone with your exposed penal code... and anyone busted for it must register as a sex offender for the rest of his or her life.

It's no wonder that while I was researching the popular, then pulled, then replaced in a limited edition "Offender Locator iPhone App" I was aghast at which non-violent offenses might land someone's private information on the registry. I remarked about this and got a response on my Facebook page from a woman who works in the East Bay saying, "don't get me started...I work with sex offenders, some of whose "offenses" that they now have to register for are ridiculous."

In case you're wondering, I tested the application (no, not on my precious N97 -- I am not of the Cult of iPhone) until it kicked me out for making too many searches. I'll put that on my resume. Enter an address or let it use your geo-location, and it gives you a map of offenders' home addresses. I searched my neighborhood -- the Castro -- and I searched SF City Jail (850 Bryant) and I searched the Marina Safeway, because, well, it seemed a good place to look.

Disturbingly, the brief search icons of three menacing-looking men's faces are all ambiguously nonwhite. Just sayin'. I also got addresses and pictures and phone numbers for lots and lots of guys -- right there and ripe for accessible harassment.

As The Economist put it in Sex laws: Unjust and ineffective, "The registry is a gold mine for lazy journalists." It's also an unofficial hit list. "Publicising sex offenders' addresses makes them vulnerable to vigilantism. In April 2006, for example, a vigilante shot and killed two sex offenders in Maine after finding their addresses on the registry. One of the victims had been convicted of having consensual sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend when he was 19. In Washington state in 2005 a man posed as an FBI agent to enter the home of two sex offenders, warning them that they were on a 'hit list' on the internet. Then he killed them. Murders of sex offenders are rare, but harassment is common. Most of the offenders interviewed for this article said they had experienced it."

The article is a must-read, and goes in depth into one of the most glaring errors in the system, Wendy Whitaker, who lives as a registered sex offender for a sex act she did as a teen (with another teen), charged under a law that no longer exists. In Kids Charged for Child Porn: When Teens Make Their Own Porn, Who's Being Exploited? we learned about at least five more teenagers in various states who have been arrested and are currently charged for trafficking in child porn for texting naked pictures of themselves -- to each other. In Crazyland, USA, your kids are sex offenders and will end up on an iPhone app.

As offenders, they will have no privacy, live in constant harassment, and laws like Megan's will make them live under bridges. This punishment is how you damage an (allegedly) already damaged human being to the point of no return. But aren't all legally bona fide sex offenders hateful and deserving of everything evil? Hate is easy currency to trade on, as you likely see in the comments of this column every week.

Yes, the information on the Offender Locator iPhone App is public, as they claim to get their data from those carefully spell-checked online government databases -- just as anyone convicted of a crime is public record. It doesn't help though that app creator, TheVision2020, uses negative marketing scare tactics on their home page to sell their product -- spuriously stating, "Typical child sex offenders molest an average of 117 children." Says who?

Is this company, ThinAir Wireless (aka TheVision2020.com) violating anything in providing, or profiting, off of this information? (If for profit, it'll likely be back and ad-supported, just like the free version I rode hard and put away wet -- which creepily had Harry Potter game ads across the top.) Who does this app actually help? It's not my question to answer, but we all need to ask whether or not the sex offender laws (which vary from state to state) are helping the people who desperately need help.

In From sexual trauma to healing sex, we heard from the other side of the sexual abuse coin: the survivor. Author Staci Haines opens up about sexual healing after incest, rape, or abuse and her experience teaches us about the predators and the offenders we're too freaked out to even look at. Haines tells us, "The statistics of people who have experienced sexual abuse, from incest to adult rape, are shocking. One in three girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before their 18th birthday. These statistics cross class and cultural differences; there is not one group who sexually abuses while others do not. Most sexually abused children know their perpetrator (60-80 percent)." And as Haines knows all too well from her work at Generation Five, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, 93% of children who are victims of sexual abuse are victimized by family members or acquaintances.

No wonder that despite there being 63,000 sex offenders registered in California (population: 36,756,666) the Offender Locator found so many, seemingly so close by. In a generation, the little map pins might just point right into your own house.

So until sex offender laws make sense, and having access to the resulting information in your pocket actually helps people, please try to keep your penal code in your pants. ..Source.. by Violet Blue

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Offender Locator iPhone app makes a partial comeback

8-12-2009 National:

After Apple's surprise removal from the App Store last week of a sex-offender-location app called Offender Locator, the app is back in the store again.

In an interview with Trip Wakefield of ThinAir Wireless, the maker of Offender Locator, Wakefield confirms that the app was pulled for legal reasons. According to Wakefield, ThinAir was successful in quickly contacting Apple, which had removed the app because it was possible that the app violated California law. Once ThinAir removed access to any data pertaining to the state of California from the app's database, the change took place immediately for all previous and future purchasers of the app.

ThinAir is currently working with an attorney licensed in California to determine whether or not Offender Violator breaks any laws in that state. In the event that it doesn't, customers will regain access to the offender data in California. In the meantime, California users are able to run the free version with access to California sex offenders, but with some limits.

A review of the article that the above link is to, we find that the ACCURACY of the information is QUESTIONED. It is clear why there are inaccuracies, you are seeing "secondarily disseminated registrant information," stored in a PRIVATE database; unknown where. As such it is unknown when the information was retrieved from the state sex offender registry, and when it is updated in these PRIVATE data bases.

From Vision 20/20 site: "Vision 20/20 gathers up-to-date information about Registered Offenders from all 50 states and stores it in a comprehensive database. "

Further, should there be erroneous information in the PRIVATE database, these applications provide no way to correct such information, because it is a PRIVATE database not covered by any laws. If folks think registries are perfect then see these news articles. It is difficult enough to get the state to correct a error, but what about these PRIVATE databases that have no known method and are not covered by any laws.

Real & Present Danger for Registrants: This new product sets the stage for vigilantism of registered offenders and their families, especially children of registrants. To understand, see the video below produced by Vision 20/20 a subsidy of ThinAir Wireless, where they are using Microsoft's "Virtual Earth" for real time photos of RSO homes and street around registrants' homes. The the photo below the RED DOT is pointing to the RSOs home, can you tell which one it is? Should a vigilante decide to attack this RSO, as Stephen Marshall did in 2006 in Maine, evryone in the vicinity of the RED DOT could be a target, not just the RSO.


Stephen A. Marshall used a laptop computer w/GPS (same logic as these cell phone applications) to find and kill two Maine registrants in April of 2006. Now with over 20 million or so cell phone capable of doing what Marshall did, there is a real and present danger from these applications. And, the danger extends to registrants' neighbors, because the accuracy of cell phone GPS is approximately 30-60 feet; clearly a neighbor could be erroneously targeted.

Wakefield also told us that the price of Offender Locator will jump from $0.99 to $1.99 once the most recent version of the app is approved by Apple. The new version of the app will include some enhancements to the map view and shows offenders within a 5-mile radius, but still doesn't support some of the interactivity we wished for previously. It will, however, allow you to scroll through the list of offenders from start to finish in the map view while displaying the photo, name, and address of each one.

Wakefield is hoping that the renewed availability of the app will have a positive impact on the organization known as Stop Child Predators, since ThinAir Wireless is donating 10 percent of the version 2.0 proceeds to this and other, similar organizations.

Sales of the app have rebounded since the original App Store delisting and at press time the paid app is currently ranked at number nine, and the free version at number eight. ..Source.. by David Martin

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All iPhone "Offender Search" Applications and Main Sex Offender Registry Law Violated

UPDATED: 8-11-2009

8-10-2009 National:

Apparently there is no respect for sex offender registry laws, if there is a way to profit from them. See Sex-predator iPhone app is back in business

All of the following apps available from the Apple store violate -at a minimum- the following California Sex Offender Registry Law:

California 290.46(l) (1) A person is authorized to use information disclosed pursuant to this section only to protect a person at risk. (2) Except as authorized under paragraph (1) or any other provision of law, use of any information that is disclosed pursuant to this section for purposes relating to any of the following is prohibited: (A) Health insurance. (B) Insurance. (C) Loans. (D) Credit. (E) Employment. (F) Education, scholarships, or fellowships. (G) Housing or accommodations. (H) Benefits, privileges, or services provided by any business establishment.

1) A careful review of the above will reveal, it is not "charging for information" that violates the law, it is the "use of registry law information" by ANY BUSINESS that the law prohibits.

2) A reader suggests that "any business establishment" means, that business cannot deny a registrant its service because they are on the sex offender registry. I would agree that is ONE construction.

However, "use of information disseminated" is the service of these software vendors (businesses), and that is exactly what is prohibited by the statute. Now, if we were to construe as our reader suggested, that these sofware vendors are not permitted to deny registrants access to their individual information in the registry, that itself would violate another law. California registrants are not allowed to view the registry AT ALL:

290.46(k) "Any person who is required to register pursuant to Section 290 who enters an Internet Web site established pursuant to this section shall be punished by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), imprisonment in a county jail for a period not to exceed six months, or by both that fine and imprisonment."

Clearly there is an abiguity and "Sex Offenders Search" application points it out by saying they are not sure of the proper construction, so they are denying folks for the moment, likely they are having a lawyer review the applicable laws.

3) California registry information is only to be used "to protect someone at risk." How does the software prevent someone from New York from accessing the information; obviously they are not "at risk" from someone living in California! These applications ignore such found in the law.


The following applications "USE CALIFORNIA REGISTRY INFORMATION" (note vendor updates):

Offender Locator LITE (Still in store) FREE (Limits Daily Use)


Offender Locator (Returned to store) $.99 (No Limit on Use)
Note Message re Calif: California information IS NOT available in the PAID
version, but that information is available in the LITE version (above).


Sex Offenders Search (Still in store) $1.99 (No Limits on Use)
Note message re: Calif: SOS is not currently showing Calif RSOs until they are
certain that such is legal. Users who purchased prior to 8-7-09 are still
able to get all RSOs from California. (Interesting but conflicting message)


Watch Out (Still in store) FREE (No Limits on Use)
Note Message: FREE for a limited time (apparently they intend to charge soon.)


Stay Safe LITE (Still in store) FREE (Limits Daily Use)


Stay Safe (Still in store) $15.00 (No Limits on Use)

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Sex-predator iPhone app is back in business

Sex offenders laws mean nothing to those who wish to profit from them. California has not repealed their law (290.46(L)), and these iPhone apps all violate -at a minimum- that law!

8-10-2009 National:

Of all the applications that Apple (AAPL) has pulled from the iPhone App Store — and there have been quite a few — none were as creepy, sad or profitable as Offender Locator.

Launched in early June by ThinAir Wireless, a Houston-based GPS-tracking services company, in both free and $0.99 versions, it displayed the names, addresses, faces and criminal records of registered sex offenders living near you or anyone you know — or, using GPS data, near whatever street you happen to be driving down.

The app quickly moved into Apple’s Top 10 lists, where it caught the eye of the media — including the Washington Post and ABC News. On Thursday, Aug. 6, the $0.99 version disappeared from the App Store. By Sunday, Aug. 9, it was back.

Here’s what happened.

But first, a few words about the controversial application, which has almost as many critics as it has defenders. (Of the 9,209 reviews of Offender Locator Lite as of Monday morning, 3,181 gave it five stars and 2,471 gave it one, the lowest possible rating.)

Many have pointed out that under Megan’s Law, the same sex offender lists are available on Internet sites maintained by each state. In fact, most states sites give you far more information than Offender Locator provides. For example, the Sex Offender Inquiry System in Oregon, where I am vacationing this week, provides — in addition to the bare bones criminal records that the iPhone app displays — such details as the conditions and restrictions imposed by the court, the age and sex of the victims the offender is known to target, and his or her (although it’s almost always his) “methods of offending.”

Others have suggested that the app could be an invitation to stalk the stalkers — although opinion seems to be evenly divided whether this is a good thing or a bad.

ThinAir Wireless promotes its app as offering parents POM — peace of mind. “They know where you and your family are,” goes its promotional copy. “Now it’s time to turn the tables so that you know where they live and can make better decisions about where to allow your kids to play.”

There’s more than a whiff of fear-mongering there. And as several critics have noted, there are numerous discrepancies between Offender Locator’s data and the states’, raising questions about how often the information is updated or checked for accuracy.

And at least one critic has voiced what she admits is an unpopular opinion “that once a person has finished serving his or her sentence, the offender shouldn’t be further stigmatized.” In a post on NJ.com, from the very state where Megan Kanka was murdered, Maria Andreu writes:

“If sex offenders continue to pose a risk to the public, either don’t let them out or monitor them electronically, but don’t give everyone access to their home address. Leave that information in the hands of law enforcement, where it belongs.

“By making the information mobile, it cuts down whatever ‘thinking period’ there was between finding the information and possible acts of violence or harassment. With approximately 20 million iPhones sold, that’s a lot potential anti-sex offender ‘vigilantes.’” (link)

But it was not for fear of creating an army of iPhone wielding vigilantes that the app was pulled.

Neither Apple nor ThinAir Wireless has commented for the record, but the sticking point was apparently a California law that prohibits the unauthorized sale of personal information — even about ex-criminals.

How else to explain why Offender Defender disappeared from the App Store, but not Offender Defender Lite (which limits users to five searches per day and lists a maximum of 10 offenders per search)?

In any event, it took ThinAir Wireless about three days to find a work around and start making money again. It simply removed California’s data from the for-profit version.

By Sunday, Offender Locator was back on the iPhone App Store. By Monday it was the No. 8 bestselling app and No. 1 utility program.

..Source.. by Philip Elmer-DeWitt

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Sex Offender Locator App Yanked from App Store

This story is unique because it evaluates the iPhone applications that have been withdrawn from the Apple store and why. It does get into the "Offender Locator" -PAID VERSION- but feels it was removed because California prohibts the sale of criminal information.

If you have read our Jan-2008 Research paper (specifically reason #4) you will know that, California specifically prohibits using "Registrant Registry Information" commercially.

However, why Apple has not pulled the -FREE VERSION- (Offender Locator Lite) also by ThinAir Wireless, is unknown. It appears that the Apple decision is based on "paying for the information" but that is not what the law specifically prohibits. We will have to see how this plays out...

8-7-2009 National:

Yet another iPhone app has been given the boot by Apple

On Thursday, Apple removed Offender Locator, a popular application that had been among the top ten best-selling paid apps in the company's App store.

The application lets users view the locations of registered sex offenders living in their area.

Though the 99-cent version has been pulled, a free version is still available.

The application was developed by ThinAir Wireless, a GPS-tracking and wireless monitoring company.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABCNews.com. But in a statement released today ThinAir said its paid application "was removed due to unsubstantiated, inaccurate legal concerns."

The specific legal concerns have not been spelled out publicly at this point, but commenters on the technology Web site CNET and the blog TechCrunch suggested the state of California prohibits the sale of criminal information for profit.

In its statement, ThinAir also said that the second version of its application, which had been submitted to Apple last week, included a structure to donate 10 percent of the proceeds from its app to support philanthropic organizations, including Stop Child Predators.

App Pinpoints Registered Sex Offenders in a Neighborhood

In July, ThinAir CEO Howard "Trip" Wakefield told ABCNews.com that the app is one part of the company's suite of "Peace of Mind" products. Other services in markets include a GPS tracking system for teenagers and an alert system that sends subscribers real-time text messages from government agencies about weather and emergency situations.

"The offender locator is kind of like the first step in peace of mind -- who's your neighbor," he said. "Our goal is really to allow parents to be aware of the different people that are just living right around the corner from them."

Although he wouldn't provide specific numbers, he said both the free and paid versions have been downloaded tens of thousands of times since early June. The free version provides fewer locations of sex offenders in the area than the paid version, and only lets users access the app a limited number of times each day.

The app prompts users to type in their address and then generates a map of the area with pinpoints showing where sex offenders have said they live.

Although the information is available for free on each state's sex offender registry Web site, Wakefield said they charge a price for the full version because the technology to power their service is expensive. The information may be free online, but their tool makes it easier for the public to access it, he said.

While ThinAir's paid application is no longer available in the App store, other paid applications that say they track sex offenders, including Sex Offenders Search and StaySafe Personal, remain.

However, ThinAir's Sex Offender Locator isn't the only app that's run into problems. Here are few others.

'Zombie School' Courts Controversy

About two weeks ago, "Zombie School" attained hot-button status for its controversial treatment of school violence.

The app's premise, as articulated by its developer, Retarded Arts, is this:

"Your local campus has been infected by the Zombie Virus!!! Every one is infected!!! Will you run or will you fight to eliminate all the Zombies... You have the control over the Zombie shooting tower that your supporters have made you. Starting with a single bow and arrow start eliminating the Zombies. As you progress, you can buy Grenades, Gun or even upgrade your bow to shoot double or triple arrow at a time!"

The application had been available for 99 cents in Apple's App store before it was pulled by Apple.

Apple, which didn't immediately respond to ABCNews.com' requests for comment, has not explained why it pulled "Zombie School" from its store.

But the application's thorny subject matter presumably had something to do with it. In an email to ABCNews.com, the developers of "Zombie School" acknowledged the sensitive nature of their application but contested the notion that it was in bad taste.

"We fully agree that violence should be kept out of school but the game never was intended to invoke this concept," the developers wrote.

Developers Indicates They Will Demonstrate Extra Caution in the Future

The developers argue that Apple excised the application not out of concern for its message but out of fear of a public backlash. As proof, they cite the fact that "Zombie School" had been approved for more than a week and that it was only removed after tech blogs began covering it.

"They (Apple) approved it and the game went on sale on July 12th 2009," the developers wrote. "This shows that neither us or Apple, clearly, thought that this game would be related to school violence."

Retarded Apps, though, despite their current stance, indicated it would demonstrate extra caution with future projects.

"Because of this controversy, we will now make sure that our future games are miles away from anyone relating it to serious problems like school violence," they said.

Apple Gives 'Porn' App the Boot

The tech community couldn't believe it when it appeared that Apple had approved a salacious iPhone application offering up photos of nude women.

In late June, Macenstein, a blog on all things Apple, wrote, "Today, the iTunes app store became a man." The tech site CNET took another tack: "Apple goes topless," it declared.

But it looks as if Apple's affair with X-rated content wasn't meant to last.

Developer Allen Leung had proudly told Macenstein, "We uploaded nude topless pics today. This is the first app to have nudity."

Leunge may have made one boast too many. The application, "Hottest Girls," which had been available to users of the iPhone and iPod Touch, was soon pulled from the store. "Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography," Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said. "The developer of this application added inappropriate content directly from their server after the application had been approved and distributed, and after the developer had subsequently been asked to remove some offensive content.

"This was a direct violation of the terms of the iPhone Developer Program. The application is no longer available on the App Store."

The application previously displayed photos of women in lingerie and bikinis. But earlier this week -- about a week after Apple unveiled a new operating system that includes parental controls that could filter out explicit content -- the developers took off what was left of the clothes and turned up the heat on their product's content.

Neither Apple nor Leung immediately responded to requests for comment from ABCNews.com.

Baby Shaker

The 99 cent Baby Shaker, was pulled from the App Store after it prompted outrage from organizations such as the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome and the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation.

The description of the app said, "See how long you can endure his or her adorable cries before you just have to find a way to quiet the baby down!"

The program displays a black and white picture of a baby with the sound of crying. Users shake the iPhone to stop the crying until Xs appear on the eyes of the baby. The company behind the app, Sikalosoft, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Apple offered an apology soon after it appeared, the same day the App Store reached 1 billion downloads.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said the game was "deeply offensive" and should not have been approved for sale, according to The Associated Press.

"We sincerely apologize for this mistake," Kerris said in a statement.

'I Am Rich'

Before Apple yanked this $999.99 iPhone and iPod Touch application from the App Store in August, eight people had purchased the functionless application.

Designed by German developer Armin Heinrich, the program did nothing but broadcast to the world the wealth of the owner. Once downloaded and activated, "I Am Rich" displayed a glowing, red "ruby" on the user's iPhone screen.

In its official App Store description, the developer wrote: "The red icon on your iPhone or iPod Touch always reminds you (and others when you show it to them) that you were able to afford this. ... It's a work of art with no hidden function at all."

According to tech blog Valleywag, one curious patron accidentally downloaded the application, thinking it was a joke. But it seems that seven others -- five in the United States, one in Germany and one in France -- meant to actually buy the pricey program.

'I Am Poor'

When another developer tried to spoof the "I Am Rich" app with a "poor man's version," Apple denied that one, too.

Submitted to Apple later in August, "I Am Poor" was intended to be the ultimate un-status symbol.

"It displays my artistic rendition of the poor college students standard meal -- ramen, mac & cheese, and tuna fish," Hardy Macia, the app's developer and owner of Canterbury, N.H.-based Catamount Software, wrote on his blog after getting Apple's rejection notice.

Apple told him it was turned down because it didn't contain any user-accessible functionality, he said.

Macia said he adapted the app in March so that it's now an E-Book of P.T. Barnum's "Art of Money Getting." But he's still waiting for word from Apple.

"Their process -- why they approve stuff and why they don't -- is really a black-box type of thing," he told ABCNews.com.

'Prohibition 2: Dope Wars'

Still, Apple's vague process has not stopped Macia from trying, and failing, again on another app. He learned in January that his game "Prohibition 2: Dope Wars" had also been rejected.

In the game, users pretend to be drug dealers in New York City trying to make as much money as possible in 30 days by trafficking illegal substances.

Macia said Apple rejected him because it violated the company's guidelines for developers.

In its Software Development Kit (SDK), it says that "Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple's reasonable judgment may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users."

But Macia told ABCnews.com that it's not like iTunes and the App Store don't contain any potentially offensive material. "The iTunes store has so many songs and movies about cocaine and killing people," he said.

And the number of farting applications easily exceeds 100, he added. "I find 137 farting applications objectionable," he said. "I find that a lot ruder than a game."

Macia went back to the drawing board, changed the name of the game to "Prohibition 1: Bootlegger," replaced the names of drugs with the names of alcohol and went back to Apple.

This time, the company approved it. Encouraged, Macia successfully submitted another game "Prohibition 3: Candy Wars," set in a future in which candy is illegal.

Since he'd scored with two games that were only cosmetically different from the original one that had been rejected, he tried once more. But, no such luck: It got the thumbs down again.

My Shoe

When an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoe at President George W. Bush during a news conference in December, he inspired a monument, a host of Web games and, of course, an iPhone app.

But the glory of that game was short-lived.

The popular social media blog Mashable reported in February that "My Shoe," created by a developer in Pakistan, had been given the no-go by the App store team.

The game used the phone's accelerometer to let users pretend to throw a shoe at the former president.

In a rejection letter, Apple told the developer it determined that it could not "post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains content that ridicules public figures," according to Mashable.

But the developer reportedly took issue with Apple's rejection, writing, "I feel this is huge discrimination against public opinion, as a major portion of world rejects Bush polices on Iraq and attacks on Pakistan."


'Obama Trampoline'

Patrick Alphonso, president of Swamiware, received a similar response from Apple when he submitted "Obama Trampoline."

The game, he thought, was pretty innocuous. You choose a U.S. politician from either side of the political aisle and have him or her jump on a trampoline in the Oval Office. Using the accelerometer, you could make Sarah Palin do a flip, tilt a pants-less Bill Clinton to the side or turn Barack Obama upside down.

Having already successfully submitted strategy, word and card games, he expected it to get the green light. But Apple gave a firm "no."

"I was shocked. I was expecting to make millions of dollars on this game," Alphonso told ABCNews.com. "It's fun. People were crazy about Obama, about Palin. The artwork was great."

The reason?

"They said it ridiculed public officials," he said, adding that the rule seemed to be: no cartoons of politicians.

But when he explored the back alleys of the App Store, he said he found another approved app that also featured a cartoon of a politician: "Pocket Arnold."

"[It] really killed me," he said.

But when he e-mailed Apple for further explanation, he said the company didn't provide more specifics.


iBoob

iBoob is another program to land in the App Store junk pile.

Developed by Mystic Game Development (MGD), the app does just about what the name implies. When you shake your iPhone or iPod Touch, you also shake an animated image of a woman's chest.

Apple told the developer it was "inappropriate sexual content," according to PCWorld.com.

But MGD Development Director John van der Burg said, "Watching an episode of Baywatch on TV shows a lot more than iBoobs. Besides that, iBoobs is just a 3-D model and not even real."


'Slasher'

The developer behind "Slasher" was also told his app was out of line.

Created by Josef Wankerl of Austin, Texas, the app displays a kitchen knife on the screen and plays the "horror" sound when you make a stabbing motion with the phone or iPod Touch.

He said it appeared August 6 but was yanked August 7.

Apple told him it violated the part of the guidelines that objected to "obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content," he said.

"I have no problem with people objecting to 'Slasher.' After all, everyone has their own personal taste. I do have a problem with the App Store refusing to publish 'Slasher' because they don't like it," he wrote to ABCNews.com in an e-mail.

He also said it bothers him that other approved Apps could also be seen as obscene or offensive. "Bar Fight Bottle," for example, lets you pretend to smash a bottle with your phone and other apps serve as pretend pistols, shot guns and ray guns.

He said he improved the app and was told, upon resubmitting it, that it had been approved. But despite weeks of e-mails, the status still says "Removed from Sale."


'Freedom Time'

Although Apple is notoriously tight-lipped in its external relationships, one intrepid developer was able to get none other than the man behind the curtain, co-founder Steve Jobs himself, to weigh in on his rejection.

Almost on a whim, Alec Vance and Court Batson submitted "Freedom Time" to the App Store gatekeepers last summer.

"It's been a long eight years, but a new dawn is coming to America and the world. Our long international nightmare is almost over," the pair wrote on their company Juggleware LLC's Web site.

"In anticipation of that sweet moment," the company unveiled its app that gave a precise (to the tenth of a second) countdown to the inauguration of President Obama and the end of the Bush administration.

But Apple wouldn't have any of it.

"I thought there was a decent chance they would reject it but it was a chance I was willing to take," Vance told ABCNews.com. "I was disappointed."

He said Apple told him the app was defamatory. But Vance disagreed and decided to let the company's CEO know about it.

Surprisingly, Jobs wrote back: "Even though my personal political leanings are democratic, I think this app will be offensive to roughly half our customers. What's the point? Steve"

Vance wasn't entirely pleased with the company but was impressed by the CEO and took it as a good omen, he said. ..Source.. by LIAM BERKOWITZ and KI MAE HEUSSNER

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