Judge: No Privacy Expectations For Data On P2P Networks 230
An anonymous reader writes "A federal judge in Vermont has denied a motion to suppress evidence filed by three defendants in a child porn case. The three had alleged their Fourth Amendment rights were violated when police used an automated P2P query-response tool to gather information from their computers. That information subsequently led to their arrest and indictments. The judge held (PDF) that the defendants had either inadvertently, or otherwise, made the information available for public download on a P2P network and therefore couldn't assert any privacy claims over the data."
"Available for public download" - AT&T and Wee (Score:5, Insightful)
And no, I'm not defending child porn users. Well, I guess I sort of am. But not... Darn it, you guys know what I mean.
Re:"Available for public download" - AT&T and (Score:5, Insightful)
Headline wrong of course (Score:5, Insightful)
The ruling is on, "made the information available for public download on a P2P network" there are plenty of private p2p services. If you make your information available to everyone then of course the police don't need to go through red tape to get that information. Non-story
Re:"Available for public download" - AT&T and (Score:5, Insightful)
And no, I'm not defending child porn users. Well, I guess I sort of am. But not... Darn it, you guys know what I mean.
Kiddie porn pirates are not the problem, the problem are all the people involved in the production. If you believe the MAFIAA's rhetoric the pirates are the solution since they are destroying the jobs of all the hard-working people in the kiddie porn industry.
Re:well, of course (Score:5, Insightful)
Especially on a P2P network like Gnutella where you can do search by keywords and then directly view what people have on their computers. It's like hanging a poster in your living room of a child being abused and someone walking by seeing it. They made the materials available for the public to see. I hope more people who are into sick stuff like that make the mistake of having the files publically visible. Especially p2p users since given the nature of p2p they can also be slapped with a distribution charge which will add years to their sentence.
Re:Hold on (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, if you share something on a P2P network, you intend for people to download it.
If you accidentally reveal a list of other people's sensitive information (because you're bad at the web), you arguably didn't intend to make that data publicly available.
Not meaning to side against weev or anything here, just pointing out a meaningful difference between the two.
Re:Open... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I don't see what the issue is. They were sharing these files, or left them in folders their P2P software would automatically share.
The article shows the police went ot of their way to deliberately not download the files, presumably for 4th Amendment search reasons, though why even that would be a problem I don't know. They were deliberately and knowingly sharing those files.
Re:"Available for public download" - AT&T and (Score:5, Insightful)
I was gonna say the same but couldnt come up with a way of saying "think of the children and download kiddie porn" without it coming across the wrong way.
I think the take-away here is that the MPAA and RIAA are steadfast in their support of kiddie porn producers.
Re:Hold on (Score:5, Insightful)
And what is the purpose of publicly facing web servers without authentication?
Re:"Available for public download" - AT&T and (Score:4, Insightful)
Another opinion is that these are two different kinds of services intended for two different kinds of uses.
What exactly is the meaninful difference between the two services? Functionally, they are identical.
That's a valid opinion, but possibly not a widely employed social convention.
You know what is a widely employed social convention? That unauthenticated web services are free to use by the public.
Re:"Available for public download" - AT&T and (Score:5, Insightful)
RFTS, dude:
The judge held (PDF) that the defendants had either inadvertently, or otherwise, made the information available for public download on a P2P network and therefore couldn't assert any privacy claims over the data.
"inadvertently made public" == "did not intend to make public."
Intent has fuck-all to do with the ruling; per the judge, what these pervs did and what AT&T did are exactly the same thing.
Re:Open... (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks to the power of precedent, not any more.
Child porn is very handy for setting a precedent, because judge and jury alike will usually so loathe the victim they'll do anything to see a strict sentence happen. If you've a defendant you can prove had child porn, you could probably charge them with regicide and conspiracy to blow up Pluto - and still have a chance of a conviction.