FBI Has Tor Mail's Entire Email Database 195
An anonymous reader writes "Tor Mail was an anonymized email service run over Tor. It was operated by a company called Freedom Hosting, which was shut down by the FBI last August. The owner was arrested for 'enabling child porn,' and the Tor Mail servers suddenly began hosting FBI malware that attempted to de-anonymize users. Now, Wired reports on a new court filing which indicates that the FBI was also able to grab Tor Mail's entire email database. 'The filings show the FBI built its case in part by executing a search warrant on a Gmail account used by the counterfeiters, where they found that orders for forged cards were being sent to a TorMail e-mail account: "platplus@tormail.net." Acting on that lead in September, the FBI obtained a search warrant for the TorMail account, and then accessed it from the bureau's own copy of "data and information from the TorMail e-mail server, including the content of TorMail e-mail accounts," according to the complaint (PDF) sworn out by U.S. Postal Inspector Eric Malecki.'"
Re:Wait, WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
And don't forget that the range "child porn" materials already includes cartoon drawings, adults who look too young, and images of fully-clothed children. Soon the definition of "child porn" will also be expanded to include pictures of cats and any women who are not wearing full headscarves.
Re:Wait, WTF? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's our own fault for giving them such a powerful weapon. Last week I suggested that possession of child pornography should be decriminalized, i.e. they can confiscate it from you but you can't be charged with a crime or otherwise publicly shamed. There have been a lot of cases in the UK where someone was falsely accused, often after the police bungled some other investigation and were trying to cover themselves by saying "oh, but he was a paedo, so at least we got him".
Of course some idiot immediately accused me of being a paedophile and went on a fairly extensive rant about it. In amongst the raving he made the point that anyone advocating decriminalization for any reason will be subjected to his kind of behaviour by a large proportion of the public, and unfortunately I think he could be right. It's a shame because decriminalization could go a long way to allowing people who do find themselves attracted to children to come forward and get help without fear of public shaming or prosecution, as well as stopping police abuse.