The FBI Defends Deploying Malware From A Tor Child Porn Site (gizmodo.com) 244
An anonymous reader writes:
The FBI issued a press release about the 30-year prison sentence for a 58-year-old Florida man running "the world's largest child pornography website, with more than 150,000 users around the world." But their investigation involved what Gizmodo describes as "a decision controversial to this day" -- taking over the child pornography site and running it "for almost two weeks while distributing malware designed to unmask its visitors." Thursday the FBI described it as "a court-approved network investigative technique" which led to more than 1,000 leads in the U.S. and "thousands more" for law enforcement partners in other countries, leading to arrests in the EU, Israel, Turkey, Peru, Malaysia, Chile, and the Ukraine. Those 1,000 U.S. leads led to "at least 350 U.S-based individuals arrested", as well as actual prosecutions of 25 producers of child pornography and 51 hands-on abusers, while 55 children were "identified or rescued" in America, and another 296 internationally who were sexually abused.
Though Motherboard describes it as hacking "over 8,000 computers in 120 countries based on one warrant," the FBI calls it their "most successful effort to date against users of Tor's hidden service sites," adding that the agency "has numerous investigations involving the dark web." Though they'd soon became aware of the site's existence, "given the nature of how Tor hidden services work, there was not much we could do about it" -- until a foreign law enforcement agency discovered the site had "slipped up" by revealing its actual IP address, and notified the U.S. investigators. The FBI also says the investigation "has opened new avenues for international cooperation in efforts to prosecute child abusers around the world."
The site's two other administrators -- both men in their 40s -- were also given 20-year prison sentences earlier this year.
Though Motherboard describes it as hacking "over 8,000 computers in 120 countries based on one warrant," the FBI calls it their "most successful effort to date against users of Tor's hidden service sites," adding that the agency "has numerous investigations involving the dark web." Though they'd soon became aware of the site's existence, "given the nature of how Tor hidden services work, there was not much we could do about it" -- until a foreign law enforcement agency discovered the site had "slipped up" by revealing its actual IP address, and notified the U.S. investigators. The FBI also says the investigation "has opened new avenues for international cooperation in efforts to prosecute child abusers around the world."
The site's two other administrators -- both men in their 40s -- were also given 20-year prison sentences earlier this year.
Not a problem (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
under normal circumstances i would be upset. but children were involved and theyre making it sound like they have rescued active sex slave children. therefor i cant say what they did was wrong.
Re:Not a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
under normal circumstances i would be upset. but children were involved and theyre making it sound like they have rescued active sex slave children. therefor i cant say what they did was wrong.
On the surface, I agree with you.
That said, the problem with your mentality is this little thing called precedent, which creates one hell of a slippery slope.
Today, this activity by law enforcement is "justified" by your moral compass, and a complete lack of analysis to determine if what they actually did was illegal translates into accepted behavior.
Tomorrow, this same activity by law enforcement may be used to silence what they deem as "propaganda". Or illegally search through ISP records to build cases, perhaps by parallel construction. Or enslave and hide the truth based on political contributions. All because it was once accepted by the masses when think-of-the-children was peddled out in front of the illegal activity.
Re:Not a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The end justifies the means is a rather dangerous attitude. Because the end-goalpost can move quite quickly. After all, disagreeing with dear leader may destabilize the country, and who would want that?
Re:Not a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The end justifies the means is a rather dangerous attitude. Because the end-goalpost can move quite quickly.
A just as chilling thought is that law enforcement has and is gradually slid from a focus on protection to a focus on punishment. Was the "ends" in the law enforcement's view to stop a crime in progress or to catch and convict as many people as possible?
If this had been a fentanyl distribution ring, would they have allowed it to operate in order to arrest as many people as possible, or would they have shut it down in the interest of public safety, even knowing that some of the users would be able to find other outlets?
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If this had been a fentanyl distribution ring, would they have allowed it to operate in order to arrest as many people as possible, or would they have shut it down in the interest of public safety, even knowing that some of the users would be able to find other outlets?
Of course they'd allow the ring to operate while they scooped up easy pickings. This is the same government that allowed weapons that they insisted be sold illegally to be taken to Mexico and those weapons were subsequently used in a number of violent crimes, one of which was the murder of a US border agent. You notice how many went to jail over that?
It's a wonder the FBI didn't give the pedos free machine guns and let them walk.
Strat.
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The ends of law enforcement is usually to make law enforcement look good. Child abuses are possible the most loathed of all criminals - the public utterly hates them to an extend that can be hard to imagine. If a politician were to propose that they be executed by slowly lowering them feet first into a woodchipper, I wouldn't be surprised if a majority voted in favor. So arresting a load of people for possession of child pornography is a great publicity win, even if none of the arrested ever actually abused
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If they took over a drug ring instead, they probably would have run it way longer. It's kinda hard these days to generate funds for ... certain operations that you can't really have in your public budget.
Child porn just doesn't generate any money, so it's ok to shut it down after a while.
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The end justifies the means is a rather dangerous attitude.
Especially since it isn't clear that the means leads to the end. The presumption is that viewing child porn leads to violence against children. There is very little evidence to support that hypothesis, and quite a bit more that contradicts it. Over the last 20 years, access to porn has skyrocketed because of the Internet, but sexual violence has gone down by 55%. Perhaps mastrubating to porn functions as an alternative to "real" sex.
The argument that child porn hurts children during its creation is bogu
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So you would also consent to a camera in every bedroom (including yours), because that may rescue some children?
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If this was a non-criminal investigation "for the children" then free the abused children. But don't use the tainted evidence in criminal proceedings.
You can have one without the other.
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If child pornography is so heinous that merely viewing the material is a crime, then I don't see any justification for a government agency intentionally distributing it. These are government employees, mind you, telling us that it's OK when they do it, yet a crime when you do it. That's a very dangerous position to take and all attempts to normalize this type of thinking need to be fought.
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I do not think you know what the legal definition of entrapment is. Actually, I know you don't based on your post.
Re:Not a problem (Score:5, Informative)
I do not think you know what the legal definition of entrapment is. Actually, I know you don't based on your post.
I always refer to this [tumblr.com] when people spout off about entrapment. It doesn't get any more clear than this.
Entrapment vs. shoots self in foot (Score:2)
That is, until December 2014, when Chase slipped up and revealed Playpen’s unique IP address—a location in the U.S. The gaffe was noticed by a foreign law enforcement agency, which notified the FBI.
The FBI caught the man accused of creating Silk Road -- the shadowy e-commerce site it describes as "the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet today" -- after he allegedly posted his Gmail address online, according to court documents.
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I always refer to this [tumblr.com] when people spout off about entrapment. It doesn't get any more clear than this.
One of my co-workers has a law degree. I showed her your link. According to her, the second example (Grayson) is pretty clearly entrapment. The guy was not predisposed to commit a crime until the police created the opportunity and enticed him into it.
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Apparently your co-worker didn't read far enough down the page:
Entrapment is concerned with whether the police (the state) corrupted you to commit a crime you weren't otherwise inclined to commit.
A common theme you're going to come across in American criminal law is that we don't like the state to override your free will, (emphasis mine) and force you to get yourself in trouble.
And a bit further down:
Sorry, Grayson. They can ask all they want. All you had to say was No.
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Apparently your co-worker didn't read far enough down the page:
She went to law school, so I don't think she needs to read a webcomic to understand the law.
Sorry, Grayson. They can ask all they want. All you had to say was No.
Yet the example given that IS entrapment (Francine), is the same situation. She is asked, and refuses. She is asked again, and agrees to break the law. All she had to say was "No". The only difference between Francine and Grayson is that Francine is described as "nice".
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The difference was the life or death circumstances.
What if Grayson needed money to pay for his mom's cancer treatment? Then would his case not be entrapment either?
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I think the difference is that Francine did say 'no'.
The Grayson example did NOT say he agreed on the first request. If "agreeing immediately" is such a critical distinction, shouldn't that have been mentioned?
It seems to me that the critical difference is that Francine is a "nice" white girl, while Grayson is a "bad" person that hangs out on the street, and is probably a shifty minority. So that makes his entrapment okay.
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No, it showed the guy ask him and he said yes.
It also shows a guy asking Francine, and she said yes.
Anything else is adding something that isn't in the cartoon.
That is sort of the point. The cartoon is totally unclear about what is "entrapment" and what is not. I presents two situations that that are nearly indistinguishable, and labels one as OBVIOUS entrapment, and the other as obviously NOT entrapment, yet doesn't explain what makes the two situations different. Saying that it is "Francine changed her mind" or "Grayson didn't hesitate" may be what the cartoonist intended, but other people in this thread t
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So either you have to assume Grayson is a complete idiot, who figures UPS was a bit short handed that day, or he knows he is delivering drugs.
His is a really razor edge case, which would be in co
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It's only entrapment if you lure the mark into downloading something that he does not think is child porn, or if you infect someone who visits the site by misspelling a URL. If you bundle the malware with actual child porn images that are advertised as such, you're golden.
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It's only entrapment if you lure the mark into downloading something that he does not think is child porn, or if you infect someone who visits the site by misspelling a URL. If you bundle the malware with actual child porn images that are advertised as such, you're golden.
Assuming they try to hack everyone who visits a specific page and not just logged in accounts it's also real easy to poison the well by redirecting innocent users there using URL shorteners. It doesn't take many false leads to turn it into a PR nightmare as innocent people are searched and "no smoke without fire" suspicions take hold.
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Do any of the shortening services check for this?
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That's simply one of the seasons why they only do it for a limited time, two weeks in this case. That's not enough time for knowledge of the FBI ownership of the site to leak out, so not enough time for the site's consumers to try to poison the well by giving innocent people links.
At any rate, you can already SWAT somebody with a telephone.
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That happened to a photographer in the UK. He made the mistake of viewing a "sting" photograph in a website in Luxemborg. The police there had set up a file directory to catch criminals. But he didn't understand the language and so triggered the a police investigation who then informed the British police:
http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/ne... [oxfordmail.co.uk]
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It's only entrapment if you lure the mark into downloading something that he does not think is child porn, or if you infect someone who visits the site by misspelling a URL. If you bundle the malware with actual child porn images that are advertised as such, you're golden.
No, that wouldn't be entrapment. In the first case it would be committing a crime (tricking someone into downloading child port when they have no intention to do this is a crime), in the second case we have the unfortunate situation that an innocent person will be incorrectly accused of a crime. Neither is entrapment.
Entrapment would be convincing someone who doesn't originally want to download child porn to willingly do it.
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No, that wouldn't be entrapment. In the first case it would be committing a crime (tricking someone into downloading child port when they have no intention to do this is a crime), in the second case we have the unfortunate situation that an innocent person will be incorrectly accused of a crime. Neither is entrapment. Entrapment would be convincing someone who doesn't originally want to download child porn to willingly do it.
Except that mens rea has been stripped from so many laws like this one. It's strict liability, so possession is the crime. Period.
Spot that troll link is a troll, but your browsers pre-cache speedup downloads the page in the background? It's in your cache, in your possession. Guilty!
Clear the cache, never view the contents? It's in the unallocated portion of your drive. Guilty! (why, that's proof you had them in undeleted form, and they're still in your possession in any case)
Slender legal age woma
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Too dangerous - if the frame job is uncovered somehow, the perpetrator will suffer just as much as their victim would have.
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Entrapment would be paying someone to go to the link, when they know it's child porn. "It's a special promotion. I know you don't like Child Porn, that's why they are paying you. $10 to make an account. You don't even have to enjoy the child porn." That's getting someone not interested to commit the crime. That's entrapment.
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It's a strict liability offense.
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Exactly that. Those people were already habitually using that service.
Presumably, at least some would be first time users.
Perhaps even being hooked on child porn because it was their first exposure to it.
Does catching the "habitual users" justify introducing more people to child porn, when there was an alternative of replacing all the content with warnings about the illegality of these kinds of sites?
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you really think they dont know its illegal? and would not be tipped off? are you awake today? try opening your brain for business on this one bud. when i hear people justify this kind of crap, it makes me think theyre one of them.
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you really think they dont know its illegal? and would not be tipped off?
That's the entire point. Let people know that FBI took the site, and is investigating logs and following leads. The idea is to scare people from continuing, i.e. preventative work, not punitive work.
are you awake today? try opening your brain for business on this one bud. when i hear people justify this kind of crap,
I see no-one here that has justified anything. Can you really only think in black and white, and think that anyone not agreeing with the methods of police operation must be on the side of and justifying the law breakers? Let me guess - you're a right wing republican, right?
it makes me think theyre one of them.
It takes one to know one?
The stron
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The only people constantly thinking about children are probably pedos.
ok we need some sick kids that GOP are going cut (Score:2)
ok we need some sick kids that GOP are going cut off with there healthcare plan to come out or should we wait for the videos of them being kicked out of the hospitals to show up?
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It would seem most likely that if they had just turned the server off then they never would have discovered the location of any children, so the sub-human scum abusing the children would have disappeared into the wind. It was obviously only thru waiting for them to reveal their locations that they had any chance at all of finding any of them, and only then would they have made the discoveries of which of those low-life arseholes were actively abusing children and creating that material.
How the fuck would t
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ok, how about this than. instead of arresting them, they should still look for them. Then tell the public about them, and allow the victims or parents of the victims kill the pedophile/rapist. those are much better rules.
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How do you get that? for one they were tipped off, so it would be the same as if your neighbor saw you raping a child in your house and called the cops. should that be illegal too? get the fuck out of here with your made up bullshit. MR Rogers is dead there is no more land of make believe!
Re:Not a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not the problem. The problem is that the FBI was distributing child pornography for two weeks. This kind of things are always contentious, because setting the limits is tricky. Can a policeman pay a confident with drugs? Can an FBI agent watch a child being raped without intervening because they hope to free more children that way? Can a undercover agent kill some innocent person to keep their cover? As said, the limits are difficult to set.
In the end it's the old question: Does the end justify the means? The answer has always been "It depends". You can say that in this particular case, the answer for you is "yes". But the question is nott, in my opinion, something to dismiss so cavalierly.
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In my opinion, the FBI and most other USA LEO TLAgencies are not morally superior to whomever they go after, not any more, not by any stretch of the imagination. They're merely the enforcers, that that's all to it.
This, and the fact they've been getting away with it for decades, says things about the USA that its population ought to take to heart and think about.
Remember, there might have been other means to reach the goals, and those weren't explored. Even if those were less or not at all practicable, that
"If we save just one child" (Score:5, Insightful)
In the end it's the old question: Does the end justify the means? The answer has always been "It depends". You can say that in this particular case, the answer for you is "yes". But the question is nott, in my opinion, something to dismiss so cavalierly.
If we stipulate it is acceptable for law enforcement to run a pron site because X children were rescued, we have ceased the negotiations over whether the action is proper.
We have now reduced the equation to a bidding war over what value of X justifies the operation.
Re:"If we save just one child" (Score:5, Insightful)
Child pornography is so vigorously prosecuted because its production involves the sexual exploitation of children and its consumption drives that market of exploitation. However, law enforcement continuing to run the site for a minimal amount of time to catch the perpetrators neither creates additional exploitation nor expands the demand -- its effect is to counter and shrink both of those. The negative it does have is contributing to the continued invasion of privacy of the minors involved. Personally, though, as a victim, I would consider having those pictures out there a slightly longer period of time a minuscule addition to the harm of having them initially released and the acts involved in producing them, especially if it is ongoing and the police need the evidence to even find me and rescue me.
It is comparable to cops going 95 mph on the freeway to reach an emergency. Strictly speaking, they are increasing the chances of a fatal accident. However, they have mitigated those risks by lights, sirens, and extensive training, and only do so to respond directly to an emergency, not to get anywhere they want to go. The premise is entirely different than me going 95 mph to get to a friend's birthday party on time.
Would it be acceptable for law enforcement to create child pornography or launch a distribution site? No. They would be intentionally creating victims. But given an emergency situation where people are already actively being harmed, it's understood that the police can pursue a policy of minimal harm and minimal risk to resolve the situation, rather than the impossible handicap of zero harm and zero risk.
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Under the guise of preventing the sexual exploitation of children (a horrible, horrible thing) law enforcement agencies may use the extra leeway to perform some exploitation of their own.
It would not be unprecedented.
Re: Not a problem (Score:2)
Re:Not a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
"The problem is that the FBI was distributing child pornography for two weeks."
Perhaps you believe that they should have immediately arrested the operator of the site and let the thousands of others continue their activities elsewhere? And let the children remain in captivity? Assuming that the FBI is being honest with us, (?) most will agree that they did the right thing. Those two weeks are inconsequential in comparison.
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If the goal is to catch abusers, and that's all they caught, I can maybe make an exception. But I have a hard line stance on law enforcement's boundaries, and that sometimes means that guilty men go free.
Even with an enforced upload ratio, it is not guaranteed that an uploader is an abuser. And this is where your argument turns into "downloading is illegal too so catch them all," which is not what you posted.
If you believe that everyone downloading should be prosecuted regardless, as long as we caught them
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you make it sound as if theyre still, after the arrests distributing child pornography
"FBI continued distribution of illegal content."
They had a warrant, They had the site operator. youre basically saying they should just let these people continue with their activities. in which case why have police at all? Do you think bait cars should be illegal too?
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If the theory that the mere possession or tertiary distribution of CP re-victimizes the victim in every case, is true, then the FBI re-victimized tens of thousands on the behalf of the 55 rescued. The FBI committed or aided tens of thousands of acts that would otherwise be felonies. This can only lead to two conclusions. That many of these acts should not be considered felonies, or that the FBI actions in this case were terrible and morally reprehensible.
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to add to that. had they just shut it down those children to this day would most likely still be being abused. these people wouldnt be so against it if it was one of their kids.
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what if you didnt know what was really on that site, and you saw somewhere online a link to it talking about something that interested you a bit but was vague and did not mention child abuse. and YOU were then in that list of "users that would check back regularly" because you checked a few days in a row to see if you could view it. when instead if you had found it YOU would really have called authorities immediately. how would they vet that?
Re:Not a problem (Score:4, Informative)
One of the arguments against is that it is a slippery slope. The only thing that works long-term is that LEOs may not commit crimes, no exception. Otherwise they begin to resemble those that they fight more and more, because it is just so much easier.
In the case at hand, by the very definition of the DOJ (!), the FBI committed child abuse for two weeks, and the step to actually directly abusing children is a small one. I do not see why they should get away with that. Otherwise, they can next start to produce this type material themselves by raping children, because that can get them into the inner circles of such groups if they have new material to swap. They may even only have to rape a few children and may as a result safe a lot more!
I think the problem here is entirely obvious and it is very obvious that the FBI stepped far over the line.
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I see you fell for the propaganda. It says "while 55 children were "identified or rescued" in America". That means between 0 and 55 were identified and between 0 and 55 were rescued. It does include actually zero being rescued and 55 being identified with no rescue. Otherwise they would have said "identified and rescued", but they did not.
Re:Not a problem (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not as if the FBI set up their own site and curated their own collection of child porn. They simply continued the service for two weeks after their first opportunity to shut it down. If the FBI takes over the leadership of a massive drug cartel, then I think it would also be perfectly reasonable for them to allow the cartel's employees continue distributing drugs for 2 weeks for the purpose of catching them and their contacts in the act of doing something illegal.
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The only reason we could accept this line of argument is if you agree that the sale or use of drugs is not inherently wrong, that it is simply prohibited on utilitarian grounds. The current legal theory about CP is that it is inherently wrong and re-victimizes the subject whenever and wherever it is distributed. Either the current legal theory is wrong, (my theory), or the FBI did something objectively wrong and morally reprehensible.
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And how [arstechnica.com] do you think it does that? They hack the browser, only the payload is different. Granted their code doesn't do anything malicious but anyone can take their exploit, pop in a cryptolocker and have their own remotely exploitable 0-day malware. This is the police going black hat along with the NSA.
Re: Not a problem (Score:2)
If it's surreptitiously installed without the knowledge of the person using the computer or the owner of the computer, it's malware
I find it very strange and disturbing that ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are they not tracking down the people making the images instead of a vast sting operation on patsies looking at them while the FBI is running the site?
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Why do they go after the drug users than the drug cartel lords? It's easier. Duh.
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molestation and rape often does get a plea because you need the testimony of children who were raped,children are not the most reliable witnesses in terms of saying conflicting things that can help the defense, and asking them to recount what happened in court is less than ideal, so often the prosecution will give a plea deal that requires registration and a smaller jail term in o
Re:I find it very strange and disturbing that ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The commenter was probably referred to this guy [houstonpress.com] because it got a lot of press, but he took a plea deal that gave him seven years on probation. Texas has 116 people serving life sentences for possession [dallasnews.com], though, so there's probably another teenager in there somewhere.
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Anti-monitoring operations by the site operators perhaps? Embed links to images on legitimate websites, with height and width set to zero.
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I understand the concerns (Score:2)
...But the fact is to substantially harm these networks, such actions are ultimately justifiable.
Yes, ends justify means. It's true here, it's almost always been true.
55 Identified OR rescued? (Score:2)
Because those two are close enough / equivelent?
A break down of how many were identified (not something they desire) versus how many were rescued (something they desperately desire) is probably the single most important number in that story.
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Indeed. Ultimately, this can mean not a single one rescued and 55 identified from material they already had. Of course, they want everybody to think "nearly 55 rescued", but that is not the statement they made.
Not OK (Score:2)
Child porn is illegal because distributing it harms children. Doing that in order to catch criminals is not OK.
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How exactly does distributing it harm children? Producing it, yes. But distributing? Also it's worth noting that many countries consider artistic depictions, photomanipulations and even written material featuring children in sexual situations to be equally illegal. How does that harm any children?
Protecting children is only half of the reason for the legal prohibition. The other half is that the public in general feels that anyone who likes such material is sub-human filth and needs to be excluded from soci
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I think the main reason is that demand fuels production and therefore distribution fuels production as well.
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Purchasing fuels production by adding money to the system. I don't see how free distribution does that, but possession of CP is illegal even if no money changed hands. I assume the argument is that no one should have images of their abuse / rape distributed on the internet.
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Hollywood assures us that if everyone just downloads for free, nothing more will be produced.
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The argument that possessing child porn, not just purchasing or producing child porn should be illegal is that the images are harmful to children in some fashion. Otherwise there would be no reason not to allow the large amount of existing CP to be distributed for free. In fact making distribution of existing CP illegal probably encourages the production of new material, and that production is obviously harmful. The only way this policy makes any sense is if the images themselves are harmful.
I have no per
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Shutting down the site immediately wasn't an option?
If it works here (Score:2, Insightful)
If it works for child porn, what about muderers? Why not come up with a plan to distribute guns to villains in order to track down killers?
Oh, hang on...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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The ends do not ever justify the means when we discuss our law enforcement agencies performing illegal acts. We as a society, should expect our law enforcement agencie
think of the children ! (Score:5, Insightful)
There is an aspect to this story that may be disturbing to some. That is: we value some human lives higher than others. We have special laws to punish people who harm children, police, pregnant women, etc. We have unwritten laws (yet obvious to observers) that skin color changes the value of some humans. Age is another factor. Consider a situation where you must choose between saving the life of a sweet innocent baby and a crusty old college professor who is leading the research on a cancer cure. How do you value these lives? Which would you save?
Re:think of the children ! (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider a situation where you must choose between saving the life of a sweet innocent baby and a crusty old college professor who is leading the research on a cancer cure. How do you value these lives? Which would you save?
I know it's not the prevalent view, but I'd save an adult over a child any day. Children is a renewable resource. We can always produce more. But the amount of effort having gone into creating the adult is far more.
If I were driving down the road and suddenly there were a string of people across it, and I could not possibly stop in time, I'd aim for the youngest. No doubt in my mind at all.
The reproductive capacity of humans is so strong that the cultural worship of and obsession about children seems illogical. Even more so these days, when most children get to grow up, and too few die from pressure for evolution to have much effect.
Much of this seems to be rooted in the binary thinking of prevalent religions, where life is "sacred" and there is a mysterious "soul" that humans attain at birth, or in some cases earlier. Add parental instincts that makes sense for ancestors fighting for survival, but not in a world where children's survival rates are close to unity, and we use prophylactic methods to reduce the number of babies popping out in the first place.
IANAP, but I think this sick worship of children could be part of the reason why there's so many suffering from unhealthy attraction to them.
To me, it seems more logical to define a personal view of "human" as a value of the worth of the individual to humanity, with a peak individual being 100 and a child starting at 0 and ending at 0 again if living to old age dementia.
tl;dr: Children are not special. Most anyone can have them.
Re:think of the children ! (Score:4, Insightful)
We protect the ones who cannot protect themselves.
The rest is intellectual masturbation.
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Consider a situation where you must choose between saving the life of a sweet innocent baby and a crusty old college professor who is leading the research on a cancer cure. How do you value these lives? Which would you save?
* If you are driven purely by emotion then you save the baby.
* If you want to save the most lives then you save the professor.
* If you are worried the rapid rise in the global population depleting our resources then you allow both to die because the professor could extend the lives of many people who would otherwise die and the baby is just one more person taking up resources.
* If you are trapped somewhere and only wish to survive then the professor and you eat the baby and then fight to the death when you
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Kill a child: Zero investment, thus zero loss.
Kill a ninety-year-old with dementia: Zero remaining production, thus zero loss.
There must be a point in between where worth is maximised. Probably around 25 or so, when the investment in rearing and education is fully sunk and has yet to be recuperated.
Good work! (Score:2)
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Their actions may well constitute a crime. It certainly pushes the limits.
A crime does not cease to be a crime just because the end result was a positive.
If you say that law enforcement should be permitted to break the law with impunity if that's what it takes to catch criminals, then welcome to the police state.
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Wouldn't call this malware (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm fine with this. (Score:5, Informative)
> Child abuser aren't humans after all ... human rights apply to everyone.
By declaring, that some people you don't like aren't humans you can always circumvent the human rights. But who know, who is the next person deciding, that YOU aren't a human?
So nope
Re:I'm fine with this. (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I've heard a similar sentence before. In a speech that was given about 80 years ago. He wasn't talking about child abusers, though...
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It's way easier to ignore some random Reddit asshole than the biggest asshole in human history. Let's be frank here, even the biggest internet trolls combined don't come close to being as obnoxious as a guy who tried to exterminate an entire people.
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Transparent troll. Child abusers get a trial and all the same human rights as anyone else, more human rights than their victims. Nobody has a right to commit all their crimes anonymously. In this case, we're talking about a situation where a crime is being committed and the already-established-red-handed perpetrators are being unmasked -- not a situation where hundreds of random people are being unmasked just to see whether they're doing anything criminal (which would be bad of course).
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There are a lot of stupid people around, and quite a few have a completely unfounded trust in technology. The Tor project itself warns you right on the verification page that "this is not all you need to be secure" and points to the documentation. The thing is, Tor can be used for different purposes. If I just want to keep the insane pervs out that want to see every citizen's (legal) browsing habits, leaving JS active is likely not a problem. If you are a political activist in a country that does not respec
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Because the tor bundle had a Firefox build with javascript enabled.
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I hate that law enforcement breaks laws to hunt criminals. Shouldn't be allowed under any circumstances, right. Right?
The problem with many kiddie porn sites is that they operate on a barter system. You submit some new content in exchange for access to other content. Often, this is done to weed out law enforcement, who would draw the line at anything that would increase demand for further exploitation.
If somehow they managed to keep the site running with only the existing content, then it's not so much of an issue. And I imagine that law enforcement would steer clear of anything that would promote additional production.
O
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"Often, this is done to weed out law enforcement"
Well, now we know that doesn't work.
I'm sure law enforcement could get hold of some material seized in a previous case if they needed to submit it. We already know from this incident that they are quite happy to distribute it in order to gather evidence.
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Well, now we know that doesn't work.
Usually not. It's like the incorrect advice that is passed around by prostitutes: Police officers can't lie about being cops when asked. Yes, they can. But all the hookers I've met still ask, thinking that if I was a cop I'd have to admit it.