The Feds Are Dropping Child Porn Cases Instead of Revealing Their Surveillance Systems (reason.com) 167
SonicSpike shares a report from Reason: The Department of Justice has been dismissing child pornography cases in order to not reveal information about the software programs used as the basis for the charges. An array of cases suggest serious problems with the tech tools used by federal authorities. But the private entities who developed these tools won't submit them for independent inspection or hand over hardly any information about how they work, their error rates, or other critical information. As a result, potentially innocent people are being smeared as pedophiles and prosecuted as child porn collectors, while potentially guilty people are going free so these companies can protect "trade secrets." The situation suggests some of the many problems that can arise around public-private partnerships in catching criminals and the secretive digital surveillance software that it entails (software that's being employed for far more than catching child predators).
With the child pornography cases, "the defendants are hardly the most sympathetic," notes Tim Cushing at Techdirt. Yet that's all the more reason why the government's antics here are disturbing. Either the feds initially brought bad cases against people whom they just didn't think would fight back, or they're willing to let bad behavior go rather than face some public scrutiny. An extensive investigation by ProPublica "found more than a dozen cases since 2011 that were dismissed either because of challenges to the software's findings, or the refusal by the government or the maker to share the computer programs with defense attorneys, or both," writes Jack Gillum. Many more cases raised issues with the software as a defense. "Defense attorneys have long complained that the government's secrecy claims may hamstring suspects seeking to prove that the software wrongly identified them," notes Gillum. "But the growing success of their counterattack is also raising concerns that, by questioning the software used by investigators, some who trade in child pornography can avoid punishment."
With the child pornography cases, "the defendants are hardly the most sympathetic," notes Tim Cushing at Techdirt. Yet that's all the more reason why the government's antics here are disturbing. Either the feds initially brought bad cases against people whom they just didn't think would fight back, or they're willing to let bad behavior go rather than face some public scrutiny. An extensive investigation by ProPublica "found more than a dozen cases since 2011 that were dismissed either because of challenges to the software's findings, or the refusal by the government or the maker to share the computer programs with defense attorneys, or both," writes Jack Gillum. Many more cases raised issues with the software as a defense. "Defense attorneys have long complained that the government's secrecy claims may hamstring suspects seeking to prove that the software wrongly identified them," notes Gillum. "But the growing success of their counterattack is also raising concerns that, by questioning the software used by investigators, some who trade in child pornography can avoid punishment."
Um ... (Score:4, Funny)
Think about the children?
Good thing we have an us constitution!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sixth Amendment "in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the rightto be confronted with the witnesses against him."
Also what about the Chain of Custody and the right to your own expert?
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IANAL.
Exactly correct. Technical Barristers use 'Law of Evidence' to reject/purge make legally inadmissible evidence, which could be tainted, legally privileged, or illegally obtained or from an untrusted non verifiable domain. Unless they object, lesser legal representation may let it slip through. In Australia - we even had defence Barristers being police informants!
The better ones seek to prosecute under perjury, those seeking to slide in tainted evidence, or lying about its source during discovery. few
Re: Good thing we have an us constitution!! (Score:2)
YANAL either, it would seem: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
The phrase "British constitution" is well-defined.
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Britain doesn't have a constitution and as a result is unable to make constitutional laws.
FTFY
Magna Carta, Bill of Rights, Acts of Union... (Score:2)
Lord Justice Laws held in Thoburn v Sunderland City Council (2002) [wikipedia.org] that the British Constitution consists of "Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights 1689, the Acts of Union 1707, the Reform Acts, the Human Rights Act 1998, the Scotland Act 1998, the Government of Wales Act 1998 and the European Communities Act 1972." They're not nearly as procedurally entrenched as the U.S. Constitution, but it does take an express act of Parliament to repeal them.
Fyi it's Cellebrite, which copies files off phones (Score:5, Informative)
Btw the computer program they are talking about is Cellebrite. It's used to copy files, including pictures, off of phones. It can sometimes find recently deleted pictures.
The question the defense brings up I how do we know that the pictures copied off the phone were on the phone? Since Cellebrite doesn't say exactly how there software copies first from a phone, maybe it fabricates pictures that were never there, they suggest.
Reason.com has many similar articles arguing against prosecution of child porn and child abuse cases. Like this one, their articles on the subject typically leave out any details, such as what software they are complaining about, case citations, etc.
Re: Fyi it's Cellebrite, which copies files off ph (Score:4, Informative)
Cellebrite is a company, not a product. They made their name by having the best, and perhaps only completely viable, system for copying personal data (contacts, photos, etc) from one dumb phone to the other.
They've been doing this for a long time.
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How does that work with traffic cameras?
are child pornography case to taboo for your own d (Score:4, Interesting)
are child pornography case to taboo for your own deference to even have the evidence or to have your own LAB do forensics???
Re:are child pornography case to taboo for your ow (Score:4, Interesting)
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are child pornography case to taboo for your own deference to even have the evidence or to have your own LAB do forensics???
hey, we all know that any ACCUSATION of trafficking in child porn should result in a conviction. That and terrorism too. Trials are just for guilty people to get off.
Such power would never be abused - government is here to keep us safe, like moms and dads with nukes.
do the crime do the time (Score:2, Interesting)
its just the time in this case is exhorbitant. sending a link to a dropbox to a minor could get you 200k fine and 3.5 years in big boy day camp. they have people robbing and stealing and killing and raping and human trafficking getting pleas and drug court doing a lot worse with minors, with mere slaps on the wrists and minor corporate inconveniences
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So, have an accomplice in Thailand email some in what appears to be a spam so it lands in their junk folder. Then arrange to anonymously report them. They've never seen it, but are guilty nonetheless.
I've wondered when someone is targeted... do the plant drugs if they have assets to take vs kiddie porn if they're broke? They don't have to show it's yours, that you knew it was there or anything for either one.
Re:do the crime do the time (Score:5, Informative)
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Which is a good thing. Visit a chan site and you see banner ads for what have to be FBI honeypot sites (and they get cached in your browser).
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Browser history? No, that can be easily falsified.
That comes down to chain of custody and verifying that the drive contents from discovery match the original hash of the drive contents. Source: I have no experience with this, but I hear things.
It's simple, really (Score:5, Insightful)
It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. (c)
Re:It's simple, really (Score:5, Insightful)
And to expand on that a bit, from John Adams:
"It is of more importance to the community that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world, that all of them cannot be punished....when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, 'it is immaterial to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security.' And if such a sentiment as this were to take hold in the mind of the subject that would be the end of all security whatsoever"
I wonder if it's too late.
Re: It's simple, really (Score:2)
He was the first president to take the Declaration preamble to heart.
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He died before he could ruin his own image.
Re:It's simple, really (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, it is too late. People can only learn this lesson the hard way based on history. There is a reason the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots. There is a reason governments are born and die, because all government is just the winners of wars deciding how they want everyone else to live... or else.
It is very much is a world of "guilty until proven innocent" and eventually just as you quoted. Virtue is no security and when people finally learn they just are not going to get a fair or honest trial because that is now impossible they will instead abuse and twist the laws to their own ends instead of following them or working to make them better. Instead, they will work to use the law to oppress their opponents or advantage themselves in other ways and care little to not at all about the future in which those very laws they help create are used to oppress or disadvantage them when time comes.
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There is a reason the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots. There is a reason governments are born and die, because all government is just the winners of wars deciding how they want everyone else to live... or else.
Those two things have nothing to do with each other. Jefferson's quote, so often misused by people who have never even bothered to read the letter it comes from, was stating pretty much exactly the opposite of that. Jefferson was saying that every so often people, either completely ignorant, or completely gullible, would do something stupid like rebel against the government, and at that time governments purpose is to kill as many as is needed to maintain order, then pardon the rest.... and the bigger poi
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There are videos on YouTube, one is of a guy chopping this dude up, on the streets in public, with a small hatchet. There are 30 or more people standing around pointing their phones at the event. 'To late' is an understatement.
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That quote is much better than the simplistic "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer".
That's because if you let a guilty person escape, chances are that more innocent victims will suffer because of his crimes.
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There is nothing at all wrong with judging those caught with child porn.
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Windows update firmware attacks, they are using what they intended for foreign attacks, at home because fat, lazy and stupid junk yard dog law enforcers, creating chaos. Nothing else would stop them from prosecuting because it would cost M$ billions.
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this doesn't make sense (Score:2)
Re: this doesn't make sense (Score:4, Informative)
Wrong. The original warrant is highly scrutinized. If the method used to obtain the probable cause for the original warrant is challenged and eventually thrown out, every bit of evidence found after the execution of said warrant is deemed âoefruit of the poisonous treeâ.
Iâ(TM)ve written and executed many search warrants and have performed countless digital forensic examinations.
the Geek Squad case set precedent! (Score:4, Insightful)
the Geek Squad case set precedent!
Re: this doesn't make sense (Score:4, Informative)
If the method used to obtain the probable cause for the original warrant is challenged and eventually thrown out, every bit of evidence found after the execution of said warrant is deemed Ãoefruit of the poisonous treeÃ.
Not 100% true in the US anymore, if it ever truly was, sadly.
"If officers violate your Fourth Amendment rights through a mistake, the evidence they find may nevertheless be admissible." - The "Good Faith Exception"
https://www.nolo.com/legal-enc... [nolo.com]
I guess Blackstone's Formulation as written has become totally intolerable to TPTB when one of their apparent goals is criminalizing as many people as possible then employing selective enforcement to attack their political/ideological/cultural opponents, dissidents, and "deplorables" while giving your allies a pass.
Blackstone's Formulation in reverse, essentially.
Strat
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Not 100% true in the US anymore, if it ever truly was, sadly.
Sadly? I find this "fruit of the poisonous tree" business sad. If valid evidence (not planted etc.) is brought, down you go. No matter how that evidence was collected.
If officers violate constitutional rights or otherwise break the law, down they go. So they may kick down a door without a warrant, and collect the evidence that lands you in prison. Then the officers doing this go to prison for breaking & entering (they had no warrant) - and of course they cannot be employed as policemen after doing tim
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That would be ideal, but that is not how it is. A cop can safely confess in court to illegal (i.e. warrentless) Breaking and Entering in court, co
Re: this doesn't make sense (Score:4, Interesting)
What if all these cases are linked back to one warrant (or a very small number of warrants) and the Feds don't want to risk the warrant being ruled invalid?
There might be thousands of cases that could be in jeopardy if the warrants are ruled invalid.
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What if all these cases are linked back to one warrant (or a very small number of warrants) and the Feds don't want to risk the warrant being ruled invalid?
There might be thousands of cases that could be in jeopardy if the warrants are ruled invalid.
What, you mean the government's case against someone might be thrown out on a technicality just the same as someone might be convicted on a technicality? Oh dear! The government that has a monopoly on the power to imprison and execute people held to a high standard? How horrible! /s
What of Blackstone's Formulation? Would you rather 10 innocent men be convicted rather than risking a single criminal going free? If not 10 innocent men, then how many? What is an acceptable ratio?
I would hope that your answer wo
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what doesn't make sense to me is that any public service depends on undisclosable software and algorithms. imo that would be unacceptable in any administration in general ... but in criminal justice? this is nuts. so it has come to this already ...
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Was the software collecting on a forum? Web site? On CC use only? On social media? A chat room? On p2p? Police created malware? A GUI pop up for AV software/a system update? A free email service? A free chat/IM service?
Did it get the MAC? Installed software in the one system/network under surveillance?
What caused the software doing the collecting to detect a user? A full file name? A file checksum?
Is it a full checksum? A part of a checksum due to computer limitations?
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Criminal court is open to questions by lawyers.
A lawyer is going to that the "original warrant" and find out if it was an effort by undercover police, police informant, computer software?
Fuck (Score:2, Insightful)
Fuck the Feds.
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You do want a government. Trust me. The alternative is basically Somalia.
Your government sucks? Get rid of it, get a better one. But you do want one.
Possession laws are scary. (Score:5, Insightful)
If they can get into the suspects computer to find the files, how difficult is it to plant files on someone's computer by the same means?
Criminal possession laws (of any kind) are the authorities' work-around to innocent until proven guilty.
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I only say theoretically here because I don't know offhand of any cases that actually involved.
If it happened, how would we know for sure it did?
Maybe it did.
How could someone prove their innocence?
Re: Possession laws are scary. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's different from other crimes because there doesn't need to be an actual victim, an actual action done by the target where an identifiable person was hurt and could be cross-examined, for someone inconvenient to be put away under criminal possession (drugs, weapons, photos, "terrorist plans", ...)
It doesn't stop at cops or even moderately powerful people getting rid of inconvenient opponents.
It can be used by just about anyone who has a gripe with you. How often do you check the water tank in your toilet?
What if someone was to hide some drugs on your property while you're out then give an anonymous tip to the police.
That's a cheaper and safer way than hiring a hitman.
What's that 2nd unconnected weakly encrypted hard drive doing inside your computer? ...
What's that USB thumb drive we found hidden in your garage?
What's that pound of drugs under your car inside the bumper's empty space?
Why are your fingerprints over them? Certainly nobody could copy your fingerprints from cans & bottles in your recycling/garbage bin
How often do you inspect every inch of your dwellings?
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He's talking about trojans and such, which are in a position to inject pain4.jpg on all of your laptops' trashcans months before any forensic hashing takes place. That's original content from there on out.
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Any attempt to do so would be clear as day to the defense in their own examination.
Assuming the defendant can afford to pay for such examination. Any court-provided defense attorney is unlikely to be able to hire an expert for their own forensic examination -- and the prosecutors know it.
Besides, the cops bust someone, take their computers off to the station, make a side stop and put files on the computer, then get to the station and hand it over to the forensic guys. Forensic guy: "Yep, CP on the machine!" Judge: "50 years, you scum."
Cops (some, but not all) have been proven to plant
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It's not just about crooked police officers.
Think "hitman" but without murder.
You can destroy people without ever showing your face or ever having to testify in court as a "victim".
Plant possession, make anonymous call.
It's just one small step more effort than swatting people.
Re:Possession laws are scary. (Score:4, Interesting)
If they can get into the suspects computer to find the files, how difficult is it to plant files on someone's computer by the same means?
Almost all of these investigations kick off because Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool has an MD5 sum (it does SHA256 for newer pictures) of all known child pornography. When it gets a hit, the FBI is notified and the investigation begins.
TL;DR, Your own computer reports you. They don't HAVE to plant the evidence; although I am sure they will in certain cases.
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If that is the case that sounds like a violation of the the Fourth Amendment at the very least in principle.
Microsoft is operating on behalf and at the request of the government ( Who gave them all those MD5/SHA256 hashes? )
Probably why they have to drop the cases. They wouldn't want to set a precedent until they find a better loophole.
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Exactly.
That's the digital version of "Hey, what's that bag of weed we found in the empty space inside your car's bumper?"
Doesn't have to be cops. Could be anyone with a grudge planting it.
Sounds like bullshit ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but your secret evidence I'm not allowed to see or challenge how it was collected is, for legal purposes, hear say .. it amounts "we can't tell you your honor but you can trust us".
Secret evidence you aren't allowed to see usually means it's illegal, or will be used illegally as law enforcement basically lies about their sources.
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Reduced to VPN and torrent providers have been cooperating. And we are also forging certificates so altered P2P are spread widely. It looks like innocent people being fingered for helping TOR connections do their bit.
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The laws that make images where in the prosecutors opinion they look under age so it's illegal even if the model is of legal age are special too. That opens the door to guilty because the prosecutor wants to pad numbers or is a porn prohibitionist.
But back on topic - how is this secret police type activity not being shut down?!?!? It looks like th
Win10 (Score:2, Interesting)
I bet it's Win10.
My bet is that the Feds have cut a deal with Microsoft.
Here's how it works:
On a regular basis they provide MS with an updated list of file hashes generated from their set of files known to contain CP.
On Microsoft's slow scrape of all files on the system, or when files are accessed, the hashes of said files are uploaded as "telemetry" and checked against the list. Offenders are identified as best as possible and then the information handed over to the Feds.
Microsoft only agreed to do this fo
As A Legal Precedent... (Score:5, Insightful)
"It was only during the test case that Liberty subsequently brought against the Docklands operation, on behalf of journalist Penny Quinton and protester Kevin Gillan, that we learned that the entire Metropolitan Police area (now Greater London) had been designated on a rolling twenty-eight day basis for eighteen months before the incident and ever since the legislation had come in to force. Like some hideous dystopian sci-fi story, our great capital city had been turned in to a stop-and-search zone."
This was a rare insight in to the way that (perhaps unwittingly, let us give the benefit of the doubt), the British Police were using an arcane part of a terrorism law to arrest random citizens - I say "random" because thanks to Section 44, the police were not required to show "reasonable suspicion" that any offence had been committed.
I cite this as an example because all the evidence we have leads us to conclude that the FISA court - and others - are either directly authorizing or "allowing conduct" that any reasonable person would flat-out reject as unacceptable in a stable democracy. The only reason these practices are excused in the first case is because of the "extraordinary threat to national security".
The same thing will almost certainly happen with the Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse [wikipedia.org] (namely anything involving terrorists, drug dealers, pedophiles and organized crime).
The idea is a simple one. You want to give your law enforcement agents virtually limitless and sweeping powers. If you did that without justification, public outrage would force a retreat before the masterminds behind such a scheme were thrown out of office. So what you do is "piggy-back" on a convenient piece of "emergency" legislation, then write the rules to be deliberately "imprecise".
For example, suppose you are a super-aggressive FBI agent and you want to use borderline criminal techniques to monitor pedophiles. You want a promotion, but to get it you're going to have to nail some big cases. Suppose there is a monitoring technique that you might be allowed to use if the suspect was a terrorist [see British example, above] but which you would not be allowed to use if the suspect were a pedophile. So you find a way to "finesse" the possibility of terrorism activity in to your case. The technique used for this step is irrelevant, the goal is simply to find a way of justifying the investigative technique you want to use.
Just like stingray towers sweep up both suspects and innocent bystanders, there will be techniques that you can use to pick up other activity. We've seen it done. Addresses added to the bottom of a list of properties for a search warrant to be signed by a judge. "Oh, sorry, your honor, I must have added that one to the list by mistake."
The agents and operators who make up our law enforcement agencies do an incredibly dangerous, difficult and thankless job in trying circumstances - and by and large they need our support. But such support can only reasonably be given when we can have confidence that they are acting with candor, integrity and in strict accordance with the rules of law and due process.
ANY time a prosecutor declines to proceed with a case rather than divulge the methods used to gather evidence, that should be a red flag to the presiding judge that something irregular may have happened. Tha
Re:As A Legal Precedent... (Score:4, Interesting)
You can even take that thought a step further. The United States performs regular targetted assassinations, colloquially called "drone strikes". Are similar methods being used to determine who gets a Predator visit to their wedding?
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Consider this in a different setting - a civil case, not a criminal case. Imagine one party used illegal practices [i.e. activities not permitted under law] to put the other party at a disadvantage. Imagine that the court found out and found in favour of the disadvantaged party. Would the case stop there?
It frequently does stop there. Any time a woman misbehaves during a divorce (hiding finances, preventing kids from exercising their rights) the judge merely reprimands here verbally and the case continues. Men don't get away with that sort of thing and the court punishes them for even attempting it.
So it already happens in civil cases. It's nothing new.
dropped cases (Score:3)
maybe those dropped cases are from innocent people, as the tech is not perfect but they identified them as wrongly accused and there is no longer a need to continue with the case.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://www.rollcall.com/news/... [rollcall.com] ... ...
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You are correct. A 60 year old man doesn't wake up one day and decide to molest boys in the shower. He's probably done it since he was young.
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many pedos try not to act on it for both legal and moral reasons.
Or become priests so they have a reason to bury their sexuality...until it doesn't work anymore.
Brain cancer? Re: The real reason (Score:1)
There was that TV-cop-show episode where a teacher-turned-pedophile because of a brain tumor or stroke or something.
Yes this is an extreme outlier but it could happen.
Oh and I agree with the other guy who replied and said "many pedos try not to act on it for both legal and moral reasons." The same is true of many other illegal or socially unacceptable behaviors.
If a 55 year old man had a good life and a good marriage and he didn't want to lose 20 years in prison AND the respect of his friends and family, t
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Found the article:
https://www.newscientist.com/a... [newscientist.com]
And it sounds like they probably didn't become a pedophile - just someone who acted on it. They probably had reduced inhibition and would never have admitted their pedophilia before having no impulse control and simply acting on it. That's too complex of a change.
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Says the anonymous poster