DOJ dismisses child porno case to keep Tor hack code secret

[Matthew Grimes]

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/doj-drops-case-against-child-porn-suspect-rather-than-disclose-fbi-hack/

 

"Rather than share the now-classified technological means that investigators used to locate a child porn suspect, federal prosecutors in Washington state have dropped all charges against a man accused of accessing Playpen, a notorious and now-shuttered website."

 

The privacy advocate in me wants to call this a win but the parent in me is crying foul.

 

"Defense attorneys have attempted to gain access to some, if not all, of the NIT’s source code as part of the criminal discovery process. In a related case prosecuted in New York, an FBI search warrant affidavit described both the types of child pornography available to Playpen’s 150,000 members and the NIT’s capabilities."

 

What do y'all think about this?

[Scruffy90]

Someone needs to keep a tally on how many times they do this. What is there end game?

[PlayStation 2]

I saw "child porno" and to that, I'm obligated to shitpost with "pizzagate".

That being said, this is one of those cases where I say "just do what you gotta do". A majority of the people accessing the site there are likely already shady figures.

[MrImnotMLG]

I mean they still have the means to track down these people. They probably will have tabs on this guys for awhile. I think that privacy has gone out the window a few years ago. But should we still have charged him? It's pretty sick to do that sort of thing.

[yathis]

Child porn sickens me, we need street justice on these pervert molestors.

[WindirBear]

The internet is littered with CP....

[Andreas Lilja]

Wasn't their case weak in the first place, they ACCESSED the website only? I understand it takes some effort, but there's so many defences you can plead in this situation from a legal standpoint.

7 hours ago, yathis said:

Child porn sickens me, we need street justice on these pervert molestors.

Or ensure psychiatric treatment and rehabilitation after a fair trial. Street justice is dumb. I remember reading about two undercover detectives in Mexico who were lynched by an angry mob because they were mistaken for child kidnappers. They were taking pictures for a drug-related sting. 

 

 

[Guest lilbman]

9 hours ago, Scruffy90 said:

Someone needs to keep a tally on how many times they do this. What is there end game?

No need to keep tally, one time is too many.

[Guest lilbman]

7 hours ago, yathis said:

Child porn sickens me, we need street justice on these pervert molestors.

So beating the crap out of mentally ill people is a way to treat them?  We aren't supposed to be pedophiles, it's a mental illness.

14 minutes ago, Raskolnikov said:

 

Wasn't their case weak in the first place, they ACCESSED the website only? I understand it takes some effort, but there's so many defences you can plead in this situation from a legal standpoint.

 

Stuff like this is totally circumstantial, and I'm a lawyer.  I don't deal in stuff like this(I'm in Corporate Law) but 98% of the things like that are purely circumstantial.  No point in pursuing without a strong case.

[HelplmChoking]

Problem is, they can't convict him for being a sick fuck. They can convict him for the possession of that sort of image, but it sounds like that wasn't the case.

As for them keeping their methods secret, I guess it makes sense. They need to be able to catch more of these people. It kinda bothers me, because I do some of my online shopping using TOR, but I'm also not in the US or using US sites so it's not really relevant.

[yathis]

8 minutes ago, lilbman said:

So beating the crap out of mentally ill people is a way to treat them?

Mentally ill come one, that doesnt even pass the bar exam on the test bro.

People with bigger diseases then that are put to death via lethal injection, on eye witness fabrications.

Everyone has a mental illness, its human nature.

 

Yes street justice should be performed.

 

You know what that sickness is about?

Having power over others.

[Praesi]

They rape and torture Children. The makers and costumers should be hanged.

[Atmos]

10 hours ago, yathis said:

Child porn sickens me, we need street justice on these pervert molestors.

Because someone watches CP does not make them a molester. It makes them about as bad as one, but thats a far fucking cry from actually kidnapping a child and raping them.

Pedophiles are not child molesters simply because they are pedophiles. Before you can go any further you need to understand that. If you are unable to understand that difference, then I suggest you avoid this topic like the fucking plague.

 

Demanding lynching for people who are mentally ill and more often than not have committed no crimes is fucking abhorrent. This topic is unsavory to say the least, and despite how reactionary the idea is, that's all it fucking is. An idea.

Actual convicted child molesters? Lock em up, that's a fucking horrible crime.

People who've broken the law by viewing or owning legitimate cp? Convict and send them to jail, then ship em off for psychiatric help.

People who have a mental illness, but have committed no crime? Allow them to seek medical help without destroying their lives with mandatory reporting laws.

 

[yathis]

CP is a crime. Bottom of the barrel crime, they are the lowest rungs of inmates who tend to get beaten up....and for a reason. The vast majority of criminals, if not 99.5%, have a mental illness.

Cant blame everything done wrong on mental illness.

 

[Atmos]

23 minutes ago, yathis said:

CP is a crime. Bottom of the barrel crime, they are the lowest rungs of inmates who tend to get beaten up....and for a reason. The vast majority of criminals, if not 99.5%, have a mental illness.

Cant blame everything done wrong on mental illness.

 

You seem to be struggling on this point.

I never said CP isn't illegal. infact, I said

40 minutes ago, Atmos said:

People who've broken the law by viewing or owning legitimate cp? Convict and send them to jail, then ship em off for psychiatric help.

But you're failing to understand the point that people viewing CP the overwhelming majority of the time are suffering from a mental illness, that is absolutely to blame for their actions. That is no action that people take light heartedly, those that do have been ingrained from childhood to despise, hate, and find this kind of material vulgar and absolutely unacceptable. Most of them detest their lives, what they've done, and desperately just want to be normal. If they did not suffer from a serious mental illness, then they would oppose all that stuff for the abhorrent and despicable material it is, just like everyone else.

 

Does some small percentage of people who go through all of the hoops and hassles to get to it however not have a mental disorder, but are just sick fucks? Oh, absolutely. But... your argument of "most other criminals have mental illness, therefore you can't blame this crime on mental illness!" would work if this were just about any other crime.

This is a crime that you almost certainly need a mental illness to perpetrate. These people just don't stumble across this stuff, they have to go thoroughly out of their way, and through massive trouble to get access to it. They know damn well what they're doing too.

 

Therefore, if the primary and overwhelming cause of the crime is a mental illness that can be treated, that can be helped, and managed, but all you have to do is not ruin these fucking peoples lives when they try to seek help; then where's the harm?

[Guest lilbman]

17 hours ago, yathis said:

Mentally ill come one, that doesnt even pass the bar exam on the test bro.

I don't understand what this statement means.

 

17 hours ago, yathis said:

People with bigger diseases then that are put to death via lethal injection, on eye witness fabrications.

Keyword is fabrications.  People are falsely put in prison occasionally.  This has nothing to do with watching CP.

 

17 hours ago, yathis said:

Everyone has a mental illness, its human nature.

I don't mind that you have your own opinions, but you can't make up your own facts.  Only around 19% of the adult population in the United States has a mental illness, a far cry from 100%.

 

17 hours ago, yathis said:

You know what that sickness is about?

Having power over others.

Being a pedophile simply means you are attracted to children.  Being a child molester means you acted on those urges and kidnapped and raped a child.  Most pedophiles are usually raped or had traumatic experiences as children, and their brain is deformed, NONE of those things they can control.  What they can control is acting on those urges.

 

Should we punish pedophiles? No.

 

Should we punish child molesters(pedophiles that act on those urges)? Definitely.

[DildorTheDecent]

On 25/04/2017 at 9:08 PM, yathis said:

Child porn sickens me, we need street justice on these pervert molestors.

>street justice

 

Like setting adulterer's on fire sort of street justice? Works in South Africa, doesn't work here. 

[DoctorWho1975]

Dipshit prosecutors, they didn't think anyone would push back hard.. but someone did.

 

But then again this nothing new.. cops have been deploying Stingrays trying to catch anything and everything without warrants or disclosure of use.

[kirashi]

On 4/25/2017 at 11:13 AM, Matthew Grimes said:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/doj-drops-case-against-child-porn-suspect-rather-than-disclose-fbi-hack/

 

What do y'all think about this?

Well, considering that absolutely no one here is commenting on how Tor is essentially now an unsafe service, I think we're missing the mark. Yes, a paedophile is bad, and yes, CP is bad, and holy hell yes, people who act on urges to commit crimes are even worse, but arstechnica isn't exactly your local neighborhood social services office. They're reporting on this case because of the now-unknown safety of using the Tor network.

 

Until we can prove that Tor is safe to use again, I'm not going to be able to recommend it as a means of privacy protection. The best protection is still plausible deniability, assuming there's no hard proof against you. The burden of proof is and always will be on the plaintiff, unless we want to dive the human race into anarchy.

2 hours ago, lilbman said:

I don't mind that you have your own opinions, but you can't make up your own facts.  Only around 19% of the adult population in the United States has a mental illness, a far cry from 100%.

Also, for the record, you don't have to be diagnosed (read: labelled) with a mental illness to experience one. I know because I've been there. The problem is that no one really knows what defines a mental illness because scientists still don't fully understand how each human brain works. Now, I'm not saying your link to NIMH states is wrong, nor am I saying that @yathis is wrongly making up facts. What I am saying is we do not have enough data on how the cause and effects of mental illness affects each human on an individual level.

[Guest lilbman]

3 hours ago, kirashi said:

lso, for the record, you don't have to be diagnosed (read: labelled) with a mental illness to experience one

Do you mean self diagnosis?  

 

3 hours ago, kirashi said:

The problem is that no one really knows what defines a mental illness because scientists still don't fully understand how each human brain works.

Most human brains work almost the exact same.  Only people that have disability have brains that don't really work correctly. 

 

 

3 hours ago, kirashi said:

What I am saying is we do not have enough data on how the cause and effects of mental illness affects each human on an individual level

All of the basic functions and the physical parts are the same for people that are not effected with a mental illness.  How the parts of the brain interact is unique to every person.  For example, 2x12=24.  How you got that answer and how I got that answer are not one and the same.  

 

We do not know exactly what causes mental illness, but we do know that it's a combination of the environment, psychological, and biological factors.  There is a reason the hospital asks you if your family has a history of mental illness-for example, ADHD is inheritable. For the environmental part, people that have the same mental illness(say PTSD) have a common event that happened to them, whether it be thrown into a pointless war by a government(cough cough America) and having to do unspeakable things or just going through a really traumatic event.

 

3 hours ago, kirashi said:

Now, I'm not saying your link to NIMH states is wrong

It cites government reports..

[yathis]

Judicial system is the biggest gang in the world.

They protect their own, and will lie about anything to close a case.

Its been proven time and time again.

I wonder how many innocent people had to die.

 

Actually, "street justice" is executed within the penal system every single day.

There was a guy, who had a grudge, no big money, killed a couple plus their grandchild.

That guy, received multiple beatings, been sent to the ICU many times, and that was Remand, not even fed. He was sentenced to die in jail. Country club jail, unlike Southern USA, or any USA pen.

 

 

[LAwLz]

8 hours ago, kirashi said:

Well, considering that absolutely no one here is commenting on how Tor is essentially now an unsafe service, I think we're missing the mark.

My guess would be that they used malicious JS on the website that took over.

From what we know, it was something to do with the website and not really Tor or the protocol by itself.

 

To me, that means that Tor is safe, but the websites you visit might not be.

This case also tells me that the government is more interested in spying on people than they are interested in catching pedophiles.

[Prysin]

On 25/04/2017 at 8:16 PM, Scruffy90 said:

Someone needs to keep a tally on how many times they do this. What is there end game?

the end game? The censorship and culling of political and religious opposition to the established political and financial elite institutions and individuals that control our societies.

[Prysin]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

My guess would be that they used malicious JS on the website that took over.

From what we know, it was something to do with the website and not really Tor or the protocol by itself.

 

To me, that means that Tor is safe, but the websites you visit might not be.

This case also tells me that the government is more interested in spying on people than they are interested in catching pedophiles.

TOR is almost safe. There is known exploits, but those only work if you actually have a botnet of nodes that traffic travel through. The only issue is that all links in TOR must be encrypted at all levels for it to work.

[H0R53]

On 4/25/2017 at 11:31 PM, lilbman said:

So beating the crap out of mentally ill people is a way to treat them?  We aren't supposed to be pedophiles, it's a mental illness.

On 4/25/2017 at 11:14 PM, Raskolnikov said:

Pedophilia isn't a mental illness, it's a developmental corruption. People aren't born pedophiles, it gets imprinted on them early in their mental development and grows from there.

 

And yes, anyone who creeps on children or the likes should be beaten senseless. It's a conscious decision that person makes, unless they have REAL psychological problems. People who rape normal people get their asses handed to them on a golden platter once their jailmates find out what they did, so why toss some apples down the tree?

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

 

This case also tells me that the government is more interested in spying on people than they are interested in catching pedophiles.

 

The US government is corrupt beyond repair. The only thing that will fix it is either takeover by another country, a third world war, or nuclear apocalypse. Or killing every single person in the gov't and burning the two useless documents that define it (DoI and Const.)