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The Story of the Pedophile-catching Hacker

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the small-world dept.

missing30 writes "A Turkish hacker seeding usenet groups with trojan horses has made it a habit to hunt down pedophiles trolling the groups. The cases go back to 2000, with the mysterious good samaritan responsible for several arrests. The man now has tacit approval from the FBI for his actions." From the article: "At the urging of Montgomery Police Capt. Kevin Murphy, '1069' eventually turned over more and more information that led back to a computer owned by Bradley Joseph Steiger, who had worked as an emergency room physician in Alabama. The hacker's finds included information from Steiger's AT&T WorldNet account, records from his checking account, and a list of directories on his computer's hard drive where sexually explicit photographs were stored."

4 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. But your honor... by gwayne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This hacker obviously planted that child pornography on my computer with a trojan, in an attempt to blackmail me, a promonent local physician...

  2. I think its great (preparing for flame) by Keaster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As I read the brief article it defiantly made me consider both sides of the story; however, in the end I side with my heart. Fuck the kid touchers, let em' rot. This guy could be doing some real garbage cracking, screwing with legit business and good people, but, he didn't. He went after the scum. I agree 100% with 1069. Go for it!

    Before I get the crap flamed out of me I will remind, it's just my opinion.

  3. Re:It's called a "search warrant". by zecg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Otherwise, anyone in ... say Russia for example, can crack your computer and search for child pornography ... and credit card numbers.

    Also, they also can plant the pornography themselves, once they root the user's box.

    --
    .i lu doi ringos.star. xu do puku'aroroi dunli dopecaku leni virnu li'u
  4. Re:Thank you, from a real-life boogieman by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Believe me, I find the thought of an abused child with a warped world view infinitely sad too, as does most other pedophiles (and most other people with their sanity intact). The point is that pedophilia is not illegal, because pedophilia is not an action. When you use it to depict an action, you advocate the criminalization of millions of perfectly law-abiding morally aware human beings. You are part of the process which indoctrinates these people into thinking "I am a pedophile, and all my life society has told me that pedophiles act such and such, so I guess I'm worthless and I'll act that way." No, you're not a bad person and you don't have to act that way. We have support groups telling these people that, but we don't reach everybody. You couldn't imagine the suicide rate among young pedophiles. That is another thing I find infinitely sad.

    Most child sexual abusers are not pedophiles (as in they're not attracted to children, but the child is just a convenient outlet of sexual frustration), and most producers of child pornography are not pedophiles (they are the Russian mafia, stone cold cynical when it comes to making money). Most pedophiles are not child sexual abusers. Please call a spade a spade; if you mean child sexual abusers, don't say "pedophile".