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Ex-judge Gets 27 Months on Evidence From Hacked PC
netbsd_fan writes "A former California judge has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for possession of illegal pornography, based entirely on evidence gathered by an anonymous vigilante script kiddie in Canada. At any given time he was monitoring over 3,000 innocent people. The anonymous hacker says, "I would stay up late at night to see what I could drag out of their computers, which turned out to be more than I expected. I could read all of their e-mails without them knowing. As far as they were concerned, they didn't know their e-mails had even been opened. I could see who they were chatting with and read what they were saying as they typed."
Oh sure, blame Canada.
MABASPLOOM!
The summary is misleading on multiple fronts... First, according to the 2002 story, the "hacker" spent considerable time writing the trojan used to access the judge's porn stash---he's hardly a "script kiddie," as the summary dubs him. And "anonymous"? The guy was identified by name in both of the TFAs: "Brad Willman, the Canadian hacker, forwarded the information to an anti-pedophile watchdog group, which then sent the information to Irvine police detectives." "Dubbed 'Citizen Tipster' by police, Brad Willman, spent night after night writing a Trojan Horse program that gave him complete control over every computer that downloaded it. "
Isn't the hacker in legal trouble for downloading the same 3,000 pictures? (How else did he know the content was illegal?) He had to download them to his computer to view them, thereby committing the same crime as the guy he outed.
On /. it used to be that you didn't RTFA, but now I think that it is now time you didn't RTFSummary! Editing and summarising are just crap!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
And how the fuck you can convince someone on evidence that got obtained in an illegal way?
And why the script kiddie isn't in jail? Spying and breaking the privacy of many thousands of people (the blurb suggests it was way more than 3000) isn't something to shake a stick at.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
...Do you really mean "creating" his crimware by using some VisualBasic Virus-and-trojans-by-numbers toolkit he d/led from teh intarwebs?
The son of a coffee shop owner, Mr. Willman, a.k.a. Omni-Potent,
And he stayed up all night .. night after night ... I wonder what kept him awake ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Because obviously the hacker is guilty of more crimes than that judge
-> clear violation of privacy of thousands of people
-> use of that information for private gain
-> passing off vigilante-collected information to the police
-> (plus or minus) collecting that same porn
All this obviously without a court order, or even being in the police force.
This is also seriously worse than the riaa has ever done. So what should the punishment for the hacker be ? Clearly he cannot go free, despite having caught this criminal.
So he is giving out child porn with a Trojan Horse embedded, and then illegally trespassing onto the (3000) infected computers.
This sounds about as bad as it can get.
From the article:
"He... ignored police threats that if he didn't stop he'd be arrested for breaching privacy"
I guess since "His motives was always to protect children who can't protect themselves", it is all ok.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Now I'm not trying to make light of the CP charges, but why isn't this guy getting in trouble for hacking computers?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
I'd toss out the conviction of the judge based on an illegal search and seizure, prosecute the hacker through the DCMCA and general wire-tapping laws, and allow the judge to file a civil suit for property invasion. You can't spy on everyone possible where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy to see if they might be doing something illegal. You need a search warrant when American citizens are involved. So while breaking and entering into the judge's computer and finding data contraband, who knows what personal details of other people's lives, financial data, credit card numbers, etc. that this criminal has gathered while repeatedly breaking and entering into other people's property. I can't trespass into your home to see if you have drugs or child porn or what have you. Even if I find something illegal, I've already broken into your home and searched it top from bottom, without your knowledge, consent, or a search warrant, and I've broken into thousands of other houses and found nothing. This is the same thing; the hacker is a one-man brownshirt, with no respect for the rule of law or due process.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
"Judge not, lest ye be judged."
One of these days, what I would like to do is make some sort of super-virus. Something that is ridiculously infectious, multi-vector, polymorphic, all the tricks. I'm a pretty good programmer, I'm sure I could come up with something pretty good.
.. what a fucking joke. Free speech is free speech is free speech and if an image CAN be illegal then we do NOT HAVE FREE SPEECH. And I don't even LIKE kiddie porn. It's the pure fucking principle.
...
What this virus would do is infect as many computers as it could, and then implement some kind of basic bittorrent protocol, and download GIGS of child porn onto every single computer it touched. Thousands of images. Thousands of videos. The more the better.
Maybe then, and only then, we'd see an end to this type of case - destroying an otherwise harmless old man's life just because he had some fricking images on his HD. I don't know how Americans can keep a straight face when we say we favour free speech on one hand, but on the other we can talk about "illegal pornography"
So, watch out for this virus, if I ever do make it. I might call it "Ashcroft"
The "hacker" should be punished. Out of the 3000 or so systems he has infected with his trojan.. how many have contained illegal content? Why has he not been charged for violating the privacy/tresspassing/etc. for (at least) those whose computers are "clean"?
I am the maverick of Slashdot
He's....Tweek! I can just see the nervous twitch now, "oh god! Naked people!"
Monstar L
Obviously he's being paid by law enforcement to do shit that is illegal for them to do.
Justifying it by saying he's busting criminals is fallacious. If the police think someone is breaking the law, let them get a warrant and take them down.
The story does say that he embedded his trojan program into "several usenet groups used by pedophiles". This may not be the only place he hid the thing to be downloaded, the story's unclear there, but I think that could be considered "reasonable search and seizure". The "news story" is a bit light on content and heavy on hagiography, but he may have legitimately have been trying to catch bad guys here.
You scare me ... you know, first this is against kiddie porn, then terrorism, and in a not all-too-far future, it is for the war on tax evasion or for finding that Bittorrent files you have...
There should be limits on what can be done legally. And that script kiddie should be jailed, too.
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
Then you can be sure there are one hundred doing it for ill.
But similar to what posters earlier have pointed out - How can we solely trust a trojan writer? How do we know that the hacker didn't simply set people up? Once he had taken control of their computers he could have planted the files himself.
Not to mention the fact that he must have broken into a great many innocent people's computers and read their emails. I wonder if they will be so happy of the methods that this superhero used.
If he knew the places pedophiles frequent, why didn't he just forward that info to the authorities, he can't claim that they weren't putting enough effort into fighting child pornography.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
http://www.irvineworldnews.com/Astories/oct30/klin e.htm
Constitution is a good thing, even if it protect liberties, even in this case. However when government wants to overstep their boundaries its fair game anyway. However overstepping their boundaries won't work, because it won't let them successfully prosecute criminals, as it will fly in the face of the constitutional rights.
The hacker in question was referred to as a 'script kiddy' solely for the fact that upon hearing of his success in implicating the former judge, he immediately blogged his victory on myspace under the appropriate title of 'PWN3D!'. Ergo, this title is moreso an indicator of maturity than his technical skill level, and furthermore, an indicator that he lives in his parents basement.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
This idiot thought he was doing the authorities a favor by finding evidence of what he saw as wrongdoing.
....... .......
To do this he broke into systems and spied without a warrant, probable cause, or any authority whatsoever. Most of the people he did this to were innocent, but in any case the 'evidence' he found cannot be used to prosecute with. I doubt if he has much concept of the 'chain of evidence' anyway, so it will be inadmissable for all sorts of reasons.
'Never mind', you say, 'he has gained valuable intelligence. The authorities can mount a raid later and do things properly'.
But by his own admission these target machines have been hacked by a person anxious to 'find' kiddyporn distributors and users. Surely this makes ANYTHING on that system suspect thereafter? When accused, all the judge has to do is claim that he has never seen these photos before, and they must have been placed there by the hacker. Indeed, from TFA I think that is a credible possibility.
Not only has this idiot committed a nasty computer crime by hacking into innocent people's machines, he has messed up the possibilities of any future prosecution of people who may or may not have been involved in an actual crime.
{irony}
Of course, the above is only going by the Constitution. Everyone knows that nowadays the rule of law is suspended whenever:
Patriotism is mentioned
Children are mentioned
Global Warming is mentioned
Security is mentioned
Road Safety is mentioned
{end irony}
Don't you know that sex is obscene, and takes priority over any other crime? Oh, why won't somebody please think of the children?!
Oh, wait...
He's found a judge with child porn on his computer. This judge will hire a competent defense attorney who will argue that Willman put all of the images there. After all, Willman had complete access to the machine, by his own admission. "Willman is a lone wacko who's obsessed by child porn," the attorney will argue.
And every single child pornographer he's uncovered will do the same. Many of them will get away with it, and precedent will be set.
There's a reason why we have search laws. Willman has now tainted the evidence in thousands of child porn cases, by his own admission. That's pretty much the definition of "well meaning idiot."
... if someone hacks your network to 'gain evidence' the counter-claim should be that the hacking was done to PLANT evidence. Force an end to the assault on your freedom and your character before the struggle itself becomes your downfall.
Reasonable doubt then has a good chance to keeping you free. If evidence is not properly gathered from the very beginning, how can proof beyond a reasonable doubt ever be presented?
This guy copped a plea, though, so much of the background is moot at this point. But I have seen many other cases (typically surrounding divorce where the woman would like to secure custody of children and such) where people's lives had been ruined on the basis of an accusation that could not be defended easily enough. As the article shows, this guy's whole life fell apart during all of this and while the resources of the prosecution are unlimited, the resources of the accused deteriorated and suffocated while he defended against the charges.
We, the public, will never know the full truth of this. A confession after all the strife he faced is nothing short of coerced and tainted.
Not only that, but he could also view any email correspondence by that judge, which could have included sensitive court material.
Show me a judge who handles sensitive court correspondence by e-mail and I'll show you a judge I dearly want to smack in the face really, really hard.
he should be punished for his deeds and then be enlisted by some the Canadian police and do it legally
I wouldn't find it at all more comforting that the guy who has the job (self-appointed or not) trolling through private e-mails has a badge. Wouldn't that make him *more* dangerous to the average privacy-loving John Q. Whatever?
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
I have to agree with much of what you say... that future cases involving this guy should be abandoned by prosecution.
However, I think you didn't read the article. This matter is closed without appeal. He plead guilty. It's over.
I'm surprised this wasn't "YRO" based on the usual Slashdot liberal bias (AKA. fired IBM employee deprived of "rights" to view pornography on company dollar).
Logical, since you have *no right* in the first place to view child pornography in this country in the first place.
Que the next YRO article, where someone claims the "right" to commit a crime. Go call ACLU/PETA/NMBLA.
Smart pedos don't use Windows!
You're right that the kid is probably guilty of violating some of the US hacking-related laws, but:
That is not entirely true. The police need a search warrant. I don't need a search warrant to, say, leaf through your drawers if you invite me inside for a drink.
The real question, and one somebody much more knowledgable in the area that I will have to answer, is whether if I found something while I was leafing through your papers, then told the police, whether they could use that evidence. Or more appropriately to this scenario, maybe I stole your papers out of your drawer and gave them to the cops.
The act of spying itself, private citizen to private citizen, is not necessarily a violation of the law. (Voyeurism, breaking and entering, unlawful entry... these sorts of things may apply, but they aren't the same thing.)
An e-mail is as secure as a post-card (anybody along the path it takes to reach its destination can read the text and, if it isn't encrypted, can understand it).
If the judge uses plain text email for transmitting sensitive information, *he* is the one to be blamed. Anybody at any server that did relay the message had full access to the text (at least the judge's SMTP server and the recipient's POP/IMAP sever. Sometimes even more than that).
If you have sensitive information to transit, at least encrypt it or use secure channels, damnit ! Then you can complain about access to secret data.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I know it's a tradition to post comments without taking the time to RTFA, but it clearly says that the perp or target only thought they were downloading an image, but in fact any displayed image came from their own hard drive. As for worrying about their privacy, this kid is not a cop, so if he violated your privacy by poking around looking for child porn please fell free to take him to civil court. I would rather have the police spend some time trying to find the people making the child porn, rather than harass a white knight in a black hat. Some things are worth spending time and money on, some aren't. Good judgement is knowing the difference. It's hard enough to get the police to go after stolen laptops when gifted with the ip address of the thief, don't ask them to waste their time and money trying to make a point against a lonely kid doing some good. More good than you've done in the last few years, I'm willing to bet.
In the big picture of things, If he didnt touch a child... is he really guilty of anything?
The hacker could have placed the pictures there...
I think this is way too shady.
Even if they were his pictures... isnt it a thought crime?
The judge kept a detailed diary of his actions.
Not only has the judge admitted the diary was genuine BUT ALSO a former victim came forward and spoke AND the police found the diary to seem real enough.
At no moment did the judge contest the fact and pretend to have been victim of some spyware/virus.
Therefore the ex-judge can be judged, even if the hacker will also be :
- Told (once more) to stop breaching into people's computers because it's illegal.
- Told to get an actual job at the police to be able to do it legally.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The program is a damn trojan ! Most of the other virus/trojan software that use dat on victims' hard drive to disguise themeselve make wild guess based on file name and file type and pull mostly random MS Word
Now in this case we're speaking about a very specific situation. You know you're looking for JPEGs. You know those JPEGs may have "kid", "sex", "naked" or similar keywords in their file names (at least 1 file out of the 3000 is bound to have such a name). You know other messages in the same thread read by preps have similar name.
It's just enough that in some case the program will display an image (and given that at least 3000 of the JPEGs are porn, surely a huge percentage of all JPEGs, there's a huge chance that, just by luck, the trojan will find one of them). Even if finally it's a wrong image (some of those funny joke-pictures circulating on the net), there's still a proportion of users who'll think "Hm... It's only one of those jokes. Too bad, I already have one", instead of suspecting something.
Too little users will realise that there's something wrong and too little will alert the other readers of the thread. By then, several people will have executed the trojan. Then if the hacker have posted a lot of different mails using several different identities and on more than a few threads, the number of the victims will be high enough.
If it works with viruses pulling random DOC files (where the chance is little that the two person will work on the sme subject), it's bound to work in this case (huge proportion of the JPEGs are genuine porn, all readers of the thread are potential pronographers).
(It's like writing a trojan that spread it self on the mailing list of linux kernel developpers, and maskarade itself using ".c" or ".diff" files found on victims hard drives. It's bound to work).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Yeah, wait'll the RIAA picks up on that idea.
His/her tune will change before you can say 'mp3'.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I could come up with more. The first time I got asked if I wanted to get a "pipe" (fellatio) for a twenty (euro) it was revolting and I went at length to the police and phone to infancy protection. Apparently for nothing : 6 Monthes after I saw the same kid (I think it was her) a bit older and a bit more "thin".
You WHERE might sound funny to people not being confronted to child prostitution, but once you get asked if you want sex favor from a 12 year old your life is not the same afterward, and you tend to see the world with darker shade of gray. And it is even worst when you realize that you cannot do much.
Several governments already "outsourced" some of their prisons into private hands. Can they outsource investigations too ? That way the evidence could be obtained illegaly without explicit order from the state and will be admissible in the court. And while at it private investigators can make use of little torture too. By "inviting" suspect in Syria for example. There is no big step from private prisons or mercenary working for government to private investigator working for government.
I'd toss out the conviction of the judge based on an illegal search and seizure,
Illegal search & seizure is the wrong grounds. First, the search was conducted by a Canadian who was not acting as an agent of US authorities, therefore isn't bound by US law. I'm not sure, but I think the court that overturned the decision that it was illegal is correct.
But, the fact that he installed the trojan on the PC the images were found on means that we must trust that he did not place the images there himself. Now, the fact that the judge admitted the offence in the end means presumably he did not, but there would likely be no clear way of telling in the case that he hadn't.
Welcome to the Land Of The Free, where you can be locked up for two years for looking at pictures.
Yeah, mod me flamebait because I didn't think of the chiiiiildren. It's still a fact that we yell and cry about the horrors of tyranny if people are forbidden from reading any book they like, but in our own culture people don't have the freedom to look at any pictures they like. And there are cases where people have been sentenced for child porn that was created digitially, with no actual childs harmed.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I know it's hard for the thinofthechildren masses to comprehend it, but there is a reason there are limitations to what the police can do, and they are not "those commies hate kids!"
Great Intellect...
Do you want to try reading the article. It's dated yesterday, and describes how the 'illegal search & seizure' conclusion of a lower court was overturned by the federal appeals court, following which the judge admitted the offence.
I'd toss out the conviction of the judge based on an illegal search and seizure, prosecute the hacker through the DCMCA and general wire-tapping laws, and allow the judge to file a civil suit for property invasion.
It doesn't work that way. If a burglar breaks into your house and finds your child porn stash, then reports it to the police they can prosecute you all they like. The laws against illegal search and seizure only applies to law enforcement. The burglar is still guilty of breaking and entering though.
However, if that burglar is told "it's ok, you can keep breaking into people's houses as long as you report any child porn to us" then the burglar has become an agent of law enforcement, and any case after that point should be thrown out. If they refuse to investigate or prosecute cases where they suspect the same burglar has been at work, they're equally much doing so.
In order to make this work he should never have identified himself, never been in contact with law enforcement. He should only have left a package at their doorstep, never allowing any contact that could make him an agent of law enforcement. Those rules are very strict exactly so that you can't have a "pseudo-police" that doesn't need to follow the rules. Anyone who's paid any attention to history would know why that would be a very bad thing.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
This man probably had a fantasy (like all of us... probably) to appear on SLASHDOT!
:]
But what happened in that Fantasy which came to life? He got called Script Kiddie... If that's not the biggest shame nerds like us can get then what is?!
I hope he'll pass this painful day
Was the judge a child molester?
I haven't RTFA, but the summary suggests he merely had images. Unless he took them, or did stuff to other kids, he's not a molester.
That puts him in the category of thought criminal, doesn't it?
And whatever else he did that was illegal.
The end doesnt justify the means.
How many of the 3000 where innocent ?
What I find most disturbing is that this isn't discussed anywhere except Slashdot (which seems to be split about 50/50 on the issue of whether there should be one set of laws and standards for KP and one set of laws for "everything else"). Consider the outrage and public debate that the Patriot act sparked in the US - everybody had an opinion, it was debated to death (although it did pass), and will undoubtedly be one of the primary focii of the 2008 election. What about the PROTECT act that had been successfully used to prosecute posession of drawings? No debate. No discussion. No concern. Anywhere.
This means that either the 50% of /. that finds this line of reasoning irrational is completely insane or (more likely) the fear of being seen as a sympathizer is so great that nobody risks talking about it - not even the die-hard civil libertarians.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
Is there anything worse than law opinions on slashdot? That's a general complaint. Specifically, the images found on a computer that hadn't been hacked, a diary, and an eyewitness surely made the tainted evidence on the original computer unneeded. Even if the original images had been the only thing, ISP records would likely have buried him if he wasn't being careful. "No clear way to tell" is a lot to assume.
Sex with children is yet another sickening fact of life that goes back for
thousands of yearsand will still be around long after the internet is gone.
Sadly child molestation is not even by far the worst thing to happen
to a child. War and starvation are what KILL hundreds of thousands
of children each year(!), and do speak to that little african girl
who had her right leg blown away if she'd rather stripped and danced
naked in front of dirty old men than step on that Made in U.S.A
land mine. Talk of old men abusing children, that little girl had
a virtual sit on Donald Rumsfeld's abusive lap instead.
That's as far as the hubris here is concerned, now how about the
civil liberties angle. Here we have the "Uuuuh, uuuh it's for the
children"angle yet again but what is next? Does our sociophobic
sour drop gobbling citizen vigilante get to break into our homes
next and search them forillegal substances? Does he get the right to
assault me on a street and go through my pockets??
The trojan was spread through usenet in specific pedofile newsgroups. Downloading an image file (wich is how the trojan was diguised) from such a group is NOT something an innocent person would do. Downloading childporn is a crime in most of the western world. End of story. If you download a file from such a group then you are apparently willing to commit a crime.
Oh yeah, "innocent" until proven guilty. Well by that logic the police makes a habbit about arresting innocent people all the time.
There is in the west the idea of a fair trial. I think the mistake made here is that some people think that means fair as in fairplay. The way that in golf a better player should handicap himself to make the game "fair" to a lesser player.
It does not mean that. Instead it means fair as in honest. No false evidence, a chance to defend oneself and such. At no time does it mean that the police should have to handicap itself to give a criminal a chance to get out of a conviction.
The problem is that it is hard to do this. We don't want the police constantly being able to search just anyone and anything they like BUT the countermeasure does lead to criminals using their so called right to privacy to hide evidence. THAT was not the idea but it is the sideeffect.
Privacy is there to protect the innocent NOT the guilty. Sadly it is impossible to have one without the other.
But it is still hard for me not to cheer this guy on. No I don't enjoy the idea of me being snooped upon just because I downloaded something innocent (the trojan was after all NOT real childporn) BUT this guy did get a man arrested who put his 8yr old daughter up for use by pedofiles. (another case mentioned in the article that this guy uncovered)
I am sorry, but that overrules a lot of privacy concerns for me. I am that most rare of slashdot readers. A middle of the roader. A moderate. I believe that communist, capatilists and liberals are ALL wrong. Their ideas are based on the idea that humans are perfect in one way or another when they are not.
This guy showed us that our rules of privacy and allowed methods of police investigation allow very serious criminals to go undetected and unpunished.
You might say that you consider your privacy to be worth the sale of a 8yr old girl. I do not. Maybe I am damned for that to live in a police state. But what is the alternative? A free society OR something much worse then a police state?
Look at russia, they went from a police state but I don't think they are exactly living in a free society either.
We should use this case as an eye-opener. Clearly there is a gap between the type of crimes commited and what the police is allowed to detect. If the police had been allowed to use this guy's methods how many pedofiles might have been arrested who are now still free to commit their crimes?
On the other hand, how much of our private lifes would we all have to give up to make this possible?
It is balancing issue and at the moment I think the balance favors the criminals too much. Consider this,"the innocent may have somethign to fear from the police, but they certainly have something to fear from criminals the police cannot touch".
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
--"I am sorry, but that overrules a lot of privacy concerns for me. I am that most rare of slashdot readers. A middle of the roader. A moderate."
Right but when you're out on the road without a map - and listening to you
throwing our civil liberties overboard tells me this: you're lost.
If the government thinks this is such a great thing, expect it to be standard in one of the next few OSes. Of course it will not be known it even exists. Tin foil hat time?
God spoke to me.
The age of marriage in some US states is as low as 12 years. So, legally, a father can give his daughter to another guy to do with as he pleases. Never mind that the media and culture even glorify 12 year olds looking like 21 year old prostitutes.
Age of consent and marriage laws need serious rethinking the world over. But the schizophrenic approach currently practiced in the US is not the way to go.
You need a search warrant when American citizens are involved.
This was not the state doing the searching it was private individual and in most states and under federal law I it perfectly legal to use information that they obtained. There have been a few cases where the private individual talked to the police and the police set up the equipment and trained the person, in thoses cases courts have ruled that the individual was acting for the police and a search warrant was needed.
If you break into someones house and see something illegal you can report it to the police and they will beable to use it, however in that case and with the cracker above you will still be guilty of another crime. In this case he is guilt of a crime but would not count on any district attorney bring the charges against him, based on what he did, that he is in a forgein country and who was caught it is probably an un winnable case.
Try comparing apples with apples. He stole from no one, and hasn't even been accused of causing anyone, adult or child, harm. In all likelihood he has saved at least dozens of children from being molested. He didn't even harass the viewers of that child porn. He targeted the PRODUCERS of it. People who actively seek out children to harm. And you think you should complain about HOW he did it ? When he hurt no one and stole nothing ? There is no doubt he has done far more good than harm, at least from the point of view of the kids he's saved from being molested. People actively trying to download child porn have no expectation of privacy, nor should they.
prosecute the hacker through the DCMCA
Not only did you not read the article, you didn't even read the summary!! The hacker is in Canada, and the DMCA does not apply.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Is it that hard to read the article, you cretinous imbecile? The judge ADMITTED WRITING THE MOLESTATION DIARY. Next time count to ten before exercising your itchy 'Submit'-clicking finger!
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Wait, are we for or against the DMCA? I keep getting confused.
It's beautiful, isn't it? The masses are doing very little to protect children from that sort of filth, and they're patting themselves on the backs for it. Contrary to the popular belief that "getting tough" is going to solve the problem is the massive body of evidence that it won't.
Making a thing illegal and getting tough on it has never solved the problem any more than drilling holes in peoples' heads cured mental illness. The way to deal with this and the majority of problems is from a logical, measured, and scientific approach. Here's a couple of things to consider:
1. What aspects of our current social arrangement allow these problems (exploitation of other humans in the numerous forms it takes)?
2. Would we be better off to actually spend resources to study the problem?
3. How do people become that way?
4. If/how can we stop that from happening and/or detect them early on and/or fix them?
When subjects like this come up we're faced with this overwhelming emotional response that we choose to cloud or judgment rather than face the reality. We explain this away as all-too-human and bask in it. Just read comments online or talk to people about cases involving crimes of passion or the various incidents of parents (generally fathers) murdering molesters and abusers. The majority of reactions are "I'd do that too."
While I can understand that reaction and the comments that support it, they fail to engage the brain and understand the implications of such things. Which brings me back to the initial point, which is that the attitude the majority of the world holds towards crime is ultimately counterproductive and self-destructive. We owe it to the past victims and to the children and to ourselves to actually solve the problem rather than merely seeking vengeance.
When someone is abused it may as well be us or those that are dear to us. We should be less concerned with adding equal or greater suffering to the life that caused the pain as finding a way to understand why that pain was caused and constructing a world where less pain is possible. It's the old 'do you not destroy your enemy if you make him your friend?' situation where by eradicating a mental disorder that allows for abuse and exploitation we effectively destroy all child predators and their ilk.
I'm sick to death of "think of the children" assholes that are so damned blind with their emotions to recognize they're not solving a goddamned thing and that more kids will be harmed because they're too fucking slow on the uptake to actually set things right.
Sorry, I know this got a little bit repetitive.
If he had so much control, could he not have placed the images?
Actually, I'm not sure that's the case. Forensic examination of digital media (including hard drives) is not a new science. You don't have to prove beyond any doubt what happened when, but you do have to convince the judge that the evidence is valid and the jury that it's compelling. You can find old data on the hard drive, look at the timestamps on those files, and build up a picture of what's been on those hard drives over their lifetime. You can subpoena ISP records. You can look at the headers in newsgroup archives and see whether the image timestamps match up with postings on those newsgroups. Maybe his old PC is sitting in the basement with further evidence?
Sure, it's possible to fake all of those things, but it's possible to fake any evidence if you try hard enough. This case seems a bit more worrying because the person who placed the trojan also submitted the evidence, but really any trojan could be enough to place the evidence in doubt - if this is thrown out on those grounds then anyone who commits crime via computer can make sure it has a trojan and have all of the evidence thrown out. That won't happen - what will happen is that forensics will get better and better at working out what is genuine evidence in digital media and what is fake.
That is a massive invasion of privacy for the 2000 or so innocent people who have nothing to do with kiddy fiddling. If looking at pictures of children is a crime then someone getting off on reading my private thoughts and sitting in judgement on them is definitely also a crime.
I'm not denying that he has caught some genuine paedophiles but thats not the point, I could end all paedophilia right now by killing everyone over the age of 18 and so could the police but the reason I and the police don't do this is that you need to consider the rights of other people in society and one of those rights is to not have 19 year old weirdos sitting in the dark getting off on reading your e-mails.
He has to be transformed into a 6 year old, bound, and placed in the darkroom adjacent to the annual peadophiles convention.
Or some fat chick should seduce him to make naked pictures of himself, photoshop some kiddie stuff in and post them around his neighborhood. Make him feel how wrong vigilante behaviour is.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
a good guess
As funny as it is on the surface level of sour candies, parents' basement, and girl angst, here is someone who found a calling, devoted his life to it and lived it out by bringing down a sexual predator, and that is empowering and that is fucking beautiful.
Sir, if you read Slashdot, as I suspect you may, a thousand congratulations. You've given me something to feel truly decent about as a human being.
Perhaps life really is full of possibilities.
The hacker gets off free??? ...
...
The judge is sentenced based on illegal evidence.
Cops should try that, bringing on evidence obtained while breaking and entering
Only in America, only in America
Or was the guy's trojan multi-OS capable?
(Similar scenario here in Germany, where politicos are enaging in some kind of phantasy that they will be able to search PCs online via some kind of trojan).
How is this any different then the dummies you see on COPS, who buy crack from the local crack house, then bring it to police as evidence that there is a crack house in the neighborhood? I think this is even worse, it's like they broke into the house and stole the evidence!
Never put anything in writing you wouldn't want your mother to read.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
That's part of it, but the other side of that same coin is that even if you do speak out against these sort of laws, you're ignored.
The problem is that the argument on issues like this are not rational, they are emotional. Regardless of how many good points one can mention against these sorts of bills, the opposition just goes, "but THE CHILDREN!!" And that's it. You've been completely blown off without ever really being heard; sometimes it's hard to understand why it's worth wasting your breath on especially, as you say, with the additional fear that you could be branded with them and worse than just ignored.
On top of that, it's basically political suicide for the people who actually vote of these issues to vote against them. It's dangerous. Even if your intentions are completely related to opposing a poorly-written law, you might never get the chance to tell your side. All it takes is for one person in the other party to go, "he wants to let child molesters run free!!" and the news to repeat that a few times and there is big trouble.
For the record, the PROTECT Act passed 84-0 in the Senate. After the House agreed and the two voted on the final language, it passed 400-25 in the House and 98-0 in the Senate.
Put it all together and it just doesn't seem worth it.
A judge deemed the evidence legal since the hacker did it on his own then fowarded it to the police. Plus the article mentioned somebody was molested but that got thrown out because it happened too long ago. Plus the judge pleeded guilty
As much as I agree with the fact that the pedophile should be sent to prision to get the warm, loving treatment from the other inmates he deserves, do canucks not have a right protecting them against unreasonable search and seizure? And why is this script kiddie not being prosecuted for computer crimes like every other asshat who gets caught writing trojans to steal data from other people?
May you get run over out there in the middle of the road. A middle of the road moderate is a man too witless to make up his own mind, too spineless to hold real views. Ever heard this? "Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue".
That said (if the shoe fits, etc) I doubt, if you really think about it, that those are the self descriptive terms you really want to apply to yourself. Can it be something more along the lines of "not a slave to any regimented, externally dictated world view"?
On to the real gist of the issue
Your taking the hackers story at face value, which is very risky given he's a hacker and knowingly breaking the law.
"Privacy is there to protect the innocent NOT the guilty."
Everyone is innocent until proven guilty and entitled to the same privacy rights, you're prejudging based on the highly dubious claim of the hacker concerned.
"You might say that you consider your privacy to be worth the sale of a 8yr old girl."
False dichotomy, even if the story did mention an 8 yr old girl (it does not) they'd have caught him a different way.
What would stop me hacking into your computer, planting an image, saying you downloaded it from a KP site and having you arrested? Nothing at all. What is your IP address BTW.
It's not mentioned, but likely; was the judge running Windows?
Stephan
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
Even though the police did not endorse in anyway this illegal form of searching, the fact remains that the evidence was obtained (or at least the warrent to "officially" obtain it) was done so illegally. The evidence is inadmissable. If it is allowed, however, what's to stop any law enforcement agency when being unable to secure a warrent to hire some nerd to get the evidence for them, then turn around and claim they weren't involved?
"A former Canadian hacker has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for distribution of a Trojan, based entirely on evidence gathered by an anonymous vigilante pedophile in California."
Just goes to show how un-stigmatized the word "hacker" has become. I guess we should be happy.
And you're even more stupid if you're relying on posting as an AC to protect your identity. So, watch out for this virus, if I ever do make it. I might call it "Ashcroft"
Which will be shortly after they subpoena Slashdot and track you down via your IP... assuming Slashdot would want to protect the identity of someone who wrote such a virus anyway. destroying an otherwise harmless old man's life just because he had some fricking images on his HD. Uh, no. From one of the articles: "After reading the judge's electronic diary, he concluded it showed an apparent plot to sexually exploit young boys at a private health club.".
You *might* just about have been able to put forward a plausible argument regarding the level of damage caused by someone who solely looks at photos. And that only stands up in the absence of *any* any form of payment- or even other forms of encouragement- to others who *create* such material. But neither applies to the "harmless old man" you describe. I don't know how Americans can keep a straight face when we say we favour free speech on one hand, but on the other we can talk about "illegal pornography" (Disclaimer: I am not an American). Are you talking about hardcore pornography between consenting adults (which I have nothing against) or child pornography? If the latter, are you claiming that "free speech" should extend towards material whose consumption supports the molestation of children? Seriously? It's the pure fucking principle. No, it's pure fucking stupidity.
(*1) Yeah, I know it's out-of-date and improbable. But I couldn't resist, sorry
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
/The Spelling Nazi
"I was just playing around with this program I wrote. I wanted to see how it worked. Then I got way more curious about what these people were doing. It's exciting to see something you build actually work. It means I have actually helped out. It challenges me and makes me work," said Mr. Willman, now 21.
I would hardly call him a script kiddie. Or anonymous. C'mon editors, did you even RTFA?
thinks that child pornography is wrong. however, i think some people here think that getting dirty in the pursuit of justice is worse than the injustice: breaking and entering, no warrant, etc. i'm sorry, but i really don't see the problem. in the real world, it is ok to get dirty if those you take down by getting dirty are doing stuff far worse than any dirty thing you did to get them
this is real life: real life isn't about idealism, it's about realism. in reality, you have to get dirty to catch bad people. if you abide by some high-minded ivory tower approach to life where you are loathe to get your hands dirty to catch the bad guys, guess what? you won't catch them. listen to some of these posts: bile and anger at the hacker for breaking and entering, no warrant, etc.
ok, fine, you dislike his methods. meanwhile, where are your high holy invectives against the child pornographers? exactly: it seems that in your world, it is more important to castigate those who pursue evildoers than to castigate the evildoers themselves
frankly, i don't understand you. by placing the emphasis of your criticisms on those who pursue evildoers more than on evildoers themselves, you've drawn a line in the sand. that line, which you have crossed, is that you betray your human conscience. the whole point, remember, is about justice, morality, and right and wrong. and you seem to be willing to focus on the molehill of injustice: the breaking and entering, and ignore the mountain of injustice: the child porn, and yet you think the full weight of morality and justice is on your side. but it is not, because you yourself have betrayed concern for the greater injustice at work here!
in the real world it is IMPOSSIBLE to pursue large crimes without commiting small crimes along the way. if you expect bad guys to be caught without any small crimes being committed, YOU are the one promulgating injustice: the injustice of brittle stubborn idealism. this is real life: choose between two grey areas. choose between two begatives of differing magnitude. not choose between an obvious good and an obvious bad. that never happens in real life, only the movies. it is never true in real life to make a choice between black and white. real, adult, mature morality is all about looking at two grey areas, with bad aspects in both, and choosing the less grey one... what kind of morality is that?
REALITY!
so as soon as you focus your criticisms on the minor crime in pursuit of the larger one, you become incomprehensible to me. because you have betrayed the very principles you seem to assume guide your words. ignoring the larger evil in your rabid dislike of the minor evil: what does that idea mean to you? and yes, you've ignored the minor crime if the majority of your words and emotions are focused on the pursuers of child pornographers rather than the child pornographers themselves. howling at this hacker's methods for the majority of your words, and then going: "oh yeah, child porno is wrong too," is not a balanced approach. howling at the child pornographers for the majority of your words and then adding the smaller caveat at the end: "as it stands, i'm a little uncomfortable with the hacker's methods" IS a balanced approach
and saying something like "other people are punishing the child pornographer, so i can focus my criticism on the hacker"... no. there is no such thing as a subset of justice in forming your opinion. justice is a complete, overall approach, or it isn't justice at all. your words are formed from a complete overview of the context of the situation, or it isn't a valid opinion at all. you can't discard part of the context of the crime and punishment and think you have a valid take on justice. because the very concept of justice itself is all about connecting actions and consequences. so how can you think you speak from a position of justice if you flat out purposefully ignore some of the actions and consequences in the situation in forming your opinion? you just make your opinion null and void
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There should be limits on what can be done legally. And that script kiddie should be jailed, too. <rant>
That's true, on the other hand you have to see things from law enforcement's point of view. I saw a documentary recently about child pornography. The reporters interviewed an FBI agent who is part of a task force that combats child-porn, child-prostitution and child-abuse. He described a case they have been working on for something like 2-3 years. It involves a tech savvy pedophile who regularly posts pictures of him self abusing a little girl in a pretty savage way. The FBI has no practical way of tracking him down if they stay within the strict framework of the law. This pedophile is clever enough to post his pictures in ways that ensure he can't be easily tracked, both the victim and he him self are disguised in such a way that they can't be recognized and there is nothing that is shown in any of the material he posts that can be used to narrow his location down any further than that he probably lives somewhere in the USA or Canada. Effectively the FBI has been doomed to watch this child growing up in the pictures they download off the net as it spends it's youth being savagely abused. I can understand why some law enforcement officers want us to allow them, under special circumstances of course, to employ precisely the kind of methods this hacked used. If we don't the odds favor many pedophiles in that they will probably get away with inflicting their perversions on innocent children and posting a record of that abuse on the Internet. I am fully aware of the abuse potential of allowing law-enforcement to hack computers as part of an investigation but I also deeply doubt that the vast majority of the law enforcement community is out to use such investigative tools as a stepping stone in their diabolical efforts to use Orwell's 1984 as a roadmap for creating a totalitarian surveillance state. The people we truly have to worry might rob us of our liberty will use hacking to further their cause regardless of whether the law allows it or not.
Oh... and I am sorry if I scared you even more.
</rant>
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
if i said to you:
..."pictures of naked children"
"Welcome to the Land Of The Free, where you can be locked up for two years for driving your car."
that sounds downright awful, right? except i neglected to add that the guy locked up for driving his car was DRUNK. do you think that bit of information changes the situation?
so you go:
"Welcome to the Land Of The Free, where you can be locked up for two years for looking at pictures."
damn, what an evil place!
oh... i think that changes things a bit
by cutting out key bits of information in your words, you are creating what is called propaganda: half-truths, only looking at half of the situation in order to inflame passions
the idea of justice is all about connecting actions with consequences. therefore, it is antithetical to the pursuit of justice or morality to try to take subsets of a situation, to look at only some actions and consequences, and ignore others. then you aren't concerned with right or wrong anymore, you're concerned with manipulating dumb emotion: propaganda
so to ignore, for example, the creation of th child pornography, and only focus your opinion on the consumption of the child pornography means that at best, you've made a half-assed attempt at rationalization, and at worst, you're a propagandizer (engaging in half truths, ignoring half of the situation, ignoring the larger context of creating and consuming child pornography)
i think a lot of people's criticisms of the bush administration, for example, and the approach on the iraq war, focused on their manipulation of the truth of the iraqi regime and their supposed WMD. it was a classic propaganda campaign by the bush administration to manipulate public opinion and inflame their fear post-9/11
so congratulations: you've established your credentials for getting a job with the bush administration's war machine
you operate the same way they do
you're a propagandizer
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
While I can appreciate the gesture on the part of the aspiring young software engineer, he went about this in entirely the wrong way. (and I'm not going to get into the whole privacy debate)
Sorry, kid. Nice try, though.
See, the way to stop child pornography is through the supply side, not the demand side. This is similar to the whole "War on Drugs" thing. The fact is that the US government is simply unwilling to attack the suppliers of either drugs or child porn in any real sense. Sure, a few small-time suppliers (usually not producers themselves) might go to jail for a while, just to show some results; however, the real suppliers, those who are in the industry of creating and distributing illegal porn (or drugs) will continue to go unpunished. It's just not in the government's best interest to take these problems on. I suspect they would need to divert some cash from the "War on Terror" effort -- which they are unwilling to do.
On the other side, the only effective way of curbing the demand for child porn is lots of serious counseling. Throwing these individuals in jail does nothing to stop their addictions. Gee, sounds like drugs again here.
It all goes back to the difference between the ACTUAL exploitation of children (the industry again) and the INCIDENTAL exploitation that occurs on the web. Both are extremely bad, don't get me wrong; but the actual exploitation that occurs is much worse and should be stopped.
his trojan was a supposed picture of child porn on a child porn site
so yes, our vigilante "get to break into our homes next and search them forillegal substances? Does he get the right to assault me on a street and go through my pockets?" if you are first observed to be doing something vile and illegal
he doesn't get to do it to you out of the blue. no one said he did... or are you trafficking in FUD?
you, know: fear, uncertainty, denial? the same kind of thing the bush administration manipulated in the general public post-9/11 to make up some bullshit propaganda about WMD in iraq?
there is no slippery slope here unless you live in fear, or are a fearmongerer yourself
you don't use the same methodologies and mentality of the bush war machine, do you? don't tell me it's true, but in your post above, you sure do
"Sex with children is yet another sickening fact of life that goes back for thousands of years and will still be around long after the internet is gone."
absolutely correct. so is war and starvation. therefore, we can safely ignore all of them, right? wait, we can't?
if we can't, then what was your point of then of saying "Sex with children is yet another sickening fact of life that goes back for thousands of years and will still be around long after the internet is gone."
shame on you, manipulating emotion like the bush war machine again
maybe you should send them your resume, seeing as you operate the same way they do
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Just wanted to make sure I understand this:
Government spying on suspected terrorists w or w/o a warrant - BAD
Vigilante spying on suspected perverts w/o a warrant = GOOD
[Insert pithy quote here]
Well, I don't see any great risk in talking about it:
"For law enforcement agencies to outsource work under the table to unregulated vigilantes who are free to break the law as long as the authorities in question find them useful is a bad thing."
There.
The trouble is that the above concept takes a bit of thought, it takes thinking about history and following through the likely consequences and abuses of having police-sanctioned vigilantes to do the illegal things the police aren't allowed to. And the time it takes to do that thinking is time you don't spend just furiously repeating yourself until you become convinced you are right, a la this post above. Think of the children! Seriously, THINK of the CHILDREN!!! WHY WILL NOBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN????? AM I THE ONLY ONE SANE???@?!?!?!?!?@#$@#
That's what it comes down to -- everyone's got X amount of time to spend on it, so generally those who use less of that time in thought make most of the noise. I don't think it's necessary to postulate a state of fear or insanity.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
new york city was a cesspool of crime and drug abuse. people talked about the city dying. one day, this guy named bernie goetz shot some kids on the subway he thought was going to rob him
was he right? of course not. what he was was a vigilante, and people actually supported his obviously wrong behavior. why? because they were fed up. things like the guardian angels blossomed in new york: grassroots groups of vigilantes patrolling neighborhoods, because the police weren't doing their jobs
well they were doing their jobs, but their hands were tied by a justice system that used your words: we have to be rational about this, we have to have a more balanced approach to crime and punishment
the problem is, your rational and balanced approach really just results in being easy on crime. crime is NASTY. to fight crime, you have to be NASTY. there is no such thing about being rational and balanced about fighting something which is inherently irrational and imbalanced to being with!
in the 1990s, new york city got cleaned up: murder rates dropped to century lows. real estate values soared, the economy boomed, the city grew. it was also an era known for it's "giuliani time": a hard-headed approach to crime. inevitably, injustices happened: amadou diallo, and some other innocent people, blown away by the cops for doing nothing wrong
so welcome to the real world: play it soft, and let criminals get away, or play it hard, and find that the crimefighters are committing the crimes nowadays
i am not condoning abuse by law enforcement, but what i am saying is that in an environment that ties law enforcements hands, vigilante's appear and do their own abuses. meanwhile, in an environment which invigorates law enforcement in strength and free reign in ways that makes people like penn teller and people like you nervous, law enforcement makes abuses too: mistakes or zealousness
in other words, abuse is going to happen in the pursuit of crime no matter what, and your "rational" approach, the kind of soft approach that dominated in the 1960s and led new york city to be the cesspool of crime it became, actually winds up creating vigilantes
the inevitable conclusion: you're not choosing to have less injustice in the pursuit of criminals with your rational approach, you're just choosing between different types of injustice that always exists in the pursuit of criminals. you don't get rid of injustice in the pursuit of crime, you just move it around to other areas: vigilantes exist when the citzenry are fed up with a government's inability to fight a horrible crime. in this case, child porn. your "rational" approach is what creates vigilantes. get it?
injustice in the pursuit of crime ALWAYS exists. it's inevitable. is it right? no. but it's simply a fact of life. so you need to make peace with a healthy vigorous nasty law enforcement fight against child porn, or you are going to have to make peace with vigilantes. it's one or the other. no world exists that is populated by human beings where neither exist. the fight against crime will always exist, and the fight against crime will always be nasty and spawn injustices of its own. all you can do is choose in what form that nastiness exists: vigilantes or a nasty law enforcement effort
it's one or the other, make your choice
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If you Google "Ronald Kline" you will find a court decision on the matter. Because the hacker was not acting as an agent of the Government, the exclusionary rule on illegally obtained evidence didn't apply.
I don't presume any familiarity with Canada's criminal justice procedures, but I can't imagine that this evidence would have stood a chance in court if it were law enforcement officers who'd obtained it in such a manner, with no warrant whatsoever.
I'm pretty sure such evidence would never be admissible in a U.S. court... at least I sure hope not!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
if i read a tabloid story about britney spears shaving her head, i am expressing my interest in that story. if enough people out there like me are interested in that, we are providing financial incentive for a paparazzi to stalk her all day via the ads we click when we go to the tabloid site, via the fifty cents we spend on the newspaper/ magazine, via the ad rates that are supported by the number of people watching the gossip television news show
if you understand that concept, you understand why "just looking at pictures" has moved way beyond being a thought crime. the judge has entered the marketplace of creation and consumption of pictures of naked children. it's not just thoughts anymore. his viewing of those pictures supports the creation of those pictures
justice and morality is all about looking at all of the actions and all of the consequences. justice and morality is not arrived at by selectively ignoring some actions or consequences. you have to look at the context of things, not just tiny disconnected actions. you need to think about cause and effect. because the very concept of justice and morality is all about cause and effect. so to purposefully ignore some causes and some effects when shaping your opinion is to willfully disregard the ideas of justice and morality
so with child porn, you are talking about a marketplace: the creation, distribution, and consumption of pictures of naked children. the entire marketplace is the crime, not the act of just the distributor, or just the creator, or just the consumer. they all need to be punished if justice and morality is what you are concerned with. and you can't fight a marketplace by focusing just on supply, or focusing just on demand. you must fight both
if you think that marketplace approach to fighting child pornis wrong, that jus tlooking at naked pictures of children is not wrong, then you don't understand why paparazzi stalk celebrities and why they get $50,000 for a picture of a bald britney spears
same dynamic at work
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Seems like a dangerous little loophole that's just asking to be exploited.
Judges should be brighter than that.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
1. Why do you believe that "adding equal or greater suffering to the life that caused the pain" is contradictory with "actually solving the problem", or even with "spending resources to study the problem". It could just as easily be argued that the opposite is correct.
2. Do you really believe that nobody is spending resources to study these problems?
3. Why do you oppose "getting tough", given that massive evidence show that rehabilitation rates are pretty low for criminals in general regardless of method used?
4. Assuming that some semi-reliable methods were found to "detect them early"/"fix them" (I presume "early" means 'before they have commited any crime'), do you really support the measures this implies? Forced testing for the entire population? Forced institutionalization for those that refuse treatment? Perhaps forced genetic therapy if a genetic component was found?
5. Do you think that the fact the Slashdot crowd is almost completely childress affects their view of this issue? Maybe urban single professionals have a lack of emphaty for married families? Compare current attidutes with, say, attitudes regarding spammers.
What is a burgler breaks into your house and finds a stash of kiddie porn which he the reports, or perhaps a body in the freezer.
The intent is different but the end result is that one illegal act is uncovered during a less illegal one. Usually they let the lesser act slide, although there's still 2999 people that were hacked and I can't see why they'd let the hacker walk on those charges.
I wonder what the Slashdot reaction would be if the hacker had reported people for illegallu downloading music ?
Yes, they'll probably get that judge, but only because the judge is a fscking idiot! If he hadn't confessed, he'd get off scot-free. I doubt any of the other "pedophiles" would be so stupid.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
because to be targetted by this vigilante, you had to be seeking child porn in the first place. if the vigilante had placed his trojan on people's computers via unrelated pictures, you would be correct. but to be targetted byt his guy, you clearly had to be seeking out child pornography. therefore, i am correct
once you had sought child porn, a prerequisite for getting targetted by this guy, it made the vigilante's actions acceptable
you seemed to ignore that crucial piece of info in forming your opinion, so your opinion is invalid: it does not take into account the entire context of what happened here. you can't pick and choose the facts and expect your opinion to be complete. you can't traffic in only parts of a situation and expect your opinion to have weight
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This case seems a bit more worrying because the person who placed the trojan also submitted the evidence, but really any trojan could be enough to place the evidence in doubt - if this is thrown out on those grounds then anyone who commits crime via computer can make sure it has a trojan and have all of the evidence thrown out. That won't happen - what will happen is that forensics will get better and better at working out what is genuine evidence in digital media and what is fake.
There have been cases thrown out in the UK on precisely these grounds. I think the reality is that data forensics is very hit & miss. Sometimes historical information about what has been on the disk will be easily retrievable. Other times, it will not be feasible. Correlating the age of different versions of different sectors may be totally impossible, and that would be an important step in the kind of analysis you're talking about -- without it, it may be impossible to put a firm date on the relative ages of a variety of files, so who is to say whether the trojan or the porn was there first?
you will of course be eviscerated by the slashbots here, but let it be said that you are not alone, you're words are 100% dead on
and luckily for you and me, the larger world outside of the idealistic and naive slashbot opinions here of privacy above all other considerations, including when it protects vile crimes, is not respected, and never will be
believe it or not slashbots, but there are other considerations at work here than just privacy. you can't ignore a subset of a situation and expect your opinion to be valid, you need to look at the larger context of what is going on here: the creation and consumption of child porn
in some situations, such as here where the victims of this vigilante ONLY got targetted by seeking child porn in the first place, you have given up your right to privacy. because by seeking child porn, you have engaged in a crime that is much larger than the violation of your privacy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
4) The judge is not responsible for harming many lives by having child porn. The points 1-3 are valid but this one is not. The judge does not pay anyone to molest children. He is not funding terrorism, drug dealers, or whoever. In this case, his collection of child pornography is the least serious case (imo, not in a legal point of view for stupid reasons) and this man definitely deserves more than he is getting.
Is there anything worse than law opinions on slashdot? That's a general complaint.
Not really, no. I happen to think that one was substantially above average, though.
Specifically, the images found on a computer that hadn't been hacked, a diary, and an eyewitness surely made the tainted evidence on the original computer unneeded.
Yes, however I was talking about generalities, not this specific case. In this specific case, the fact that he admitted the offence means the evidence itself is totally irrelevant.
Even if the original images had been the only thing, ISP records would likely have buried him if he wasn't being careful.
Would they? Depends on a lot of things. Was he using ISP servers for access? Does the ISP keep logs, and if so for how long? Does the ISP log HTTP requests across its network that don't use its servers. These aren't trivially answerable, and in a large number of cases the answers to all of them will be 'no'. I know that for me the answers are 'no' (as in I never use my ISP servers for anything, except outgoing e-mail, which there's no suggestion in this case of being incriminating), 'probably but irrelevant because of the first answer', and 'no'.
So, no, I don't think that's anything like as clear cut as you suggest. There's a chance his ISP would have something on him, but not a very large one.
But, basically, the legal opinion I was giving is approximately sound. I know this because in one case it has been used successfully. Admittedly, that wasn't in the USA, but the basic laws involved are very similar.
I took the liberty of following the link of your sig to the site where you are
advertising for support of your amateur movie project, http:/// griefmovie dot com.
Looking at that site's whois record, you obviously decline to reveal your identity
by listing Domains By Proxy.
Seeing that you accept donations using paypal on that site I looked up your merchant
details. The number you list as a customer service line is not assigned. The number
starts with 212-555-xxxx.
I now have reason to believe that you are engaging in fraudulent activities and following
your logic I could search your person and your premises for evidence of fraud, tax
evasion and violation of immigration law. I did report my findings to Paypal btw.
I don't need a search warrant to, say, leaf through your drawers if you invite me inside for a drink.
Is this Seinfeld or Buffy? It was a medicine cabinet, after all...
are the greatest threat western society has faced in over 60 years
do you have an answer for them?
i don't think you do. so go ahead, focus your disapprobation on me, i'm the bad guy
right
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
There ARE limits on what can be done legally. The problem is that dipshits, like ShaneThePain, believe that the ends justify the means in these cases. There is, after all, a TV show entirely based on illegal vigilante entrapment. Sure, the people they catch are mostly likely scuzballs but the organization that performs the entrapment should be prosecuted and the police that play along should as well. Committing crimes is not justified simply because you don't like the victims' (potential) behavior. I find the the producers of the show more reprehensible than the people they expose.
When contemplating the balance between preserving privacy and enforcing the law, I think its best to reflect on a brilliant quote by Nietzsche: "He who fights with monsters should take care lest he thereby become a monster." The fact that some people can tolerate, and even worse commendate the actions of a vigilante is appalling. Two wrongs have never made a right, except in the minds of those who believe in a perverted sense of justice.
Many people are completely fine with these tactics when employed against child molesters. But if we truly were to advocate this sort of behavior, do you think it would really stop with child molestation? Once we got enough of THOSE bad guys off the street, whats to stop the next "gevious offense to society" from taking its place?
And while looking for child molesters, if we happen to uncover someone who likes to practice recreational pharmacology, do we expect our vigilante to overlook this much more minor offense? Perhaps... But perhaps some employers would be very interested information like that when evaluating prospective employees. They may be interested enough to pay a fair amount of money for information like that. Is your vigillante so morally upright as to not be seduced into profiting from their social espionage?
This guy installed a trojan virus on 3000+ computers to spy on them in hopes of catching a predator. How many emails did he read about what was going to be eaten for dinner? How many about who was taking the kids to the soccer game? There is something dark and creepy about the whole topic. In a very serious way, we was molesting the privacy of several people in trying to discover something awful about them.
What do you say of a man who stalks people, searching for something dark and evil about them? I call that a man who struggles with the darkness in his own mind, who is really looking for the monster festering within him. One must take care when fighting monsters that he doesn't become one in the process, indeed.
you make me smile, that anyone would devote that much sycophantic attention to me is pretty pathetic on your part, and a little flattering on my part ;-)
;-P ...and then i will be forever chastened by the lesson you have taught me today: my actions are as bad a child pornography consumer. so i thank you, Internet Tough Guy (tm), for the awesome lesson in hypocrisy you have taught me today
so good for you, Internet Tough Guy (tm)!
are you implying that my vast criminal conspiracy of accepting pay pal donations without a valid phone number is equivalent to child porn?
truly such a person as you with such a refined grasp of morality is someone i must pay the utmost respect for. so go ahead dude, crush my vast empire of filipino horror movie making. if i lose my paypal button, my losses may climb to ten dollars
you are defined in this life more so by the kind of enemies you make than the friends you make. so i am proud to be the enemy of the Internet Tough Guy (tm)
very entertaining, the characters you meet on teh intarweb
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
smooches asshole
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This hacker is lucky. Any reasonable defense would have tried to argue that the pictures were placed there by the hacker in question. If a trojan can take complete control of a computer, there's nothing to prevent it from placing illegal files on it. In this case there were probably witnesses who could be called to testify to the judge's downloading habits. I hope the hacker doesn't plan on making this his hobby, because it's something that can be easily turned against him the next time he does it.
however, if you are engaging in the consumption of child porn, you will have your liberties trampled on. and you SHOULD have your liberties trampled on, if you are engaging in such a high crime as child porn
in other words, the consumption of child porn seems to be conveniently missing from your words above. don't you think that caveat changes things? you seemed to have framed your opinion as if a completely innocent person were tragetted by this hacker
remember: this hacker only got access to a computer AFTER the target first sought out child porn
at which point, the target gave up his liberties: he committed a crime orders of magnitude greater than anything the hacker did
get it?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
if i read a tabloid story about britney spears shaving her head, i am expressing my interest in that story. if enough people out there like me are interested in that, we are providing financial incentive for a paparazzi to stalk her all day via the ads we click when we go to the tabloid site, via the fifty cents we spend on the newspaper/ magazine, via the ad rates that are supported by the number of people watching the gossip television news show, etc.
do you understand that concept?
if you understand that concept, you understand why "just looking at pictures" has moved way beyond being a simple act of expression or a thought crime. the judge has entered the marketplace of creation and consumption of pictures of naked children. it's not just thoughts anymore. his viewing of those pictures supports the creation of those pictures
do you deny that fact? then why are there paparazzi stalking celebrities if that is not a fact? get the concept yet?
justice and morality is all about looking at all of the actions and all of the consequences. justice and morality is not arrived at by selectively ignoring some actions or consequences. you have to look at the context of things, not just tiny disconnected actions. you need to think about cause and effect. because the very concept of justice and morality is all about cause and effect. so to purposefully ignore some causes and some effects when shaping your opinion is to willfully disregard the ideas of justice and morality
so with child porn, you are talking about a marketplace: the creation, distribution, and consumption of pictures of naked children. the entire marketplace is the crime, not the act of just the distributor, or just the creator, or just the consumer. they all need to be punished if justice and morality is what you are concerned with. and you can't fight a marketplace by focusing just on supply, or focusing just on demand. you must fight both
if you think that marketplace approach to fighting child porn is wrong, that just looking at naked pictures of children is not wrong, then you don't understand why paparazzi stalk celebrities and why they get $50,000 for a picture of a bald britney spears
same dynamic at work
now, think carefully about this little piece of intellectual charity, ruminate on the concept of a something larger than just one person going on here, and then open your mouth
or call me an idiot again without actually showing any understanding of a larger reality beyond satisfying immediate selfish impulses without any regard for consequences. your choice
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
>Or was the guy's trojan multi-OS capable?
No such thing.
But you;re right , anyone who wants to do something illegal online would be a fool to use Windows. Thats not to say other OSes are impossible to hack or get a trojan into , but at least they don't put out a red carpet and a "welcome" mat for them.
Note there's no mention of an appeal to SCOTUS.
This sets up a lose-lose situation for our judicial system: either a) extra-judicial hackers are condoned, or b) some 3000 potential child porn cases could be thrown out, with precedent set to do the same in future situations.
Does this seem like a happy situation to you?
and i still favor the scorched earth policy. in other words, if you have child porn on your computer, you should be punished, regardless of whether or not you can create a direct financial link to the creator of the child porn
why?
supply and demand is the problem, not just supply or demand. the existence of child porn on any computer could be characterized as supply or demand, but i make no differentiation: it's potential supply... it also could also represent met demand. do we know what the difference is? do we have to make the difference? the entire marketplace is the problem. points a,b,c,d must be fought just as much as points w,x,y,z, and all points in between. what is the value of focusing only on points a,b,c,d?
again: justice, morality: concepts that are all about actions and consequences. looking at some actions, without considering their consequences, or visa versa, is not justice or morality. the very concepts of justice and morality themselves indicate that the entire marketplace is at fault, even when no fiancial transaction is explicit
if your job is to fight the proliferation of trafficking in the body parts of endangered species, the existence of a guy grinding up some rhino horn to use in traditional medicine is the existence of someone you must punish. is he selling it? did he buy it? did he get it from a friend for free? the problem is the killing of rhinos for traditional medicine, not the particulars of exactly where in the web of supply and demand the guy exists. get it?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i could care fucking less
;-P
;-)
additionally, you are only loudly demonstrating how much you don't get it
if you honestly equate me using a 555 number for my paypal account with the consumption of child porn, you simply do not fucking get it in a huge way
following your approach to crime and punishment, the next time you see someone jaywalking, you should do society a favor and shoot them in the head: they're commiting a crime right?
oh no wait... different crimes have different weight? you mean murder is a worse crime than jaywalking!?
inconceivable!
you would do well in the taliban asshole, you subscribe to the same style of thinking as sharia law: the weight of the punishment should bear no relation to the weight of the crime. i'd love to hear your opinion of beheading women for prostitution or cutting off people's hands for stealing food. then we can talk about hypocrisy, how's that?
so now you might understand why i am so horribly, horribly chastened at your reporting of me to pay pal:
zzz
and at the same time, mildly amused at your personal interest in me, sycophant
all it means to me or anyone else reading this thead is that your ignorant of the concept of weighing the weight of the crime when considering punishment, and that you're a giant asshole to boot
that's all you've demonstrated to me dude
but keep it up, you bring a smile to my face, i need the entertainment today
xoxoxoxoxoxoxox
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I think this story would be much easier to understand if we consider what the difference is between law and morality.
Law is a social mechanism to make a society/nation state work smoothly and to keep the status quo for those in power.
It has nothing to do with the human condition or morality.
I think the interesting questions are the ones that ask why are societies constructed by human beings that do not address the human condition oreven the questions surrounding morality?
Obviously something is wrong with a grown male, spending all of his time writing about how to entice young boys and view pictures of boys in private.
I would be REALLY interested to know why he decided on writing about boys in the first place.
The state/law enforcement is obviously not interested in morality as this persons private life was violated.
I myself am a very private person, and I find is that this individual who broke into apparently thousands of personal computers willing broke the law and morality, and there is no question he did so.
I do not see him in private lockup.
Yes, the judge had illegal pictures of boys in sex acts on his computer.
But, you cannot arrest or convict people on thier private thoughts or wishes, only upon thier actions. So, given the fact I can pull up a ton of web sites with child porn available for public consumption, that makes me a law breaker if I chose to do so.
However, there is something not right about pulling information from the web in a non consequential manner that doesn't sit right with me. Simply pulling child porn from the web is not in itself immoral.
Whats next? Do we need to pass a law that requires everyone to write down thier private thoughts for review before a panel to prevent us from breaking the law? What happens if someone uses my computer to download kitty porn without my knowledge?
What happens if someone just dumps all sorts of illegal stuff on my machine, then steals it and hands it over to the police if they simply do not like me?
In my opinion I think this chaos from the non intersection of morality and law really serves nobodies interest except for the powers that be.
But make no doubt, the root cause of this problem can be found with people, and in this case begins with the judges own actions to write about and view pictures of boys in private.
The question here is, does he have that right to do so in private and if not, what other laws can or will be made about what you can do or not do in private if we say he cannot?
Why do I have this feeling that the individuals making those types of laws will be the ones who will insure those rules do not apply to them and enforce thier private agendas for power and wealth?
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
the concept of privacy cannot be used to conceal high crimes like child porn
if the hacker can verifably document how and when the trojan got on the judge's computer as how he says it happened, then you must concede that the judge does not deserve privacy protections anymore
you can't excuse a concrete crime in front of you for the sake of overextending an idealistic concept
if the defense of privacy becomes the defense of child porn, you shoot your own idealistic notion in the foot by undermining people's support for the concept of privacy as you see it: idealisticly
how about you instead support LIMITED privacy, a REALISTIC notion, and not vehemently apply the concept to people who obviously don't deserve it?
believe it or not, in this world, there are people who would exploit your idealistic notions in order to cmmit crimes. do you have an answer to them?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Wow, who is spending time here over this? You're obviously upset over this
and that alone would be further grounds for an investigation in RL.
_Following your logic_ now I could now pull down your pants and search your
cavities.
the slashbot notion that thinking that there are realistic and obvious limits on privacy rights means that you are an enthusiastic supporter of living under an orwellian fascist state
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
if he's such a great hacker, what's preventing him from having put the incriminating material there himself?
SIck enough to break into others computers, sick enough to do anything else as well. What's happening to commonsense in this country?
oh.. think of the kids.
One correction: at the time, the Patriot Act was passed with little debate. The debate has happened after the fact. (And when some provisions came up for re-authorization.)
From http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot"
In other words, it was passed quickly and in such a way that it could be interpreted widely.
keep it up sycophant, you amuse me
;-)
;-P
;-)
yes, i'm very, very upset. please, comfort me, i don't know what to do!
and yes, i'm spending so much time, researching who you are, looking you up personally
clearly, i'm deviating from the amount of time and the volume i spend posting comments on slashdot
you can make some investigations into this statement if you want to confirm it... normally i would confirm myself as a high volume poster here, but you've demonstrated a surprising knack at stick your nose in my ass, so i'll let you do that this time
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
you only got the trojan if you, yourself, no coercion, sought out child porno
does that fact sway your emotional invectives in anyway?
look at ALL of the facts, then get on your high horse
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Something about the hacker really is not right. First, you might as well as just shoot the ex-judge with health problems. Why would any sane person allow this asshole hacker to still be at large. He could fabricate evidence easily against anyone he does not like. He also is a sociopath, obviously..I guess our society will continue to be run by morons.
"The Brady Bunch is back...working homicide"
mistreated"
wow
one would think that exposing a mind yet incapable of informed consent to a sexual situation would be the mistreatment in question, but thanks for reeducating us on the harmlessness of making child porn
your blindness to others in the face of gratifying selfish impulses, i mean, er, your mother teresa-level empathy for others is truly a humanistic vision
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i'm not interested in you. i don't care about you. the issue here is your strange interest in me. you made me the issue, not i. do you want me to return the favor?
wtf?!
i think they have dating websites on the internet dear sycophant. i'm sorry you thought this was one
besides, i'm not a homosexual, internet tough guy. not that i have anything against people like ted haggard, but i think he could have avoided a lot of psychological issues by just admitting his own nature up front
do you have any strange psychological quirks? oh i don't know, like sticking your nose into stranger's asses you meet on the internet?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
OMG I tough California was in the U.S.!!!!!!!!
make that s/"too dumb"/"dumb enough"/
was it in defense of the rights of child pornographers? that's what i'm talking about. what the hell are you talking about?
see, this hacker only applied this trojan to a file that would be downloaded only at a child porno site. thus my words are limited to THAT SPECIFIC SITUATION
and here you are delivering your holier than thou invectives at me as if i was advancing the idea we should all live under an orwellian fascist state and be happy about it
how the FUCK does that subject change work in your mind?
do you perchance perceive a disconnect between the subject matter i am talking about and the one you are focusing on?
when i say "privacy rights should not shield child porno" why do you hear "i love dick cheney"?
i mean it's a strange dynamic you have going on here with your prejudice against me
yes, it's prejudice: you prejudge my position. you start spouting off about 24. i don't even watch the show! hello??!! do you want to talk to me and the words i say? or do you want to rain fire and brimstone on the bogeymen running around your head THAT I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH
i mean i can talk about demagogues who take an issue like privacy and shoehorn and manipulate the issue into a "won't somebody think of the children" pile of bullshit
but i don't
because that would be manipulation, propaganda
tell me, do you know anyone who misrepresents the subject matter?
gotta mirror handy?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
However it should be dismissed since it can't be proven that the hacker didn't tamper with the evidence.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Hmmm, wonder what the UTF8 code for that swirly at-sign style "e" is?
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
You may be confusing Pedophiles (People sexually attracted to children) with Child Molesters (People who sexually abuse children). Rape is a horrible crime, and raping children is considered even worse than raping an adult, in the same way that murdering children is considered worse than murdering adults. There are not actually many worse things- the only crimes worse than rape I can think of offhand are kidnapping and murder. Child porn is horrible because it's people filming their own crimes for other people to see- It's as if I was distributing pictures of bodies I killed on the internet.
Pedophiles, on the other hand, are often harmless, just like how people who fantasize about killing their ex are usually harmless. You just don't want to leave them alone in a room with their ex.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
...seeing that he posted a trojan on a newsgroup to infect anyone who downloaded it, it's completely possible that another hacker could have reverse engineered the same trojan to gain access to the same machines. Seeing that this guy compromised -thousands- of machines for his little glory fest, maybe he should take the time to ponder whether or not someone else could have used his exploit to upload kiddie porn to these computers to be used as illicit servers, or maybe just for kicks. It's bad enough that he invaded the privacy of thousands of people, but he also left them wide open to any sicko that had the skills and inclination to do so.
So we had a judge hacking into the mail (and doing what-ever else,) with a file crack and a keyboard sniffer.
Why aren't I surprised?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
What's the URL for his myspace page, or where the comment was located?
a child is incapable of informed consent when it comes to taking pictures of them in sexual situations
calmly respond in rational tones to that statement, do whatever you want
that's the rock of gibraltar in this discussion, and you can't get around it, no matter how much you think you can. you're fooling yourself
that statement above dismantles all of your arguments, and any argument you think you can make
again, to be clear:
a child is incapable of informed consent when it comes to taking pictures of them in sexual situations
there's no way you can get around that. go ahead and try, but you lose
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
None, these problems have existed throughout time, it only becomes more apparent as communication speed improves and population density increases to where it seems we hear about them daily.
In my opinion.. NO Our resources would be much better spent anywhere else.
Who cares
I think its more of a choice than something we can prevent, but if we could it would be nice. But I have very little faith in our ability to "fix" this.
a) We don't know what usenet groups were used. Maybe it's just his opinion that they're ones that only CP frequenters would visit.
b) We have only his word that he didn't plant it elsewhere...
c) How do we know that the infected file wasn't transferred by somebody else accidentally to others. Say the great hacker posts it in a CP forum, and a forum member posts it elsewhere in usenet or wherever. So the program calls home, how does he know it's from a valid target?
d) WHY do CP-focussed usenet groups exist? Is there actually an alt.binaries.pictures.SOMEILLEGALCRAP group?
Frankly, I don't side with either him or his targets. The judge should be investigated, and so should the hacker... if they find he's snooping around a bunch of innocent people's computers, which I wouldn't be surprised, then perhaps we'll have some evidence to form an opinion about him.
Usually a loud, crass, desk-jockey of a police chief who, not understanding the cop's role as an officer on the streets, will give him a good chewing-out peppered with light verbal abuse and threats of suspension or dismissal any time he steps out of line, makes a conscientious but unpopular decision, or makes the chief's job harder.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
You are a moderate?! You would throw out the constitution and the fundamental principles of the American justice system just for the sake of preventing child pornography; that is the least moderate position I've ever seen on the issue. In reality, you are the one who believes that humans are perfect: you trust that given unlimited power the police wouldn't convict innocent men, when in reality they make such mistakes even with the limited power they have been granted. I'm sure you sincerely believe that catching every crime is more important than protecting the rights of the innocent, but consider th possibility that, as you say, you can't have one without the other.
Hmmm, well by the sounds of it, it's both. These groups are often of individuals who trade (and often members who produce) such material. By the sounds of it the judge had some involvement attempting to reel in local kids:
After reading the judge's electronic diary, he concluded it showed an apparent plot to sexually exploit young boys at a private health club.
Maybe the conclusion is flawed, but it sounds like the judge in question was more than just a viewer of the material...
Of course, the way has been paved for "Dog The Bounty Hunter" to be extradited to face charges for his efforts. About time, too.
The evidence provided by the hacker was just what they used to validate a search. If you read the full article, they did a full search, and the Judge admitted to much.
go talk to a heroin addict. they can very reasonably RATIONALIZE why it is ok to do what they do, they'll bring up all sorts of issues and avenues of thought. but in the end, all they've done is started with their selfish impulses, and ended with that, and not adequately thought out the consequences and their impact on others nor their impact on themselves in negative ways in the long run and the short run
of course, they'll never admit that, but that's the whole point: the addiction has a hold on them, and all of their calmly worded "reasonable" words are in the service of explaining away their personal responsibility, of explaining away their ability to choose between right and wrong, of explaining away how their behaviors negatively impact society and/ or other people. it's all very calmly worded and well-thought out... except for one central conceit
any deeply rooted selfish desire, such as attraction to children sexually, can overwhelm the higher faculties, and place a person's higher faculties in the service of the selfish desire, rather than in the service of simple right and wrong
so again, do whatever you want, say whatever you want. in the end, you haven't moved beyond your central conceit: some people like to diddle little kids. that's wrong because the kid is incapable of consenting in an informed way. beginning of story. end of story. but then out comes all these creative magical lines of thought that purport to explain why such a situation is ok, but somehow all they manage to do is conveniently forget one fact or another. the house of cards go up, the house of cards go down, the attempt to rationalize just goes on and on and on. their entire worldview is constructed around a central conceit, and begins and ends with it. everyone else can see that. the child diddler can't. it's a blind spot on their ability to reason and rationalize
so if you can understand how that psychology works with heroin addicts, then maybe you can begin to understand how that works in child diddlers
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/artic le2264632.ece
..
"The United States Military Academy at West Point yesterday confirmed that Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan recently travelled to California to meet producers of the show, broadcast on the Fox channel. He told them that promoting illegal behaviour in the series - apparently hugely popular among the US military - was having a damaging effect on young troops."
Funny, but the show's star disagrees with the idea that torture is productive:
"In addition, while Mr Surnow may not have any qualms about 24, it appears the show's main protagonist does. In a television interview last month, Sutherland said: "You torture someone and they'll basically tell you exactly what you want to hear, whether it's true or not, if you put someone in enough pain... Within the context of our show, which is a fantastical show to begin with, the torture is a dramatic device to show you how desperate a situation is.""
Eh, this is true. I'm so used to the actual article diverging so wildly from the summary, I just end up selecting one or the other to respond to.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
You don't need a search warrant when you smash the bathroom window, break and enter, and do the same either. You've just committed a crime to do so.
I'm curious how evidence based on an illegal act could be made to hold up - even if it was a tip off from a private individual committing the illegal act as opposed to a government agency.
The image is transferred to his computer but not stored anywhere, other than in the memory allocated to the process of the web-browser; maybe the browser has no cache, thus technically speaking, the attacker never had the file itself. Only for a moment or two it was shown on his screen.
There are no traces of pr0n.jpg in the file-table, nor in the list of recently accessed files, etc.
The saddest poem
However it should be dismissed since it can't be proven that the hacker didn't tamper with the evidence.
Who's to say that a government agent wouldn't tamper with evidence? I'd prefer a white-hat hacker looking over me than a corrupt G-man looking for a scapegoat....
The voice of the next generation. "In this tower, in my mind..." Babble - Tower
What, like the marine(?) who plead guilty to abduction and murder of a man in Iraq (they were pissed at the death of a fellow soldier, so went on an insurgent hunt. They couldn't find an insurgent, so they just found a man who was wearing a headdress (of course). Put him on his knees and executed him. Yay! Vengeance! Except, wait, that might not look too good. So they stuffed him down a foxhole, and threw an AK47 down with him, and some explosives accessories.) - three quarters of the way through his court martial, he's decided "Wait, I'm not guilty, I was following lawful orders! I wish to change my plea!" and it's been allowed... I mean, wah?!?
The age of consent is 14 in Canada.
If the judge slept with the girls, rather than just looking at them, he wouldn't have broken the law.
The age of consent in the USA is 16, which means its illegal to take pictures of something that's legal to actually do.
Apply to which ever side you're on.
i teria_personality_antisocial.htm
Voyeurism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyeurism
Antisocial Personality Disorder
Conduct Disorder
http://www.psychnet-uk.com/clinical_psychology/cr
http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis1/p21-ch02.html
Patients Often Deny That They Have Mental Illness
(You poor, sick bastard)
Diagnose Yourself !!!!
http://www.mytherapy.com/features/
~hylas
In order to make this work he should never have identified himself, never been in contact with law enforcement. He should only have left a package at their doorstep, never allowing any contact that could make him an agent of law enforcement.
Ahhh, but where's the fame and glory in THAT?
circletimessquare is Batman and I agree completly. People here are arguing about their right to free speech. Free speech has always been about doing what you want as long as it dosn't effect anothers free speech (short version of it). Do you think the children had free speech when this was going on, no. They had to do it. The judges free speech (looking at pics) invaded the kids right of free speech.
The loophole is kind of like somebody seeing a major crime being committed while trespassing. While they are doing something illegal, it is a misdemeanor. If the crime they see is a felony, then their eyewitness testimony is valid.
-The judge also had similar material on the computer in his chambers, which was behind a considerably more secure network.
-After the charges were annouced, a kid came forward to testify that he had been abused by the judge years earlier. He didn't come forward earlier because he thought no one would believe his word against a judge's.
-Finally, the judge admitted his guilt in the child pornography charges (though not the abuse case.)
The material on the hacked computer was enough to raise suspicion to investigate further. Further investigation found more evidence that was unquestionably legally gathered, and consdirably weakens the "it could have been planted!" argument.
This was a person who was very well aware of how to mount an effective defense against criminal charges, and all those mentioned above are about as legally sound as the judge's computer was secure.
Okay look in retrospect I'm sorry for reporting your Paypal account.
I'm not sorry for what I said in this thread, but I regret having
been a snitch myself. I'm sorry, that was a deplorable way to act
against a fellow slashdotter and I sincerely apologize.
Almost by definition you wouldn't know whether the hacker wasn't in reality a corrupt G-man.
>Law is a social mechanism to make a society/nation state
>work smoothly and to keep the status quo for those in power.
>It has nothing to do with the human condition or morality.
I'll repeat my earlier comment from the "online bullying" story.
==
Why? Really, by what justification do they regulate *anything
else*?
It's immoral to sell tainted food, that's why it's illegal.
It's immoral to rape somebody, that's why it's illegal.
It's immoral to kill somebody, that's why it's illegal.
There had darn well *better* be some *moral* reasons
these people can regulate me, or they can take their uniformed
guys with guns and the guys in black robes who tell the
guys with guns what to do and shove 'em.
I have some friends who've been raped, is that enough for you? Or do I need to have been molested as a child to realize that it's not fun? I haven't been murdered, either, does that mean that I can't say murder is wrong?
If you've been abused and came out of it fine, good for you. But don't think that makes rape 'okay'. And if you haven't been repeatedly raped by your stepfather, you shouldn't be trolling public forums talking about how Child Molesters aren't a big deal.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
I find it utterly hilarious the way you defend the actions of the "good guys" by saying this is REALITY, there's no black-and-white, it's all shades of gray, and you can't expect the good guys to only ever do good chasing the bad guys, but that's okay because they're bad guys.
I know the contradiction is invisible to you, so I'll make it plain: There's no such thing as black and white according to you, yet good guy/bad guy IS black and white to you.
The Good Guy can do whatever he wants, because he's the Good Guy, so obviously he only wants to do Good Things. If he does a Bad Thing, it was obviously only so that he could do Good. That's the most blatantly black-and-white-with-no-shades-of-grey opinion you could possibly have. The most hilarious part is that you a-priori define who the Good Guys are, and who the Bad Guys are, even if the Good Guys are known to have done Bad Things, while the alleged Bad Guys aren't know to have done anything at all!
You use this to justify everything from vigilante computer hacking, to torture of detainees, to the invasion of countries. Sure it looks like these are Bad, but the Good Guys are doing it, and of course the Good Guys mean to do Good!
In REALITY, Good Guy/Bad Guy is not so well defined. The Good Guy doesn't get to keep his title no matter what he does. You don't get to say "nobody is perfect, so this guy gets to be a Good Guy even if he isn't Good".
If you can't see how the "minor" crime of vigilante justice could easily become much worse than the "big" crime the "minor" crime stopped in one case, then it is in fact you who are completely disconnected from reality.
The fact is that we cannot have any tolerance for either crime.
Honestly, just say tear up the 4th and 5th and 8th Ammendments if you really think that the Good Guys are always Good and it's okay for them to occassionally do Bad, so long as it's going after the Bad Guys.
The enemies of Democracy are
"Your honor, the defendant knowingly put his trojan in the child pornagraphy I was downloading off his server, and then he kept track of all my chat logs with 13-year old boys".
If I was one of the people he hacked, I sure wouldn't be going to the cops about it.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Last thing this world needs is more vigilantes
This teenager is presented as a hero but to me he's been hacking its way in private systems. It's an offense. He undoubtely will be prosecuted for that. The worse thing is that everyone who got "caught" by him will be discharged from court since any "evidence" would have been gathered illegaly and will be rejected in any court.
So basically, this kid didn't help anyone but his own ego. He's not a hero but a no-life loser who thinks he is doing the right thing. Unfortunately, the only thing he achieved is waste 3 years of his young life stalking on people. That's simply pathetic.
Let's see how many of the people he's been sniffing on are going to sue him and how much jail time he's going to get to play the vigilante game.
Seems like a dangerous little loophole that's just asking to be exploited.
See also Dateline: To catch a predator.
Abusing children is the lowest of the low and anyone caught doing anything to children should be punished to the full extent of the law.
... these are all actions and should be the focus of legal repercussions.
e 58lr.jpg
HOWEVER - thoughts and actions are NOT the same. Laws and legal action need to focus on action, not on thoughts. In a free society this is where the line must be drawn: Thoughts are OK, actions are judged.
Solely the possessing of INFORMATION (I assert) is equivalent to one's own thoughts, nothing more.
Selling, distributing, creating, abusing,
Some one please explain how and why we have a broad class of information (disgusting as they are, and illegal as it is to make them, sell them, etc.) - that simply possessing that information (in this case, pictures from an illegal act abusing a child) lands a person in prison. Simply posession of information that results in prison... that is a terrible precedent with dire long-term consequences. Such control is the basis of thought control and tyranny. Who is the state to assert what people can and can't think? Which social taboos are so severe as to make information illegal? While most everyone agrees that the taboo against sex with children is severe enough - the problem occurs when the same reasoning (big problem, hard to fix, so make the information illegal) is applied to other kinds of information. There are lots of big problems, and lots of them are hard to fix. Law enforcement is becoming harder and harder to do well in an age of increasing technology and distributed information.
Will this image be illegal to own some day?
http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/7884/bushfutur
How about books? Software programs? How-To manuals?
Reading between the lines on this case, it's probably a good thing this man is being removed to prison. His child molestation case was dropped because of a statute of limitations - so there was (most likely) a mountain of reasons this man was a threat, a criminal, and deserved what he got. It is cases like this that make this issue very difficult - because if we did not have such possession laws, this man would likely go free and abuse other children.
From what I've have read, he placed a trojan on a site that had a high probablity of being frequented by pedophiles. It was downloaded to about 3K machines, not 30K. (Where you got the 30K number, and him setting up cameras, makes me wonder about some of your facts.)
He then checked those machines for activities that hinted the user of the machine was doing more than simply viewing. That gave him enough evidence of the higher level activities for him to contact the police.
The fact that he was able to take control of the computers does bring up the spectre of planting evidence. Unless you are a security expert who tracks and logs everything going in and out via a network connection, you could be victimized by an unethical cracker. If the evidence planter worked at it long enough, they could build a substantial history of 'evidence' and keep it concealed until it is leaked to the authorities. And if unethical groups are behind the hacking, that 'evidence' could be backed up in the real world with bank accounts and credit cards.
If you are being really paranoid, you almost need to have two types of personal computers. One is used for the things you want to save and does NOT have a connection to an external network. The other is a sacrificial machine that you clear frequently so that planted evidence gets wiped.
Of course, that still wouldn't prevent simple breaking and entering, with some quick sneakernet downloads of planted evidence. But if you had a hidden computer with cameras monitoring the secured computers, you might be able to prove that there was the possibility of planted evidence.
Now, at what point does caution cross over into paranoia?
This is the backwards world of Slashdot where
Among other things, consider this: OK, this guy did some good with the power he has over other people's computers. But is he one to be trusted with this power? Is there any accountability if he misuses this power, and how does that process work? The process doesn't exist because the guy is assuming authority he doesn't have. So no, I don't condone his actions.
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
Haven't you ever heard of Jack and Diane?
Well, it happens.
A lot.
Maybe it wasn't meant as an insult. Perhaps after years of a small minority of hackers applying the term to their majority population -- greater than the median age of those most interested in hacking -- "script kiddie" has become a synonym for "hacker".
Language evolves, and the elitist script kiddies brought this change upon themselves.
YouTube seems to have removed this terrific video after a takedown order from CBS television, but if you can see it, you will be chilled by how far down that slippery slope we've fallen.
Andy Griffith: Terrorist Sympathizer!
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/118263.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CvoC551i2E
http://www.scruffydan.com/blog/?p=644
Supposedly most of the people the USA was torturing in Abu Ghraib had committed the grievous crime of not paying off Iraqi quislings, and nothing else.
The real terrorists paid their bribes and went free... or so they say, anyway. I wasn't there at the time.
Almost by definition you wouldn't know whether the hacker wasn't in reality a corrupt G-man.
Or a G-man with a conscience.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
I typed all this in response to someone else's post that I had completely misunderstood until I reread it... rather than waste it I'll just start a new thread.
Here goes my reputation.
It is perfectly natural for men, old men, to find young girls attractive. In fact, a few hundred years ago, it was typical for a man in his 30's to wed a girl in her tweens/early teens.
NATURAL? Yes natural. Men who lived to be in their 30's, were desired because they had strength and health (living to 40 was tough back in the day). It was darwin at his finest... live to 30 and then have tons of young girls to spread your healthy genes to.
So why young girls. First of all, people today think kids grow up too fast, but once a girl hits puberty she is of "child bearing age". Back in the day, large families were a requirement to work the fields and just get stuff done... so people didn't waste time, if she could have a baby, she was ready for marriage. Not to mention, it's a widely accepted belief that young women are more attractive... and this was true especially then, when women's breasts would sag from lack of support, skin would wrinkle from sun, and teeth would fall out from a lack of hygiene.
Ok, so anthropologically, it's absolutely natural for men to be attractive to young women... it's a survival instinct left over from a time, not very long ago, when it was absolutely necessary for survival of the species.
Then, along comes modern religions, which condemn sexuality, promote male dominance, promote modesty, and ultimately encourage the masses to resist any urges they feel. Why? Because a person fighting their inner demons will more willingly follow the guidance of the church.
Out go orgy's, polygamy, buggering, and of course the common practice of marrying young girls to old men. Well at least they go out of favor.
So back to today... women do everything in their power to look as young as possible... because that is what attracts men, yet men who are attracted (very likely not by choice) to young women are considered perverts.
I don't believe in pedophilia, nor do I support it, I only understand it and it's root causes. I will admit, I have been uncomfortably attracted to young women who would likely put me in hot water if I gave in to temptation. I'd imagine that most men here have had that "What, shes only 15!?!" moment. Are all of us pedophiles? NO.
So what do we do about this problem. First, I agree that exploiting young women, especially sexually, is disgusting. Not because it's wrong for a man to be attracted to them, but because it's morally wrong to take advantage of those without the sense of self to resist.
I think what the world needs is more people like myself, those who admit that it's not wrong to be attracted. If people were not so distraught by this fault of human evolution, the individuals with these issues would be free to express their problems more openly, and perhaps seek help or support from other individuals with the same issues. Like AA, NA, and every other support group. These groups could then reinforce the idea that it's disgusting to take advantage of someone in the way these young women are taken advantage of in order to obtain these images. That belief is what keeps me from ever considering approaching a young teen in that manner, and it's the reason I believe that child porn is just plain disgusting. By condemning those who suffer fro a strong attraction to young girls we only promote the spread of child pornography, these individuals have no other safe outlet.
Please don't get me wrong, I don't believe I am any different than most men. If I were, then most porn sites would advertise "get your nude 30 somethings here". Instead it;s all "shes only 18", if 15 was legal it would be "shes only 15"... trust me I am far from alone.
I agree that we must not treat child exploitation, in any form, trivially. However our society is too quick to condemn. As I have said in too many words... it's natural, not ethical, or
Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
Only if you're subject to American law. If you're in Canada, a US search warrant isn't worth the paper it's forged on.
This is how US intelligence services have kept tabs on their own population for over 50 years now: by exchanging information with foreign intelligence services. We spy on them, they spy on us, then we tell each other what we found. And we're not breaking *our own* laws, so everything's hunkydory.
Shouldn't the hacker have also be convicted for accessing child porn? "Researching availability of CP on the net" isn't a valid defence, after all, is it?
The Judges sentence should stand, it appears he plead guilty, and is remorseful, etc.
However, the 'hacker' should be punished for the 2999 other people he attacked, even if just one hour in jail for each violation.
It's like a drug user going to the police to complain about a dealer ripping him off; or a domestic violence case where they both hit each other... take 'em both in.
1. There are aspects that do allow for these things. While some cases of exploitation occur via random attackers (serial killer types and similar random abductions) the majority are perpetrated by those with regular contact with the exploited/abused. Therefore it should be obvious there is an aspect of the way we handle children and other human arrangements that allows these things to occur and that by changing where and how people spend their time (ie, who is aware of their daily lives) we can in fact cut down on the opportunities for abuse/exploitation.
Further, we may find there are societal influences that create the predator or at least contribute to the development of the mind that allows such behavior.
2. It seems reasonable to classify the predator psychology as similar to a number of other socially destructive behaviors. Likewise it seems that if we can understand the psychology of these behaviors (ie, the underlying mental condition may have a similar origin, just a different manifestation) we can do a lot of good.
3. I'd think the majority of victims and victims' families would care. One of the important things they are generally missing as a tool toward closure is both the understanding of why it happened and some assurance that it won't happen to others. If they're being rational they'll recognize that killing their attacker does not grant either of these.
4. We sure as hell aren't going to unless we try to. Ask someone from 1920 if we could just flit over to the moon? Probably would be a similar response as yours.
If he compromises a system in order to read it, he's got all that he needs to plant the evidence.
It is the opinion that has been brought up by legal experts regarding child pornography laws that any monitoring done by an independent group for the purposes of advising the police is in itself opening the monitor to prosecution for having come into contact with child pornography due to the wording of child pornography laws in most if not all English speaking countries. The wording is such that even viewing child pornography by accident opens you to the prospect of being convicted on charges ranging from possession to production and distribution. And the definition of child pornography itself is quite loose in that a picture of a naked child regardless of the context it was taken might be considered pornographic. Even simulated child pornography (ie where actors are portrayed as underage despite not being such), or fantasy stories (yes those plain text BS stories you can find online about underage sex are included) are all considered to be in breach of this law in England, America, and Australia, and quite likely Canada and New Zealand as well though this I cannot claim with any real certainty beyond the fact their laws are usually similar to that of the UK and Australia.
I will note if the counsel for the defence does not bring up the fact that any such evidence gained is not admissible for whatever reason the court will usually be happy to go along with the prosecution despite it being unlawful, this has been proven to be the case in more than a few publicized child porn cases where in several cases my belief is that the defendent was innocent of actually having willingly or in some cases knowingly (the classic, machine contains pornographic pictures which were not actually downloaded or viewed by the defendent) been involved in any crime.
- DISCLAIMER:-
Please note I am not a lawyer or legal expert and as such any information I provide while it is true to the best of my knowledge should not be considered expert opinion.You would have to provide specifics about this TV show to convince me that it was entrapment. Entrapment is defined relatively narrow and the definition only applies to government agents. So I seriously doubt that this TV show is showing "illegal vigilante entrapment." Perhaps it is vigilantism if they are breaking the law somehow but not entrapment.
I think it should be better if i can just keep everything on my friends' PC to be read later when I wake up.. ;)
Wikipedia:
Child molestation is an informal synonym for child sexual abuse, most often used for sex between adults and young children.
Dictionary.com: molestation:
1. to bother, interfere with, or annoy.
2. to make indecent sexual advances to.
3. to assault sexually.
So actually, yes, you did mention rape, because child molestation includes rape, and is used most frequently to describe child rape. Sexual Harrassment usually referes to minor things- no one calls rape sexual harrassment, for instance. When you call someone a child molester, however, you imply they are rapists.
Moral of the story: When people talk about child molesters they are usually talking about rapists. You might have your own 'special' definition, but it's not the one most people are using. So when you say 'child molesters aren't a big deal', 80-95% of people will interpret that as 'child raping isn't a big deal'. Don't blame me for 'misinterpreting you' or claiming that I'm some sort of extremist.
Also, if some kids gets groped by someone in a position of trust the school needs to fire him. If you groped an adult woman at work they'd fire you and you'd probably have a Sexual Harassment suit on your hands. You're right that making a big fuss about it is probably worse for the kid than firing the teacher and then ignoring it, but once the kid complains you can't say that it's normal and he should forget about it. (If the incident is minor enough, the teacher can be given a warning before firing.)
Welcome to the 21st century, where you can't grope the wenches or oppress the blacks without a lawsuit on your hands. If you've been fired and unemployed after groping some kid, I do have a little sympathy for you- you're like the poor guys who stole money from the till, got caught, and now no one will hire them. Oh, wait, those people were idiots who got what they deserved. My bad.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Not really, the action itself already excludes the possibility that he is a G-man with a conscience. If he was he'd respect the limits imposed on him by the law which he is supposed to uphold. You cannot serve the law by breaking it.
Not really, the action itself already excludes the possibility that he is a G-man with a conscience. If he was he'd respect the limits imposed on him by the law which he is supposed to uphold. You cannot serve the law by breaking it.
I never met a law which stopped a g-man.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Someone not working for the cops (and not a cop, of course) can gather admissible evidence during what would be, for the cops, an illegal search.
For instance, if I break into your house and see 100 marijuana plants, I can call the cops. They'll get a warrant and bust your ass. On the other hand, if a cop breaks into your house (without a warrant) and sees 100 marijuana plants, that evidence could never be used in court since it was discovered during an illegal search.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock