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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.
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
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
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
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}
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.
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 ]
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.
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
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.
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.
I couldn't agree more, I only rob banks which I'm fairly sure are using illegal accounting practices and I only rob old ladies houses where I'm sure they're harbouring some dirty secret.
Fair enough I'm also doing it for my own enjoyment but if at the end of day I rob 3000 old ladies and happen to find one who can be prosecuted for the crimes I've uncovered than I agree thats absolutely fair enough.
WHERE? I mean... that's terrible...
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
That seems a bit low. According to http://www.coolnurse.com/marriage_laws.htm , the minimum age (without parental consent) is at least 18 in all states. With parental consent does seem to be significantly lower, though many states seem to require court approval or similar for people under 16.
I wonder how common such young marriages are?
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."
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.
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.
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.
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?
It's not mentioned, but likely; was the judge running Windows?
Stephan
http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
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).
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
Because the minute the "Police" or "Government" hire someone or compensate or even endorse the action they become an agent of the government and so are then held to the 4th amendment. Until then the "someone" in question may be violating your civil rights etc. but they are NOT violating your 4th amendment rights nor could they.
The amendment applies to only the government; it does not guarantee to people the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures conducted by private citizens or organizations. More specifically, the Bill of Rights only restricts the power of the federal government
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.
A pedophile is caught and goes to jail? Good. A hacker violates the privacy of thousands of people, spies on them, and gets away as a hero? Bad. Compromising our rights to authority-supervised investigation and due process? Very bad. Getting dirty in the name of justice destroys the very freedoms you were trying to protect. I'm sorry, but 1 pedophile in jail is not worth waiving my right to privacy. There's no grey there, it's crystal clear. I don't accept your attempt to take the moral high ground.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Would Goetz had been found guilty if he had been a black man being menaced by a white gang? Think about it.
remember: this hacker only got access to a computer AFTER the target first sought out child porn
Or so he says.
Yet out of 3000 people's computers who he claims to control, he's only managed to find evidence on a handful of them? The numbers don't add up, unless the only child porn that the person ever sought to find was his trojan.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
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.
There are plenty of people in law enforcement who would love to throw out a lot of the rules. It's much easier to get things done when you can just go house to house and kick down doors to hunt for evidence. I don't particularly want to live in that world though. Privacy is essential to allowing us to be who we are without having to share every aspect of our lives with everybody else. Giving police the right to invade the privacy of anybody they want, anytime they want, without the evidence needed to get a warrant, would destroy privacy completely. Even if it doesn't get "abused" as you say, the simple act of allowing it at all is an abuse.
At least then they could be prosecuted for it. If they are powerful enough to be above the law, then that's an entirely different problem, and one that would probably have to be solved outside the law.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
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.