FBI Posts Fake Hyperlinks To Trap Downloaders of Illegal Porn

mytrip brings us a story from news.com about an FBI operation in which agents posted hyperlinks which advertised child pornography, recorded the IP addresses of people who clicked the links, and then tracked them down and raided their homes. The article contains a fairly detailed description of how the operation progressed, and it raises questions about the legality and reliability of getting people to click "unlawful" hyperlinks. Quoting: "With the logs revealing those allegedly incriminating IP addresses in hand, the FBI sent administrative subpoenas to the relevant Internet service provider to learn the identity of the person whose name was on the account--and then obtained search warrants for dawn raids. The search warrants authorized FBI agents to seize and remove any "computer-related" equipment, utility bills, telephone bills, any "addressed correspondence" sent through the U.S. mail, video gear, camera equipment, checkbooks, bank statements, and credit card statements. While it might seem that merely clicking on a link wouldn't be enough to justify a search warrant, courts have ruled otherwise. On March 6, U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt in Nevada agreed with a magistrate judge that the hyperlink-sting operation constituted sufficient probable cause to justify giving the FBI its search warrant."

Comments

I would have read the article before replying

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

But I was afraid to click the link!

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[lorenlal]

I clicked it... As soon as I did, my phone rang... I'm scared.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Wiseman1024]

4chan party van anyone?

Post JB, get people v& for taking the bait. An interesting scheme. Now the FBI is almost as bad as that which it fights. I would almost care, if I didn't think pedos deserve it.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Brian Gordon]

You should be scared- you can have all your thousands of dollars of computer equipment and hard drives seized indefinitely just because you clicked on a link. I'm wayyyyyyyyy more terrified of the FBI than of terrorists, and I'm no criminal.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Brian Gordon]

JB is not CP. Seeing as how half of 4channers are 15, jailbait-clickers are just interested in girls their age. Anyway, the FBI should be trying to take down the monsters who hurt these children instead of spending millions on prosecuting people who just copy files around the internet.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

JB is not CP Keep dreaming, buddy. Jailbait is just a nicer way of saying child pornography. Porn of anybody under 18 years old is CP.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[sdpuppy]

Good thing you didn't answer the phone - otherwise you would have heard a voice whisper:

seven days!

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[TommydCat]

If you have a child under the age of 18 click the link for you (or while you are away), is that still illegal?

Or rather without identifying the actual individual clicking the link, this seems like a fishing expedition without any reasonable restraint placed on the search (i.e. if the search warrant is for an elephant, the authorities have no cause to search through your underwear drawer or safe... Not that *I* would hide anything there...).

It seems this would cause quite an impact on a home-run business as well (such that I have in my spare time), when a third-party could have pasted the same link elsewhere without the identifying marks such as "CLIX HEAR 4 1LLEGUL PR0N!@#", such as the various goatse crap we see here. "Unsuspecting" is a viable defense -- and TFA mentions no one knows if they recorded the Referrer: header from the client in their logs...

Am I responsible for what authorities might find if they click this link on your computer? (BTW - when I hit submit the first time, my network connection went down for 10 minutes... Coincidence?)

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, 17 year olds are liek TOTALLY children.

Idiot

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to give a shout-out to all of the people on the "Stealing wireless has no victims" thread earlier today.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

Would I be giving the authorities "probable cause" to raid my home and seize my property, if I called this a draconian abuse of police powers, whose primary effect will be to destroy the lives of those who commit the sin of curiosity, while failing to protect a single child from actual abusers? A mere "accusation" of pedophilia is like accusing someone of being a witch. Even if they're innocent, they will never be truly exonerated, and their lives as they knew them are over.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Lemmy Caution]

The clicking of the link itself triggers a search warrant. The search warrant, in the case above, produced evidence that indicated that the suspect did, indeed, consume child porn. I would not like to see conviction based on a link-click, but as the basis for a search warrant, I'm not sure that's inappropriate.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Pichu0102]

Was the call coming from inside the house?

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[NeverVotedBush]

I wonder how many people don't realize the trouble they can get into if someone is piggybacking on their internet connection and doing illegal things.

You would hope that innocent people would eventually be found innocent after their computer(s) had been ransacked, copied, examined, etc., but there is also the chance that the logs alone would be deemed sufficient.

People need to understand what kind of liability they open themselves up to by not securing their wireless. Or they need to know that they had better keep excellent logs themselves in order to prove their own innocence, but then that can be turned against them as well if they don't monitor and police for illegal activity.

The best and easiest way to protect yourself is to lock it up.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[jollyreaper]

If you have a child under the age of 18 click the link for you (or while you are away), is that still illegal? I would assume so. The Feds managed to charge teenage girls with child porn offenses -- seems taking boobie flashes of underage teen girls is a crime whether you're a teen girl or not. So, take a picture of yourself in the mirror and you're a minor, you just porn-pwnd yourself.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[socz]

hmm, you know, this is a good example of why we should secure out networks. I personally run my network wide open, but have mac filters so only my devices can connect. But should i just completely conceal my network? DO I risk having my junk confiscated because of fake porn links pervs around me might click on if they got on my network? boo

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[brainchill]

These people are stupid right? I need a list of these links to sprinkle them as destinations for links that say that they are for catholic ministries so that anyone that is looking into becoming a priest can be raided and picked up early before they have a chance to hurt anyone ;) ... j/k

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Pichu0102]

Even worse, when malware makes owned computers hit the URLs, the FBI now has cause to permanently confiscate millions of dollars worth of equipment due to boxes getting pwned.

I may be thinking in a paranoid manner, but what's to stop someone from doing this just to cause an economic issue due to many, many people losing their equipment and having to repurchase it?

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[HappySmileMan]

JB is generally girls around 15-17 years old, whereas CP is younger than that, maybe they're both the same thing in the eyes of a court, but jailbait usually doesn't involve any exploitation of minors, since many girls that age are just attention whores anyway and would willing make those pictures, and many of the people who look at them would be the same age as the girls(/boys?) involved.

Of course the FBI links according to TFA were supposedly of 4 year olds, so debating the morality of jailbait has no place in this thread.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether one dialed into a bulliten board of bygone days or clicked on a current internet link, people refuse to believe that every keystoke is recorded and may be used against them in a Court of Civil or Criminal proceedings. One reason, of course, is that anyone that is young, relative term, thinks they won't get caught and anyone old, relative term, are amazed they weren't caught, the last time they drove drunk, drove over the speed limit, or committed any other illegal activity online or offline!

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how many people don't realize the trouble they can get into if someone is piggybacking on their internet connection and doing illegal things.

You would hope that innocent people would eventually be found innocent after their computer(s) had been ransacked, copied, examined, etc., but there is also the chance that the logs alone would be deemed sufficient.
  I piggy back all the time when bittorrenting!
Serves people right for no securing their connections

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[MightyYar]

I would not like to see conviction based on a link-click, but as the basis for a search warrant, I'm not sure that's inappropriate. Maybe, but they convicted him on two charges: clicking the illegal hyperlink and possession of child pornography.

The "illegal hyperlink" was not in fact illegal - it was a harmless trap full of junk content. They didn't convict him because they found illegal browsing history on his computer - they convicted him because he clicked on their fake file.

The "child pornography" was a single thumbs.db file. You know, the low-res file with all the thumbnail pictures that XP makes for you automatically? At any time in the past, he could have accidentally downloaded pictures (from say a P2P program), deleted them without even viewing them. I find it hard to believe that he could be so good at covering his tracks, but he'd keep a single thumbs.db file around by accident.

At the very least, the first count should be overturned. I'm going to have to look at my pictures pretty closely and delete stuff - I know that I've accidentally downloaded some pretty fucked up stuff from usenet and P2P.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Dan541]

I piggy back all the time when bittorrenting!
Serves people right for no securing their connections Thats pretty harsh not everyone knows how to
secure their connection in fact most people know very little about security.

I don't think an IP address should ever be grounds for accusation its not like my IP address identifies my computer it only goes to my router there are many other computers and users behind it.

~Dan

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[True Vox]

*plays theme song for Security Now!*

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[visigoth]

but there is also the chance that the logs alone would be deemed sufficient. That the courts deem clicking a "clearly illegal link" is sufficient for a search warrant suggests we're already down that slippery slope where the logs alone, reflecting the IP address mapped to the hijacked network, would be enough for significant harrasment, let alone indictment.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Dan541]

No I'm just pointing out not everyone is educated you prove that yourself.

~Dan

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

It's even worse for you, buddy, because either:

1. You don't keep logs. Good luck getting anyone to believe it wasn't you.
2. Or you keep logs and they show 'your' MAC address.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[armada]

So in order to totall screw someone all you have to do is get on their box, phisically or by cracking and download some kiddy porn. Then drop a dime on them (just in case you did not click on the honey pot) and voila! Instant conviction. Yes. some men have been convicted of child port violations with zero evidence above the files in their cache.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[jamstar7]

The clicking of the link itself triggers a search warrant. The search warrant, in the case above, produced evidence that indicated that the suspect did, indeed, consume child porn. I would not like to see conviction based on a link-click, but as the basis for a search warrant, I'm not sure that's inappropriate.

A search warrant needs the signature of a judge, and an oath by the officer involved as to the necessity of the warrant, what he's looking for, etc. This is an administrative subpoena, just needs the signature of the FBI agent needing to serve it.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[jamstar7]

Look at it from the viewpoint of the police.

If you're clicking on the links, you're a pervert who needs to be locked away to keep Society safe from you. The more people they put behind bars, the 'safer' Society will be.

Besides, putting more people behind bars in the US feeds the prison industrial complex.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[cheater512]

Thats like leaving your house unlocked because you dont know what a lock is.

Sheer stupidity. The people who raided your house arent in the right but it was 100% caused by the owner of the house.

The manuals which come with wireless routers have plenty of instructions.
Stupidity isnt a valid defense.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[cheater512]

If I found out about the url and I had a bot net then I'd do it deliberately.

Heads would roll when they figured out that all the clicks they got were fake and they had siezed thousands of innocent people's stuff.
The courts would also think twice about approving stuff like this.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[b4upoo]

This type of warrant is bitterly unfair and dangerous. In all my years surfing the net I have only stumbled upon one picture of a child in a pornographic situation. That was simply because I do not speak German and I was randomly typing in web addresses just snooping around. I had no idea I was headed for a sex site much less one that displayed a child.
                      It is time to reign in our government and put a stop to these perpetual witch hunts.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Brian Gordon]

Exactly. MAC addresses on the network are broadcast to the world.. if you have no network traffic whatsover they can always wait for ARP to make its rounds. An attacker can easily assume your MAC address and use your internet, and then your logs show that _YOUR_ MAC address was doing all that.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Sir_Lewk]

You should never rely on mac filtering to keep other people off your network. MAC address spoofing is incredibly trivial, especially since without any sort of encryption your MAC address is being transmitted in plain text for anyone to read.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

People who can't even manage encryption are supposed to run a dedicated server to receive and store logs from their low-memory routers?

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Kreigaffe]

Mod this guy up -- this is EXACTLY what needs to be done.

Somebody needs to man up and crapflood the fuck out of the FBI. This is completely unacceptable practice.

Sure, they mislabel the link to deceive people to click on it who only want to see CP... raise your hand if you have or have ever seen someone click on a goatse or tubgirl or lemonparty after being TOLD not to click on it.

This sort of shit is RIPE for abuse, and WILL be abused, and until it is OVERabused will CONTINUE to be abused. It's just like any other bug in any other MMO, really. :P

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[RobertM1968]

Makes me scared of having "Link Prefetch" enabled in Firefox...

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[baeksu]

Mac filters won't do much good, as anyone running a network sniffer will be able to see the mac addresses of your AP and clients and emulate them with software macs.

Also, hiding your SSID won't protect you either, as it is also completely visible through a sniffer.

Best way is to use encryption, WPA with a pre-shared key if possible.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[baeksu]

Well, back when I was a PFY, nude pictures of me would definitely not have been classified as sexual in nature.

Of course, nowadays I'm oozing sexual appeal, at least that's what I tell me wife.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Dan541]

Thats a good point.

However having a lock doesn't mean you wont be broken into what if someone inadvertently causes a vulnerability in the system? Users are still the most common security threat to any system.

~Dan

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[iminplaya]

...this is a good example of why we should secure out networks.

Yeah, From the FBI, considering how many false accusations can and probably will arise from this.

Let's see...
1) FBI installs root kit
2) Remotely links machine to porn
3) "Profit"!

Don't put it past 'em!

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

I think fbi is a pretty cool guy, eh protects us from cp and doesn't afraid of anything.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Reziac]

I had similar thoughts after R'ing TFA and noting the "criminalize theft of wireless" story... I foresee that the FBI's *next* sting will be to leave a wireless access point open to the world, then arrest anyone who takes advantage of it, however innocently.

As to clicking a hyperlink being intent to download -- aside from the thoughtcrime aspect of such laws, I know plenty of inexperienced computer users who haven't yet learned not to click random links, and who would be easily ensnared by the FBI's scam, even tho these people have absolutely no interest in porn (kiddie or otherwise).

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[socz]

well thanks for the heads up guys. I know you can spoof mac addresses, but i didn't think most people around would be able to (at least where i live). My problem, as you can see (GhettoBSD), is i deal with junk. The only thing i have wired to my router is my bsd box because i'm too lazy to find a wireless card that works with BSD. So i have 2 laptops, a pc, and 3 other wireless devices that have to connect to the router right. The problem is, just with the computers they don't all want to share the same security. WEP, WPA with or without shared keys, its a problem. Once the security is in place only some can connect. Its a real pain, thats why i resorted to mac filters :P

Maybe i should stop using junk i find laying around and buy some decent hardware eh? What would you guys recommend?

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[tmosley]

Two wrongs by the government don't make you right.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

You should be scared to click any link. Remeber goatse anyone?

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[deceased comrade]

And thats why we live in a police state.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[megaditto]

And how long before some smartass comes finds a 127.0.0.1 in such log. Imagine the breadth of that subpoena...

I started this as a joke, but I am scared now.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[FearForWings]

I've been running a simple MAC filter for a long time, mainly because my older router doesn't seem to do WPA or WEP well. Living in a somewhat rural area, I haven't been concerned enough about the insecurity of the MAC filter to justify the expense of a router upgrade, but shit like this makes spending ~$60, on my broke college budge, a no brainier.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[rrohbeck]

Yes, 17 year olds are liek TOTALLY children. And legal in many (most?) parts of the world.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[rrohbeck]

So in order to totall screw someone all you have to do is get on their box, phisically or by cracking and download some kiddy porn. Then drop a dime on them (just in case you did not click on the honey pot) and voila! Instant conviction. Yes. some men have been convicted of child port violations with zero evidence above the files in their cache. Now combine this with some good phishing techniques and think of all the people you really don't like.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[holophrastic]

No, this is a good example of why you should secure your government from terrorizing your own residents. You're very quickly developing a country that no sane foreigner would want to visit. Look at it this way, you at least have friends, lawyers, and a home. Tourists don't. Please notice that I didn't say you have more rights than tourists -- you should, but I think that's a thing of the past.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

Some group of people at the Justice Department needs to get prosecuted for this shitball stunt.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[DMUTPeregrine]

And all the people with link prefetching (like myself) turned on just "clicked" that link from the point of view of the FBI.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[i_b_don]

You know... i hate this mentality. I *like* people who leave their wireless routers open. I think they're friendly and good-neighborly and i think this attitude screws that all to hell. IANAL, but to the best of my legal knowledge you have almost no liability over someone else using your wireless *despite* what the RIAA says. Remember, they sue you becuase your IP address is being used, but if they don't find any corroborating evidence on your computer that you've violated copyright then they have nothing.

The more you *bow* to the government and let them change your behavior even when what you're doing is not illegal, the more power you give them. I don't know how we let things get to this state in our country when it comes to wireless access.

I *want* people to leave their wireless access open, and I *don't* want people to feel that even though they're not doing something illegal they have to change their behavior because the police or other government folks are trying to push us into line.

Why is it that YOU guys, you /.'ers don't seem to feel the same way???

d

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[networkBoy]

Proof of concept I did to show someone that they were not safe with your method:
sniff, get MAC addy
wait for no traffic on WAP for ~10 min
automated crawler starts (could be anything though)
if it detects competition for the MAC it halts the crawler, sleeps 10 min, listens for traffic.
wash rinse repeat. You'd not even know someone was hijacking your connection as you'd chalk up the initial delays (while there was address contention) to re-connecting seeing as once you "connected" your speeds were normal.

-nB

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[chaboud]

Thats like leaving your house unlocked because you dont know what a lock is. Except you wouldn't be responsible for wire fraud if someone walked into your house and used your un-password-protected computer.

If they clicked on one of these links, though, you'd go straight to jail.

Anyone blaming any party other than the government for this disgusting demonstration of the concept of the slippery slope is an idiot.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[cheater512]

Unsecured access points can be used accidentally or just for convenience.
A encrypted one requires specific effort to break in to.

My analogy covers that.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to give a shout-out to all of the people on the "Stealing wireless has no victims" thread earlier today. I'd like to give a shout out to the founding fathers and the principles of freedom they espoused.

Too bad the FBI has perverted those principles in this witchhunt and too bad people like you seem to think the problem lies elsewhere.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[dwater]

i am in china and so out of the juristiction of the fbi, so i was able to rtfa without much fear of retribution.

So,fyi, the tfa says that the fbi link was advertising images of a 4 year old, and so it would seem that it falls squarely under the definition of cp.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[tsjaikdus]

70% of all computer users search for and download porn (if I understand the article, see below). You should think of the FBI to be somewhat like an easter egg. When you've found it, the doorbell rings.

article ->

Nu.nl December 6, 2005 (translated to English)

Approximately 70 percent of all computers used contain pornographic material on hard disks and memory cards. Most users who want to sell their computers, do not delete their files. This was found by the datarecovery company Diskslabs based on its own research.

The company bought a thousand second hand computers and fifty memory cards on the Internet. Not only a lot of porn was found, the files often contained bank and credit card details, resumes and other personal information.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[bdraschk]

Trusted Source (www.trustedsource.org) considers that link:

Web Reputation
Reputation: Neutral
SmartFilter Category: Internet Services

I have submitted that URL for Criminal Activities and Government/Military. Sadly, there's no category for Criminal Government Activities.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[1u3hr]

I wonder how many people don't realize the trouble they can get into if someone is piggybacking on their internet connection and doing illegal things.

Me for one. I don't "realize" it because it has never "really" happened. For at least five years this has been the bogeyman of the wifi security debate. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge, despite all the tens of millions of unsecured wifi access points, NO ONE HAS BEEN ARRESTED FOR DOWNLOADING PORN BECAUSE OF THIS. Maybe people interested in kiddie porn and with the technical ability (minimal) to "steal" wifi are smart enough to work out safer ways than cruising around using a laptop in public. Or maybe the cops really aren't as stupid as they're painted. I'm pretty sure we would have heard about it if it had happened. This is about as "real" a threat as the liquid bombs the TFA gets their undies in a bunch about. Theoretical, never happened in real life, a waste of everyone's time.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[1u3hr]

hmm, you know, this is a good example of why we should secure out networks. I personally run my network wide open, but have mac filters so only my devices can connect. But should i just completely conceal my network?

MAC addresses can easily be spoofed, use WPA passwords and you'll be pretty safe. And you can't "conceal" your network unless you turn it off. If it's usable by you, it's detectable. (I hope you're not talking about hiding SSIDs. That is just fooling yourself.)

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[mxs]

People need to understand what kind of liability they open themselves up to by not securing their wireless. Or they need to know that they had better keep excellent logs themselves in order to prove their own innocence, but then that can be turned against them as well if they don't monitor and police for illegal activity.

The best and easiest way to protect yourself is to lock it up. There are two schools of thought on this. I subscribe to your point of view, but can easily see decent reasons for keeping your network open, as well -- namely plausible deniability. If you actually WERE to want to break the law, having an open and accessible access point could help you plausibly deny any involvement -- and the burden of proof is not on you.

This same way of thinking applies to passwords in the office, especially if you are dealing with corruption and under-the-table transactions. Let's say Sally is the CFO of a company, but everybody knows Sally's password (let's say it's "godlysex"). For everybody testifying under oath that they knew the password and could plausibly have accessed Sally's account with it, the defense weakens the case of the prosecution (since plausibly, Sally had no knowledge of the corruption-related transactions being done through her account).

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[tacocat]

I clicked the Reply to This related to your storey. I wonder if I will be investigated by the FBI because the views you express are inconsistent with the views of the Republican message.

We are fast approaching an era where the internet is being used against us here to the same effect that we read about Chinese Socialist government using information to control their subjects. If I click a link, without knowing the contents, I can be given just cause for search and seizure. Contract this with the current laws and what happens when you hit a drug house.

12 agents bust into a known drug house and find seven guys sitting around a couple rooms, some under the influence of something and all of them withing plain view of a variety of illegal contraband. What do they tell the agents? "I just stopped by to use the phone." Agents can't really do anything. No one claims to have intentionally and purposefully entered the house.

But on the internet if I hit a link that takes me to an illegal site I can't claim the same type of reasoning.

Now before you start identifying the differences between drug houses and kiddie porn links let me ask you this: How difficult is it really to identify a drug house in real life? How does this differ from someones ability to identify a kiddie porn link? I don't think the honey pot links are going to look like links to BBC news stories or slashdot stories. At least I would hope they aren't that obscure -- but it still leaves you in a more risky environment than walking down a row of houses, two of which are drug houses and the rest not.

But the difference in how these laws operate are evidence of what is happening with the legal system in our modern era. These drug houses are well protected under legal structures where someone has to be clearly culpable for a crime. Thanks to the 60's and 70's for this one. Internet crimes have not been refined to such a point where there is any protection for the potential criminals.

Add to this the fact that I know people from my work are now reading my blog entries online and I'm at the point where the internet is turning into a real piece of crap for all but a very few uses.

Of course, we all know that if I really wanted to do something illegal I would turn off my cell phone, because they are used to track you without a warrant, and do it in the real world and stay the hell off the internet or go to Russia and do it there.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[mithras invictus]

If visitors don't have the decency to respect the law, i will have no problem cooperating with an investigation.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[MSZ]

Surely. Heads of the poor suckers done in by the bots would roll while FBI agents would get a raise for uncovering "nationwide criminal ring".

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[SL Baur]

Kind of sad in a way. We used to do this sort of thing for fun.

I used to have a web page with a link that read "click on this to see the picture of a hot naked 10 year old female", which of course led to a digital photo of the female family dog.

Sigh. Gone are the days.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

And people thought "Rick Rolling" or goat.se is evil, now you've got to worry about this kind of B.S.?

Clicking on a hyperlink should _NOT_ constitute sufficient evidence of intent. As misleading links have been around as long as script kiddies, phishers, and anonymous try to get their lols, scams, or lulz on. Which makes me wonder - anybody got a good idea of how to beat some sense into judges and the legislature with a clue stick?

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[ByteGuerrilla]

I don't know what the entry in about:config is in Firefox, but if it's network.prefetch-next then the default value seems to be true.

The Feds are gonna be getting a hell of a lot of false positives.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

Link prefetching does not randomly load any link it finds, the links need to be tagged accordingly, or nothing will happen. See the Mozilla link prefetching FAQ for more info. Unless the FBI people were complete idiots or wanted to massively inflate the number of child porn suspects (considering the german case of over twelve thousand child porn "suspects" to drum up popular support for new, "urgently needed" surveillance laws, the latter is not too unlikely), they probably didn't make use of this feature. It could however be abused to send the FBI to you,

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[smack.addict]

You people are so insanely focused on privacy rights that you can't see there is no violation here.

IF you are surfing forums known to contain child pornography....
AND
IF you click on a link suggesting that behind the link is child pornography...
THEN I think there is probable cause to believe you are filthy scum and should be investigated further.

Could it be someone else was using your computer? Absolutely.
Could it be that you accidently ended up in the forum and pre-fetched the links? Absolutely not. You were browsing the forum.

But there is definitely probable cause. And if they find child porn in your house, you should be locked in jail for a very, very, very long time.
And if they don't find any child porn and there is any reason to believe someone else used your wireless/someone else used your computer/..., they should apologize and move on.

We aren't talking about some fuzzy borderline situation where an accidental click and prefetching could have done him in. We are talking about a guy who:
a) Was surfing a forum with child porn
b) Clicked on links to download child porn
c) Had child porn on his computer
d) Tried to destroy his hard drives and USB drives before the FBI could get to them.

This guy was obviously surfing for child porn and should be in jail a lot longer than he is likely to be in jail.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[discogravy]

You might be right. And a judge in a federal court might one day agree with you, if the issue ever comes up. But if you're the person in the hotseat, everyone who hears about it will assume you're a pervert downloading child porn (and if you've got legal porn on your computer, do you need to keep the 2257 info? I don't know) and all your equipment is going to be in the government's hands before, during and likely a long time after the trial. And you'll have to prove that you did not download the kiddie porn even if it did come from your IP. Because in the spirit of being a good neighbor, you left your wireless open.

It's a risk a lot of people won't take, and I don't think you can fault them for it.

Big Brother's bigger than you, and you might be right, but that won't stop you from being fucked just the same.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[DavidTC]

Unless they're using Fasterfox, or any of the dozen commercial 'accelerators' that do prefetching on all links, not just the ones marked. (Which incidentally is a slight abuse of the internet, but obviously not one that should result in jail time.)

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee, thanks Firefox for making me look like a pedo... what's next? Automatically installing Freenet and setting my homepage to 12chan?

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Paul Jakma]

If you read the article, you'll see they quote the court records which show that the search warrant was issued solely on the basis of the man's IP address appearing in the logs of the FBIs HTTP server, doing a GET of the links. As per the article, the FBI did /not/ record the referrer, so there is absolutely no indication the links were followed from the forum. They then found a thumb nail image of naked children on his hard drive..

It seems like this action will predominantly catch people who were specifically looking for child pornography and so searches will therefore find other material. However it is very disturbing that a HTTP GET can result in all your computers, much of your electronic gadgets and all your correspondence being impounded indefinitely. It sounds like it's way too easy for, inevitably, at least few innocent people to be massively inconvienced (potentially maliciously by 3rd parties).

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[TheRaven64]

Don't flood it. Just produce two or three clicks per day from the botnet. Ideally from machines owned by politicians, if you can narrow it down that well. If they start getting thousands of hits, they will know something is wrong. Let them wrongly arrest a few hundred people and heads will roll.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Tony Hoyle]

Plus any of the firefox plugins that do prefetch would have triggered it. Being convicted because your *browser* clicked on a link - now that's novel, even for the US!

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Tony Hoyle]

then arrest anyone who takes advantage of it, however innocently.

Walk past target area with iphone.. iphone decides to check mail... you go to jail?

Scarily enough I can imagine them doing it.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[StormReaver]

"Remember, they sue you becuase your IP address is being used, but if they don't find any corroborating evidence on your computer that you've violated copyright then they have nothing."

I'm sure that will be of great consolation to you as you work for the rest of your life to pay the legal fees you have no chance of settling in six life times. Being not guilty doesn't keep your life from being ruined by the process of proving it.

"Why is it that YOU guys, you /.'ers don't seem to feel the same way???"

Because there are too many ways that unscrupulous people can use my generosity against me, and there are too many unscrupulous people to afford taking the chance.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[rtb61]

Of course when it comes to the ultimate link fetcher, google, I wonder whether the FBI raided them.

Personally because of the looseness of the whole internet, including ISPs recorded fro activities at specific times, the number of infected machines, IP spoofing etc. the recording of a data request from at IP address to another IP address is not really sufficiently valid for a destructive and life threatening raid.

Careful consideration needs to be made for the risks, ramifications and the damages caused by a raid and whether that record is really sufficient seeing that it can be so readily faked and an innocent party can suffer the repercussions.

The raid is an life threatening event (many innocent people have in fact died during raids), actual property damage can and does occur, confiscation of electronic equipment often for an indeterminate time also represents a significant burden especially as a lot of individuals are reliant upon the machines for business purposes, so the burden of proof should be sufficient to justify the harm caused.

There are a lot of people out there who think it would be hilarious to find that FBI address and hide it all over there internet camouflaged and try to get it clicked as often as possible, both to waste the FBI time as well as make strangers and sometimes known enemies suffer.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[armada]

Every single point you made can be done by someone else at your computer. Someone else on your wifi. Someone elses trojan on your computer. That is our point. Not that masturbating to images of little kids is good for the soul

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have provided the link description so people who didn't RTFA could stop w/ the knee jerk reaction of "ZOMG! TEH FBI is after my scene girl, cam whore, JB folders!!!1!!"

The link to the file in question was:
4yo.suck
Description was:
"...4yo hc with dad (toddler, some oral, some anal)..."

So people who clicked on that link I'm happy they got Vanned. Still agree though that the FBI should have made sure the hits were coming from *that* website and not any other source with a different file description.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[mikael]

That happened two years ago:

Man charged with stealing Wi-Fi signal
Beware the wardriving menace

As reported by the St. Petersburg Times, Benjamin Smith III was recently arrested in Florida for "hacking into" an open WiFi network. According to the newspaper report, Richard Dinon, a St. Petersburg resident, saw an SUV parked outside his home, with its driver "furtively hunched over his computer," and called the cops. Smith was charged with unauthorized access to a computer network, a felony.Benjamin Smith III, 41, faces a pretrial hearing this month following his April arrest on charges of unauthorized access to a computer network, a third-degree felony.

London Man Arrested for 'Stealing' Wi-Fi

Police officers in London arrested a 39-year-old man using his laptop to access someone else's wireless Internet connection on Tuesday.
His actions could potentially breach the Computer Misuse Act and the Communications Act, according to a Metropolitan Police Service statement. A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police confirmed the arrest on Thursday.

U.K. man arrested, fined for using open WiFi signal

Gregory Straszkiewicz, 24, was found guilty of "dishonestly obtaining an electronic communications service" and "possessing equipment for fraudulent use of a communications service" after he was found logging on with a laptop outside an apartment building. Straszkiewicz was fined £500 ($872) and given a year's probation; he also had his laptop confiscated.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Peter Mork]

I'm with you d. And to "pay it forward" (or whatever that meme is), my WAP is wide open. Feel free to visit Rockville and, if you're in the neighborhood, borrow some bandwidth (the SSID is Caetarn). Now, if my logs show that you're traffic is getting in my way, I may disconnect you, but that has yet to happen. Keeping this on topic, I don't care what you do with this shared bandwidth (even if it's illegal). I refuse to buckle just because big brother might be watching me not watching you. If BB doesn't like my attitude, it can kiss my shiny metallic router!

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[smack.addict]

Yes, it could be.

Probable cause does not require "beyond a reasonable doubt". Probable cause means, "Do I have reason to believe that this person committed a crime?"

In this case, it is definitely yes.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[elrous0]

That's actually why I got rid of my wifi router. I actually left it open at one time, thinking "why not share the bandwidth with my neighbor when I'm not using it?". Then it occurred to me one day that a wardriver or my neighbor could be using this to download anything (and the FBI would come knocking on MY door). So I went back to a wired setup.

Now, think of all the people out there who have open or poorly-secured wifi and/or botted computers and it's easy to see just how many innocent people could get caught up in these sort of raids.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[armada]

Once again. There are people that have been convicted of child pornography with ZERO evidence beyond the files on their computer. I'm not sure I can make it any clearer than that. I'm not talking about the raid, although I believe this will end up as entrapment. (maybe not now after the abolition of our bill of rights).

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Verteiron]

Bear in mind that if you get raided, you will lose all of your computer equipment and everything that can connect to the internet. This includes your Wii, XBox, PS3, as well as digital cameras, PDAs, cell phones, and of course your desktops and laptops. In other words, all the stuff that "we /.'ers" live our lives with. And even if you're not found guilty, your name will be in the paper in connection with the words "child pornography", because the news media (particularly local media) eats this stuff up with a spoon. Regardless of the verdict, people will know your name as the "guy who got raided for child porn". Good luck finding work again. Also, regardless of verdict, many people who have their stuff confiscated never get their equipment back. Most likely your shiny new laptop will end up in the police chief's son's bedroom.

That's quite a risk to take, just to run an open wireless network. If you want to take it, that's fine, but THIS /.er sure isn't going to. You don't have to bow to the government, but it can still make you bend over and grab your ankles.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[russotto]

Heads would roll when they figured out that all the clicks they got were fake and they had siezed thousands of innocent people's stuff.
The courts would also think twice about approving stuff like this.

No, they wouldn't. And again, no, they wouldn't. We've already gone too far down the path of authoritarianism. In fact, most of the people raided would probably agree that the FBI did nothing wrong.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[binaryspiral]

But I was afraid to click the link!

That's okay, your Google Web Accelerator followed the link and cached the content for you on your PC, automatically. Wasn't that nice?

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[William-Ely]

I recently bought a Linksys router and was pleasantly surprised to find that it had encryption enabled by default out of the box. I'm sure other manufacturers do the same thing. Hopefully the piggy-backing issue will fade away along with the old hardware.

I have a feeling that a lot of consumers will upgrade once 802.11n devices move into the main stream (since the guys at (insert name of store you hate most here) will tell them it will make their internet faster/more secure/whatever) and/or ISP's start using IPv6.

I don't think an IP address should ever be grounds for accusation its not like my IP address identifies my computer it only goes to my router there are many other computers and users behind it.

I agree. The problem is that some people (like the person I bought the router for) still think it's OK to directly connect to the internet without a firewall because they don't know any better. When I told this person that not having a firewall was like forcing your computer have unprotected sex with millions of other computers the person agreed to get one ASAP. Maybe routers should be called internet condoms.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

So according to you criminals should be allowed to get away with crime?

People who run routers really need to start taking responsibility
Do what the ISPs do and keep time stamped logs or face the consequences. This is the same ridiculous mentality that says "Oh, well, he left the keys in the car, so I wasn't really /wrong/ in stealing it". C'mon. Grow up. Just because someone makes an assumption that his community is trustworthy does not make it right to blame the victim when it turns out that he's wrong.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Nukenbar]

I just want to be clear on what you are suggesting. You want to implicate innocent people who just happen to own an infected computer? That may be one of the most immoral things I have ever heard. If you were so noble with your goals, I think that you would click the link with your own computer and fight with the feds yourself.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Methlin]

Good thing FasterFox in any of it modes doesn't enable pre-fetch unless you manually check that box.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

Free drugs, prostitutes and weapons, Click Here!

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

Having been a 17 year old and now a 57 year old, I have to agree. 17 year olda are "liek TOTALLY children." Like children they still do not TOTALLY grasp the consequences of their actions.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[kalirion]

Still agree though that the FBI should have made sure the hits were coming from *that* website and not any other source with a different file description.

I can see it now, thousands of FBI agents descending on Mircrosoft, Google and Yahoo for spidering those urls.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[kalirion]

I would almost care, if I didn't think pedos deserve it.

Let's get something straight. Being a pedo isn't a crime, it's a condition. Acting on those pedo urges is a crime.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[operagost]

i am in china and so out of the juristiction of the fbi, so i was able to rtfa without much fear of retribution.

Caution: irony overload!

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Psmylie]

This is slashdot. It's not like we're not familiar with people posting a link and pretending it goes to something neat/funny/interesting or whatever, and it turns out to be something horrible instead. Only, in this case, the prankster could end up getting people raided by the FBI, instead of staring at some guy's gaping ass.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[markana]

Consider it the newest version of "swatting"...

How hard would it be for some botnet manager to monitor the appropriate IRC channels, record the links posted, and command the zombies to fetch those URLs? Doesn't have to do anything with the data - just a simple GET.

One of 2 things could happen:

- Instantly, the honeypot server gets /.'d, and the FBI gets a million IP addresses to sift through.

- A bunch of innocent people are scared to death by dawn raids, and lose all of their electronic equipment and records. Even if they aren't convicted, they'll never get their stuff or lives back.

It's only a matter of time....

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[SCHecklerX]

As another poster already wrote, JB != CP.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

Put this on a web page:

<img src="http://illegal.link.fbi.gov/illegalurl.html">

and watch people get 5 to 20 in Federal prison because they visit your page which makes them visit the illegal link.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[markana]

The fetching of the link triggers a raid and seizure of equipment and records. So what if the subsequent search reveals nothing - do you honestly think that the innocent party is going to get their stuff back anytime in this century? That's not the track record of law enforcement to date - they'll hang on to everything for years.

And that doesn't even *begin* to address the damage to their reputation that's bound to occur. Accusations are front-page news - retractions are buried in the back.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Sylver Dragon]

There are a lot of people out there who think it would be hilarious to find that FBI address and hide it all over there internet camouflaged and try to get it clicked as often as possible, both to waste the FBI time as well as make strangers and sometimes known enemies suffer.

I wouldn't call it hilarious, but I think if we could reach a point where there was a sufficient number of rich false positives, we might just get this stupidity shut down. While I agree with locking up pedos who go after 4 year olds; with the damage it does to someone's life to just be accused of such a thing, I think we need to be really careful about who we tar and feather.

If nothing else, just getting people to wardrive around affluent neighborhoods and have some sort of spider which starts off at known pedo sites and follows links for a few minutes might be a good start. If we can get a few judges and politicians nailed with this stupidity, even better.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[NeverVotedBush]

I have no clue if it has happened before or not and I really don't care. I have my wireless locked down. I see that as extremely cheap insurance (i.e. free since mine came with it as all sold now do) to prevent me from having to worry about the many bad thing (TM) possibilities there are out there. I won't get equipment confiscated, I won't have legal fees, and I won't be falsely known as a child pornographer or whatever.

I have heard of issues with the RIAA accusing people with open routers, though, so I think there is some precedence. And with the way this government is monitoring everything, building connectivity maps, and trying to build links between people using any means possible, I think I will simply eliminate some person who has ill intent from piggybacking and somehow implicating me.

I just don't need or want the hassle and, as I said, it is simple and free to virtually eliminate the possibility.

If I was to run an open router, and let all sorts of any anonymous soul use it for whatever their intent - legal or not, I doubt seriously if even one of them would either give themselves up if I were accused of their actions, or help to cover the cost in real dollars that such an incident would cost.

You go right ahead and do the altruistic thing, and while you're at it, open yourself to huge legal and financial burdens. Me? I'll keep my wireless encrypted and closed.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of the problem is, they're not looking for false positives. The professor in the article looked at the link but didn't try to load the pictures. He's a creepy bastard for looking but they didn't give a crap that he has wireless and any neighbor could've looked. There were 12 nearby houses that the FBI itself said could've looked but he's still convicted. He had no CP on his computer.

So basically, "false positive" still equals dawn raid by the FBI

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Hatta]

Unless the FBI people were complete idiots

So almost certainly.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

This is just like with physical items.

Someone in Florida was facing the death penalty because he let someone borrow his car.

He was lucky though, he is now currently only serving life without the possibility of parole.

He didn't know the car would be used in a murder.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[NeverVotedBush]

I have to admit that you are correct for the cases where someone wants to have some way to deny their own illegal activity.

As boring as it may seem, however, I don't have any illegal activity to conceal and therefore do not need the background noise and plausible deniability.

The down side to anyone who follows this tactic of plausible deniability is that they better be sure to hide any evidence on their own computer since it will no doubt be examined closely.

One other issue is that anyone doing illegal things and leaving their wireless open so they can have plausible deniability also ought to realize that someone piggybacking and doing blatantly illegal things or things that would bring the wrath and investigative powers of the FBI, NSA, or other very real agencies, might get caught up in the investigation to find their piggybacker.

Meanwhile, the piggybacker is long gone and your equipment is being hauled off for examination and you are being hauled off for questioning.

Unlikely? Sure. Possible? Yes.

The last thing I would want if I were doing illegal things was someone else drawing attention to me.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Doctor Faustus]

As another poster already wrote, JB != CP.
As far as ethics and taste go, no, they aren't the same. I don't think there's any legal distinction, though.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA. It's not entrapment. That got covered. The gub'mint didn't make him click the link at gunpoint which is basically the only way the entrapment defense works. Entrapment defense is as reliable as unicorns.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[NeverVotedBush]

I agree but this is not unlike the above discussion of securing wireless. If people don't do due diligence to protect their own computers, they are opening themselves up to having them misused. There have been rumblings about holding people liable for the evil deeds of their botnet-controlled computers.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[1u3hr]

I have no clue if it has happened before or not and I really don't care

Good. Keep that tinfoil cap on tight.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Reziac]

Sometimes it's obvious that the person's intent was to illicitly piggyback someone else's connection. Parking out front of a building and having at it makes it kinda obvious.

But sometimes it's not so cut and dried: One night at the PC user grope meeting, we were trying to find a signal from one of the free municipal wireless points, but since most of the signals in range had no names attached, we had no idea whether we were touching the city transit bus (the one we were looking for), the nearby public library, some small business' leaky access point, or some random homeowner's signal.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[merreborn]

It's worth noting that firefox only prefetches or urls. It does *not* prefetch anchor tags (), ever. It would be possible for a malicious user to embed a , but hopefully it'd be pretty easy to demonstrate in court that you never clicked a link at all. Note, this sort of prefetching is on by *default* in firefox.

However, the FasterFox extension *does* prefetch anchor tags. *All* anchor tags. I discovered this yesterday when someone visited a single page on a site I maintain yesterday. The guy viewed one page; FasterFox triggered an additional 40 requests which were never viewed. FasterFox sucks.

In all cases, however, an additional header is sent, identifying your request as a prefetch. Also, only HTML is prefetched. Images are not.

Of course, it's possible to embed images inline in firefox, using <img src="data:image/gif;base64,[Some base64 crap here]">... ...So yeah, you could actually construct a page, right now, that would silently cause default firefox installations to prefetch illegal images. But it'd be a really contrived attack, easily distinguishable from actual browsing.

Well, actually, conceivably, you could disguise illegal browsing as prefetching, in some circumstances.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[1u3hr]

This is just like with physical item

No, it is not. And every analogy that starts with that premise is worthless.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[dgatwood]

By that logic, most 22-year-olds are like children, too. You have to draw a line somewhere. The U.S. just draws it differently than most of the rest of the world... which is odd, but not really that significant as long as it doesn't result in bad enforcement actions with kids (maturity-wise) getting arrested for their activities with each other.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Lemmy Caution]

As long as it is possible to become a suspect at all, this is a scenario. Yes, it is possible to be innocent and to become a suspect, and the seizure of property is a big hassle. There should be better guidelines for the return of equipment, whatever the possible crime, whether it is child pornography, embezzlement, terrorism, or what have you.

But is it really unreasonable to think that someone who seems to have clicked on a link advertising an image of a man having sex with a 4 year old merits having their computer searched? While there is some damage to reputation for being accused of anything, much of that is repaired with exoneration. And I would rather that there was a gap between suspicion and conviction, myself.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Asmor]

On the other hand, it also provides you a convenient defense. "I swear I don't even know what an MP3 is, Mr. RIAA lawyer! It must have been one of those hackers using my unsecured wifi!"

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

The "child pornography" was a single thumbs.db file. You know, the low-res file with all the thumbnail pictures that XP makes for you automatically? At any time in the past, he could have accidentally downloaded pictures (from say a P2P program), deleted them without even viewing them. I find it hard to believe that he could be so good at covering his tracks, but he'd keep a single thumbs.db file around by accident. Apparently you missed the part about the link being posted on a know CP website.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[NeverVotedBush]

I choose to lock down my wireless and you do not.

I can easily see scenarios where someone, anonymously, and using an unsecured router, might do things that get the owner of that router in trouble. Even if they are eventually found innocent, it will have been an unpleasant experience to say the least.

Through a few very simple steps, I have made it highly unlikely that such a thing will never happen to me. What is it to you?

If you want to open yourself up to whatever may come, be my guest. I sure as hell am not stopping you.

One thing you might want to keep in mind is that even people here admit to piggybacking and there are lots of others doing it as well. Maps of unsecured routers are circulated and you have no control over to whom. Anyone really intent on covering their tracks will possibly use such a map to find an open router. They might even find yours. As more people lock down their wireless routers, and as more are sold with encryption enabled by default, you will be a more likely target as you move into the minority.

And as the government gets more intrusive, you will be more likely to get caught up in whatever your anonymous piggybackers are doing.

Do whatever you want. But instead of thinking of me wearing a tinfoil hat, you might think of yourself as living recklessly and inviting problems you might not deserve.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[davidsyes]

Instead of filling up the jails with and virtually permanently seizing computers and bills and correspondence from many people, why not black-hole the the known kiddie porn sites instead of setting up fake ones that will catch first-timers and non-first-timers.

There is too much risk of even a so-called friend or sibbling surfing that crap and getting one's property seized and freedom hijacked.

As for the guy who says he's not worried because he's in China.... BZZZT! WRONG! The US and several governments -- if they determine their citizens are traveling abroad to avoid laws punishing people for sex with minors or non-adults, you CAN be arrested upon setting foot back in your country if it enforces those laws.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[insertwackynamehere]

I think the point is that recognizing a sexual attraction to a 17 year old is different than recognizing a sexual attraction to a 4 year old. Not that it is acceptable to cast 17 or 16 year olds in porn or have sex with them if you are a lot older, etc, but to simply walk by a 17 year old girl and recognize sexual attractiveness is unavoidable. It is a different case with toddlers/young children where having sexual thoughts implies a whole different issue. Then again I'm only 18 so whatever :P (AGE/2)+7 is the golden rule where 13AGE85 (the upper bound can increase with average life span).

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[insertwackynamehere]

it should say "13 is less than or equal to AGE which is less than or equal to 85"

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[sumdumass]

There used to be a time when the FBI was nothing but highly trained and focused professionals. You had to have a college degree in something other then law enforcement just to be considered for the job. Then you basically went to school for the first year or so on the job and had to constantly go back. That changes a while ago though.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[insertwackynamehere]

There is too much risk of even a so-called friend or sibbling surfing that crap and getting one's property seized and freedom hijacked. "I wasn't looking at this, officer, it was my so-called sibbling! He's younger than the person in the picture!"

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[j_166]

"There are a lot of people out there who think it would be hilarious to find that FBI address and hide it all over there internet camouflaged and try to get it clicked as often as possible, both to waste the FBI time as well as make strangers and sometimes known enemies suffer."

That would be quite a feat. That person would have to either 1.) know the link the FBI is using in their investigation, which is probably a closely held secret, or 2.) be in the habit of hiding unnoticed camouflaged child porn links all over their (presumably fairly popular non-child-porn oriented website) in the hopes of stumbling onto the one FBI child porn link (not withstanding the fact that at some point somebody clicking on one of those fake links would probably start to question why child porn was loading in their browser from a completely innocent website).

Either one would be quite the hacking accomplishment, easily on par with Jeff Goldblum in independence day blowing up the mothership with his ibook.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Kreigaffe]

Not just one innocent person, not just two. Enough that they can clearly see their little project is horribly flawed and must be abandoned.

Though you've got an interesting idea. This is RIPE for abuse. Got Botnet? Infect your own computer, and have it pop the link for you a good month before the crapstorm begins. Hopefully early enough you'll get into legal hot shit, but late enough that the crapflood hits after you've been charged. Step 3 is profit.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[j_166]

What a RELIEF! Oh man, you have no idea how liberating that is! Here I was walking around constantly paranoid the cops were going to bust in on me at anytime for being a pedo. See, the problem is, every time I go to the gym, or anywhere for that matter, my pedometer constantly increments itself, practically after every step...I was beginning to think of turning myself in until you set me straight!

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[j_166]

"As to clicking a hyperlink being intent to download -- aside from the thoughtcrime aspect of such laws, I know plenty of inexperienced computer users who haven't yet learned not to click random links, and who would be easily ensnared by the FBI's scam, even tho these people have absolutely no interest in porn (kiddie or otherwise)."

But what were those people doing on a russian kiddie porn forum in the first place to click those links. You are acting like the FBI was spamming the general internet with this stuff when what they were really doing was more akin to staking out a known crack house and busting the people who went inside. Actually, scratch that. They weren't even busting the people who were going inside, they were ID'ing them and getting a warrant on the basis that most people who go into a crack house are going in there to, surprise, buy crack.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[tweak13]

Somebody needs to man up and crapflood the fuck out of the FBI.
While part of me likes that idea, the rest of me thinks being more mature about it is probably the better way to go. How about we get some legislation passed protecting innocent people from this shit. Raiding a persons house based on something that no sane person would consider evidence has to be something even your average idiot American is capable of understanding.
...
On second thought, just use the botnet.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[j_166]

"The last thing I would want if I were doing illegal things was someone else drawing attention to me."

That depends on what 'illegal things' you're doing. This is a legitimate question: If I'm doing nothing illegal, and for whatever reason (roommate makes a threat online against the president, whatever) my stuff gets confiscated. Do I have to worry about proving where and when I purchased every single mp3 found on my hard drive? Or do they only go after stuff in the warrant?

My guess would be you are correct and they only go after the stuff in the warrant, so you should have nothing to worry about apart from legal fees/confiscated stuff.

The person who is interested in doing illegal things should do it like the mob does: never do it in your own house

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Goghit]

... or cats. What the hell am I doing on this "Get rich quick doing nothing but browsing the web!" page? What keys did you furball arseholes walk on this time?

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Some_Llama]

"Only, in this case, the prankster could end up getting people raided by the FBI, instead of staring at some guy's gaping ass."

Actually in both cases the end result is someone looking at someone else' gaping ass, remember CP sends you to PMITA prison ;)

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Mozk]

XKCD FTW.

I always quote it.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

Having been a 57 year old, and now a 81 year old, I have to agree. 57 year olds are like totally children. And like children they still do not totally grasp the consequences of their actions.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[NeverVotedBush]

Well, as Eliot Spitzer recently found out, bad things can happen to you when you manage to get caught up in some other investigation.

Whether they are really looking for you or not -- and in this discussion, at least initially, they would be looking for you thinking you were responsible for the piggybacker's traffic -- getting caught up in any investigation can be hazardous to your personal life, public life, pocketbook, etc.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[geekoid]

That's practically the definition or entrapment.
Enticing someone to do something they normally wouldn't do.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

Which, I'm afraid, raises the question... which is better, looking at the goatse guy or being the goatse guy?

It's a situation I'd rather avoid...

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[geekoid]

"IF you are surfing forums known to contain child pornography...."
known by whom?

"IF you click on a link suggesting that behind the link is child pornography..."
The is no crime in clicking a link that says that.

"THEN I think there is probable cause to believe you are filthy scum and should be investigated further."
Perhaps, but not the way ti was done.
Perhaps I writing a book? perhaps the pre-fetch onm a browsers followed the link?(same thing as clicking a link as far a logs are concerned)

"Could it be someone else was using your computer? Absolutely."
They act as if it's not, and tale all your equipment, everything with a computer init, all your bills.

"Could it be that you accidently ended up in the forum and pre-fetched the links? Absolutely not. You were browsing the forum."
That is naive beyond belief,
How many people have been mislead into clicking on the goatse link?
A log somewars has a line that says someone with my IP was there.

"But there is definitely probable cause. And if they find child porn in your house, you should be locked in jail for a very, very, very long time."
No, it's entrapment, not probably cause.
You can have cp on your computer and never have looked at it before.

"
This guy was obviously surfing for child porn and should be in jail a lot longer than he is likely to be in jail."
no, there is strong circumstantial evidence that he was. I believe this guy probably was, BUT this method is ripe with abuse possibilities and bad assumptions.

let's not e fuzzy here, we are talking about there procedures, not this one incident.

You are letting the severity of the issue blind you to the fact that procedure like these are a 'prove your innocent' type situation.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps not from your point of view, but the law in most places doesn't make that distinction.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[gknoy]

What about when the targets are every member of congress, each of their staff, and every known government employee e-mail address? (Including the FBI.) State legislatures, the DMV, etc.

"Uh, yeah, the entire White House likes kiddy porn, your honor."
"I am dubious as to the veracity of that claim."

The key is to ensure that the set of "positives" is chock-full of false positives, because there is NO way to ensure that they aren't that anyways. I'm thankful that I have neither the tools nor the courage to do such an act of civil disobedience. Random people in China, though, might do precisely that.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[janrinok]

Which is exactly the way it should be. Because, under UK law, it is illegal to use someone else's computer system (including a network or wifi connection) with the express permission of the owner. Operating an insecured wifi network does not, under the law, give anyone the 'express permission' to use that network. You are quoting the charges because they sound wrong to you - but they are fully with compliant with UK law. Are you making the assumption that UK law should be, or is, the same as US law?

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[ribit]

So is clicking on these links criminal? How can intent ever be known?

Search results: "5 year old sucks..."

Search results: "Child porn: Buy Photos"

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[janrinok]

s/with/without/

..but you already worked that out for yourself

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[k3r3nsky'sr3v3ng3]

Hey, the great terror (of Stalin and the NKVD) at its finest.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[k3r3nsky'sr3v3ng3]

Then or nanny-state friendly congress will simply draft up a law against clicking the link. They would simply apply many of the existing illegal drug laws to child porn. They could call clicking on the link "conspiracy to purchase child porn" or whatever. Next thing you will have a "war on child porn" with probably the same results.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Noone ever shares links between sites on the internet. That would require a couple of clicks.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[k3r3nsky'sr3v3ng3]

The problem is that the average voter/judge/juror is too ignorant of this to understand. So people will tolerate a "successful" conviction in spite of this fact.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Garridan]

Hey, it's open source. You could implement that feature yourself, if you want it so bad.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[dwater]

Well, tfa addresses this issue too, essentially saying that it doesn't entice someone to do something they wouldn't normally do, because they would normally do it.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[1u3hr]

I choose to lock down my wireless and you do not.

No, actually I do lock down my wifi. But not because I'm afraid of some pedophile setting me up for the FBI. As I said, that's a bogeyman. There are millions of unsecured wifi points and have been for years; IT'S NEVER HAPPENED.

But in the real world there are plenty of teenagers who would not hesitate to max out my connections with torrents, or try to crack my router and network just for laughs. I've logged onto a neighbour's unsecured wifi router, used the default admin password and poked around -- I can be trusted, but I wouldn't like anyone to do that to me.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[CSMatt]

So then someone who is 17 years and 364 days old is somehow much, much more immature than he or she will be the next day? I don't remember having some magical boost of common sense the day I turned 18.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[CSMatt]

Retribution from the FBI, no. But you, sir, have much to fear from your own government just for accessing this site.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[ultranova]

Post JB, get people v& for taking the bait. An interesting scheme. Now the FBI is almost as bad as that which it fights. I would almost care, if I didn't think pedos deserve it.

Pedophiles wouldn't be interested in jailbait. A "jailbait" is a sexually mature person who is nonetheless under the age of consent. So none of this has anything to do with pedophiles.

That said, accepting dirty tricks from law enforcement when they're targeted against someone you don't like is extremely dangerous. It confirms the notion that such tricks are, in principle, acceptable in some circumstances. Once this notion has been generated, the specifics of the circumstances can be negotiated - and history shows that they tend to become more general. Today pedophiles, tomorrow picpockets, the day after that you. Especially since you know of 4chan party van, indicating that you have been around in the seedier areas of the Internet - just the kind this program might target.

"Everyone is equal before law" is a good principle, and one which a society based on the rule of law must adopt to function. It's bad enough already that the rich and the powerful are above it; putting some people below it is only going to make a bad situtation worse.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[dwater]

what authority does the uk government have over the sites i can access from within china?

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[CSMatt]

What? Oh. Sorry. I thought that you were saying that you were posting as a citizen of China.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[cthulhu11]

Hell, the average 27 year old these days is pretty much still a child.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[rtb61]

Hmm, I had no idea there were that many child porn links, I gather you speak from experience. A little something about computers when it comes to the programmed clicking of links, computers can actually manage a few million per hour quite readily, have you not heard of spam in the hundred of millions. I mean to say, that is what computers are all about the automation of tasks.

So presenting a clearly illogical idea that it is some how difficult to track down all the child porn links, eliminate the non US ones (clearly all those sites in the US which advertise child porn should already have be shut down), ain't really gonna leave all that many to behind. Perhaps you are saying that the FBI allows child pornography web sites to exist in the US so they can camouflage themselves amongst them.

I wouldn't know I don't know of any but, obviously you do, hmm.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Wiseman1024]

If you're requiring maturity, better set age to 199. Many people never ever mature. The average age? Perhaps 26. Which is about twice the age people start having sex at nowadays. So, does it make sense to set the legal age for pr0n based on maturity? Not really.

Another possible criterion would be, "looking adult". But then again, what's the reason behind wanting them to "look adult"? To be mature, which I already discussed and just doesn't work.

So what else do we have? How about the natural criterion? I'd suggest having a committee of doctors officially pronounce on the sexual maturity age of humans and set that as a minimum age. And since this is going to vary from person to person as well, I'd take the percentile 95 to be extra sure. At least this would be a rational criterion.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Dan541]

wow I got -1 troll for disagreeing with myself, A new accomplishment

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple answer...move out of the USSA.

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Viperpete]

Can Amazon have a patent case against the FBI for the "One-Click One-Raid" feature?

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Mr. Arbusto]

So I should change my agent Yahoo Slurp Agent?

Re:I would have read the article before replying

[Anonymous Coward]

If there was EVER a time to be concerned about Online Privacy, this is it. Use a privacy service like Ultimate Anonymity ( http://www.ultimate-anonymity.com/ ) for Anonymous Web Surfing. Using a service like this, you throw a false IP address to the sebsites you click on so if someone does "trap" the IP address, they are chasing ghosts!

John Jenkins
MCSE

Stating the obvious problem

[michaelmalak]

So now if you develop a search engine, you get your computer confiscated?

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[dlanod]

It's not the links that are the problem. It's the "behaviour" pattern of following the links that the FBI are using to determine who to raid.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[syzler]

What if your browser uses link prefetching? Will they then have enough justification to take my computers and smart phone away which would leave me without the ability to work?

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Zibri]

Crawlers is "clicking" the links, and is indeed a part of developing a search engine.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Brian Gordon]

They can tell if it's prefetched, if you're using a recent firefox. Firefox sends the http header

X-moz: prefetch

for prefetch requests. You can disable prefetching altogether by going to about:config and toggling

network.prefetch-next

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[erikina]

And lets hope that server never sees the light of day again, not only is helping people find child porn, it's in possesion. Think of the children.

On a serious note. Am I the only one that scared by these prospects? I don't mind the whole "think of the children", as I'm not a bad/evil/pedophile .. but put in the position, I might have clicked the link. Not because I'm into that stuff, but a combination of curisoity, bordem and just wondering if that stuff exists might have driven me to click it. And according to TFA the mere act of clicking the link constitues "violating federal law, which criminalizes "attempts" to download child pornography with up to 10 years in prison.".

I probably should have posted this anonymously, but I'm sick of the idea that possesion of some pictures is one of the worst crimes in the world. Sure child abuse is terrible (And I'd have no hesitation against the death penality in severe cases). But having a picture of it? C'mon.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Brian Gordon]

You should disable prefetching; a little-known fact is that cookies are exchanged when links are prefetched.. if you're on unsecured wifi (like my internet during the months I'm at school) all someone has to do is present you with a link to amazon or to wikipedia or to slashdot, and you don't even have to click it for the auto-login cookie to be exchanged. Those of you with credit card info saved on amazon, beware. ~~~~

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Ron_Fitzgerald]

Take this scenario....

You are a 15 year old boy who has a 15 year old girlfriend.

You have sex and take pictures of each other naked.

You break up soon after but keep the photos.

Flash forward...you are now 30 years old wacking off to those photos. Are you a pedophile?

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Nuclear Elephant]

This has many other flaws. Think for a minute that HTTP request could have been generated by: 1. Spyware that frequently displays porn controlled by a third party "through" your computer. 2. Botnets that frequently pull all kind of information, and/or perform DDoS attacks 3. Any other computer on the same network 4. Any other computer using an open or poorly configured wireless router 5. Going to any other website on the Internet that loaded that URL in a frame or iframe, or used a meta refresh, etc., loading it without the knowledge of the user 6. Anyone who happened to walk by said computer and noticed the screen saver was not locked (e.g. you can't tie the person to the crime, only the computer - or possibly only the network). 7. Web bugs embedded in email, word docs, or other flawed tools that have been known to "call home" 8. Any other machine routing through the source PC, with or without the user's knowledge 9. Any additional software the owner of the PC has loaded, that could malfunction or maliciously load such files 10. File sharing software or other software that can easily misrepresent content causing the user to download it unintentionally. The only way this would work, in fact, would be if they confiscated the computer and found the evidence in a browser history of some sort, and even then there is still reasonable doubt as to whether the click was intentional or not, and just who performed it. As much as I love to see a scumbad kiddie porn pervert thrown into jail, this technique is entirely unworthy of any technical merit.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[zblack_eagle]

Well, considering this a year ago http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/10/1752233 you don't even have to be an adult to be considered a pedophile on the internet

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Ironsides]

By definition and law, no. Pedophilia is for prepubescent children. Post pubescent, as you mention, would be ephebophilia. Normally the break point is considered 13/14.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[NemoinSpace]

It's the behaviour pattern of the FBI that has me wondering exactly when we made the 90 degree turn to facism in this country. My old man went to WWII to shoot fuckers that ran their government like this, but it seems one too many people came back from enthralled with the shiny black uniforms of the SS. I'm finally convinced me to close my open wifi. (and its not Bill's fault this time!) I hope we make it back to the moon soon, I want to get off. aw well,i should never post when I'm pissed off. Let me delete this. ^H^H^H^H^H whoops, sonofabitch!

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Ron_Fitzgerald]

Who the fuck is modding tonight? 0 for posting a link to a Slashdot article referring to my comment!?!

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[mmmiiikkkeee]

I believe that its illegal to let a crawlers run 'wild' on the internet in the first place(unless you have permission to do so). at least that was what i was told in my cs class where we made a web crawler. So in either case they will catch a 'bad' guy... but seriously I don't think this is fair. If i hack my friend's computer and install a VNC program on it and use VNC to use there computer to go to the 'porn' site. then they get there house searched! it seems too easy to 'fuck' with this and frame some one???

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[chexy]

I'll second that. I was working with Nutch a while back and it was pretty hard to set it out on a crawl without having to run a filter on your index afterwards. All kinds of garbage can get picked up on a free open web crawl.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Ron_Fitzgerald]

That is truly interesting. Of course I searched for it at Wikipedia and now I am sure to be on list of 'potentials'.

I find it interesting that 1) I have never heard of that 2) All sex with underage children regardless of age is considered pedophilia.

Saying ephebophilia just doesn't sound as seedy.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I probably should have posted this anonymously, but I'm sick of the idea that possesion of some pictures is one of the worst crimes in the world.

That's what they do. They keep creating mindnumbingly stupid laws and precedents to attack net anonymity, until you get so sick and tired of it that you give up your identity in bits and pieces out of sheer frustration and boredom. That's when they've won.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Anonymous Coward]

huh? The cookie info wouldn't be presented to them, but to Amazon. And if there's anything in your non-SSL cookies that you don't want people seeing, THAT's your problem, not link pre-fetching.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[dwater]

perhaps I don't understand something...

If a browser prefetches a page, that's the same as clicking it, apart from the extra header. What happens when the user actually clicks the link? Does anything get sent to the server, or is the request completely satisfied by the results of the previous prefetch?

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Ironsides]

All sex with underage children regardless of age is considered pedophilia.

It's one of those things where people started using the word without actually knowing what it means. Legally, it is not considered pedophilia. That's why statutory rape is on the books and is a different crime. I've had to take child protection courses for my work with the Boy Scouts. That's one of the definitions mentioned. Partly because they are two different categories of offenders and you need to look for different signs for each one.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[rhinokitty]

Seriously. The FBI should be using the pictures to track down the people who took the pictures (can metadata tell you anything?). The people who have the pictures on their computer range from hardcore pervs to people who were just looking for god honest adult-people-in-diapers porn. Now, somebody make an intelligent comment about the age of consent in other countries than the US...

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Khaed]

It's not a mod on that post. He normally posts at 0. (I thought it was odd, too, so I looked at his record.)

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[tverbeek]

The law in most jurisdictions makes no distinction between photos of postpubescent minors and photos of prepubescent minors. Yes, there's a big difference between ephebophilia and true pedophilia (both from a psychological perspective and in terms of what kind of threat the person might pose), but that doesn't mean the law recognizes any difference. Under US law, "child pornography" includes images of 5-year-olds, 12-year-olds, and 17-year-olds.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[danpat]

You may be a troll, in which case, I'm an idiot for responding, but in the vain hope that you're merely stupid, think of this: who exactly would you ask permission from in order to let your crawler run wild? The act of sending a request to a website *is* a request to retrieve their content, and if they send it back, it's implicit that they allow you to see it. The only limit on how far across the net you can crawl is how much bandwidth you can afford to expend. In the context of a CS class, someone was probably trying to discourage an entire class from writing dozens of web crawlers that would hit internal websites dozens of times a day that may overload their internal network and servers. In the real world, you pay for most of the bandwidth you use, so overuse isn't such a problem.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[nametaken]

So now if you develop a search engine, you get your computer confiscated?

That would be great. Google can afford to fight something retarded like this.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[phantomfive]

On a serious note. Am I the only one that scared by these prospects? I don't mind the whole "think of the children", as I'm not a bad/evil/pedophile .. but put in the position, I might have clicked the link. Not because I'm into that stuff, but a combination of curisoity, bordem and just wondering if that stuff exists might have driven me to click it. And according to TFA the mere act of clicking the link constitues "violating federal law, which criminalizes "attempts" to download child pornography with up to 10 years in prison.". I think you would be ok, actually. According to the problem this guy had was that not only did he click on a link, he actually had child porn on his computer (two thumbnail images). While the FBI was waiting outside, he destroyed a USB thumb drive AND a hard drive. So frankly if I had been on the jury, I don't know if I would have let him off either.

That said, I would hope they'd have more than just an IP address before deciding to raid someone. That's pretty harsh.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[amrittuladhar]

Knock knock

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[HappySmileMan]

Maybe he's talking about stuff like robots.txt and stuff to restrict access, but that only applies to sites who choose to have that file anyway, presumably the FBI didn't bother with it when setting up these servers, so no search engine would have any way of knowing it's crawlers aren't welcome

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[eh2o]

That is why purchase transactions and personal data from amazon are served from a secure server. The secure server uses an independent cookie with the secure flag set, which cannot be transmitted except over https. Hijacking the unsecured session cookie won't get you much more than recommendations tailored to someone else's account. This is a standard design for a high-volume service that can't afford to have every page SSL encrypted.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[amRadioHed]

Saying ephebophilia just doesn't sound as seedy. I guess that's a good thing since it really isn't nearly as seedy. Sex with a 17 year old versus sex with a 10 year? Yeah, no comparison.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[HappySmileMan]

Actually the charges of destroying hard drive and thumb drive were dropped, he just visited that link and had two grainy thumbnails in "thumbs.db" somewhere, they could've gotten there from temp files or anything, I think two low resolution thumbnails in a system file that builds up thumbnails of every picture you've had, including temporary files is a bit harsh.

People I know have come across CP while looking for regular porn, they closed the page, didn't download anything and didn't go back, but those thumbnails would still be on their computer for a while most likely, are they criminals?

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[perpetual pessimist]

My old man went to WWII to shoot fuckers that ran their government like this, but it seems one too many people came back from enthralled with the shiny black uniforms of the SS. Well, you have to admit that the uniforms were pretty cool.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Fallen Kell]

As much as it has the potential to scare me, there were other reasons why the case went forward. He did destroy his hard drive and a thumb drive minutes before the FBI raided his home. As much as I can believe that it is possible for others to have highjacked his system or been tricked to clicking the link, etc., I have a hard time believing that he didn't go there to find some child porn due to his actions when he was about to be caught. Add to that the fact that they were able to recover some evidence of child porn on the disk he attempted to completely destroy...

Now does that mean that I think criminalizing attempts to do something is right? No, but then again, it is also criminal to attempt suicide (which incidentally is not a crime if you actually succeed)...

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[courtarro]

A secure VPN or proxy is a very useful tool if you find yourself using insecure wifi often. Windows XP Pro (and better) offer VPN serving capabilities for at least one user. Alternatively, you could set up a free web proxy on localhost and use Hamachi or OpenSSH for port forwarding. In any case, it's definitely worth the peace of mind knowing that your traffic is at least somewhat obfuscated.

On a side note, I like how you wiki-signed your post :)

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[SanityInAnarchy]

I believe that its illegal to let a crawlers run 'wild' on the internet in the first place(unless you have permission to do so). at least that was what i was told in my cs class where we made a web crawler.

Where was this class? I'd like to know what resumes to ignore...

And for your own sake, get out now.

That, or it's possible that you've misinterpreted something which was said -- maybe something like robots.txt -- which still doesn't say anything about the legality of it.

If i hack my friend's computer and install a VNC program on it and use VNC to use there computer to go to the 'porn' site. then they get there house searched!

And during the search, they'd likely discover that you'd "hacked" their computer.

But it seems like it'd be even easier -- just troll them. Post the link anonymously, just like you might Rick Roll or Goatse.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[mabinogi]

Especially since in a large number of places (including in the USA), sex with a 17 year old would be perfectly legal, no matter how much older you are.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[zanaxagoras]

all someone has to do is present you with a link to amazon or to wikipedia or to slashdot, and you don't even have to click it for the auto-login cookie to be exchanged. Those of you with credit card info saved on amazon, beware. There's no such thing as an amazon "auto-login cookie", so there's nothing to "beware".

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Brian Gordon]

I believe how it works is that the browser just asks the server if the content has changed since a given time (If-Modified-Since).. if it has, then the browser won't serve it from cache.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen kiddie porn by accident in two circumstances:

Once, on a computer at work which was heavily infested with malware. I wiped the machine and reinstalled the OS, but if I hadn't when I returned it to the customer which of us would be going to prison?

Another time when I was a teenager and clicked a link to what I thought was a random porn site but when loaded claimed that it had 17 year old models and displayed sample photos of them with their breasts exposed. Fortunately this was in the very early days of the internet and I no longer have that computer, but maybe someone else has it now? Maybe those pictures are still sitting on that hard drive just waiting to land someone in prison. I don't know if those girls really weird 17 but I've heard that that doesn't matter so long as they are presented as being underage and seem to be so.

Regarding destroying a flash drive and hard drive, if the feds are ever outside my door I would seriously consider nuking by Windows drive. I think I could probably kill it dead in about 10 minutes if I worked fast, the hardest part would be getting the platters off the spindle. I don't think I have anything illegal on it, minus some software, music, and movies to which I do not have a legitimate license to, but is it worth the risk? I doubt they would care about the relatively minor license violations, but I'm on a Windows machine that despite appearing to be uncompromised could very well have something sneaky which has dumped a single thumbs.db with a grainy picture or two that will land me in prison. Just writing all of this out has me seriously considering wiping my drive and reinstalling my OS more often than I do.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Anonymous Coward]

People I know have come across CP while looking for regular porn, they closed the page, didn't download anything and didn't go back, but those thumbnails would still be on their computer for a while most likely, are they criminals? Absolutely and they will be punished as such. That is what the FBI is looking for when they conduct these raids. These are the people who don't know they did something illegal, because of this they have no defense for it. Easy pickings. They aren't looking to put these people in jail. But the idea of collecting DNA, fingerprints and giving a criminal record to as many people as they can excites them. 20 years from now when this person is speaking out for free speech its very easy to plant something on them then point to their prior criminal record and inspire pure raw prejudice in the jury.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[LiENUS]

He did destroy his hard drive and a thumb drive minutes before the FBI raided his home. As much as I can believe that it is possible for others to have highjacked his system or been tricked to clicking the link, etc. What if he destroyed his hard drive because he it contained his doctoral thesis on voting machines and the potential to manipulate elections and was afraid they had come after him because he had struck a nerve?

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[MacDork]

From TFA:

There's no evidence the referring site was recorded as well, meaning the FBI couldn't tell if the visitor found the links through Ranchi or another source such as an e-mail message.

If they didn't bother to log referrer(!) I doubt they're logging prefetch.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[ghettoimp]

I agree these actions seem suspicious. On the other hand, I imagine many of us would be tempted to trash our disks if we had advanced warning that the FBI were coming to our houses to raid our computers. After all, you can be severely fined or even imprisoned for having all manner of "merely illegal" content (music, movies, software, ...) other than child pornography.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[spagetti_code]

or more possible... running TOR.
Clicks from other TOR users could appear to come from you.

Think about the sort of people and activities that will use TOR.
I'm sure there is a lot of innocent usage, but there's bound
to be some ugly stuff too.

And the feds sure aint going to buy a plea of "I was running TOR".

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Chandon Seldon]

are they criminals?

Yes. They are. That's what the word "criminal" means: someone who has committed a crime. And there are laws on the books making trivial possession of underage sexual pictures a crime.

I think the question you were looking for is this: Should they be criminals?

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Mr. Freeman]

The solution to preventing yourself from being raided by the FBI is not to disable things that make your life more convenient. The solution is to get the EFF and ACLU to help prevent the FBI from abusing their power like this. Clicking on a link doesn't mean that you wanted to see child porn. If the link said "google.com", but really took you to a child porn site, that isn't reason to break your door down.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[FearForWings]

Yet, in terms of totally fucking your life, it hardly matters if you are convicted of child molestation or statutory rape.
To the average neighbor you are a child molester, and for the employer you are a former felon.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Pedophilia is an attraction. You can be a pedophile and not have sexual interactions with a child.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[dwater]

ok, so now I am wondering how that shows up in the log files. I don't recall anything like that in my log files...

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ephebophilia" is not a scientific term. It is something that was made up by NAMBLA or some other kiddie diddlers.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[hairyfeet]

Problem with trusting TFA on this-I have at least one or two "dead" thumbdrives lying around here.For one reason or another I hosed them and I want to take them apart someday and see if I can make anything cool out of them.I also have a couple of "dead or dying" hard drives.The magnets,especially in some of the older WD and Maxtor 20-40Gb are great for magnetizing tools and doing stupid magnet tricks.I just haven't had the time to sit down with a power tool and take them apart.

Now lets think about this rationally for a minute.They are the FBI,with all the resources of the government on their side.Now I have seen cases in the news of hard drives recovered that have been underwater for months,had multiple bullet holes,etc.Are you telling me that some guy managed to do so much damage in a few minutes that the feds can't recover a single bit of evidence from these drives? What the hell did he use,C4? Or could it be like a lot of guys he has some dead pc junk in his house cause he thinks he might someday find a use for it.

Hell,until recently I had some Win3.11 40-800Mb drives that were given to me ages ago.Was there any cp on them?Hell if I know.How many of us would even bother plugging a little drive in instead of chunking it in a closet until we found something to do with it. I was planning to make an ancient DOS box to play old 80's games on,and had to chuck them when I moved for lack of space.But what worries me is if they kicked in my door what is to keep them from saying "see this busted stuff? It must of been full of dirty pix,that is why he broke it!".As I said earlier,this is some scary stuff,folks.How do you prove that something broken isn't dirty? How do you prove you aren't a perv if a single click or a couple of thumbs.db files are enough to send you away? How many of us have disc images of our hard drives in case we need to go back.Can you be sure that on every single disc image you have there isn't a thumbs.db file that someone could say is illegal? And could you prove it? Scary.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I have all my cookies removed at exit of my browser.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

The secure server uses an independent cookie with the secure flag set, which cannot be transmitted except over https. Hijacking the unsecured session cookie won't get you much more than recommendations tailored to someone else's account. However, that mechanism does not protect the user from Amazon, et al. A prefetch to amazon typically includes the referrer, thus letting amazon know that you - as identified by your regular cookie - were looking at page so and so, and if it is a search result, Amazon will probably also get your search query.

Do you trust that Amazon is not collecting and correlating that information today?
If you do, do you think they won't start as soon as they figure out how mining that data can increase revenues in one way or another?
Do you think that once that data has been collected, someone will figure out other uses for it?

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[mxs]

They can tell if it's prefetched, if you're using a recent firefox. Firefox sends the http header And you seriously believe that they are logging headers when they are not even logging referrers ?

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Grimbleton]

Yeah.. I'm sitting on the floor of my living room with my computer open, and my laptop on top (Spring cleaning, time to get out the dust) taking a break from what I was doing, and reading this all has made me want to put my hard drives in my subwoofer for an hour or two.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right Mr springer, you should have posted that anonymously.

And the Idea of prosecuting for possession stems from the idea that without a client to distribute to, the abuses won't happen as often. I'm not sure if it won't just hide it more. Out of sight, out of mind I guess. But you should be afraid of it because simply searching for regular porn will pop up links to sites like that. I was looking for free porn just this morning simply to show someone how much can be had. Of course you think porn has to be legal, and reading the captions and stuff isn't a top priority when your doing it. So you could be enticed into clicking into these links just by a Google caches of an image or a kid that looks 18 or older and you end up clicking on it.

Searching for teen as in 18 in about any search engine will produce free porn images. That alone makes this so scary it isn't funny because you don't get anything but the image to go by.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[xarak]

I've had to take child protection courses for my work with the Boy Scouts. Yeah, no-one knows what those snivveling little terrorists will get up to next.
I never go without my flak jacket myself.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[TheRaven64]

The word 'crime' doesn't have quite as simple a definition as you imply. My dictionary lists two definitions:

• illegal activities : the victims of crime.
• an action or activity that, although not illegal, is considered to be evil, shameful, or wrong

According to the first definition, they have committed crimes. The grandparent was asking if they have committed crimes by the second definition. A related question is whether those who allowed such laws to be passed have committed a crime according to the second definition.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[DavidTC]

There doesn't need to be such term. Being attracted to sexually mature people under the age of consent is not any sort of psychological problem. Especially since that differs from state to state.

Or do you think a 19 year-old being attracted to a 16 year-old in my state is perfectly normal, because it's legal for them to have sex with them, but if those same two people moved to Oregon it's some sort of crazy perversion that needs a scientific name? (Maybe we should have a name for the compulsions to illegally turn right on red, while we're at it.)

psychological issues != laws != morality

Being attracted to people who have hit puberty is normal, being attracted to people who have not is not, and the later is a pedophile.

Having sex with people who have hit the age of consent is legal, having sex with people who have not is not, and the later is child molestation or statutory rape.

Those two things are not the same.

...and as for morality, society takes a very dim view of adults who are authority figures having sex with younger people under their authority (Like teachers and students, even non-underages students), or adults who manipulate younger people into sex by taking advantage of their naivety. (Like college students who prey on legal high school girls.) In some circumstances the adult can get punished for this (The authority holders, at least, tend to lose their jobs.), but usually not by the legal system.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[mopower70]

Yes, I'm new here - but did anyone actually READ the article? These people were not searched or arrested for clicking on some random link. Any reasonable person - and yes, I also know I'm talking to the wrong crowd for that too - would know that that would never stand up in court. The FBI targeted a message board known to have been used by pedophiles to solicit child pornography. Second, they posted the links with a really nasty description of obviously illegal activities and participants. Third, they posted incorrect links just to see who clicked on them. Fourth, they post a SECOND set of links to see who had INTENT enough to follow through after seeing the error from the first click.

At this point - and again, I know I'm talking to the wrong crowd - any REASONABLE person can see that you've established some pretty serious intent to download child porn. Child-porn bulletin board, description of illegal activities accessible through an unpublished link, validation of intent through a reposted link... There's no way in hell you could "oops" your way into that one.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's not forget that the Agent posted the links on a known CP site AND the description clearly stated the content of the links.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[pla]

Firefox sends the http header X-moz: prefetch for prefetch requests.

Not if you use a header-stripping privacy proxy.


More realistically, though, I would worry about this as the ultimate in the rick-rolling / goatse spectrum... Trick someone into clicking the wrong link, and instead of annoyance or disgust, they get to spend 10 years in club-PMITA.

But of course, that could never happen with our infallable justice system, so I should just take my soma and relax.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[RandomUsername99]

The article made it seem as though they didn't even go that far though, noting that they specifically didn't record the referring URL. If that's the case, it'd be hard to imagine that they would have recorded other parts of the header, though the article didn't specify.
What's scary is that they made it sound almost like they just put the link out there, recorded any IP addresses that requested the URL, talked to ISPs of the owners and then went on raids. Anyone who took any vaguely reasonable steps to conceal their identity would be saved totally fine, but I imagine that anyone running a TOR relay should be very worried.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[RandomUsername99]

s/saved\ totally\ fine/totally\ fine/

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[bradkittenbrink]

It was probably against your university's terms of service for network access, because they wanted to have a rule to point at when banning you for chewing up the entire university's bandwidth. So in that case, it was against the rules for you, but not generally illegal.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Ritchie70]

This results in some peculiar situations, btw. The age of consent may be 17, but a photo of a 17-yo is still child pornography.

So it's legal to actually have sex with the 17-yo, but not take a picture of them nekkid.

How does that make sense?

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Hatta]

No, post-pubescent would be "normal". There is a biological imperative to be sexually attracted to sexually mature members of the opposite sex, especially at the height of their fertility. There is nothing wrong or shameful about being sexually attracted to a sexually mature female of any age.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[merreborn]

Cookie highjacking is not a concern with prefetching. Making your request URLs that have nasty side effects (like making a purchase, forwarding malicious code to your friends, or downloading illegal files) is.

If you have one click purchasing turned on, and you can construct a "buy now" link, HTTPS won't save you. A simple would cause firefox to request that URL (and cause you to send me $50).

However, hopefully amazon's oneclick:
1) Uses POST only. GET, per RFC, is supposed to be a "safe method" -- no side effects allowed. And making a purchase is a huge side-effect.
2) Requires a one time, unique key for all transactions to prevent XSRF attacks.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Being attracted to sexually mature 16 year olds isn't a condition. The term "ephebophilia" refers to a fetish for pubescent children.

And again, it isn't in the DSM, it isn't a scientific term, its some jargon kiddie-diddlers thought up so they could be "not as bad" as pedophiles.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Drakkenmensch]

Consider that most judges, district attorneys and jurors do not know the difference between prefetching and direct link clicking. Would you trust them with knowing this critical distinction to keep your butt out of anal rape central for 5 to 10?

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Anonymous Coward]

But then you should also disable images, as cookies are also exchanged when you get an image from a website and in fact you should disable anything that's not loaded from the domain displayed in your browser's address bar. The only problem is that makes it impossible to use too many websites.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Please. Amazon requires you to enter your password in order to access order or payment information, even if it already recognizes you by the cookie.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[tverbeek]

It gets even worse than that. In theory a 17-year-old could be tried as an adult for taking nude photos of himself.

Re:Stating the obvious problem

[JeffSchwab]

Can I have X-moz: prefetch added to all my HTTP requests?

How long until...

[Baron_Yam]

Compromised web sites contain stealthed links to these honeypots?

Re:How long until...

[Breakfast Pants]

Won't matter since they look at the referer id as part of the sting.

Re:How long until...

[Hal_Porter]

Or people start posting them on slashdot. You know v&town would be a good name for a trolling group.

Re:How long until...

[Oktober Sunset]

It's gonn be the next goatse, if you thought making people look at a stretched out asshole was funny, think how much funnier getting thier houses raided by the FBI will be!

Re:How long until...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because referrer ID can't be faked as part of the TRAP! url. :P

Re:How long until...

[QCompson]

From TFA:

When anyone visited the upload.sytes.net site, the FBI recorded the Internet Protocol address of the remote computer. There's no evidence the referring site was recorded as well, meaning the FBI couldn't tell if the visitor found the links through Ranchi or another source such as an e-mail message.

Re:How long until...

[Adradis]

Nimp.org link. Do not touch.

Re:How long until...

[Sporkinum]

Sounds like the next version of swatting.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/29/1656235/

Re:How long until...

[Breakfast Pants]

I wasn't referring to the article, but rather the hypothetical article that would have been written if there was an ounce of sanity to this whole thing.

Re:How long until...

[Rakshasa Taisab]

I fail to see the difference; Do they not both involve stretching out of assholes?

Re:How long until...

[Anonymous Coward]

someone links one of those pages into stumbledupon and the whole world
is now in their list of IPs to go after..

Re:How long until...

[Anubis350]

from bash.org:

its me Where can i mk trilogy doiwnload???
  http://www.firstgov.gov/fgsearch/index.jsp?dom0=www.fbi.gov&mw0=warez+sodomy+porn+microsoft+illegal+MORTAL+KOMBAT+TRILOGY+DOWNLOAD+FREE&rn=218&in0=domain&parsed=true&Submit=Go&domain=fbi.gov
  Just go here.
  garret its true or false
  It's true.
  I'm getting it at 400KB/s!
  garret its not true
  You clicked the link?
  yes garret and.....
  You do realize you just searched fbi.gov for warez, porn, sodomy, illegal, microsoft, and mortal kombat right?
  fuck ya all
* Quits: Guest17888 (MKIRCN-003@212.182.122.Kg9=) (QUIT: User exited)

also, from the classic bloodninja
eminemBNJA: Oh I like that Baby. I put on my robe and wizard hat.
BritneySpears14: What the f*ck, I told you not to message me again.
eminemBNJA: Oh ****
BritneySpears14: I swear if you do it one more time I'm gonna report your ISP and say you were sending me kiddie porn you f*ck up.
eminemBNJA: Oh ****
eminemBNJA: damn I gotta write down your names or something

Re:How long until...

[Anubis350]

apparently slashdot hates the formatting form bash.org, it ate half of the first quote :-(

Re:How long until...

[robo_mojo]

As was pointed out already, they didn't look at referers.

But hypothetically even if they did, it would still suck for people who disable referers for privacy purposes.

Incidentally, my HTTP proxy strips out referers and other unnecessary junk for privacy. I don't particularly care to let every website know where I came from, what serch terms I entered, what messageboards I was visiting, etc.

Re:How long until...

[Anonymous Coward]

That reminds me of an old joke:

A guy passed over a bridge yesterday going a bit too fast only to find a cop with a radar gun waiting hidden on the other side.

The cop pulled him over and walked up to the car. With that classic patronizing smirk we all know and love, the cop asked, 'What's your hurry?'

To which he replied, 'I'm late for work.'

'Oh yeah,' said the cop, 'what do you do?'

'I am a rectum stretcher at the zoo, if you must know,' he responded.

The cop stammered, 'A what? A rectum stretcher? And just what does a rectum stretcher do?'

'Well,' he said, 'I start by inserting one finger, then work my way up to two fingers, then three, then four, then with my whole hand in. I work from side to side until I can get both hands in, and then I slowly but surely stretch it with special instruments, until it's about 6 feet.'

'And just what the hell do you do with a 6 foot asshole?' the cop demanded.

'Well, you give him a radar gun and park him on one side of a bridge...'

Re:How long until...

[JohnFluxx]

How long until people start pasting this FBI-honeypot link to trick people into clicking it..

Re:How long until...

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget, I'd rather spend ten years in prison than listen to that goddamn Rick Astley one more time

Re:How long until...

[rbochan]

Or a fake myspace or facebook page... or a compromised ad-host...

Re:How long until...

[enrevanche]

If you think that this is funny, you should apply for a job at gitmo.

Re:How long until...

[symbolset]

Thank Sam H. He's the DNS admin for that server. See My other post on this.

Porn??

[thoughtlover]

Now why would the FBI have to sully the good reputation that porn has generated since the first woman took off her clothes for money? What did porn do the the FBI to make them the new moral police?

In all reality, this smacks of entrapment.

Re:Porn??

[Nazlfrag]

You missed the bit where it was kiddie porn, so everyone can scream 'think of the children!' while they run around in circles arresting the true menace to our children, hyperlink clickers. I wonder how long it will take them to start raiding the sites where the ads show up. Guilty by vague association and all that.

Re:Porn??

[Anonymous Coward]

make no mistake, the goverment is who you should be scared of - not people viewing child pornagraphy.

I remember in high school people posted child porn on the walls, the internet had just came out, and a large portion of students were looking at anything and everything. probably none of them abused children. however i'm all for the government arbitrarily **disrupting** people's live's if they are 18+ and clicking on hyperlinks to view images! (oh but if they are images of murder that's ok). there's less of a market for killing images, and the correlation to the images causing killing isn't as dramatic. you see folks they have the science down..umm just make sure your neighbor doesnt click a hyperlink possibly for child porn.

to some people life in this country would be worse than life under the Taliban. come on cops get with the program!

Priorities

[TXISDude]

With BotNets, Identity Theft and other serious on-line crime, I am so glad that the FBI has the resources to protect us from porn . . . Having had my Identity stolen (the old fashion way - postal theft) and haven gotten no response form any LE - local answer - not in our jurisdiction, FBI answer - not enough $$ involved. Thinking of that - how much $$ are they investigating in this sting operation? Cyber crime will not be a priority until either 1) we get an administration with a different set of priorities (I don't see hope on the horizon there) 2) someone important gets really gouged by Identity theft or a botnet 3) a magic unicorn arrives and makes everything nice

Re:Priorities

[Provocateur]

Man I was right with you there until you threw in 3) OMG! Ponies!!!111!!! from left field.

Re:Priorities

[tekiegreg]

With the "not enough money" part involved, I always wondered what it would take to steal ID's, but only put about $5,000 in debt on each ID, just enough to stay under the radar per ID stolen. With enough ID's stolen here and there, that gets to be real money...a dollar here and a dollar there adds up to a bit over time. The FBI really should look at the smaller cases and I'd bet they'd find some big fish...

Re:Priorities

[westlake]

With BotNets, Identity Theft and other serious on-line crime, I am so glad that the FBI has the resources to protect us from porn . .

The FBI has the resources to multitask. Child Pornography is a victimless crime only in the - too often adolescent - imagination of the Geek. Innocent Images National Initiative

Officials at a Surprise charter school say they were shocked to learn that a fifth-grade teacher who also taught an after-school program had been distributing and receiving child pornography on the Internet for years.

On Monday, federal agents arrested Victor Scott McPeak, Jr., a teacher at Arizona Charter Academy, after unraveling an international pornography ring spanning more than 20 countries.

Court documents also state that McPeak told two agents he had thousands of sexually explicit images of female minors on his laptop, and admitted he was the only user of the laptop.

Records also state, "McPeak advised that he has had a sexual interest in minors for approximately five years and he has been attempting to hide his sexual interest from his 12-year-old daughter."

Europol officials reportedly identified one of the ringleaders as an Italian national who was operating a Web site that advertised and distributed videos of minors, some under the age of 10, engaging in sexual acts.

two agents visited McPeak in Surprise on Monday and were told:

" . . . he predominantly has sexually explicit images and videos of females between the ages of eight to twelve on his laptop computer."

" . . . he looks for child pornography on the Internet two hours every night after his children's bedtime."

This is the second case in 14 months in which a Surprise charter school has been linked to possible sex offenses involving minors.

Investigators in January 2007 discovered that a 29-year-old sex offender had been posing for several months in fall 2006 as a pre-teen at Imagine School at Rosefield. Neil Havens Rodreick II was finally caught while trying to pull the same ruse at a Chino Valley charter school. Surprise charter-school teacher busted for child porn [March 20]

Re:Priorities

[jamstar7]

Man I was right with you there until you threw in 3) OMG! Ponies!!!111!!! from left field.

Actually, I think he was onto something there. Scenario 3 is the most likely to happen first...

Re:Priorities

[TheRaven64]

I suspect most people would care about $5000. Take it down to $100, and most people will report it to their banks, who will either eat the loss as part of the cost of doing business (it's worth losing $100 to keep a customer for most banks) or pass it onto the merchant, who may claim on their insurance. Do this to each of the ten thousand users in a botnet, and you've got a million dollars. Not a huge amount these days, but enough that you can afford a comfortable lifestyle without working for the rest of your life. Move somewhere like India and you can afford a very comfortable lifestyle...

Re:Priorities

[Phisbut]

Take it down to $100, and most people will report it to their banks, who will either eat the loss as part of the cost of doing business (it's worth losing $100 to keep a customer for most banks) or pass it onto the merchant, who may claim on their insurance. Do this to each of the ten thousand users in a botnet, and you've got a million dollars.

If the bank has to eat the loss of $100 once, they'll just do it and move on. However, if they have to eat the loss of $100 ten thousand times, chances are they will begin to care and investigate.

Re:Priorities

[Jedi Alec]

Lately, it seems banks are losing billions left and right, who's gonna notice this kind of small fry anyay ;-)

Re:Priorities

[TheRaven64]

A lot of the ten thousand people on a botnet will have different banks. Ten thousand people out of the population of the USA is 0.003%, which is several orders of magnitude under the amount that an average bank would expect to have fraudulent transactions. Credit card fraud is measured in tens of billions of dollars - another million is a statistical anomaly, especially spread thinly over the entire population. It's only if the correlate the individual losses as being connected to each other that they will investigate, and that's unlikely.

Re:Priorities

[Anonymous Coward]

Take it down to $5 or $2 and most people won't even notice. Or assume it is a bank fee or ATM fee or whatever.

Heck I got charged $2 just for talking to a banker even though they automated system was down.
I got charged $2 just for talking to a banker for something the automated system couldn't handle.
And $2 for ATM fees, $6.95 for Bill Pay, $3 for just having an account, etc, etc.

I actually check and make sure things add up and account for that, but most people if they even bother to check, and see they are only a handful of dollars short, won't even bother to look further.

And if they see a charge they can't identify, they might assume it is legit or not bother if it is so low.

Heck, even legit charges have show up with strange names, strange cities and future dates. So how do you even tell?

Re:Priorities

[sumdumass]

I know a girl who while working as a waitress would go back and scribble a small tip on credit card payments when customers stiffed her. This was in the mid 90's with different machinery then what's common today but I assume it can still be done now. She got away with it for about 3 months and then got busted for adding a $10 tip to a $300 some dollar tab. The feds went back and checked the receipts for every single one of her guests who paid with a credit card over the year and a half she worked there and she was facing something like 160 counts of fraud for the three months they could prove. I guess they called people up and asked for their copy of the receipts and asked each person if they left a tip and how much. We had two agents on site interviewing everyone to see if they were an accomplice.

I don't know what she ended up pleading to(how many counts), She spent 1 year in prison, got a felony on her record and was bared from working anywhere she could handle or have access to other people's money for the 5 year term of her parole/probation. She ended up having to repay what she stole and it came out to less then $800 which makes you wonder how anyone would think that it was worth it. It may have seemed like the right thing to do when stiffed, but I don't think anyone would think it was worth it.

Nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

So if I see some link advertising child porn, and I click it to see if it's fake or something which actually needs to be reported to authorities, now I'm potentially opening myself up to having my computer confiscated and my life turned upside down?

Guess I'd better let the kids fend for themselves then!

Re:Nice.

[Ron_Fitzgerald]

This sounds like a legitimate question. Modding it down seems unfair.

I would have to say that just seeing the link would be enough to report it. I personally would not need to see it to report it. And I have.

Re:Nice.

[MoonlightSeraphim]

A question then? How would u determine whats on other side of the link without going there? What if the link is something like linuxaddictsunite[dot]org but its full of child porn on the other end? At the same time, what if u click one of the tinyurl redirects which was described as some game clan freehosting site? do ya deserve your machine to be confiscated and be facing prosecution?

Re:Nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of hot CP here: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=494944&cid=22815136!!!!!

Just report the link to every agency possible...good plan.

Re:Nice.

[DMUTPeregrine]

If the link is described as CP (EG the link they used was "4yo_suck.rar.html") then report it without clicking. If you get tricked into clicking, report it & wherever you got tricked from (or whatever poster posted it, etc.) and report it to the owner of the site.

Re:Nice.

[yayotters]

Now this is the story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
And Id like to take a minute just sit right there
Ill tell you how I got thrown in jail...

I intended on actually writing something....
But...It's 3am and I'm tired. :o

Re:Nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

How long until myspace gets "hacked" to redirect to this honeypot... I bet as soon as the son/daughter of one those FBI agents gets raided they'll shut the program down all quiet like.

captcha : respect
if only the FBI knew this word

Re:Nice.

[Em Adespoton]

My immediate thoughts ran to pop-ups and cross-site scripting. How long before my browser automatically "clicks" those links due to some code injected into an ad on a trusted site?

I can see the kiddies who spoof 911 calls having a heyday with this one; register someone's computer as having clicked on a bunch of porn links to get the FBI to raid their home and confiscate everything computer or financial related. This sort of thing could seriously harm anyone working in IT -- not to mention the social harm caused to anyone by having a morning FBI raid pulled on their house.

Re:Nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me someone should send these links to top-brass officials in D.C. (masquarading as something else of course) to see how many ensnared politicians and pundits it takes to get this travesty of justice corrected.

tor

[Anonymous Coward]

So now I'm curious. Did they raid a privacy buff who is running a tor server?

Rest Assured

[explosivejared]

Spoofing as a link to a slashdot article would be about the least successful campaign of this type the FBI could conduct. Of all the billions and trillions of links out there, the link to an article on slashdot is going to get the fewest.

Entrapment?

[prockcore]

Ok, I'm not one to throw around the term willy nilly, but this seems like it fits the very definition of entrapment.

Re:Entrapment?

[overcaffein8d]

that was my first reaction, but don't forget that entrapment is when you make or somehow get a person do to something that they would normally not do.

Re:Entrapment?

[SnoopJeDi]

That was my first thought, but TFA mentions that claims of entrapment in this context usually don't get far, because the defendants weren't "forced" or "tricked" into doing something they don't usually do.

I guess that really depends on the manner in which this 'sting' was set up, but personally, I'll just trust the article.

Re:Entrapment?

[Compholio]

that was my first reaction, but don't forget that entrapment is when you make or somehow get a person do to something that they would normally not do.

While IANAL, I have read that "tempting" someone to do something counts as entrapment. I think posting such a link would count; however, finding an existing link and monitoring it would not.

Re:Entrapment?

[explosivejared]

"Claims of entrapment have been made in similar cases, but usually do not get very far," said Stephen Saltzburg, a professor at George Washington University's law school. "The individuals who chose to log into the FBI sites appear to have had no pressure put upon them by the government...It is doubtful that the individuals could claim the government made them do something they weren't predisposed to doing or that the government overreached."

Not that that is my personal opinion, but the article points out that lawyers have said that this almost certainly is not entrapment. Apparently, the fbi is safe behind the argument that you clicked the link under your own will without unreasonable pressure from the government.

Re:Entrapment?

[pikine]

I think they don't use the fact you clicked on the hyperlink to incriminate you, but it's a probable cause for a warrant because you're likely to possess other child porn. It would be interesting, what would they do if they don't find any possession of child porn? Take off their hat and apologize for the inconvenience?

Re:Entrapment?

[tixxit]

I'd say it would be pretty hard to convince a judge that a person who clicked on a link thinking they were getting child porn wouldn't normally do that.

Re:Entrapment?

[cthugha]

No. Entrapment is where the State gets you to do something illegal and then charges you for doing that thing. The goal here AIUI was just to get evidence so that search warrants could be obtained to investigate other possible offences.

Now, that's not to say there are issues here, particularly about:

• using deception to get people to effectively admit that they're likely to do something bad and whether that infringes the right to silence or right against self-incrimination (in some jurisdictions it might);
• whether the onus required to get a search warrant was actually satisfied (just because you click one link doesn't necessarily mean that it's likely you've clicked similar links in the past),

but I don't think it's entrapment.

Re:Entrapment?

[crankyspice]

Ok, I'm not one to throw around the term willy nilly, but this seems like it fits the very definition of entrapment.

Not if you actually know the, you know, definition of entrapment. From the (approved on appeal) jury instructions from a recent case on the matter (note the logical and logic; all of the below elements must be met for an entrapment defense to work):

[A] defendant may not be convicted of a crime if it was the government who gave the defendant the idea to commit the crime, if it was the government who also persuaded him to commit the crime, and if he was not ready and willing to commit the crime before the government officials or agent first spoke with him.

U.S. v. BRAND, 467 F.3d 179, 205 (2nd Cir. 2006)

Also, the crime(s) at issue here -- not related to the link-baiting that provided probable cause for the search warrant. Any entrapment defense would not be available against crime(s) discovered during the execution of said warrants.

Re:Entrapment?

[QuantumG]

apologize? The FBI? You're kidding right?

There is absolutely NO repercussions to a judge who authorizes a search warrant on shoddy evidence. Law enforcement can literally *lie* to get the warrant and, even if you can prove they were lying, there isn't a venue to file your complaint. Even if they cause damage to your property, you can't sue... they had a valid warrant. About the only people you *can* file your complaint with is the FBI.. who will action it, around the 4th of never.

Re:Entrapment?

[cthugha]

I see from the article that one guy was charged and convicted with an attempt to download for following the link. I'm surprised this got up because of the entrapment issue, but I wouldn't be surprised if the charge was used to justify the raid after nothing else was found.

Re:Entrapment?

[Anonymous Coward]

No problem about NOT finding anything incriminating, as some associate can guarantee it soon after the source is determined.

Their game is numbers and wins, not justice.

Re:Entrapment?

[crankyspice]

While IANAL, I have read that "tempting" someone to do something counts as entrapment.

No.

For the defense of entrapment is not simply that the particular act was committed at the instance of government officials. That is often the case where the proper action of these officials leads to the revelation of criminal enterprises. The predisposition and criminal design of the defendant are relevant. SORRELLS v. UNITED STATES, 287 U.S. 435, 451 (1932)

An example, off the top of my head - if I'm an undercover cop and I walk up to you on a shady street corner and ask if you're holding, and you sell me drugs, and I arrest you, if the evidence is sufficient to establish that you're a drug dealer independent of my initiating a drug sale transaction (e.g., you have other individually packaged quantities of drugs, I have corroborating witness testimony that has you dealing drugs, etc -- yes, this is character evidence, but an entrapment defense puts character in play and I can present it), guess what, even if you wouldn't have sold me drugs but for my request, it's not entrapment.

Oh, and no, asking "are you a cop," and my answer in the negative, doesn't constitute entrapment.

Re:Entrapment?

[stubear]

Entrapment require some form of inducement on the part of law enforcement. Sting operations often walk a fine line but as long as the police do not try to convince the person to commit an illegal act, in this case clicking on a link to child porn, then there is no entrapment.

Re:Entrapment?

[RealGrouchy]

Instead of simply referencing what you "heard" or "read", why don't you at least check out the Wikipedia article on entrapment, which lists lots of relevant US case law, and talks about the two different tests for entrapment.

- RG>

Re:Entrapment?

[cgenman]

I can't wait until the FBI raids the CEOS.

Let's also not forget that clicking is not required... all that's required is pre-fetching. I suspect these links are buried somewhere deep in the land of ugly stuff, but it is still a frightening concept that clicking a link = get raided. Does the same idea apply to clicking through the more questionable personals on Craigslist? Or following a link for cialis from an e-mail?

Of course, the law still technically sends anyone to jail who receives unsolicited child pornography in the mail. The laws around this particular area are kind of silly.

Re:Entrapment?

[ohtani]

No. IANAL, but I DO know that the big difference between a sting and entrapment is one simple thing: peer-pressure. Entrapment requires INDUCING the person to do something they would have otherwise not done. Nobody communicated directly with him and said "man you should totally check this out". He found it on his own. Clicked on it on his own will.

However, whether that in itself is a crime is ANOTHER story. Clicking that link may be a good way to see who they should search. But clicking that link doesn't always translate to being a guilty party.

Re:Entrapment?

[Nephilium]

Personally, I'll trust the article, but I wouldn't necessarily trust the law enforcement agents involved. Just do a quick google for no-knock SWAT raid incidents for a reason not to trust them...

Nephilium

Re:Entrapment?

[canajin56]

It would be interesting, what would they do if they don't find any possession of child porn?

The usual thing that happens when they seize all of your possessions executing a warrant, but don't turn up any evidence: Auction off all your equipment anyways and tell you to go to hell. Then, after 8 years of trying to sue later, cut you a check for $200 as "just compensation" since that's what your now 8 year old computer is worth in the current market.

Re:Entrapment?

[robertjw]

Maybe we need a Rate-A-Judge website.

Re:Entrapment?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Click me! I have a child pornography image here! Totally safe!!"

That's not getting someone to do something illegal and then raiding their home and charging them for it?

Re:Entrapment?

[stuffeh]

This whole issue is just a sting operation where the police puts a target out there for someone to pounce on. When they do pounce, instead of instantly hauling them to jail, they get a warrant and search the computers. How much different is this from getting the guy on the street corner selling/buying drugs? Or that prostitute walking down the street at 9pm? The only real difference is that the FBI aren't busting you for the click, but for the child porn that may or may not be on your computer. I for one think it's a decent idea, except for the possibility of an FBI raid that may take someone's gear in the instances of false positives. And we all know that happens (like those little old woman the RIAA sued). Brings up the question.. what would happen if the ISP gives the wrong user information, and the FBI still finds child porn on the person's computer? Would the case get thrown out?

Re:Entrapment?

[Anonymous Coward]

God bless the USA!

Re:Entrapment?

[Adult film producer]

well, if the police wanted to put people away for drugs couldn't they just drop a duffle bag full of cocaine & marijuana on the sidewalk.. and wait for someone to pick it up and look inside, arrest them for possession and intent to distribute.

Re:Entrapment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we need a Rate-A-Judge website.

...so that you can choose a different judge when the FBI hauls your ass into court for child pornography?

Re:Entrapment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, they will manufacture evidence if they can't come up with any. They've made up their mind that you are guilty of something and that you deserve to be punished. I think it has been quoted that 20% of the people in prison are not guilty of the crime that were convicted of. Most of the 20% have committed other crimes, but have not been convicted of them.

Re:Entrapment?

[visible.frylock]

I think they don't use the fact you clicked on the hyperlink to incriminate you, but it's a probable cause for a warrant because you're likely to possess other child porn.

Article says otherwise. FTA:

Vosburgh faced four charges: clicking on an illegal hyperlink; knowingly destroying a hard drive and a thumb drive by physically damaging them when the FBI agents were outside his home; obstructing an FBI investigation by destroying the devices; and possessing a hard drive with two grainy thumbnail images of naked female minors (the youths weren't having sex, but their genitalia were visible).

The judge threw out the third count and the jury found him not guilty of the second. But Vosburgh was convicted of the first and last counts, which included clicking on the FBI's illicit hyperlink.

And then just for fun:

In a legal brief filed on March 6, his attorney argued that the two thumbnails were in a hidden "thumbs.db" file automatically created by the Windows operating system. The brief said that there was no evidence that Vosburgh ever viewed the full-size images--which were not found on his hard drive--and the thumbnails could have been created by receiving an e-mail message, copying files, or innocently visiting a Web page.

Now, I'm the first one to rail against thumbs.db, since I'm one of the weirdos who has hidden files turned on, but I'm suspicious that Windows creates it from only receiving an email. But it might be valid that images received in email, opened, and then deleted by the user are still hanging around in thumbs.db. Anyone have any information?

Re:Entrapment?

[dbIII]

Entrapment is more where the undercover cop asks you if you want to buy drugs or a CIA agent spends over a year trying to convince your company to sell electronic parts to Saddam in the early 1990s.

Re:Entrapment?

[catmistake]

True. But its worse than that. Forget the kiddie porn for a moment. When those in law enforcement or jurists actually break the law, they get off usually with a slap on the wrist, maybe lose their job, at worst probation and suspended sentences. Good luck if you're a victim. No one will believe you without video evidence.

Re:Entrapment?

[Anonymous Coward]

thinking they were getting child porn

Two Chinese guys standing above some water. First guy says 'the fish seem so happy darting about below'. Second guy says 'you do not know what the fish think'. First guy says 'you do not know what I know'.

Re:Entrapment?

[StrategicIrony]

Hmmm... from a purely legal perspective, that's all well and good.

But if you're the innocent dude with the open wireless, TOR proxy, pre-fetching browser, crawler-bot software or are a clicker of random unsolicited email links and ALL of your equipment (including all of your utility bills? and mail? apparently?) are taken by the Feds.

Do you feel justice was served? :-)

Re:Entrapment?

[DarkIye]

What about police officers posing as drug dealers? That's been going on for a while, and apparently that's not entrapment, though it seems to fit the definition even better than what's going on here.

Re:Entrapment?

[Anonymous Coward]

But this is more like your example in reverse. If you the guy on a shady street corner, and you ask me if I want to BUY your product and then you arrest me for buying it, that scenario might be considered differently. If you did not supply the illegal stuff, there would be no transaction and no crime.

In this case, I think they are supplying the links and claiming that the illegal stuff was already there. Even so, providing a link to illegal content is facilitating a transaction that might not otherwise take place. If the FBI does not provide the link, what are the chances that the user gets the file anyway? Could the link be considered a form of advertisement? If so, is it OK to advertise an illegal product and bust the people who respond to the ad?

Re:Entrapment?

[DavidTC]

I'm fairly fucking suspicious that someone can determine that people in a poorly-generated 75x75 thumbnails is 'underaged' in the first place.

And people end up sending thumbs.db all the time to other people, mostly by accident in compressed files.

Re:Entrapment?

[Phisbut]

I'd say it would be pretty hard to convince a judge that a person who clicked on a link thinking they were getting child porn wouldn't normally do that.

Except they have no proof that the person clicked on a link thinking they were getting child porn. Since they were only logging requests and not referers, any link with a more legitimate label would have gotten him flagged. In a web where everything is hyperlinked, all visitors of one web page do not come from the same page.

Re:Entrapment?

[greenreaper]

Actually, there are rules for this. If you feel a judge would be prejudiced towards you, you can file a motion to have them removed from the case. Not saying it'd work, but might be worth trying. Better yet, the motion becomes part of the case history, so his past actions are being brought up as well.

Re:Entrapment?

[sumdumass]

I think they can tempt you without it being entrapment. It has to do with something you wouldn't normally do. But I'm wondering if this link wouldn't be an "attractive nuisance". I know that an attractive nuisance Normally deal with real property (land and buildings), but the criteria doesn't seem like it would be confined to "Real" property. Could someone who's kid clicked on the links because they thought it was a joke sue the feds for this to recover legal fees?

I'm not normally a fan of lawsuits, but it might be something that needs to happen when the wrong person gets accused.

Re:Entrapment?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be interesting, what would they do if they don't find any possession of child porn? Take off their hat and apologize for the inconvenience?

The FBI never admits to making mistakes, there's a much better chance of pigs flying than them apologizing. What would happen? One of two things depending on the agent(s) involved:

1. They magically find child porn on your hard drives anyway. You can make your own guess as to how it got there.
2. They try to quietly sweep the entire thing under a rug and pretend it never happened. This includes never returning the stuff they seized because that would be admitting they made a mistake.

Thankfully option 2 is more likely than 1, but it's still not fair. Oh, and you think you'll sue? Good luck, lawyers will tell you that it's quite a dangerous thing to even attempt (The ACLU will warn you about this too.) Since the FBI really, REALLY hates to be embarrassed, if you sue them, thus pointing out their mistakes to the world, they will hound you for the rest of your life until they find something, anything to nail you for. Can you manage to live your life without breaking a single law from now on? Didn't think so, so you won't sue them either. You'll just learn to fear and despise your own very corrupt government for the rest of you life.

Posted anonymously because I do indeed fear my own government.

Re:Entrapment?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they will never apologize. They will spend a year or more processing your storage media for erased files, and until the investigation is officially closed, they will keep all your equipment. In most cases they can even destroy the hardware in retrieval attempts, and you have no recourse.

As for entrapment, it COULD be considered such, as the definition of entrapment involves not giving you an opportunity to abide by the law and not break it.

I think it's a lot like putting up a sign that reads "Reading this sign is illegal".

Re:Entrapment?

[DougBTX]

> The goal here AIUI was just to get evidence so that search warrants could be obtained

RTFA: "Vosburgh faced four charges: clicking on an illegal hyperlink; ...; ... Vosburgh was convicted of the first and last counts, which included clicking on the FBI's illicit hyperlink."

Clicking the link apparently counts as attempting to download child porn, which itself is a crime. Doesn't matter how many times you've clicked similar links in the past. It probably doesn't count as entrapment because they didn't hold a gun to your head and say "click that link pervert."

Re:Entrapment?

[jg1708]

An undercover cop asking someone if they want to buy drugs, without more, is almost not entrapment.

Sweeet!

[overshoot]

I wondered what that garbage URL in the church newsletter was all about.

Google's I'm feeling lucky

[Psychotic_Wrath]

I'm feeling lucky with google can be kinda scary to use now

Re:Google's I'm feeling lucky

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, then stop searching for "harry potter nude"

Re:Google's I'm feeling lucky

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, they should change the button to "I'm feeling lucky, punk!".

Re:Google's I'm feeling lucky

[Bob9113]

I'm feeling lucky with google can be kinda scary to use now

Feeling lucky with Google? That's sick man, Google is only 9 years old!

Re:Google's I'm feeling lucky

[thegnu]

I'm feeling lucky with google can be kinda scary to use now

yes, because you were looking for *information* on pedophilia and necrophilia, not *pictures*, right?

Re:Google's I'm feeling lucky

[helmespc]

Russian googlette???

Welcome to the gulag, comrade...

Re:Google's I'm feeling lucky

[Unique2]

It's like russian roulette for geeks.

Re:Google's I'm feeling lucky

[Debian Cabbit]

They should rename it "Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?".

Re:Google's I'm feeling lucky

[RincewindTVD]

I've worked out a way around that!
I just had to stop prefacing all my searches with "dodgy child porn", also on an unrelated note, has anyone noticed that google is now giving me results that are useful? I used to get the weirdest crap...

Captch: underage

Re:Google's I'm feeling lucky

[Anonymous Coward]

They ought to rename it to "Are you feeling lucky, punk?"

Re:Google's I'm feeling lucky

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't quite understand why this comment was modded "funny". The issue may trigger quite a range of emotions, but "amusement" is definitely not among them.

It nicely illustrates the point that simply by using a search engine you're put at danger of getting the "government treatment". It isn't just the "feeling lucky" button, too. How closely do any of you scrutinize their search results before clicking on a link? Usually less than a second if the first link looks vaguely relevant. Heck, happens a lot that I click through the first few links just to get an overview and sort them out later.

Prove that it was a Google result that you clicked on, not a link from our little forum trap. You're guilty, now prove your innocence. How can you even disprove accusations based on your intentions! Until then, we confiscate you equipment and lock you up, you sex offender scum. This is America?

Re:Google's I'm feeling lucky

[Rigrig]

You're obviously not feeling lucky enough to use it.

Deniablity

[infonography]

It's a webcollage a site that randomly searches images

http://www.jwz.org/webcollage/

I actually have had it bookmarked for the last 7 years or so. It's a nice randomizer for my day.

Abuse?

[_bug_]

If someone started masking these kinds of links as legit links and sent them out in e-mails and such you could wind up with a lot of innocent people being raided by the FBI. And then how do you prove you didn't mean to click on the link?

What about hidden frames that open these kinds of links?

What about use of javascript, flash, java, or other embedded technology to make http requests in the background?

It just seems way too easy to get innocent people caught up in this sort of trap.

Re:Abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be a wonderful thing if some white-hat hackers started showering LEA's with all these forms of abuse, especially cybercrime investigation units and the FBI.

It would teach them how ridiculous their methods are, and hopefully it would show the scumbags the kind of ruin they bring to people's lives on a daily basis by doing this kind of nonsense instead of out trying protect people.. or finding the people who MAKE the porn.

It's yet another method to go persecuting the public, without regard to whether or not they are actually criminals.

Re:Abuse?

[Stanislav_J]

If someone started masking these kinds of links as legit links and sent them out in e-mails and such you could wind up with a lot of innocent people being raided by the FBI. And then how do you prove you didn't mean to click on the link?

What about hidden frames that open these kinds of links?

What about use of javascript, flash, java, or other embedded technology to make http requests in the background?

It just seems way too easy to get innocent people caught up in this sort of trap.

Does anyone still even give a shit about the innocent as long as some bad guys are caught? In the wars on drugs, terrorism, kiddie porn, and all other hot buzz quests, I was under the impression that innocent people caught up in their dragnets have been viewed as "acceptable collateral damage" for quite some time now.

Re:Abuse?

[Urza9814]

In my view, 'collateral damage' is _never_ acceptable. But then again, I suppose those of us who hold on to the ideal of 'innocent until proven guilty' are just freaks now.

Re:Abuse?

[SpacePunk]

It's better for an innocent man to rot in prison than to let a criminal go free.

If current law enforcement principles were applied to the Vietnam war, the My Lai massacre would have been deemed a successfull operation.

Re:Abuse?

[pandaba]

Actually a great way to defeat this would be to embed the link everywhere as the modern paranoid rickroll.

Get it voted up on Reddit and get everyone to click on it as an act of protest.

The FBI system will be so overloaded they'll have to give up and this will be a failure.

Re:Abuse?

[jamstar7]

It would be a wonderful thing if some white-hat hackers started showering LEA's with all these forms of abuse, especially cybercrime investigation units and the FBI.

Said white hats would be in jail shortly thereafter. No good deed goes unpunished, remember?

Re:Abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, we could all click on the links and slashdot the hell out of them

Re:Abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the mind of the state, conformity trumps everything, including your natural human right (god-given if you prefer) to liberty. Without conformity, how exactly could the state turn a profit? They didn't become the world's largest business (measured in trillions of dollars per year) by letting you choose for yourself how to prioritize your life.

Re:Abuse?

[Anonymous Coward]

If current law enforcement principles were applied to the Vietnam war, the My Lai massacre would have been deemed a successfull operation.

Given that only one person was convicted of anything due to the My Lai massacre, and they only ended up with a whopping 4.5 months in prison (with full conjugal visits from their girlfriend), it's probably safe to say it was viewed as a successful operation even then. Certainly no one was truly held responsible for it.

Entrapment?

[phantomcircuit]

This seems like entrapment to me, they are effectively soliciting child pornography. They are not allowed to solicit in prostitution stings, the john must make the solicitation.

I'm sure they get around this by claiming you must click the link, an affirmative action on your part, but wouldn't that be the same as putting up a sign advertising prostitution? (which is illegal too I might add)

the problem is ... he was into child porn

[Anonymous Coward]

all the evidence is there ... he destroyed two hard drives while the agents were at his house, and he did have some thumbnail images ... c'mon the man is guilty ... no sympathy from me, I only hope they beat him up too

Re:the problem is ... he was into child porn

[helmespc]

Yea... in this case it sure sounds like he was a pedo.... and he's probably getting whats coming to him.... but the implications for many innocent people are quite disturbing.

Re:the problem is ... he was into child porn

[QCompson]

all the evidence is there ... he destroyed two hard drives while the agents were at his house, and he did have some thumbnail images ... c'mon the man is guilty ... no sympathy from me, I only hope they beat him up too Read the article. There were two counts alleging that the suspect destroyed evidence. He was found not guilty by the jury on one, and the judge threw the other one out. So unless you believe he is guilty until proven innocent, and then still guilty, then that's not a reason to hope for violence. Feel free to advocate violence because the guy possessed two thumbnail images.

Re:the problem is ... he was into child porn

[evanbd]

Guilt is not sufficient to remove legal protections. In fact, many of our legal protections are there to prevent the rights of the guilty from being trampled on, not just the wrongly accused.

The fact that this particular crime is an emotionally sensitive one should not change that. Nor should it mean he deserves cruel and unjust punishment. I'm all in favor of sending him to jail if a court finds him guilty beyond reasonable doubt -- but people calling for him to be beaten or raped sicken me.

Re:the problem is ... he was into child porn

[triskaidekaphile]

So you are saying that whatever means that law enforcement uses is fine so long as the perpetrator is guilty?

Good thing you posted as an Anonymous Coward. Otherwise I might just be tempted to drive by your house, hop on to your open wireless node, and click on a few FBI-sponsored links.

Or maybe I should just backtrack your IP and hack in through your unpatched Windows box and start your machine trawling for more illegal images. And some movies and songs, too!

Can you say POLICE STATE

[zappepcs]

I thought you could. Lets all say it together now. This is what the THOUGHT POLICE will do when they are trying to ensnare thought criminals. Make it so even the curious are guilty, no matter the reason for their curiosity. Yes, all those pretty little links on the Intarwebtupbestruck are there for us to click on. I mean SURELY there really isn't someone advertising child porn, it MUST be some kind of joke, right? click ...
NO CARRIER

Fucking nazi police state bastards. For god sake, protect the children. Lets ignore that little nasty fact that: About 95% of victims know their perpetrators. Source: CCPCA, 1992. http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/stats.htm#Offenders

Yes, pictures may be offensive to many, but they do NOT correlate 100% to abusers.

People who view physically graphic bdsm pictures are not rapists.

Lets get the fact right people. A casual relationship does not correlate to cause without hard scientific fact finding to back the statement up.

This is worse than a cop dressed like a prostitute to persecute victims of that 'crime'.

I'm so sick of the one-size-fits-all use of pop-psychology to enact and enforce draconian laws.

Lets start by banning idiots from Washington DC rather than guns and work our way down from there. /personal rant

Re:Can you say POLICE STATE

[countvlad]

Lets start by banning idiots from Washington DC rather than guns and work our way down from there. /personal rant But then who will run the government?

Re:Can you say POLICE STATE

[shellbeach]

Yes, pictures may be offensive to many, but they do NOT correlate 100% to abusers.

People who view physically graphic bdsm pictures are not rapists. I thought about modding you down, but since I've seen this attitude in several posts, I think this needs to be replied to instead.

The difference between graphic bdsm pictures and pr0n involving children is that the former are fictitious creations made by consenting adults, and the latter actually happened to children unable to defend themselves. If the bdsm pictures you were viewing were taken from an actual rape incident, by viewing them you would be encouraging more rapes and supporting rapists. And this is exactly what happens with child pr0n -- these kids are not, and obviously can never be, consenting adults.

The other issue you're happily avoiding here is that most people are not just looking (and thus passively supporting) but they're paying money and actively supporting these acts. Even if the sites are free, they are undoubtedly supported by advertising that generates dollars when you visit the site. This, then, goes beyond curiosity, into a realm where the viewers are actively contributing to the continuation of child pr0n.

To make this point completely clear: if nobody viewed child pr0n on the web, there would be no market and the incidence of creation would be greatly reduced. You cannot visit a child pr0n site, and yet somehow remain isolated from the loop that promotes more and more child pr0n.

If the FBI want to take measures to stamp this out, that's completely fine by me. They should be praised, not vilified.

Re:Can you say POLICE STATE

[zappepcs]

How about we strive for some open and transparent government. No lobbyists money. Open voting that is monitored by Internet live, not just on TV, and not without feedback. How about we allow ALL legislators the chance to read every proposed law, and receive feedback from their constituents before the votes? How about we allow recall votes on every 8th Tuesday via Internet? How about we put the voting power over new legislation in the hands of the people?

Yeah, you'll tell me that groupthink is not working, just look at digg or reddit or slashdot and I'll reply back that the overall opinion from those sites *tends* to reflect the average opinion. Limit that to voter registration number IDs and it works. It gives our legislators an instant idea of how the voters want the vote to go.

Let each legislator call a 48 hour hiatus on any bill movement if there are blips in the Internet voting. Lets set this up and monitor it via the open source methods so that there is always a whistleblower or 5000 to point out flaws. How about we make this the 21st century government of the people, for the people, BY the people?

Yes, there are problems with that, but doing nothing and leaving the status quo only encourages the ravages to justice that we have been witness to. Change now. I don't just mean presidential party change, I mean change for all of it. The system does NOT fairly represent the populace opinion. That is NOT what the founders wanted. The current system was created to attempt to do that with 18th century technology. We have advanced since then. Lets put some advances in the legislative and governing processes.

No, I do not advocate bio-ID or anything like that. It's simple, show your papers, get your number, vote. Yes, F/OSS can come up with a voting systme that works AND is able to be monitored. It's not that hard.

Take the interworkings of government out of the hands of those that would work behind closed doors and ALL will change. Suddenly, you'll have time to put aside the beer to go vote online for a bill that means something to you when it is all transparent and in your face. When it is as easy as logging on at home there will be a LOT of people interested, they will feel empowered. Form letters saying thanks for your input are ridiculously stupid in response to an email... never mind that they are tantamount to being blown off.

Re:Can you say POLICE STATE

[zappepcs]

You know what, I can agree to a point. I surf porn, who doesn't? right? every so often I'm taken to sites that look like child porn without my consent to do so. The link is misleading. I panic and close the window. I'm not guilty of supporting child pornographers or promoting child sexual abuse. It just happens. The government could well spend their time finding those things and shutting them down rather than abuse ME for clicking on a link that was not advertising correctly.

While your argument for how child porn is supported seems to hold water, I have doubts. Your definition would include those that would draw pictures, never involve a human child, and never assault a child. Your net is too wide. You are too far into thought police territory to be credible. I do understand your concern, and the difficulty in curbing the spread of what you feel is wrong.

I do NOT support child abuse, sexual or otherwise... and likewise, I DO NOT support thought police. To simply look at something out of curiosity is not to be an abuser. Scientists have valid reasons to investigate what is available on the Internet. Those with a curiosity about human sexuality have a valid reason to look or seek information.

Your intent and scope mean to imprison all that might be curious as well as those that are hard core abusers through a simple act of thought or interest. God forbid they make C++ programming illegal, how many would be punished wrongly?

Sure, you say well no one should even be interested in child pornography, right? But I did not click on a link that said "Hey STUPID, this is child pornography that will get you jailed"... it was much more NOT illegal in description. As a casual surfer how the FUCK am I supposed to know the difference between 18 and 16? Even as careful as I am, I still occasionally end up on some site with VERY young looking kids? WTF? That is not what I wanted. That is NOT what I clicked on.

I'm left feeling that I do not know if I should surf the net anymore if they are going to bust into my home and shoot people because I may have clicked on a link that maliciously redirected me to that FBI link?

In fact, I'm thinking we should have anonymous set up thousands of links to those FBI links so that they can't actually prosecute anyone. WTF dude? You assume that everyone that might end up at that link MUST be some pervert. That just so wrong I don't even know how to insult you.

Re:Can you say POLICE STATE

[Moridin42]

Basically, what you're saying is that you want the legislature to legislate itself out of existance. Because there wouldn't be any need for that particular branch of government anymore.

Somehow, I don't think that'll happen. Ever.

Re:Can you say POLICE STATE

[Paco103]

zappepcs for President, 08 - \. party

Alongside the donkey and the elephant, now stands cowboy neal!

If that doesn't work, I think we should just take the American Idol approach to elections. People devote months to watching and following these people. Wouldn't it be nice if people put the same devotion and thought into picking our politicians?

Re:Can you say POLICE STATE

[FunkSoulBrother]

is it illegal to hoard and jerk off to pictures of actual (adult) rape?

Re:Can you say POLICE STATE

[Reziac]

"The difference between graphic bdsm pictures and pr0n involving children is that the former are fictitious creations made by consenting adults, and the latter actually happened to children unable to defend themselves."

Except that as I recall, in some jurisdictions even FICTIONAL IMAGES (eg. comics) that depict kiddie porn are legally considered to be the very same thing as actual photos of real live child porn.

Yep -- even if no actual children are involved, it can still be illegal. Think of the defenseless pixels!!

Re:Can you say POLICE STATE

[shellbeach]

Jesus, I bloody hope it is!!

Re:Can you say POLICE STATE

[shellbeach]

You make some good points. But note that the general accepted definition of child pron involves young children: they're not going to look 16, 18 or whatever. We're talking prepubescent here. I'm not a big pr0n user, and haven't surfed for it for several years now, but I can't recall ever seeing links to child pr0n on a regular pr0n site (this may, however, reflect the way the industry has changed in the last four years).

Also, I'm not assuming that anyone who ends up at a generic, poorly labelled link must be a pervert. However, according to the article, the links claimed to be of "illegal videos of minors having sex", which is pretty explicit. Provided these links were clearly marked, and that some basic checks -- such as looking that the referring sites to make sure that the links hadn't made it into the open in a disguised form -- I still don't have a problem with people who click on these links being investigated. Now, if the FBI were using a disguised site which you could stumble upon by accident, that's another issue, and I can see your point there. One hopes that these honeypots are well thought out -- and also, that if they're poorly designed, that the courts will prevent a miscarriage of justice.

I must say, that on further reading of the article, I'm disturbed by the fact that "attempts" to download material is a crime: I'd have hoped that the users snared by the honeypot would then have their computers searched for incriminating material and the crimes based on that instead. But I'm still not sure that these methods aren't warranted -- child pr0n is so badly wrong on so many counts that it really does need to be fought.

Your argument about making c++ programming illegal, though, is a bit silly. I do not believe that curiosity is an issue here. If you're presented with a link that clearly states it's to a illegal video of minors having sex, are you really going to say, "oh, gee, you know -- I've never seen one of those before. Why don't I take a quick peek and have a look?" Even if someone doesn't find the concept in itself disturbing, the fact that they are about to witness something which is causing someone else pain and suffering is surely going to make them pause and think. Not to mention the fact that they'd have to be living under a rock these last few years not to know it was illegal!!

I dunno -- it's an emotive issue, which is always hard to look at objectively. I've tried hard to avoid the "think of the children" arguments, but it's difficult when that's really exactly what it boils down to. (Incidentally, I note with amusement that my original post got modded down ... so much for open discussion!)

Re:Can you say POLICE STATE

[shellbeach]

Actually, having read TFA again, it does appear that the FBI failed to record the referrer sites. However, looking at the case in question, the guy clearly knew exactly what he wanted to download: he tried multiple files in the honeypot list, and when they didn't work the first time (since the video file was apparently just static) he tried to open them again a few minutes later. The links themselves were as explicit as you can get.

Re:Can you say POLICE STATE

[zappepcs]

I just want to offer/add a couple of thoughts on what you have said.

I do not believe that curiosity is an issue here. If you're presented with a link that clearly states it's to a illegal video of minors having sex, are you really going to say, "oh, gee, you know -- I've never seen one of those before. Why don't I take a quick peek and have a look?"

If I saw something that "clearly states it's a link to an illegal video of minors having sex" My first thought is of Murphy. If it says that SOMEONE will click it thinking "BS, they really didn't post that ... did they? click

Keep away from the stove, it's hot..... back turns.... sizzle... crying and tears everywhere

Even if someone doesn't find the concept in itself disturbing, the fact that they are about to witness something which is causing someone else pain and suffering is surely going to make them pause and think. Not to mention the fact that they'd have to be living under a rock these last few years not to know it was illegal!!

Have you ever thought about why hockey is exciting? fights. WWE? fights. Have you ever been stuck in traffic only to find out that it came to a standstill while people gawk at the carnage of a car wreck on the other side of the road? Curiosity is compelling in humans. Cats apparently get 9 chances while we have to get burned to find out. Look at what you can find on prime-time television in the USA... is child porn really so far away from all that? Humans LOVE to see the pain of others. I have no clue why you said that they wouldn't want to see others harmed. We had blood sports in Roman times ferchrissakes!

We essentially exist at some arbitrary moral level only slightly above child sexual abuse. It is not unnatural for a percentage of the population to be curious or immune to disgust over it. For any given sexual deviation this is true, more or less. The arbitrary line drawn will, by definition, make it so that there are innocents on the wrong side of it. It is NOT a black and white issue and treating it under the law as though it were harms lives.

Ask yourself: would you rather a guilty man be set free or an innocent man put to death? The laws drawn up for some crimes are so overreaching that we hang the innocent in order to ensure we hang the guilty. Hang them all, let god sort them out. I disagree very strongly with such actions.

If you find someone that pays for child pr()n, or is the pornographer... by all means punish them, but don't cast your net so wide that you ensnare innocent people. Thoughts are not crimes.

For further edification: Suicide in the USA used to be a crime, watch what happens to people who are unsuccessful at it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_Act_1961
Many people get depressed and have suicidal thoughts. Should those people be treated as criminals? locked away in white leather suits?

We have prohibition on drugs, are there fewer drugs now in the US? We had prohibition on alcohol, it did not work either. Simply making child pr0n illegal does not stop it. Law enforcement will not cure society of the problem. Penalizing innocents, the curious, and accidental possessors of child pr0n will not make it go away nor make the world more safe for even one child.

By all means, search for and punish those who are actually guilty of something, but make damned sure they are really guilty of something first. With all the arguments of what causes harm to a child remember that more than 95% of all child sexual abuse is perpetrated by someone that the abused child knows personally. That person is not likely to have tons of child pr0n on their computer. Pictures on the Internet do not really constitute actual criminal activity. They are evidence of criminal activity... maybe. It's not a crime everywhere in the world. If you don't want the pictures available, go find who posted them, prosecute that person and see if you can find the original photog

Re:Can you say POLICE STATE

[retro128]

There is a reason we have the government we have at this time. People don't care about politics. They don't care about shady backroom deals, no-bid contracts, pervasive surveillance, or the couple's son across town dying in the war. They don't care because it doesn't affect THEM. In America, people only get involved or want to change the status quo when something happens to them or their pocketbooks. Other times they buy bullshit like "Don't change horses in mid stream" or "The surge is working" or "Housing won't collapse". As ideal as your ideas are, I'm afraid they won't fly because of this. People are only too happy to cede control of their lives to someone else and can't shake the "government knows best" syndrome. At least until it's blazingly obvious that they don't.

Re:Can you say POLICE STATE

[riker1384]

What about all the videos of real people (usually adults) getting beaten or murdered that you can find all over the Internet on sites like Liveleak and Nothingtoxic? If I watch a video of someone getting his head chopped off, that's a real crime with a real victim. Am I then responsible for the murder, or considered a probable murderer myself because I watched it?

Re:Can you say POLICE STATE

[shellbeach]

Hmmm ... I think most people criticise rather than praise the Romans for their love of bloodsports. However, you do have a point -- there is probably something ingrained in the human psyche about it.

Nevertheless, I have several friends who have been raped, and one who was raped when she was 10 years old. If what had happened to her had been filmed or photographed, her pain would be infinitely worse -- and anyone who then gets off on that sort of thing, I really have to say, is sick. Or let me put it another way: if you were raped, and images of that event taken, would you be happy for those images to be freely distributed around the net without any crime taking place?

(There is, of course, a big difference between fantasy and reality -- many people of both sexes have fantasies of rape and/or control, hence the bdsm pr0n market. Yet just because a girl might have a fantasy about rape, it doesn't mean she actually wants to be raped! And the thing about child pr0n is that it crosses the line into reality -- what you're witnessing are real acts on unconsenting minors.)

I don't think you can draw a long bow from child pr0n, where the victim is obviously unconsenting, to things such as alcohol, drugs or suicide, where the victim is complicit in their own fate. Maybe prohibition won't work, but I think that given the severity of the crime it's worth a try.

I also don't think that it's a case of guilt until proven innocent here. Perhaps I'm being naive, but I'd hope that if someone innocently clicked on a disguised honeypot link the court system would save him. I'm, of course, also assuming that anyone convicted by these laws didn't do anything like destroy a HDD and a USB thumb drive when the FBI came around to raid his home (which is what the guy in TFA did), or that he had thumbnails of child pr0n images sitting on his computer (also the guy in TFA).

Re:Can you say POLICE STATE

[Anonymous Coward]

It really is a nice thought. How do you get around the problem of people not having internet access to vote on issues on a regular basis? I mean even if they could still vote by mail or in person, they would be much less likely to vote often.

I wonder if you could base a political platform off this idea; that is, promising a much more democratic system.

Oops

[cheebie]

In related news, the FBI served 20,000 warrants at Google
headquarters.

Entrapment.

[Bo'Bob'O]

Ok, I know there are some lawyers out there on Slashdot, so I have to ask, isn't this WAY over the line of entrapment? Or is it because they "only" raid your home that this is legal?

So basically, all that would have to happen is someone post this link on an unrelated message board I frequent disguised as a link of interest, then I get my house raided, my computers confiscated likely with no return, dragged into court preceding and there is nothing I can do about it?

Re:Entrapment.

[LupusUF]

I'm not a lawyer, but from what I have read about entrapment if they tried to charge you for viewing porn because you clicked on the link, that would be entrapment. However, they are not doing that. They are using the fact that you clicked on the link as probable cause for searching your computer. They then charge you having the child porn on your computer that is unrelated to link that you clicked. If you didn't have any porn on your computer, then you likely would not be able to be charged for clicking on the link (since you could then claim entrapment).

Re:Entrapment.

[Breakfast Pants]

So your answer is yes, because to determine that, they would take his computers.

Re:Entrapment.

[base3]

Of course, they might have stumbled over your pirated copy of Photoshop, so even though they didn't find any child porn, they still get a bust.

Re:Entrapment.

[jellomizer]

IANAL But I would but wouldn't entrapment be more like they made a page trying to convince you that Child Porn was Legal, Moral, and/or Not a big deal, then give you a link. In general pressuring you do the activity. Just putting a link and say it is for Child Porn, isn't entrapment because the person is actively looking for child porn, and clicks the link knowing what they are getting. Not someone who wouldn't do so except after the convincing.

Re:Entrapment.

[MightyYar]

I'm not a lawyer, but from what I have read about entrapment if they tried to charge you for viewing porn because you clicked on the link, that would be entrapment. According to the article, that is exactly what happened. He was convicted on two counts, and one of them was clicking an "illegal hyperlink".

Re:Entrapment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, when honeypot sites are being spam plugged on 4chan and all the other chans... in the web-world, the image bbs world etc. Yes, even just putting a link out there, guarantees it will be clicked - randomly - by a bored person, a drunk person, a curious person, a "wtf" person etc. No one gives a shit, and people see everything. The only ones that would most likely never click it are the *security inclined* people (security as in "That site probably has a ton of spyware on it." not "The FBI will raid me if I click that link." (seriously, the mere idea of the latter is *outrageous*))

All of this is bloody surreal.

I find more logic in arresting a "dissenter" for printing out articles on wikipedia and handing them out (as happened recently in afghanistan, iirc?) (not that I agree with it of course - but there's at least a clear dialectic there) - than I will ever do for arresting and raiding people on the premise that they SAW something.

Re:Entrapment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just putting a link and say it is for Child Porn, isn't entrapment because the person is actively looking for child porn, and clicks the link knowing what they are getting. Not someone who wouldn't do so except after the convincing.

Um, people follow all sorts of links without paying attention. You assume something is labeled "child porn" so that you or I can avoid it. What if they just had a link to google and named it Child Porn Search King? O.k. You could avoid clicking on the link. Now what if you saw a random link titled "save the children" that you followed that was actually a link to child porn?

Don't get me started in that they don't have to have readable urls. Their urls could be random ip address/images/pic001.jpg. Would you avoid clicking on a link for an jpg like that?

On the fence

[fishthegeek]

I'm on the fence here. The Red-Blooded American (tm) in me expects to be outraged at the thought of such deliberate baiting and outright entrapment.

But I have to admit there is a second and powerful argument to be made by law enforcement and that is that if you see a link to a file called 8yo_lolita_sucking_cowboyneal_dry.avi and you deliberately attempt to download that file from a forum with known cp issues well then what can you expect.

I still think that this FBI method stinks and is probably entrapment even if the courts appear to think otherwise but I have a hard time explaining to myself exactly under what circumstances would this guy have to be under in order to convince me that he is completely innocent.

Re:On the fence

[helmespc]

I can see this as a way of developing probably cause to search your PC's for illegal pr9n.... but even that is pretty weak...

Re:On the fence

[fishthegeek]

I agree with you.

Re:On the fence

[nog_lorp]

if you see a link to a file called 8yo_lolita_sucking_cowboyneal_dry.avi and you deliberately attempt to download that file from a forum with known cp issues well then what can you expect. Yeah, that video sucked.

Re:On the fence

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. There's no such argument there at all. It's like websites that whine about people deep linking: if you put shit on the internet, expect people to access it. There's absolutely no proof of intent when links get passed around in varied ways. Everything from "This is gross (don't click here)" to "Click for kittens! (hehe)".

The only thing that can really identify someone with confidence is a combination of credit card + billing address + IP address.

And if this really is about "protecting the children" - and not just various law enforcement agencies generating work to keep themselves busy, it seems like the more direct route would be to prosecute individuals that *make* or *publish* child pornography.

Re:On the fence

[nguy]

But I have to admit there is a second and powerful argument to be made by law enforcement and that is that if you see a link to a file called 8yo_lolita_sucking_cowboyneal_dry.avi and you deliberately attempt to download that file from a forum with known cp issues well then what can you expect.

How do you know it's deliberate? When people go to porn sites, they don't go to look at the text. From blindly clicking on all the image links to automatic gallery tools and batch download tools, there are plenty of ways in which people can end up with illegal images on their disks, without ever intending to.

I certainly have downloaded plenty of crappy images that I wouldn't have downloaded in a million years if I had know what they were actually showing (fortunately, no child pornography).

but I have a hard time explaining to myself exactly under what circumstances would this guy have to be under in order to convince me that he is completely innocent

He shouldn't have to explain. The notion that clicking on a link can land you in jail for several years is absolutely chilling.

Re:On the fence

[ScrewMaster]

He shouldn't have to explain. The notion that clicking on a link can land you in jail for several years is absolutely chilling.

You know, it really seems like there are some people that want the Internet, as we know it today, to just go away. Making us afraid to use it is a good way to start, I suppose.

Re:On the fence

[MightyYar]

But I have to admit there is a second and powerful argument to be made by law enforcement and that is that if you see a link to a file called 8yo_lolita_sucking_cowboyneal_dry.avi and you deliberately attempt to download that file from a forum with known cp issues well then what can you expect. But so many sites and P2P files make wild claims only to be something totally different. I have to admit that I would not want to click on something that seems to indicate an 8 year-old being involved, but surely you've seen all of these young teen files floating around? They are all clips with older women, of course - but that's what they are labeled.

But then, I have to admit being uneasy whenever someone is convicted of an imaginary crime. To me, a crime has a victim - and downloading a mislabeled garbage file does not create a victim.

Re:On the fence

[CyVaquero]

See my earlier comment, I won't comment on the law or civil rights aspect of this as I'm not an expert. But from a technical aspect it would be very easy for someone to be railroaded into 'clicking the link' - or even accidently. Two thumbnails of of images in a thumbnails.db only tells me that at one time that image existed in that directory, it does not tell me how it came to be there (prefetching, autodownloading, etc.), how long it was there or if it was even viewed much less how many times, for how long, etc. I can't believe I am coming to the defense of someone who in light of the other evidence is clearly an offender but this method of catching 'suspects' is way too flawed. The fact that seizure of personal assets can be warranted under such flimsy pretense tells me that there is no real understanding of technology age we are living in the judicial branch. Unfortunately I see innocent and accidental offenders having their lives ruined.

Re:On the fence

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm... Interesting.

The government does this a lot, you know.

Let's talk about money.

We'll start with the United States Code, Title 31. This title deals with money and finance, and within this title, we find all kinds of interesting laws regarding something called "money laundering." Now, what is money laundering? Basically, it's channeling funds through an apparently legal entity in order to conceal allegedly illegal origins of the money.

In other words, this is a crime that isn't a crime. (If I channel money from one entity to another, so what? It's my money.) It's a crime because something else was a crime. That is to say, in theory, it's because I sold drugs or something, and in order to hide the fact that this was drug money, I "laundered" it through another entity. Money laundering is a crime invented primarily to attack drug dealers and racketeers.

Nonetheless, it now exists as a crime in its own right. If I'm not a drug dealer or a racketeer, and nonetheless channel money to conceal its origins, I'm committing the crime of money laundering and can be prosecuted because I might have been committing some other crime such as drug dealing.

An important note here is that, thirty years ago, this was not a crime anywhere in the world. Money laundering is a new invention. Drug dealing was a crime, but not transferring money, because the general idea was, once taxes are paid, what a man does with his hard-earned cash is his business. It was made a crime to provide an additional tool for convicting people who were allegedly committing other crimes.

Now, let's complicate matters. Let's turn to 31 USC 5316. Here, we define something called the "Currency or Monetary Instrument Report." What is this document? This is something I must fill out any time I leave the borders of the United States with more than $10,000 in cash. Now, take good note: it does not matter whether I can clearly demonstrate that it's my hard-earned legal cash. I must report it. I could be a Girl Scout selling cookies and have a signed receipt from every single cookie buyer making up the $10,000 and I still have to file that report.

Why? Because crossing borders with money (to countries with less strict requirements) is often a step in money laundering. And so, to provide another tool to catch people who may be committing the crime of money laundering, failure to report movements of quantities in excess of $10,000 was made a crime.

Now, do you see what's happening here? A crime was invented in order to catch people committing a crime that was invented in order to catch people who may have been committing a crime. You have people who've never laundered money in their life, much less touched a drug, and they can still be guilty of this crime if they fail to file their Instrument Report. The new "crime" took on a life of its own, and now you can be found guilty of it independent of the crimes on which it was based.

But I'm not done yet. Because what if I cross the border with only $9,000 of my own hard-earned, taxes-paid, legal money? I don't have to file the report. If it's such a small amount, I can say, "I earned this money honestly, I paid my taxes on it honestly, and I'm not even going to carry enough of it to worry about that damn Instrument Report, so I can cross the border with it honestly. It's my money and the government has no excuse to look at it." Great. So far, so good.

And then, next week, I cross the border with another $9,000 of my equally honest money. And the following week, I do it again.

31 USC 5324. I'm guilty of a new crime. This one is called "structuring." I'm structuring my movements in order to avoid the necessity of filing the Instrument Report. Now, I bet by this point we can all almost say this together about structuring:

Structuring is a crime invented in order to catch people who might not be correctly filing Instrument Reports, a crime invented in order to catch people who might be laundering money, a crime invented in order to catch

Re:On the fence

[Anonymous Coward]

What can you expect? A rick roll. (or a duck roll if you wish to get old school about it)

Btw, searching for any common porn term on -any- p2p network, will show you files named with practically every fetish - legal or illegal - to garner search hits. (real files, too, it's simply the norm)

Re:On the fence

[Vegemeister]

Mod parent up!

Re:On the fence

[MightyYar]

The really sad thing is that every one of those laws was made in an attempt to do good, not in a conspiracy to create a totalitarian state. Yet inevitably, some bad person will come along and misuse them all to consolidate power.

The other sad thing is how this all stems from the very impressive failure: the War on Drugs.

Re:On the fence

[Doctor Faustus]

well then what can you expect.
Normally, I would expect an 18 year old in a plaid skirt with pigtails.

a whole new level of trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

This is going to take trolling to a whole new level...

Not only do you get rick rolled, but the FBI shows up a few days later...

If I was feeling a little more evil...

[WarJolt]

This gives me an idea for an april fools joke. Now all I'll have to do is sneak over to my buddies house and browse the web and wait for the FBI to show up.

Re:If I was feeling a little more evil...

[CyVaquero]

Nah, just send him a tinyurl link to it. The rickroll of 2008. Seriously though this just goes to show how far tech has outdistanced legislation/law enforcement. In about an hour if I wanted, armed with just a sendmail server, an offshore proxy service, tinyurl, and the email addresses of or even a comment on a digg/slashdot/social news network I could ruin peoples lives. Remember the crime was 'clicking on an illegal hyperlink', the hole here is that method is only capturing at the destination not how the link was presented to the user, REQUEST variables (such as the referrer) are not hard to rewrite and is commonly done in most web servers. Unfortunately our judicial system is woefully tech ignorant as a whole and not educated/equipped to properly evaluate these kinds of cases. I despise pedophiles/child predators but I'm thinking that this approach is only going to catch small fish/and the curious (as in - is that really what it says it is? can't be, can it?) and is seriously flawed, the serious big fish are smarter than this, they've been underground so long they know how to cover their tracks and stay off the grid.

What about "accidental" clicks???

[Doug52392]

So the people that accidentally click on these ads (like the page moves down a little and they end up clicking on the pr0n ad) will get arrested to? This is looking even worse than the RIAA's legal fiasco... What's next, putting fake torrents of movies, TV shows, and music up on the Internet, and arresting anyone who downloads these torrents????

Re:What about "accidental" clicks???

[icegreentea]

Read the summary. All this lets them do is get a warrant to raid/search your house and computer. If you really did accidentally click on those ads, then your computer/house should be clean. They can't arrest you. It'll be a bitch, but they can't arrest you.

Re:What about "accidental" clicks???

[Anonymous Coward]

You've obviously never seen the aftermath of the type of search they do.

A person's life is destroyed.

They lose their job.

They lose their friends.

They lose access to their kids/nephews/nieces.

They get kicked out of boy scouts/girl scouts/big brothers/YMCA/churches.

And all of this happens at the SLIGHTEST mention of child pornography.. it doesn't wait until after someone is convicted to happen.. as soon as the FBI or other LEA is at the door.. your life has been flushed down the toilet, never to be recovered.

Re:What about "accidental" clicks???

[Anonymous Coward]

I HOPE they took this into consideration, what I would do is post several links and have all of them lead somewhere else, maybe just regular porn? If someone was really interested in looking at child porn they would most likely click back and try all the links. Good luck trying to pass that off as an accidental click.

Re:What about "accidental" clicks???

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA; the victim was convicted of "clicking an illegal hyperlink."

Re:What about "accidental" clicks???

[Beer_Smurf]

"can't arrest you"
How about, probably won't be able to convict you but you still lose all your stuff.
So you won't mind If I use your computer for a few minutes.

Re:What about "accidental" clicks???

[robertjw]

Actually, I don't think that's true either. They can arrest you, and hold you for 48 hours, for anything. They just can't charge you or try you for the crime.

Thing is, from all the horror stories I've read and heard, they can confiscate your property for an indefinite amount of time, and you have no idea what condition it will be in when you get it back. I would have a big problem running my business and retaining my livelyhood if the cops took my computer for three months.

Re:What about "accidental" clicks???

[bersl2]

No, it ISN'T clean.

If it's in your cache or history, if it's in a freed portion of the HD but still intact, the info will still be there. If they find it, they will arrest you.

This entire topic makes me want to break shit. I need to go take my anxiolytic and calm down.

Re:What about "accidental" clicks???

[PPH]

The cops are trying to make an airtight case. Anything like mis-labeled links for "Free Beer", poorly structured pages that result in click errors of the type mentioned, or anything else that a suspect could use as a defense will be designed out of the bait pages. The courts don't like having their time wasted and the FBI doesn't want to get thrown out of them with egg on their face.

If a suspect makes it through to the 'porn', probably after having passed through the typical warning pages about the nature of the content (pretty much what all responsible adult web sites do), intent will have been established with little doubt left.

I'd also suspect that, before executing a search warrant on a suspect's residence equipped with WiFi, they will do a quick check to establish whether it is open or secured. Its possible that it might be a site shared by several residences (an apartment building, for example) where they wouldn't want to tip off the actual pervert by kicking in the door of an innocent neighbor.

Re:What about "accidental" clicks???

[CyVaquero]

Somehow I don't think the child-porn trading world worries too much about putting up warning pages that the content may be offensive which would probably be a tip-off to a perp. Also the links shown in the article look like direct links to split binary files.

Re:What about "accidental" clicks???

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think you'll give a SHIT about your 24" LCD when tomorrow's headline reads

LOCAL MAN ARRESTED IN CHILD PORNOGRAPHY STING

Article begins: "FBI raid finds computer filled with images, some pornographic. FBI technicians are still collecting evidence before they decide whether to charge __your name__ with a crime. Anyone with information regarding this man's contacts with children are encouraged to come forward."

You've done nothing wrong, so you have nothing to fear.... right?

And yes, the media does write crappy articles like that. Read them carefully for context. They will conflate two topics intentionally, even if they aren't the same. Isn't it neat how the above statement would be totally 100% accurate about your computer (assuming you do have LEGAL porn), but it's neat how everyone who reads it automatically conflates "child porn" with "some pornographic" and equates the two.

The magic of English language..... And welcome to the world of "modern justice" and "modern journalism". What I just posted is closer to the reality of things than TFA (in my opinion).

Re:What about "accidental" clicks???

[k3r3nsky'sr3v3ng3]

That is the logic of this. You start with a subject, child porn, that causes people to pass laws irrationally. Then the RIAA,MPAA,Microsoft, etc. lobbies have a precedent for using fake (trap)links for pirate torrents. Then the government can extend this to political thought sites (say marxists.org) or anything else on the internet they want criminalized.

What about Malware?

[helmespc]

What happens when someone develops malware to hit this URL?

Talk about scary...

Re:What about Malware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of me thinks that almost wouldn't be a bad thing. If the FBI starts getting 30,000 junk clicks a day it might make it a bit harder for them to consider this a valid use of resources.

This is retarded

[Anonymous Coward]

Mozilla Firefox has prefetch enabled by default. So it automatically visit links.

Another side, can redirect you to that link, by like header("Location: http://www.example.com/");

Many download accelerators use prefetching that gets links automatically.

Re:This is retarded

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks! I just turned that off. Why is this option hidden? It just seems ripe for abuse.

Link prefetching FAQ.

Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

Rickrolling just got a whole lot more exciting!

What if?

[vigmeister]

The person clicking on the porn link happens to be a single dad? Would he be prosecuted as a sex offender and his rights to his child taken away from him? Although this seems HIGHLY likely thanks to TV, I choose to follow a different line of reasoning:

Who likes gay porn? A gay person
Who likes child porn? A child, of course!!

Well, I will attempt to sleep at night tonight with the consolation that atleast the kid got what he deserved for promoting child porn. Separation from Dad who will proceed to be a registered sex offender for 15 years seems apt. But I still feel sorry for Dad as his only crime was to set his NetNanny passwords to 'I3teensluts'

the legal documents...

[Anonymous Coward]

the documents shown in the article have the actual urls listed. what would happen if, in a showing of mass civil disobedience, thousands of people entered those urls on anonymized machines in public places?

would that ruin their case against this guy?

So what?

[EkriirkE]

They will waste time and money on habitual spyware installers, but otherwise they have probable cause.

I could conduct stings for the fbi

[phoenix.bam!]

I'll get a folder and write "CHILD PORN. HOT TOT ACTION" on it then I'll walk around trying to hand it to people while saying "This is child porn." Anyone that takes it from me will be instantly arrested and charged. I bet I could trap plenty of random people.

Re:I could conduct stings for the fbi

[QCompson]

I'll get a folder and write "CHILD PORN. HOT TOT ACTION" on it then I'll walk around trying to hand it to people while saying "This is child porn." Anyone that takes it from me will be instantly arrested and charged. I bet I could trap plenty of random people. Except that if you weren't actually employed by the FBI, you could be arrested yourself. The "pandering" provision of the PROTECT Act makes it illegal to claim you have child pornography, even if you don't.

Re:I could conduct stings for the fbi

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that so? Well, I have child pornography.
Oh, crap...

Re:I could conduct stings for the fbi

[Anonymous Coward]

The "pandering provision" is apparently no longer law. Unless it's been updated and wikipedia hasn't caught it yet, anyway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_Act_of_2003

On April 6, 2006, in United States v. Williams, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that one component of the PROTECT ACT, the "pandering provision" codified at 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(3)(B) of the United States Code, violated the First Amendment. The "pandering provision" conferred criminal liability on anyone who knowingly

        advertises, promotes, presents, distributes, or solicits through the mails, or in interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer, any material or purported material in a manner that reflects the belief, or that is intended to cause another to believe, that the material or purported material is, or contains (i) an obscene visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or (ii) a visual depiction of an actual minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

The Williams court held that although the content described in subsections (i) and (ii) is not constitutionally protected, speech that advertises or promotes such content does have the protection of the First Amendment. Accordingly, 2252A(a)(3)(B) was held to be unconstitutionally overbroad. The Eleventh Circuit further held that the law was unconstitutionally vague, in that it did not adequately and specifically describe what sort of speech was criminally actionable.

The Department of Justice appealed the Eleventh Circuit's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case review docket is listed as 06-0694 and is scheduled for October 30th 2007 on the 2007-2008 schedule. Upon review, the Supreme Court sided with the Eleventh Circuit's ruling and struck down this portion of the act.

Re:I could conduct stings for the fbi

[QCompson]

Upon review, the Supreme Court sided with the Eleventh Circuit's ruling and struck down this portion of the act. I believe that is inaccurate. I know the Supreme Court has heard the case, but I don't think they have written the opinion yet. The link on wikipedia is to the respondent's brief, not the Court's decision.

Re:I could conduct stings for the fbi

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Instead, walk round with a folder saying "NOT CHILD PORN", and arrest all the people who don't try to take the file. Wow! The power of logic!

Re:I could conduct stings for the fbi

[hemorex]

Well... doesn't that make this whole business illegal then?

Re:I could conduct stings for the fbi

[QCompson]

Well... doesn't that make this whole business illegal then? The laws don't apply to law enforcement officials when they are working in that capacity. For example, an undercover agent is not breaking the law when he buys drugs from someone as part of a bust.

Re:I could conduct stings for the fbi

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/06-694.htm

My mistake for not following up on what Wikipedia said. You are right.

Re:I could conduct stings for the fbi

[Reziac]

"The "pandering" provision of the PROTECT Act makes it illegal to claim you have child pornography, even if you don't."

Um... isn't this exactly what the FBI is doing??

Re:I could conduct stings for the fbi

[Cosmic AC]

You must be a mathematician.

Re:I could conduct stings for the fbi

[QCompson]

Yes, and the FBI also has an enormous child pornography collection. Obviously law enforcement officials are exempt from these laws while in the course of an investigation.

Re:I could conduct stings for the fbi

[Reziac]

And such an exemption encourages corruption; just look at the thriving business some cop shops do in confiscated drugs.

Re:I could conduct stings for the fbi

[Seraphim_72]

"The "pandering" provision of the PROTECT Act makes it illegal to claim you have child pornography, even if you don't."

You will pardon me while I become violently ill. I had no idea there was a law against possessing imaginary things. Unfucking believable.

Sera

Re:I could conduct stings for the fbi

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't a new concept.

Ever hear of "possession of imitation controlled substances?"

Re:I could conduct stings for the fbi

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Damn! Does it show?

Re:I could conduct stings for the fbi

[Cosmic AC]

Okay, I know about your name and sig and all, but what else was I supposed to say?

FBI posts bogus hyperlinks to alleged porn

[FreeBSD evangelist]

Can you say "Entrapment?"

I knew that you could.

Click here

[WilyCoder]

Click here to order prescription pain meds.

Click here to hack into banks.

Click here to print fake checks.

Click here to order your fake ID.

Click here to cast your vote.

Watch out, Google!

[mnemotronic]

All those spiders out there, following links. How will they tell the difference between a human and automation? And don't forget this is the FBI - they just heard about this "Internet bag of pipes" thing a couple years ago and thought someone was talking about bongs.

So, did Sergey Brin get busted...

[msauve]

when his Google bot clicked the link?

Why, or why not?

rickroll

[Hydian]

You could probably kill entire online communities by simply rickrolling them with these honeypot URLs. Through widespread application, we could raise the collective IQ of the internet by a good 10 points in one shot.

Re:rickroll

[Grayden]

Damn, I got RickRaided

So I'm left wondering...

[ObjetDart]

what did these people see when they actually clicked the link? Was it a page with a big FBI logo and the message "You just got PWNED perv!"?

This doesn't bode well for the intrawebs

[QCompson]

While this particular investigation may not raise many eyebrows, this could be a very bad precedent for future investigations. Once courts and juries routinely accept that clicking on links believed to be child porn=being a child pornographer=molesting children, anything goes. Literally anyone could be tricked into being directed to such a link. You'd have blanket permission for the Feds to get a search warrant for anyone they want, and no one would dare question it, for even questioning child pornography laws instantly draws suspicion.

A search warrant based on clicking links is very troubling. Before obtaining the warrant there was no evidence whatsoever that the suspect had ever even viewed child pornography, and of course the link the Feds provided didn't actually link to any.

The war on child pornography is expanding every year. More police are hired to investigate it, more funds are allocated for it, and penalties are made ever-harsher. In Arizona it's up to 10 years for each picture someone possesses. Other states consider burning pictures to a CD to be "manufacturing". People are being sentenced to 10, 20, even 200 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/6399471.stm) years in prison for possessing pictures.

At some point you have to wonder whether the damage this zealousness causes (throwing college students in jail for decades for possessing some pictures) is worth the benefits. The argument that child porn possessors are creating a market for the material grows ever more tenuous, as fewer investigations seem to be centered around people who pay or provide other compensation for child pornography, but rather are focused on downloaders and traders. Unfortunately, it seems there will be no rational discussion about these investigation techniques or the laws themselves anytime soon, since it seems that there is an army of millions who froth at the mouth anytime they hear the words "child pornography" and cannot or will not draw distinctions between viewing pictures and videos and actually committing sexual abuse.

Re:This doesn't bode well for the intrawebs

[ILL Machina]

Not going to lie to you, this post makes you seem like a child pornographer or a viewer of child pornography. No one can accidentally click a pop up with naked babies on it. Someone must be subconsciously drawn to such things else they'd have to actively click the link. In either case, the person in question probably ought to be in therapy/arrested.

Re:This doesn't bode well for the intrawebs

[MightyYar]

I've downloaded files on P2P accidentally that sure looked like underage kids. Not "babies" as you describe, but very young looking. Of course, I deleted this stuff, but it would have really sucked to have gotten arrested for something that I didn't even purposely seek.

I used to connect to Kazaa before I went to bed and just download everything that matched XXX or some other common word that was sure to get me some good downloads. Hey, I was young :)

And I've seen some pretty bad things on usenet, too. That is really bad, because you just flip through the messages with your usenet binary viewer.

Re:This doesn't bode well for the intrawebs

[denton420]

Sums up exactly how I feel.

I could careless about child pornography. I believe the important thing here is that when a court upholds a decision like clicking on links as reason for a search warrant, it is not long before this is cited in other cases and upheld in other scenarios.

This news scares the shit outta me.

Oh and not to mention you might click the link by mistake, assuming you did not have 100 percent accuracy in mouse clicks. (Who can claim that?) The whole thing is a crock of shit if you ask me.

Re:This doesn't bode well for the intrawebs

[Anonymous Coward]

Other states consider burning pictures to a CD to be "manufacturing". WTF?

Having separate laws against possession versus manufacturing of child pornography makes a lot of sense. The former calls for someone to be sent to a good psychiatrist, while the latter calls for all the punishment that society brings to bear for rape, murder, etc. But that's because 'manufacturing' child pornography means actually abusing kids. If the law sees no difference between that and burning a CD, then something's seriously wrong.

Re:This doesn't bode well for the intrawebs

[ILL Machina]

Thanks for the revealing reply, but P2P's not the point. And you're creepy too. You're trying to excuse the crime by admitting that you had such an insatiable Internet porn fetish that you couldn't even take the time to read the filenames, let alone WATCH the damned things. And why, after reading a statement claiming the FBI is tracking and prosecuting folks based on casual (public) internet use, would you admit to abusing public P2P forums like KaZaA? Big Brother does not approve.

Re:This doesn't bode well for the intrawebs

[Anonymous Coward]

We know from the never ending war on drugs, and the RIAA's legal scatter gun that targeting the end consumer of an illegal good (what ever it is) doesn't work, so when then haven't these lessons been applied to people hunting child porn?

Because its the political billy club of choice, they can pass any kind of surveillance law they want provided they phrase it in terms of catching people who look at underage porn! And nobody would dare complain, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!!!oneoneelventyone!!! YOU CANT POSSIBLY BE IN FAVOUR OF CHILD PORN! WHAT KIND OF HORRIBLE PERSON ARE YOU!

And thats exactly how all the arguments go, you can't use logic on these people, if you disagree you must be a pedophile.

But. But the one thing that would let you fight them would be if their laws didn't work. If all the invasive laws were actually shown to be not all that effective, and we KNOW they aren't because most child pron comes out of Europe, the places with lower ages of consent, and the feeble CP laws, so any American laws will be ultimately ineffective at stopping child pornography.

Well then if we showed that the laws were next to worthless, and amounted to grievous infringements of our civil liberties, then you could actually do something about them.

So since they can't catch the distributors, because the ones with two brain cells to rub together don't operate on US soil, then they have to feed SOMEBODY to the wolves to try and demonstrate their laws are doing something and worth keeping around.

Thus we much catch the end user, who despite possessing his collection of illegal images, has probably never harmed a child him self for fear of being found out. As opposed to catching the producers (and while were at it the participants) of the material, who have most definitely, and likely repeatedly, harmed children.

You see to anyone who has an IQ above room temperature, its pure ineffective bullshit. But to a politician its perfectly logical!

Re:This doesn't bode well for the intrawebs

[JohnFluxx]

And it's people like you that are the real cause of this problem. Anyone that complains at all about the way that the FBI are going about this, is immediately labelled a child molester by people like you.

Re:This doesn't bode well for the intrawebs

[MightyYar]

You're trying to excuse the crime by admitting that you had such an insatiable Internet porn fetish that you couldn't even take the time to read the filenames, let alone WATCH the damned things. Nooooo... what I was saying is that the noise-to-good-porn ratio on Kazaa was so bad, the number of incomplete files so high, and the connections so unreliable, that I found the best way to get my porn was to just do a very loose search and select all. Nowadays you can just surf over to one of the porn clones of YouTube. "Insatiable Internet porn fetish" sounds better if you are trying to build up a straw man.

And why, after reading a statement claiming the FBI is tracking and prosecuting folks based on casual (public) internet use, would you admit to abusing public P2P forums like KaZaA? Because it was many years ago and many hard drives ago - any evidence is long gone. I'm also unaware of any criminal prosecutions involving stuff downloaded from Kazaa. In short, I'm not in the slightest bit worried since I didn't do anything criminal - just infringed some porn copyright.

Re:This doesn't bode well for the intrawebs

[Anonymous Coward]

IMO it shouldn't even be a crime to view or possess pictures. It's not a crime to view a picture of a murdered person, even though murder is a crime.

But it won't change because who's gonna risk looking like a pedo just to get a law changed.

Re:This doesn't bode well for the intrawebs

[Anonymous Coward]

At some point you have to wonder whether the damage this zealousness causes (throwing college students in jail for decades for possessing some pictures) is worth the benefits. The argument that child porn possessors are creating a market for the material grows ever more tenuous, as fewer investigations seem to be centered around people who pay or provide other compensation for child pornography, but rather are focused on downloaders and traders.

You'd expect that if these tactics really worked that we'd see a decline in reported sexual abuse of minors. Since they've been going after people for possesion of child porn for several years now if there is an actual link we should be seeing at least the start of a decline. And yet, we haven't heard anything at all about a decline. If anything it's gone up. Personally I suspect that not focusing on the actual producers of the material is allowing more of them to get away with producing it. It doesn't matter how many people they get that are simple consumers of the images, there will always be a market of some size for them, and there will always be those who'll pay for the images. You have to stop the production of them to actually help the kids any.

Unfortunately, it seems there will be no rational discussion about these investigation techniques or the laws themselves anytime soon, since it seems that there is an army of millions who froth at the mouth anytime they hear the words "child pornography" and cannot or will not draw distinctions between viewing pictures and videos and actually committing sexual abuse.

These tend to be the ones who are totally shocked when they find out a kid they know was molested by their father/brother/uncle/next-door-neighbor and none of those were registered sex offenders. And yet that's the ones most likely to sexually abuse a child. Most of them aren't even really pedophiles, it's just a crime of opportunity. Going after people for possession of child pornography isn't doing a damn thing to stop this kind of abuse, and it's the most common kind.

Re:This doesn't bode well for the intrawebs

[k3r3nsky'sr3v3ng3]

Quite frankly, I believe we will see a result similar to that of the war on drugs. Lots of people will be thrown in jail, billions of taxpayer dollars will be spent, and the numbers of childeren sexually abused won't change in any significant way.

Sockpuppets

[Anonymous Coward]

You already posted in this article with your sockpuppet account. Trying to game the system?

BTW, your copy & paste strategy is not working too well.

referrer?

[Animaether]

I don't know - is that forum also somehow managing to spoof the referrer so that it appears that you clicked that link while visiting any of the sites that they themselves put that link on?

( I'm making the assumption, of course, that they're actually checking the referrer to prevent exactly the type of scenario described by parent poster, while checking referrer sites themselves to see if they might be child pr0n sites they were unfamiliar with or did not have a solid case for. )

Re:referrer?

[StrategicIrony]

Uhm. TFA said they DID NOT check the referrer.

That would be.... well..... uhm.....

nothing to see here, move along.

Re:referrer?

[Animaether]

1. bah, who RTFA?
2. that's dumb.

Plan to get rid of annoying neighbor:

[SeaFox]

1) Disconnect from my network.

2) Connect to his unsecured wireless router.

3) Visit FBI sting site (and also maybe do some Google searches for child porn topics to build a browsing history with the ISP they'll find worth checking out).

4) Sit back and wait.

The problem is

[Sycraft-fu]

People get really stupid when it comes to crimes involving children. They stop using their brains and get extremely emotional. Thus, law enforcement can get away with things they couldn't otherwise. When it comes to sex and children, all logic is out the door. The best example, which unfortunately I can't find a link to right now, is two minors, boyfriend and girlfriend, (they were in the 16-17 range) sent each other naked pictures of themselves via the Internet. This got found out and they were charged with possession, production and distribution of child pornography and sentenced to prison. This was then upheld on appeal. Yes, that's right, kids sentenced to jail and will be labeled as sex offenders for life for taking naked pictures of their own bodies.

Thus even if this is entrapment, it won't matter, because of the crime it involves. Logic and due process just get pushed aside for emotion and a witch hunt mentality.

Re:The problem is

[Dutch Gun]

I presume you're talking about this case:

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/02/20/teen-couple-who-phot.html
http://www.connectsafely.org/articles--advice/commentaries---staff/teens-convictions-for--child-porn-upheld.html

Re:The problem is

[QCompson]

The best example, which unfortunately I can't find a link to right now, is two minors, boyfriend and girlfriend, (they were in the 16-17 range) sent each other naked pictures of themselves via the Internet. This got found out and they were charged with possession, production and distribution of child pornography and sentenced to prison. This was then upheld on appeal. Yes, that's right, kids sentenced to jail and will be labeled as sex offenders for life for taking naked pictures of their own bodies. This is what I think you are referring to: http://www.news.com/Police-blotter-Teens-prosecuted-for-racy-photos/2100-1030_3-6157857.html

Re:The problem is

[Anonymous Coward]

[citation needed]

Re:The problem is

[Anonymous Coward]

In b4 FBIRAID becomes the new Rickroll

Re:The problem is

[TheLink]

"will be labeled as sex offenders for life"

Even if it's a convicted rapist, to me the "sex offender list" thing is _WRONG_.

If someone bashed me up he doesn't end up on a "public violent offender list" where he gets permanently ostracised from society for the rest of his life. Nor should he. Even if I don't forgive him, it's society's job to make a good enough attempt at pretending so that he gets a _chance_ to start anew or show how bad he really is (in which case you can justify putting him in for longer the next time).

Not all criminals return to their old ways after serving their time/punishment. If you all hate them so much and are unable to get criminals to turn over a new leaf, just imprison them for life or execute them. Stop pretending you're in the land of the free.

Putting people on permanent "witch hunt" lists for whatever reason sure sounds like "cruel and unusual punishment" to me.

As for the child porn. If that's so bad, perhaps we should be jailing people who watch Hollywood movies which depict people getting _killed_ or raped.

If it's because the killing is not for real, then how about if people started rendering child porn images on computers? Would that be legal?

And what if the killing is for real? Does that mean we should jail people who watched video clips of Budd Dwyer shooting himself?

Or does it depend on what they are thinking when they are watching it? Like you know - Thought Crime?

Re:The problem is

[DavidTC]

Indeed. Who is more likely to repeat their crime and harm someone else, an 18 year-old that:

a) Resorted to violence because he didn't like how a 12 year-old look at him.
b) Took naked pictures of his entirely-legal-to-have-sex-with 17 year-old girlfriend.
c) Streaked as a political protest.

Two of those we stick on a list and keep away from children their entire life. (Oh, yes, you can be a 'sex offender' for 'flashing', and that's what streaking is.) It's fucking stupid.

But try telling people the 'offender' lists are made up of a bunch of people who are not pedophiles. Many of them did things that probably shouldn't be illegal or just misdemeanors, and many more did things that, while we want them to be illegal, there's absolutely no reason to assume they indicate any danger to children.

Re:The problem is

[vacantskies9]

To send them to prison don't you have to charge them as adults, thus setting off a never ending chain of circular logic.

Jacobson v. United States

[Daltorak]

For some interesting historical context, read the Wikipedia article on Jacobson v. United States. This goes back to the 1980s when the USPS tried to lure people into purchasing child porn through mailings, in some cases many times over the course of years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._United_States

So these people just need to get wise,

[gblackwo]

Shouldn't masking IP addresses via common utilities like a proxy server do the trick?

Doesn't meet Constitutional tests

[Jane Q. Public]

There are LOTS of problems here, but in particular (no pun intended), this does not meet the "particularity" test. Courts have also repeatedly held that an IP address does not "particularly describe" a person OR a place, or even a thing. In order to be Constitutional, warrants have to "particularly describe" the person or thing to be seized.

I could have any number of computers on my Comcast connection. I could have open wi-fi and be serving Internet to my neighbors... it would show up as my IP.

This whole thing is a crock of shit.

Re:Doesn't meet Constitutional tests

[ScrewMaster]

On the other hand, law enforcement under the current Administration hasn't been any too careful about Constitutionality. The thing is, regardless of whether these activities are in fact legal, once you've been subjected to a raid you've already suffered a punitive action, and will suffer further humiliation and expense defending yourself in court. And depending upon how that works out, you might find yourself in prison anyway, as some of that "acceptable collateral damage" the Feds talk about.

There have been a number of Federal judges nailed on child pornography charges over the years: I sincerely hope that one of their number gets bitten by this nonsense. I especially hope that he's actually not guilty ... maybe the rest will understand how abusive this is, given the inability of the technology to uniquely identify anyone.

Re:Doesn't meet Constitutional tests

[Jane Q. Public]

It's not the inability of the technology; the technology exists. It is the unwillingness of people to USE it. And good for them!

Many things in this world are abhorrent, including the dissemination of real child pornography. But even more abhorrent is illegal search, seizure, and arrest.

Re:Doesn't meet Constitutional tests

[OakLEE]

Got any pin cites for federal cases? I'm writing a brief for my moot court program involving the surveillance IP addresses and I've got a Ninth Circuit (my local jurisdiction) decision that holds the exact opposite of your assertion. See United States v. Forrester, 512 F.3d 500, 510 n.5 (9th Cir. 2008) (stating that "Every computer or server connected to the Internet has a unique IP address.") I know that statement is wrong, and am trying to provide other case law to show that the court misstated its assumption.

Anyway if you have the pin cites handy feel free to reply. It'll make my life easier.

Re:Doesn't meet Constitutional tests

[toddabalsley]

I think my wife knows someone who got busted by this. Well, she knows his fiance.

The apartment is in both names, but the internet connection is in her name alone. They showed up with a warrant with only his name on. She kept pointing that out: they had no idea who she was, but came for him. This leads me to suspect that it is a little more than a script that turns your IP into a search warrant for the person who pays the bill.

I hope.

Re:Doesn't meet Constitutional tests

[ScrewMaster]

It's not the inability of the technology; the technology exists.

Okay, make that "inability to uniquely identify an individual via an IP address." Any court that upholds such a ridiculous standard is no better than any judge that allows tne RIAA discovery based upon MediaSentry's dubious "evidence". In either case, a persons' life is trashed over a very flimsy rationale. The fact that this kind of behavior is becoming commonplace indicates the courts are either so ignorant of modern communications technology that they buy off on it, or that they really believe that the Constitution is dead. I'm hoping it's the former: ignorance can be cured in court, whereas the court of a judge's private opinion is much harder to access.

Re:Doesn't meet Constitutional tests

[Cyberllama]

Moreover, think of the havoc you could wreak by simply finding one of these links, heading over to tinyurl.com to mask them, then posting them all over the internet claiming them to be something entirely different from what the original poster claimed them to be.

They could be the new rickroll/goatse/etc. You could get literally thousands of unsuspecting users to click on one of these links. It would be *easy*.

Re:Doesn't meet Constitutional tests

[Jane Q. Public]

I offer a third possibility, worse than your first, but not as bad as your second: they are somewhat aware of it, but don't care enough yet because they are not quite to the point that they realize what it is all costing them.

But I think we are basically on the same frequency.

Re:Doesn't meet Constitutional tests

[Jane Q. Public]

I don't have specific case citations at hand, but you can easily find them on sites like EFF.ORG. In fact, you might even want to contribute to them or subscribe to their RSS feed. But they have an archive of cases they have won, and links to many more.

In particular, you might want to look at recent rulings surrounding suits of and by the RIAA and MPAA, particularly the RIAA. There have been several recent rulings that an IP address is a far cry from identifying an individual.

justification too low to enter someone's home

[ephedream]

Someone's home has the greatest level of protection under the constitution (versus say, protection from unreasonable search in your car or walking in a public place). There are so many ways in which a visited hyperlink could be misconstrued that going into someone's home based on this flimsy evidence is totally unjustified. For one thing, what about all the people who leave Wi-Fi networks open (deliberately or otherwise)? If someone visits a honeypotted link, does that mean you deserve to get raided and have the sanctuary of your home violated?
What about if you have a worm on your computer?

This seems ridiculous to me. The standard of evidence for intrustion into someone's home seems way too low in this case.

Re:justification too low to enter someone's home

[FearForWings]

Consequently, I personally would rather die in defending my home against an FBI raid based on some honeypot vs. any "day in court". Patrick Henry and Socrates had it right, freedom xor death.

Re:Ah, but you are the target.

[CedhedCO]

Uhh, I think it was a joke about nobody on Slashdot actually ever clicking links for articles. IE nobody ever RTFA on this site. :P Not really a statement about slashdot's unimportance or anything related.

Not Rickrolling

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh shit. Now everyone goes, well fuck rickrolling, we can fbi-roll people!

If there are people sick enough to send SWAT teams to people's houses, I'm sure this wouldn't be a problem.

Practical Joke

[giminy]

Hey guys, check this out!

Seriously, isn't this kind of hyperlinking kind of ripe for abuse? What happens if the googlebot accidentally follows the link and spiders the site?

Reid

Re:Practical Joke

[EkriirkE]

robots.txt

Re:Practical Joke

[giminy]

I just checked out the fed's kiddieporncatcher website and they don't have a robots.txt on it. Hang on, there's someone at my door...

Free Wireless Internet

[phulegart]

I guess this changes everything for people who decide they want to offer free wireless internet and leave their routers open. Now, they can lose all their equipment and go to jail, just because someone they didn't know decided to use their open wireless connection and surf some kiddie porn anonymously.

The Argument of "It wasn't me. It must have been someone on my wireless." isn't going to cut it with the feds.

What if you get a link from spyware or carp like..

[Joe The Dragon]

What if you get a link from spyware or carp like it?

Like how teacher faced jail that happened in class where the school did not keep there systems up to date.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article1464355.ece

http://billpstudios.blogspot.com/2007/01/have-spyware-go-to-jail-for-child-porn.html

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Amero

creepy crawlers

[alxkit]

all you have to do is to use someone else's wireless access. oh wait, never mind. now that might get you jail time too...

What happened to Reasonable Doubt?

[jander]

FTA:

The defendant in that case, Travis Carter, suggested that any of the neighbors could be using his wireless network. (The public defender's office even sent out an investigator who confirmed that dozens of homes were within Wi-Fi range.) So even though this could have actually been done by any number of neighbors, passerbys, etc.... it still is probable cause? Better secure your WiFi access points people...

The Next Generation of Getting RickRoll'd

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting rickroll'd was bad enough. What about this?

FBI are pervs...maybe?

[iXiXi]

Is this is such a priority to them because they like the fact that they get to collect, look through and save any child porn they find as evidence? Why would they want to sting identity theft when they can get their pedo-rocks off this way. Bunch of perverts? I bet they have daily reviews of content to 'train' their agents to recognize kiddie porn. Of course, that is just an idea.. not really what I believe. Don't arrest me please, I know 1st amendment rights are subject to FBI scrutiny.

Sockpuppets

[Anonymous Coward]

You already posted in this article with your sockpuppet account. Trying to game the system?

look at the extensions

[nguy]

Good luck trying to pass that off as an accidental click.

Extensions like DTA, Scrapbook, gestures, PicLens, and others will all download all the links and images on a page with a single action. And in order to avoid blocking by sites, many of those extensions try hard to look just like manual browsing.

Re:Ob link:

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahaha I'm surprised you didn't post Anon.

http://pix.jj.am/gallery/main.php

Cheers to this thread growing...

knock, knock, Gramps....

[harvey the nerd]

So when the bright teenager down the street helps the nice old folks install their computer and wireless network, after s/he decides to "safely" view older 15-17 year olds of the (opposite?) sex, the old folks should not be surprised about that knock, or kick, on the door in the night? A "few" convictions here and there, guess that solves the Medicare and Social Security crisis...

It said it was a video file...

[Anonymous Coward]

It mentioned that it was a video file. I hope they would at least ignore anyone who decided to abort the download right away because they clicked on it by accident and I don't think many link prefetchers download every file on the page.

I know I sure as hell don't intend to download anything marked as child pornography, even if I don't believe it actually is child pornography.

Re:It said it was a video file...

[HappySmileMan]

You can cancel a download all you want, as soon as you click on the link you're logged, and I don't think they'd bother checking whether you downloaded the full thing or not.

Free Beer!!

[AmigaHeretic]

So is this illegal??

Click here for free beer!!!

Re:Free Beer!!

[theeddie55]

Yes, it is illegal. There are laws against false advertising. Unless you're now going to give me beer.

Re:Free Beer!!

[AmigaHeretic]

Yes, it is illegal. There are laws against false advertising. Unless you're now going to give me beer.

Oops! In that case.... I store all my beer at 7-11. Just let the guy at the counter know I said you could have it free.

Is this Russia?

[junner518]

I was under the impression that the US was a free country without secret police, who even go to the lengths of manufacturing temptations to catch "criminals." Big Brother will be upon us soon enough...

skiing down the slippery slope

[lexsird]

Big brother seems to have fewer blocks from running over our rights these days. I have watched this country hand over it's basic civil rights since 9/11 in the name of patriotism, law and order and nationalism. Read some history, this is how the Nazi's rose to power, using dogma so akin to what we hear these days. Some people say the terrorists won, I disagree. Someone more sinister and evil than them won, they were just the vehicle for it, the excuse.

You do NOT take power away from a government once it has it without a great struggle. In our fear, we have with blind trust handed over our freedoms, leaving common sense behind us. This is just one dangerous step down a wide path to destruction by allowing such flimsy standards for law enforcement. Sure, the reasons they use may on the surface and the moment seem justified, but it sets a dangerous president that will erode our rights even further. Ask yourself, how far will they go to probe us to find our resistance? When will we if ever cry out for a stop to this madness? At what point will we say "enough is enough"?

History shows us how the people of Germany failed to stop the Nazis. The Nazis were few in number, one would think the German people could have rose up and crushed them. But they were fearful, law abiding and followed the dogma. They thought they were doing the right thing. A monster was loosed on the world because of their inaction. How much of a monster will we Americans unleash on the world if we fail to control our nation? If you don't think it can happen here, don't be foolish. The German people didn't think it could happen to them. They didn't all wake up and decide to be world villains, wringing their hands and laughing madly with each other over plans of world domination. How are we different than them? What strange magic protects us from evil men? Our Constitution? It is but a document, words on paper that can't stop an ant from crawling over it. It has to live in our hearts and minds and we have to be vigilant to defend what we believe in. Only then do those words have any power.

What can you do? For now you can vote. You should do it and be responsible to cast that vote to support your ideals, not the flavor of the year dogma. We should all be thankful that we can vote. When the day comes that we can't, we will wish so hard we could because the struggle back to the vote will be long and hard and most likely brutal.

Attacks on our freedoms cannot be suffered and ignored; tolerance in this case is a form of defeat.

Re:skiing down the slippery slope

[Anonymous Coward]

it sets a dangerous president that will erode our rights even further

You mean, like, Mr. Bush?

Children?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if your child is surfing the internet unsupervised and clicks the link? This scenario is not at all unlikely.

Psst ...

[golodh]

...know anyone with an unsecured WIFI router you don't like? Just drive by with your laptop and have a bit of harmless fun with those FBI links. Success guaranteed.

Here we go...

[jpatters]

Rickrolling is dead. Long live Fedrolling!

WEBMASTERS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Place CSS-hidden images on your pages with the SRC as the URL of one of these sites.

MWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!

They just raided Google headquarters

[MillionthMonkey]

The Google spiders were discovered by police to be "likely pedophiles".

Deceptive Headline?

[smchris]

For better or worse, from what I got out of the article, it was the attempt to _download_ at the site that constituted the thought to commit a crime. So this is just a refinement of what I've understood the U.S. government to be doing for years. Which is to say, running kiddie porn sites. Must have been about five years ago I remember one of our area high school teachers was dumb enough to order a video from a decoy site and have it sent to his school mailbox for that extra humiliation of getting dragged away at his school. Downloads have to _way_ increase their arrests, which will be quoted as their "success", because it is so much simpler than actually mailing something across state lines.

So just a new techno wrinkle on what has become an old practice since the "war on drugs" in America. Not to say that I approve of my tax dollars going to government agents acting as Satan to preemptively tempt people into sin. It's rule by black ops social psychology instead of rule of law.

Re:Deceptive Headline?

[Tony Hoyle]

constituted the thought to commit a crime

Now read that back.

1984 is upon us... just a little too late.

Free Cars For All RIAA Employees, Click Here :)

[MrSteveSD]

Now that would be a better joke. A huge FBI raid on the RIAA.

The Reign of Terror has begun.

[inTheLoo]

You are right to fear the FBI. Now they have a one click way to harass, smear and jail the political and economic opposition they have spent the last few years identifying. Detention centers have been built and police have been practicing mass arrests. Arbitrary arrest and torture of opposition, this is how democracy dies. The FBI program is so obviously flawed that it can only be useful for crushing opposition.

I'd be packing my bags if I thought there was a place to run. The only option is to crank up resistance and vote these evil bastards out of office. It's time to dismantle the police state.

Re:The Reign of Terror has begun.

[jamstar7]

I'd be packing my bags if I thought there was a place to run. The only option is to crank up resistance and vote these evil bastards out of office. It's time to dismantle the police state.

Great idea, but 'voting these evil bastards out' only gets rid of the bosses. Problem is, every government bureau is a hotbed of bureaucrats who aren't elected and be voted out. Add to it the concept of the administrative subpoena:

What is an administrative subpoena?

An administrative subpoena is essentially a piece of paper signed by an FBI agent that requires any recipient to disclose any documents (or any other tangible things). The proposed administrative subpoena would also compel a person to give testimony, essentially forcing anyone to talk to the FBI. Administrative subpoenas are issued with no prior judicial, prosecutorial or grand jury approval. Under the current proposals, failure to comply with an administrative subpoena could result in civil and criminal penalties, and the subpoenas would be executed in complete secrecy. In fact, under one of the proposals, anyone who disclosed the existence of an administrative subpoena could be subject to up to five years in prison.

Technically, a person getting an administrative subpoena could ask for judicial review. But, in the case of subpoenas for documents, why would they? Most - if not all - administrative subpoenas for records would be issued to third-party businesses to get information about their customers. The business has immunity for complying with the subpoena and little incentive to spend its money challenging a subpoena for records that pertain to someone else. And since the business is prohibited from notifying its customer of the existence of the subpoena, the customer can never exercise his right to challenge the subpoena.

So, now our JEdgar can pull out a handy form, fill in the blanks, and hand it off to whomever and aquire any information he desires, without the benefit of a search warrant. In the case of this 'kiddie porn' site, I'd think, since kiddie porn is such a hot button issue, that getting a real live honest-to-God search warrant and subpoena wouldn't even be a minorleague speedbump. The question in my mind is, why settle for something of dubvious legal value when you can get something that stands up in court, unless of course, you're on dubvious legal ground to start with...

Re:The Reign of Terror has begun.

[letxa2000]

You are right to fear the FBI. Now they have a one click way to harass, smear and jail the political and economic opposition they have spent the last few years identifying. Detention centers have been built and police have been practicing mass arrests. Arbitrary arrest and torture of opposition, this is how democracy dies.

Yeah, I heard that conspiracy theory, too, back in the 90's before Clinton was getting his blowjobs. You forgot to mention the black helicopters, though!

Re:The Reign of Terror has begun.

[j_166]

"Now they have a one click way to harass"

You are exaggerating and paranoid. I can't believe you got modded a 4. RTFA, their 'one click way to harass' involved a guy going to a freaking russian kiddie porn website and clicking that link! We're not talking about the FBI arresting political dissidents here, IT WAS A GUY GOING TO A CHILD PORN WEBSITE!!!

it seems the problems where avoidable

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a link that clicking results in an FBI raid seems a little excessive. However had they done several links spread over different suspect forums over a time frame of a few months I think they would have had a much stronger net. Any IP address caught in all of those pots, or even a majority of them, is either looking for child porn or running a spider. Telling the two apart shouldn't be to difficult.

Read the facts about the case people...

[santiagodraco]

This wasn't just some link posted in a random spot, read the story. They posted very descriptively in a forum that is likely frequented by "pedophiles" and described videos of sex acts with a 4 year old... come on. First, you were likely predisposed to viewing that type of material to be there in the first place... Second, the post was very very clear on what you would "see". Anyone going there deserved to be searched imo. Now, if they posted a short link with a "vague" hint of something, all over the place (including places where you would never find that type of material or discussions) then they would clearly be overstepping the bounds of reason. But in this case it seems very well targeted and probably commendable. Scary? A bit as people tend to go overboard when they have this kind of success and power. But for now it seems reasonable. For now.

Re:Read the facts about the case people...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right--and wrong, but at least your'e being thoughtful about it. If everything in the article is true (BIG "if" in these days of corporate media) then you're right. This person seemed genuinely interested in what he shouldn't have been genuinely interested in. However, you're wrong to think that this is reasonable, even though you qualified it with "for now".

This is how this starts. First they use a technique on people that nobody wants to defend. They love to publicize both the arrest and the technique, you'll notice. After a while, the technique becomes acceptable because it catches BAD PEOPLE. Then it moves on to other, perhaps less cut-and-dry "crimes", maybe things where not everyone knows the law. For instance, is it legal to order drugs for which you have a valid prescription from another country? Another state? I don't actually have that memorized as I write this, so I'd better not click on any discount drugs links without a lawyer in the room, and even that's no guarantee.

Is that new price-comparison search engine you use (the one that shows you if you'll pay taxes or not) really a sting to catch you "forgetting" to pay sales tax on that new big-screen TV? Will reading up on the medical marijuana movement constitute "intent" to purchase?

This technique needs to be stopped before it starts, or we'll end up with all that and more. While we're at it, "attempted" crimes that are crimes themselves need to be limited to things like murder, rape, burglary, etc, where people are actually harmed in the attempt. Any more than things like that is just an invitation for law enforcement to pick up easy targets instead of doing actual work fighting actual crimes with actual victims. Everyone please spare me the "Act A sometimes causes illegal Act B therefore Act A should also be illegal" crap. I'm tired of it. I'm fearful of the randomness of it, too, and this has to end. I'd like to say I'm not a criminal, at least I try not to be, but these days I don't think there's any one of us who can say that truthfully.

Re:Read the facts about the case people...

[CyVaquero]

Read the above comments. The delivery method they are using for this sting isn't the problem - it appears that the links were posted in a place probably only visited by child pornographers, it's the way they are executing the results of the sting and the precedent it is setting. Flaws: 1) They are just using IPs as a basis for the warrant, not looking at referrers which leaves the hole of cruel pranks using redirects along with the possibility of ip spoofing/proxying. 2) They are matching MAC adresses to the actual machine after seizure, which again is no basis, my Xbox360 offers MAC spoofing built-in. As mentioned earlier a few seconds with KisMac/Snort in a public WiFi zone and you can have everyone's MAC on that network. 3) There were thumbnails listed in a thunbnail.db, no images were found. As I stated earlier this only means that the images were on the computer at one time and that folder had been viewed in preview mode when those images were there, it does not identify how they got there (user initiated or automated), how long it was there (3 seconds or 3 weeks), how many times it was viewed and for how long. I feel these are key in establishing intent. 4) Most importantly - it does not establish who was physically using the machine/ip/mac when the offense took place. Leaving conspiracy theories and entrapment arguments behind. The fact that mutable data is being used as the digital equivlent of a fingerprint to grant a warrant disturbs me. This system of catching perps is too fallible and the costs to innocents too high to warrant its use. The hardcore perps are way too savvy to get caught this way which leaves the feds scooping up the equivalent of a pickpocket while there's a bank heist going on around the corner. Leaving conspiracy theories and entrapment arguments behind. This system of catching perps is too fallible and the costs to innocents too high to warrant its use. The hardcore perps are way too savvy to get caught this way which leaves the feds scooping up the equivalent of a pickpocket while there's a bank heist going on around the corner. What ever happened to building a case? This is the spam of investigative work. All of the suggestions posted on how to protect your machine/network, lock down your wifi, turn off precaching, don't click links in emails, etc. makes perfect sense to us on slashdot/digg/reddit - but we are much more tech savvy than the vast majority of users on the Internet who really only know how to 'use' the internet and are blissfully unaware of how vulnerable they are online. Your average Judge falls into that latter category.

Re:Read the facts about the case people...

[santiagodraco]

Good point about how valid the link between the individual and the actual IP address might be... however I think the central issue still stands... whoever it was that went there deserved to be looked into. I disagree though that the "hard core perps" are too savvy. I don't think there's any correlation about being technicall savvy and being a pedophile. I'd bet that the reverse is true. Now when you talk about organized crime related to this that's a whole other issue. Those are groups that work together to protect their elicit activities, and most likely have adopted some "standards" to protect themselves. The root of the problem is that as long as there is an audience there will be sources of the material. That's the target of these activities and the deterrent this type of law enforcement activity is intended to create. A bit Orwellian? Probably. But I don't think it's quite the "blanket" operation people make it sound to be.

Mod parent up, +1 accurate (rare with entrapment)

[ceejayoz]

People seem to think entrapment means "police pretend to let you commit crime".

Entrapment is only when the police encourage, cajole, and pressure you into committing a crime that you wouldn't otherwise have considered committing.

Every time I see a story on a sting like this people trot out the "entrapment!" argument. If things like this were entrapment, every sting operation, every undercover operation, etc. would all be invalidated. Clearly, the cops are permitted to put a fake hooker on a street corner and wait to be approached.

Porn Industry Angry about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be if I were them!

There are thousands of "thumbs" pages that show 3-20 free medium resolution pictures and link to the main pay sites. Millions of people browse these inter-linked pages every hour and I am sure a good number of them decide to sign up for at least one site they visit. In all my years browsing porn this way on the internet I have only ever came across exactly 1 picture of a person that I was pretty sure was under age. At the bottom of the page was a link to their keeper of records, along with the "all people on the site are at least 18". That said, I have serious reservations about browsing the net for porn now, because I have no way to know the link I am clicking on isn't a "plant", nor do I have any other evidence that the models are really 18 or older, other than the promise made on the web site. What's more is that more than a handful of times I have clicked on a thumbnail of a pretty girl and have been shown some morbidly aweful, truly disturbing picture instead. Try as I may, even at 30 years of age it's hard to put some of THOSE images out of head, especially after 9/11 and evening reports of sucide bombers, etc.

This seems like Porn "FUD" and the legit porn industry should be agry. The average porn surfer should be angry as well, because it all but forces them to ONLY visit the professional pay-per-use sites. And, the average person should be supremely annoyed by the FBI's actions, because it's all too plausible in today's internet to, for what ever reason, click something that you don't mean to or want to.

You know what, maybe the FBI should just kill off every embryo, child, teen, and adult that has any potential gene or _____ that doesn't jibe with what they are looking for. That's pretty much what Hitler was after and it worked well for him with the Jews. Who cares if you take down a few million innocent people along the way, when the ends justify the means - long live Utopia!

Questionable...

[followfocus]

The tactics are questionable. There are so many variables at play here in the clicking..Now what happens if someone decides to remote into your computer one day and click links of things they know will make the FBI break into your house?? Newsflash: Estranged Husband gets back at his cheating wife and decides to click kiddie porn links on her laptop remotely. I don't like pedophiles, but I think this tactic could and will be used in other ways outside of pedophilia by law enforcement. I feel like our rights just keep getting picked away. Our privacy a thing of the past.. I can only hope that the wiretapping incidents that happened recently or "WireGate" as I like to call it teaches us what happens when you give too much power. It gets abused and lives can be destroyed. Our rights afforded us by the constitution are no longer valid. What exactly is considered an unlawful search and seizure these days anyway?

RickRoll 2.0?

[Ender77]

With what people do with RickRoll, I am scared what they will do with this.

Something to worry about for proxies and crawlers

[Animats]

This has got to stop. There's lots of software, from pre-fetching browsers to web crawlers to proxies to HTML validators that read other web sites.

I have a proxy-like tool available on line which occasionally gets abused. It's a lightweight HTML validator and debugging tool, intended to answer the question "why did the crawler misinterpret my site". You put in a URL, and the indicated page is fetched and parsed into a tree. Javascript and embedded objects are removed, and links are made absolute. Then the tree is converted back to properly indented HTML for display. This shows a web crawler's view of a web site; if the output doesn't look reasonably similar to the original page, your site probably won't be indexed properly by search engines.

This tool is regularly abused as a proxy server. At one point, somebody even built a call to it into the Debian build process because they needed to read HTTPS from some code that didn't know how to talk SSL. (That's been fixed.) There's still some bozo who has a script that reads pages from the Weather Channel through this tool. Every five minutes. I finally to put a big banner at the top of each output page to discourage people from using it as a general purpose proxy server.

So now I have to worry about someone using it to read the FBI's p0rn collection.

FBI; at it again?

[Anonymous Coward]

For all the squeaking and squawking that people like to do about NSA, and less so but still significant, CIA; it would seem that historically FBI has given us far more to worry about concerning abusing the rights and freedoms of the average citizen. FBIs purview is the US and her citizens. NSA and the rest of the 'three letters' are strictly forbidden from collecting or acting on 'US persons' (a term that is very tightly defined and enforced). Overall I believe the FBI is a good group of folks that work very hard to stop criminals. At the same time, I think the actions described in this article are indicative of a fundamental lack of technical prowess and little to no ability to think through the net affect of their actions. It has all the hallmarks of a plan hastily put in place to appease politicians which will in the end be burnt at the stake by those very same pols. Many speak of fearing such activities. Frankly, it's tough to fear an organization that appears so fraught with ineptitude. The bottom line would seem to be a massive shift from the real reason for existing (stopping criminals) to a focus on the more politically palatable (protecting us from what could be).

Stating the REALLY obvious problem

[Ihmhi]

I think the real problem here is you've all somehow turned a discussion about the FBI and child pornography into a discussion of how search engines work. Only on Slashdot...

Re:Stating the REALLY obvious problem

[danpat]

Ever heard of yak shaving?

Re:Stating the REALLY obvious problem

[RDW]

Indeed. We're all ignoring the real issue here - does generating a search warrant in response to clicking a link violate the Amazon One Click Order patent..?

Re:Stating the REALLY obvious problem

[Douglas Goodall]

Now that is really funny, GOOD ONE. :-)

Not to mention CSRF or umm image tags

[Anonymous Coward]

I simple image tag pointing to this "bad" URL would get someone in major trouble. All those forums that allow you to put img tags in your sig. Bye-bye all forum members!

This article is perfect without pictures.

[symbolset]

It really is worse than that. Any site you go to can link any content from any other site, and not show it to you -- just load it transparently in the background. You will have downloaded the material without your knowledge and it will be in your cache when they break your door down.

The article plainly states that they do not even bother to record the referring URL or page, which means they don't care if you were prank porn'd. Considering some freaks are out there getting SWAT called on people it's realistic to expect that this will be a toy of choice for disgruntled former life partners and competetive coworkers with an evil bent. You'll be guilty of committing a crime completely without your knowledge. You won't just lose your equipment -- you will go to PMITA prison and spend the rest of your life on the registry. Same with if you have an HTML email with the content embedded but otherwise looking harmless. Since there are hundreds of thousands of compromised sites out there, and millions of spam bots the internet bad guys could get almost all of us on this list pretty quickly. Also some browser plugins automatically download all of the pages linked from your current page in the background to speed up browsing.

What this means is that this Internet is now useless with pictures. Or embedded content of any kind.

I'm all for catching and punishing the freaks that seek out this content and most especially the ones that publish it. But to leave enforcement this wide open to abuse is just wrong.

It's time to browse with Lynx again. Who would have thought that would come up again for people who weren't blind?

Just about the only alternative that works is browsing via secure remote desktop from offshore hosting.

Re:This article is perfect without pictures.

[fpgaprogrammer]

what's scary about this article is the fact that links like this propagate by botnet spam. earlier this week we were reading about botnets engaging in spam attacks on phpBB sites. after reading that I checked up on some old phpBB and mediawiki sites that I created but never used. they had become infested with pictures and links to porn sites with tags like pedo kiddie lolita etc. based on the volume of material and pattern of posts, this was obviously done by a spamming botnet designed to propagate these links. is it possible that this is related to the FBI sting? i wouldn't put it past them to actually engineer this sort of operation, or for some hacker to include one of the FBI's links in their spam-bot's list. many of the classmates i knew who did these kinds of hacks were the same kind ending up at the NSA or various other government TLAs... or Google.

Re:This article is perfect without pictures.

[dbIII]

It's time to browse with Lynx again

Lynx saved me from something about two girls and a cup that was put in as a prank.

Re:This article is perfect without pictures.

[Reziac]

Well, you're just full of cheerful thoughts... and here's another: Say the FBI spams all of America with their honeypot link email. Anyone who happens to be under investigation for something else, and who innocently failed to delete the FBI's spam, could conceivably find themselves holding "evidence of intent to download" simply because they didn't delete the email in question.

Good example of why there should be absolutely NO laws against thoughtcrime, or intentcrime -- only against real, actively-committed crime. Anyone here who hasn't had at least one majorly illegal thought at some point?? Into the jailhouse, suckers!

Re:This article is perfect without pictures.

[erc]

It's time to browse with Lynx again. Who would have thought that would come up again for people who weren't blind?

I use Lynx all the time. It's much faster to browse cnn.com or foxnews.com or any of the other heavier graphics sites with a text-only browser than it is with a browser that automatically downloads all the graphics, sound files, videos, etc. on the page.

Try it on your Linux/*BSD box sometime - you'll be amazed at how much faster cnn.com comes up in lynx!

Re:This article is perfect without pictures.

[hairyfeet]

Not to mention that here in the good old US,everyone is doing SOMETHING illegal.Have you seen the size of your average state book of penal code? Have you SEEN the federal version? All they need is to get through the door.After that they WILL find something you have done that is illegal.Question: I seem to remember that in the old days they had to specify what they were looking for,just to keep them from doing fishing expeditions.Does that still stand? Or can they just grab anybody they search with this and stick them with a pot bust/DMCA violations/etc. If that doesn't still hold then they will have 100% success,as they will all be charged with SOMETHING,even if it isn't kiddy pr0n.

And frankly,I don't trust any of these bunches to "only go after the guilty" after McMartin.How many years did the McMartins rot in jail before that BS was thrown out? But as always my 02c,YMMV.

Re:This article is perfect without pictures.

[Reziac]

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." -- Tacitus, Roman senator and historian (A.D. c.56-c.115)

"The more prohibitions there are, the poorer the people will be. The more laws are promulgated, the more thieves and bandits there will be." -- Lao-tzu, The Tao Te Ching (believed written in China, 6th century BC).

Nothing changes, eh? :(

Our local library has copies of some of the early California Codebooks. The Code from around 1890 is a single volume of about 500 pages, just over an inch thick. The current CA Code takes about 6 FEET of shelf space! We're probably only marginally better off (from a legal standpoint) than we were under the 1890s Code, yet we're vastly more criminalized.

The risk of "If I want to write you up, I can and WILL find *some* violation, no matter how trivial" is why if the police or ANY gov't official comes to the door, you should never, ever let them in if they don't have a warrant.

Re:This article is perfect without pictures.

[squoozer]

I read a bit about English law the other day. We have been going in the same general direction of leglislating against eveyrthing the figures...

Since 1801 there have been approx 3400 acts of parliment passed.
Since 1997 (when labour came to power) there have been roughly 400 acts passed (roughly 12%)
So, assuming an even spread of act passing you would expect about 0.5% a year or in the reign of Labour about 5.5% of acts to be passed. They have more than doubled the average rate of act passing! Time to leave I think.

Re:This article is perfect without pictures.

[DrLang21]

I seem to remember that in the old days they had to specify what they were looking for,just to keep them from doing fishing expeditions.Does that still stand? This still stands, but I believe if they find other criminal activity while searching for what they listed as searching for, they can nail you for that too. In other words, if they are looking for financial records to prove tax evasion and find a dime bag of marijuana, they can also prosecute you for drug posession. I think there's some tricky business to this where if what they are looking for is out in the open and they find something else illegal that was burried in the back of a locked closet, you can get that evidence thrown out for illegal search and seizure.

Re:This article is perfect without pictures.

[D-Cypell]

Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens' What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957.

Re:This article is perfect without pictures.

[DrLang21]

Too bad I don't have any guilt for the laws that I break.

Re:This article is perfect without pictures.

[ffflala]

Our local library has copies of some of the early California Codebooks. The Code from around 1890 is a single volume of about 500 pages, just over an inch thick. The current CA Code takes about 6 FEET of shelf space!

I see your point, but it's not grown as much as your comparison implies.

I'm a California law librarian, and I can verify that those 1890 California Codes contained ONLY the codes themselves. The current six-foot shelf space of codes are annotated, and the annotations are extensive. For every sentence of the actual law, you will generally have several to dozens of pages of annotations (commentary, cross-citations, historical notes, etc.) I'd estimate that 80 to 90% of the space in the current books are annotations.

So if you were interested in reading the actual text of the law, without the commentary, you could actually do so.

On top of this, those 1890 codes made it illegal for Chinese people to vote, work, or otherwise live in the state, criminalized interracial marriages, allowed railroad barons to run wild, would throw you in prison for being gay, kept women from doing anything beyond being a housewife, teacher, or widow, and contained a whole slew of other laws that are now seen as troglodytic.

Point is, it's not as bad as you make it out to be.

Re:This article is perfect without pictures.

[hairyfeet]

So in other words,yes they can go on fishing expeditions they just can't have the balls to actually call it a fishing expedition.I repeat my earlier statement:This will be considered an incredible success with an almost perfect 100% conviction rate.Because after they have kicked in the door they will find something to arrest you for.And isn't DMCA and "piracy" now federal crimes? Does anyone have a receipt for every single game,software,and mp3 they have? Don't forget now,with the cp sword of damocles hanging over your head it will be a lot easier to get a jury to convict,especially if they pile on the unrelated charges.

I stand by my earlier statement-This is a damn scary time to be an American. And unlike the red scare,I don't really see this one burning itself out.Those in power have figured out they can snatch all the power they want be screaming "save the childrens!" and folks will go along for fear of being branded a protector of child molesters.Even screaming "terrorist" doesn't work as well for silencing opposition. Pretty damn scary,folks.But as always my 02c for as long as I have the freedom to express it,YMMV

Re:This article is perfect without pictures.

[hairyfeet]

I don't think she meant guilt as in you'll feel bas about breaking BS laws,I think she meant guilt as in you will be less likely to speak out knowing the power the state has to destroy you.And let us be honest-can you be assured that if you got someone at the state police or FBI pissed at you that they wouldn't be able to find SOMETHING to arrest you for? And a long criminal trial will destroy your reputation,your finances,etc even if you are (much later) proven innocent.And after McMartin and Little Rascals day care even that isn't a sure thing if they hit you with something like a cp charge. This is some truly scary shit.

And it isn't like they have ANY trouble telling a pedo from some schmuck.I have a friend that works forensic IT for the state crime lab and says it is beyond easy to spot the pedo.He says they have NEVER had a case with less than hundreds of pictures and vids,usually multiple hard drives FILLED to the brim with that garbage.These guys collect that crap the way a normal guy might collect Ginger Lynn videos(Yes,I'm old and don't know who the new stars are).If they really wanted to catch pedos using a honeypot all they would have to do is post heavy passworded files and tell the pedos they could have the password when they gave some cp in return.I'm sure they would have so many pervs sending them cp it would make their heads swim.But that is my 02c,YMMV

"pedos deserve it"?

[alizard]

Let's say the FBI decides for reasons having to do with what they think your politics are to get you busted. (e.g. mistaking you for somebody else) You see a page of what interests you and you click on it. The FBI screenshot shows a bunch of naked juveniles.

Do YOU deserve it?

Re:"pedos deserve it"?

[Myrcutio]

There's a few problems with your argument there.


1)The FBI being concerned with your politics would be wrong in and of itself. If they decide to frame you for your political beliefs (even extremist beliefs) then democracy has already failed and your screwed anyways. At the moment, i can say all the nasty things i want about the current regime and be fine.

2)Even if you do click the link the worst they can do is raid your house and find that there is nothing there, unless they do find something in which case your a perv and probably deserve it.

3)You still have a right to a fair trial, and most juries would be forgiving to someone who clicked on the free iPod and got a face full of pr0n.

Re:"pedos deserve it"?

[megaditto]

I am not sure about your point number 3. Anyone remembers that case where a teacher got sentenced to 20 years in jail for a spyware porn popup during class?

"Think of the children" seems to short-circuit logical reasoning and common sence of most people out there (or at least those of us that have kids).

Re:"pedos deserve it"?

[hairyfeet]

Don't forget McMartin. How many years did they rot in jail before they were finally released.CP is one of those crimes that you are guilty until proven innocent,and even then people will think you just got off on a technicality. And RTFA,they already got one guy for 15 years,and all they had was the clicked link-no pix,no vids,that's it. This is a truly scary time to be an American,folks.The red scare of the 50's was tame compared to Gitmo and Cp witch hunts.But that is just my 02c,YMMV.

Re:"pedos deserve it"?

[Z00L00K]

And don't forget that there are ways to create pages with hidden access to other sites just to generate traffic.

Just create a page with a bunch of hidden IFRAME tags and call out to the FBI sites. JavaScript is useful too as are Applets. If you create such a page on a site like Slashdot you will effectively render all slashdot readers criminals by this type of evidence.

Add it to an ad that's displayed on a well-visited site you will get even more.

And don't forget that the "Referer" tag can be faked. Maybe it should say www.fbi.gov...

Anyway - it's the money trail that has to be followed, not the data trail. The spam fight has already taught us that. Making illegal sources unprofitable will be the best incentive to cut out the crap and keep the good parts.

Re:"pedos deserve it"?

[Bastard of Subhumani]

At the moment, i can say all the nasty things i want about the current regime and be fine.

Despite what all the paranoid loonies say about him, Bush hasn't made the USA into a police state. Nowhere near. Not saying I agree with him, there's certainly a case to answere about the Iraq war and all the money he's been making from his pals in the oil indu BRB, someone at the door.

Re:"pedos deserve it"?

[DavidShor]

Regarding point 1, please look at what the FBI did to MLK.

Re:"pedos deserve it"?

[TheRaven64]

And where did they post them? If they were on legitimate sites, how do they differentiate people who deliberately click on them or people (like me) who click randomly around the page while reading and occasionally hit a link, or (more common) people using software that prefetches the contents of all links in the background? Does the page actually contain child pornography, in which case aren't they doing something illegal themselves, or is it empty and they arrest people for 'intent to look at pictures of children' (is that really illegal in America?).

Re:"pedos deserve it"?

[Tony Hoyle]

'intent to look at pictures of children' (is that really illegal in America?).

Yes. Or effectively it is.

When CP is involved law and due process just go out of the window. The Jury is just there to say 'Guilty' at the appropriate moment.

If you really want to finish someone off and get them out of the way, plant some CP on their machine and call the cops. Even in the *extremely* unlikely circumstance that they get off their life will be over.. they'll be hounded out of the state.

Re:"pedos deserve it"?

[Cytotoxic]

McMartin is one of my favorite and infuriating examples. Another is the "Little Rascals Daycare" case from North Carolina. On one of the several Frontline specials about the case, a juror actually said that they didn't believe any of the specific charges, but there were so many charges that they felt they had to convict to protect the children. So they knew the people were innocent and they sent them away for life anyway, just to be safe. Wow. "Think of the Children" literally cost a couple of people their freedom for life. The (much) later reprieve doesn't change the fact that a large number of people in a democratically elected constitutional government were willing to submit to a mob mentality when simple logic tells us that there is zero chance that the allegations are true. See the Frontline website http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/innocence/etc/sum.html for more infuriating details.

Re:"pedos deserve it"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been on a jury.

People were itching to convict before even deliberating.

Re:"pedos deserve it"?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the forefront of the "child abuse and abduction" scare is Dr David Finkelhor and his "Crimes against Children Research Center".

Which.... ironically... was created to write scary articles and publish scary research about "ritual cult abuse".

Finklehor was actually an "expert witness" in the McMartin case, for the prosecution.

And now, his research is cited EVERY DAY by the child abuse industrial complex. In fact, he was testifying in front of congress recently when they considered new laws such as the ones that made these arrests possible.

Interesting? Interesting.

Re:"pedos deserve it"?

[Anonymous Coward]

A jury is just a seemingly behaved lynch mob.

OT: Falling for the enemy...

[Captain Sarcastic]

Well, you have to admit that the uniforms were pretty cool.

There was a quote in one of Terry Pratchett's books, where they were talking about elves, and how cool they were, even when they're treating humans as their rightful prey. (Think of the Bane Sidhe from the Celtic myths, and you'll see what I mean.)

The quote, though, was how mice don't have the same situation with cats. "Mice don't go around saying, 'OK, say what you like about cats, but you have to admit they've got style!'"

Now, the poster was clearly speaking in jest, but there are situations where some people overlook how utterly wrong something is, because they fixate upon the appearance, and that, although they have power over us beyond our wildest nightmares, at least these people look good.

Re:OT: Falling for the enemy...

[Anonymous Coward]

True. Personally I think the Waffen SS uniforms looked pretty cool, with the solid black and all. This doesn't mean I want their jackboots tramping on my street corner. Same for the Soviet Political Commissars.

Spyware/Trojan Redirectors

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone?

Ultimate Karma

[Ender77]

Quick, everybody send the link to Chris Hansen's(to catch a predator) email address.

I call bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

That is complete and utter bullshit. You have ample remedies if *any* law enforcement officer acts in bad faith. In order to get a search warrant, a police officer or Special Agent needs to state the facts that support that warrant in an affidavit sworn to under oath. They may also have to testify under oath before a judge or magistrate in order to get the warrant approved. Lying under oath is perjury. You would also have plenty of civil remedies as well, once a police officer or special agent acts in bad faith, he or she loses their immunity, and can be sued just like any other ordinary person.

As for the courts treating your case, I doubt any of the judicial officials (be they judge or magistrate) who approved the warrant would preside over your civil case. They would have to recuse themselves.

And finally, this would not be entrapment since entrapment is inducing someone to commit a crime they would not have done had it not been for the enticement. In these cases, the FBI is going after people who are already looking for kiddie porn.

I cannot believe this shit gets modded up as, "informative."

Re:I call bullshit

[QuantumG]

I speak from experience. You speak from your ass.

Re:I call bullshit

[JohnFluxx]

There are plenty of cases in the news where people have had their equipment seized and then never returned, despite no charges ever brought against them.

Re:I call bullshit

[sydneyfong]

In order to get a search warrant, a police officer or Special Agent needs to state the facts that support that warrant in an affidavit sworn to under oath. They may also have to testify under oath before a judge or magistrate in order to get the warrant approved. Lying under oath is perjury. When's the last time you heard of police officers being charged with perjury?
It's hard to prove that somebody's lying. Especially when they are closely related to those who prosecute crimes.

Re:I call bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, your anecdotal evidence is better than his?

Fuck off moron, he's right, you're a liar.

Re:I call bullshit

[AK Marc]

You have ample remedies if *any* law enforcement officer acts in bad faith. In order to get a search warrant, a police officer or Special Agent needs to state the facts that support that warrant in an affidavit sworn to under oath.

"Our informant said he did, and we can't name our informant because he would be compromised." What remedies do you have against that?

And finally, this would not be entrapment since entrapment is inducing someone to commit a crime they would not have done had it not been for the enticement. In these cases, the FBI is going after people who are already looking for kiddie porn.

You are missing it. There is no entrapment because there is no crime committed. You can't "entrap" someone for no crime that never happens. They will never be charged with kiddie porn for viewing or saving whatever was on that link. It's a link to nothing. The question is whether clicking a link to nowhere is probable cause for destroying someone's life. This is no different from a sign outside a building advertising "Free Prostitutes Inside" and when people come in, they are identified, tracked, and their life turned inside out to see if the FBI can prove they did use a prostitute before. It would be entrapment if they arrested them for soliciting for that act, but they aren't. They are using it as the reason to destroy someone's life looking to see if they committed other acts. Not entrapment, but possibly worse.

I cannot believe this shit gets modded up as, "informative."

He was wrong in that it was not entrapment. You were wrong in the reason you gave why it was not entrapment. So maybe you could be a little more tolerant.

Re:Sad bunch

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, think of the children my ass...

The argument that gets put forth all the time is that "every time these images are viewed, that child is raped again...."

I could almost understand that, except for one thing... Whenever there has been a video of a person being beheaded that has been posted all over the internet, it has been for the sole purpose of instilling fear. Do you think the families of those victims enjoy knowing that people are watching their loved ones getting brutally murdered over and over again? Why aren't these illegal?

How about the families who lost loved ones in the twin towers?

The other argument is that the demand for child pornography creates more victims. Well, maybe I have a thing for giraffes wearing thongs.... I don't see people lining up to provide me with my fix of giraffe porn

Yes, it is sad that some kids have been victimized by this exploitation. But why is it that you can be sent to prison longer for just looking at pictures of a crime, than for putting a child in a microwave?

Re:All I Can Say Is One Thing

[DenDude]

If you do "let the head shots fly", I can assure you that although you may hit one or two of them in the Kevlar, you will take several in your unprotected areas. Sucks to be sure, but they have lots more guns, ammo and personnel than you do at your house. The only questions being asked after the smoke clears is "how many times did skeet get hit"?
Sorry, but them's the facts.

I contacted my Senator

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone should do the same. Slashdot represents a huge concentration of technical knowledge. We have a responsibility to explain these things to our elected representatives when they display a lack of comprehension:

Senator Kyl, I'm writing to you regarding a recent article I read on tactics the FBI is using in their pursuit of child pornography violators. Please see this link:

http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9899151-38.html?tag=nefd.pop

While I agree that child pornography is a serious problem that requires strong action. The actions of the FBI in this case cannot be condoned. Issues of particularity and the fact that individuals going to the above "honeypot" website aren't actually obtaining illegal material aside. There are several technical reasons why this approach is dangerous for innocent persons.

First and foremost, granting warrants based on an IP address that visits a website borders on criminally negligent. Most ISPs don't assign static IP addresses to users, rather, the IP changes everytime they log on, meaning that a simple slip up in the logs can show a person had that IP address at a time when they really didn't. Result: an innocent person's house gets raided.

Additionally, many people have open wireless access points on their network, where they have little or no control over whom accesses their network. Is this poor security? Yes. Is it illegal or immoral? No. However, if someone uses their network to access one of these sites, the result: an innocent person's house gets raided.

Then there are the issues of the way the web and web browsers are architected. Many web browsers emply a technique called "pre-fetching" where the browser automatically begins retrieving text, images, etc from pages that are LINKED from the current one. What this means is, a person doesn't even necessarily have to go to the FBIs entrapment page for their IP to show up as having accessed it, simply going to a page that has a link to it would be enough. This includes search engines such as Google. Result: an innocent person's house gets raided.

Beyond these simple technical problems (there are others). There can be issues with malevolent usage such as websites redirecting to the honeypot website, website operators embedding links to images from the website, etc. All good ways to get your enemies in trouble with the law.

In short, I believe the FBIs actions in this matter are reckless and demonstrate both a lack of technical understanding of the web in general and a lack of respect for the rights of American citizens. I think that you should immediately take action to obtain information about the FBIs actions and whether or not they constitute a threat to innocent Americans.

Wouldn't that be Amazon's fault?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Amazon is requesting login credentials, even in cookie form, shouldn't they do it in an SSL kinda way?

Doesn't make sense

[madbawa]

This is like having a woman trying to seduce you and then complaining that you tried to "outrage her modesty". If you lure fish with bait, they're going to take it. FBI should be able to track people who actively scout for child porn and raid them instead.

Re:Mod parent up, +1 accurate (rare with entrapmen

[zakezuke]

Every time I see a story on a sting like this people trot out the "entrapment!" argument. If things like this were entrapment, every sting operation, every undercover operation, etc. would all be invalidated. Clearly, the cops are permitted to put a fake hooker on a street corner and wait to be approached. The thing is, the war on drugs blurred the line between entrapment and enforcement. Putting a cop on the street dressed like a hooker waiting for Johns to ask for sex is one thing, but IMHO the same cop offering sex for money would be entrapment... or if it's not it should be.

I'm all for getting pedos off the street, but there has got to be some standards above and beyond clicking a web link. Hypothetically I could send links to people saying "I'm your bank click here" where the url goes to the FBI honeypot. I would humbly suggest that the least the state needs to prosecute these individuals is some damned child porn. Call me silly but that seems fucking reasonable.

Re:Something to worry about for proxies and crawle

[MP3Chuck]

I'd ask to a link to said tool, as it sounds rather useful ... but given the topic at hand I'm not sure I want it. ;)

My New Goal in Life

[Derosian]

1.Find as many links that look like this as possible.
2.Send them to other people under a different link name.
3.??? 4.Profit

How was this not deemed unconstitutional?

[DigitalisAkujin]

The evidence presented is a web server log which shows an IP and the file requested.

It does not prove that a person actually clicked the link physically.

Therefore, the fact that any search warrant was granted on such flimsy, at best, evidence is pretty scary considering that the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. The Amendment reads as follows, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

I did a search for more information because the CNET article in question implies that the FBI agents tackled him and arrested him without a warrant however an Inquirer article says,

In February, when FBI agents and local police arrived at his door with a search warrant, they acted cautiously, they testified, because they believed he legally owned a dozen or more weapons. Vosburgh didn't answer their knock. For the next 27 minutes, authorities tried to talk him into opening the door. When authorities finally entered the apartment, they said they found a computer pried open, its hard drive smashed into several parts, strewn elsewhere. They also found smashed thumb drives, one of which lay in the toilet, they said. On an external hard drive, they later recovered hundreds of legal adult pornography images and two illegal images of naked prepubescent girls, agents said. "The destruction was done that morning, during those 27 minutes," Assistant U.S. Attorney Denise S. Wolf told jurors during closing arguments. "You saw the broken pieces. Now it's time to put them all of them together." Vosburgh downloaded pornography "because he likes this stuff," Wolf said. "He's the bear going to the hunt." Defense lawyer Anna Durbin told jurors that Vosburgh, a former police dispatcher, was law-abiding. The government's case was flawed and based on poor science, she said. "There's no hard evidence that Mr. Vosburgh was after that stuff," Durbin said. The government "can't prove when he destroyed his hard drive."

By reading that we can easily see that, Yes, he did do what they say he did, however the original evidence for the warrant was no more then a line in a log which could be placed there any number of ways, mouse click or not.

You might say that he got what he deserved but under what pretext do we use evidence against a defendant that's flimsy? There are numerous more serious crimes I can cite where evidence was totally thrown out on the basis that the given reasons for the search warrant warrant were illegal.

I'm no lawyer but I'd say that if the actual warrant only shows an IP in a log as Probably Cause to conduct a raid then the raid in itself is illegal.

The whole case then comes down to this one question.

Is an IP address in a log file enough probable cause to receive a search warrant?

Re:How was this not deemed unconstitutional?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is an IP address in a log file enough probable cause to receive a search warrant? In my opinion, absolutely not. In the opinion of most geeks I know, absolutely not.
In the opinion of people who have no frigging clue, are retarded, and even run open unsecured wireless routers *unknowingly* (i.e they'd be condemned by this!) - 'Yes, LYNCH THE PEDO!'.

On a more serious note, what I always think of when I see these cases is this: who did he/she hurt?
As I recall, like 10 years ago? Some larger "actual" ring was captured (belgium?). The way I recall it was that it was described as a very private circle type of deal. I strongly doubt they were out clicking links, or grabbing the various files of any fetish you can find on your closest p2p net.

In other words: the real 'criminals', aren't even where they're looking. That's what bothers me.

People like this guy, was probably not a threat to anyone. (correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't exactly bothered researching him)

What huh?

[raehl]

I think finding, prosecuting, and maybe accidentally shooting sickos who prey on helpless children to the point of filming/taking pictures of doing unimaginable things to them is way, way, way, way more important than whether you had to spend a lot of time and some money cleaning up identity theft.

Would you rather be the victim of identity theft, or would you rather be the victim of a 40-year-old sliding his finger up your ass when you were 8?

I thought so.

Re:What huh?

[TXISDude]

I will not get into a discussion of which crime is more vulgar, that part is obvious. The FBI has a mission as a national LE agency to protect the American society from crimes that cross state boundaries or are a threat to the society of the nation as a whole. Identity theft is similar to the bank robberies of the last century. Before the FBI made bank robbers a priority, there were a lot of bank robberies, and these were becoming an issue to the safety and security of the banking system. This became a national priority, the FBI threw its resources at it, and within a decade, although not eliminated, the magnitude of the problem was solved. Although millions may view porn, millions are not molesting children. But the current rash of identity theft and electronic fraud, if not checked, will effect our national economy - and that is what makes it a serious issue. Not protecting each victim, but the sanctity of the electronic banking/e-commerce system that has become the backbone of our consumer based economy.

Re:What huh?

[randyest]

Hmmm, tough one. Is the finger lubed or dry?

Actually...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope.

On April 6, 2006, in United States v. Williams, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that one component of the PROTECT ACT, the "pandering provision" codified at 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(3)(B) of the United States Code, violated the First Amendment. The "pandering provision" conferred criminal liability on anyone who knowingly

"advertises, promotes, presents, distributes, or solicits through the mails, or in interstate or foreign commerce by any means, including by computer, any material or purported material in a manner that reflects the belief, or that is intended to cause another to believe, that the material or purported material is, or contains (i) an obscene visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or (ii) a visual depiction of an actual minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct."
The Williams court held that although the content described in subsections (i) and (ii) is not constitutionally protected, speech that advertises or promotes such content does have the protection of the First Amendment. Accordingly, 2252A(a)(3)(B) was held to be unconstitutionally overbroad. The Eleventh Circuit further held that the law was unconstitutionally vague, in that it did not adequately and specifically describe what sort of speech was criminally actionable.

The Department of Justice appealed the Eleventh Circuit's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case review docket is listed as 06-0694 and is scheduled for October 30th 2007 on the 2007-2008 schedule. Upon review, the Supreme Court sided with the Eleventh Circuit's ruling and struck down this portion of the act.[1]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protect_Act

Re:Actually...

[QCompson]

Nope. See my above post. Wikipedia is wrong (surprise, surprise). The Supreme Court hasn't yet ruled on the pandering case.

I'm sure they're doing that already.

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM video files phone home.

Those lawyers didn't have the whole story

[Anonymous Coward]

But the lawyers cited in the article all seem to assume you actually did click the link. The FBI can't even show that it was me (if all they have is an IP address), much less that I "chose to log into the FBI sites".

If I was charged with this, I wouldn't "claim the government made [me] do something [I wasn't] predisposed to doing". I would claim they can't prove it was me, and or even prove that a living person clicked the link. I could make a random link on my blog redirect to the FBI site, and there'd be no way to find out you were there until it loaded. They admit they don't log the referer, so they can't tell you came from my blog. (I'd have my blog do it just once, and then stop, so they if they try again, it looks normal.)

This is like allowing anybody to create a wormhole from almost any point, straight to a fake FBI-run "child porn" shop. If that's not entrapment, I don't know what is.

Just Douche It!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, baby! FBI is FLY.

captcha: insulin. THat reminds me. I need to test my blo...[THOMP!]

Lazy law enforcement with the lazy soviet tactic

[dbIII]

It still disturbs me that the crime of the abuse of children has been cheapened to clicking on a link that says it goes to a picture. Less busy work and handwaving pretending to catch real criminals instead of the thought criminals they are getting and more actual law enforcement would be nice. This sort of thing is just a lazy way to increase jail numbers and all it will ever acheive is catch people that are behaving suspiciously and should certainly never result in criminal charges unless something else is found.

Many states of the USA have serious problems with the process of charging and convicting rapists even when DNA and medical evidence is available and the same people that would normally be working on this are trying to create some sort of thought criminal instead. When it comes down to it there is nothing at all here that actually has anything to do with child abuse - it's about asking somebody to look at something suspicious and seeing if they click on a link.

It applies to us as much as it does to them

[symbolset]

Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence.

I am confident these FBI agents are as eager to avoid sweeping up the innocent with the guilty in their net as they are to protect society from kiddie diddlers. They want to get the bad guy and they want to do a good job and throwing the innocent into prison serves neither of those goals. That they don't even check the referrer does seem to indicate they lack the skill to do so. They should hire some knowledgeable consultants to help them. If they had the skills to run their own spam zombie net I am sure they would be more informed. I don't believe they would be so evil as to zombie your computer, download kiddie porn with it while you slept and then come break down your door and throw you in prison for not knowing enough to prevent them from doing it. By the way, even if you're very good with the computer, for someone with the right tools doing such a thing to you and then calling them to report you to get you thrown in prison is a trivial matter. Remote desktop is a standard tool for the botmaster, as is a clean uninstall afterward, and building the social engineering to get you to open an email containing the content is easily done by anyone who knows you.

If the FBI agents did have the skill to run a zombie network it would be clear to them that most people lack the skill to avoid being innocently swept up and that they lack the knowledge necessary to sort the innocent from the guilty. Perhaps so much so that they would despair of a technical answer and go back to identifying the actors in the real kiddie porn. Computer security this year is truly this bad.

Don't imagine I'm admiring the evil botherders here, either. I despise them as well. But I'm aware they have great tools for doing these things and pointing this out is important if people are to be informed about what's going on here.

In the mean time if you hold any hope of public service in your life you need to feed your PC to a chipper. Then get someone else to print your emails on paper and read them to you over the phone, preferably long distance. Never touch another keyboard again. This is how most public officials handle these issues.

Re:It applies to us as much as it does to them

[Peter Mork]

They want to get the bad guy...

And therein lies the problem. The moment you ascribe to "good guys" and "bad guys" (with white and black hats?) is the moment you lose your ability to think critically. We're all just people with more or less compatible urges and mores. (More in most cases, less in extreme cases.)

Re:It applies to us as much as it does to them

[riondluz]

Us and Them says it all. If you've ever had a glimpse inside a prosecutors office, specially w/a few cops present, you'd know that
it has always been "Us vs. Them" accompanied by off-color jokes.
Thats the way the systems works for most LEA. Otherwise good people
turned into pit-bulls for believing more in "we're a nation of laws"
rather than examining whom those Laws serve.

Any ambitious LEA is going to put ethics behind getting results,
even if the results send innocent people to bad places; because
just like the people they're supposed to serve, their consent has
largely been manufactured and is reinforced (or corrupted) w/power and influence. That's our Justice System. Just like our Banking
System, or our Military Industrial Complex. Run by and for people above the law and with the resources to stay there forever.

In fairness to the officers of the court: it's totally overburdened, completely stressful, often thank-less, barely pays, and is probably
by intention and design rather than stupidity.

What are you doing here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have a seat over there...

goatse

[thegnu]

I suppose. still, I never thought clicking on a link and having it turn out to be a goatse would be a relief. but apparently, that day has come. :-)

Looking at USA from Europe

[Lavene]

I can't help noticing how USA is looking more and more like the regimes it claims to fight.

Talk about making hacker myths a reality

[BlueCoder]

It would be trivial for me to frame someone if I wanted to. Just "hack" into someones computer... we all know how secure the vast majority of people are. Hack your enemies and their lives are ruined.

We all know that's what this amounts to.

It also allows the government hackers to frame people for leverage both politically and criminally. Except the government has the resources to gain physical access to computers to plant evidence with little chance of being exposed. At least before when they planted evidence they had to prove a case of you acquiring the material. Usually a money trail of some sort or unaccounted spending.

I say let the poor sick bastards jack off to the material all they want. It's only a matter of 15 years when computer animation looks so real I doubt anyone will be able to identify the real stuff from the computer generated and doctored stuff.

Use it now to identify abusers. Focus on the people making the material and abusing the children. Focus on the sex touring industry to other countries. Focus on illegal immigration and sexual slavery. Focus on the people that make non trial money in distributing the material. No, that would be within the government ability and responsibility but they can't do that... instead the are motivated by power and control.

Laws are out of date

[ghettoimp]

20 years ago, these laws probably made sense. When pornography was distributed as videos or magazines controlled by companies with their names on the box, the responsibility for age-verification and record-keeping could be easily assigned to the publisher. If they could find "young-looking" 18-year olds and there was a market for that, then power to them -- the magazine consumer still had a reasonable expectation that they weren't breaking any laws by their purchase. There wasn't much of an alternative market to worry about.

But today, most people have no idea where their porn comes from. If images.google.com is good enough to get you off (or supplements whatever sites you actually pay for) then your porn is coming in from an incredibly diverse collection of sources which you can't even name. This list potentially includes particularly untrustworthy sources such as scammers from other countries who will do anything for clicks and misguided high-schoolers posting explicit photos of themselves. You don't control the pictures you see. You just ask for "young ass" and you get whatever comes up.

Unfortunately, age-verification is far more difficult for consumers than producers. First off, a producer can ask to see a driver's license while she's still wearing her clothes. The consumer has much less to go on. Could you reliably sort a mixed stack of photos where half the girls are 17 and the other half are 18? Admittedly there are some clear cut cases -- it shouldn't be hard to identify pictures of children as opposed to teenagers. But even then, it's already too late! You already have a copy of the picture on your computer. And you can now be charged with a serious crime, the mere allegation of which is enough to ruin your career in many professions.

And for what? Where was the harm? What makes this a crime?

Even suppose you actively sought out pictures like these, saved all the ones you found, and wanked off to them every night. Who have you harmed? As far as I can tell, nobody.

worse than thought crime- by same-city habitation

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet IS a city metropolis. A hub. Just because I'm walking down the street in a gentrifying, still-shady neighborhood does not make me a criminal because I may happen to brush my coat-tails against an actual thug offender passing by one on a sidewalk.

the Internet has now become a cluster-entrapment-by-URL-link when websites have 100+ links on their pages not chosen by the web-searcher. Even if I go on a website where user comments have a YouTube video box imported, they're all unreal and fake ways of associating crimes with people. Just because words like "thoughtcrime" can be juxtaposed, it doesn't mean they're actual crimes. What is our nation's police force aiming for when, by their definition, we're apparently committing crimes because of the physical shortcomings of the adhesive-like aspects of the Internet. There is no other alternative for clear cut websites, like "closed-circuit TV" stations. The internet, is, by definition, a net of ideas, not content. It's all a clusterf*%$s of peripheral garbage (i.e. YouTube) content surrounding the occasional intelligent YouTube video. Any video I go to Youtube today is because it's intelligent and is a hub for massively distributable, available content. 99% of all the other crap surrounding the actual 320x240 box on a YouTube window is useless garbage.

Our intelligence and progressive, constructive dexterity as a nation is severely cut when the imagination is forced to tread on the internet like a maze of re-fueled, physiognomic xeno-phobia based on shawled-links that can't even be determined, as many others have said here, and illegitimizes the whole point of seeking out criminals when search queries and crime-by-association become the 1984 equivalent of a thought-crime.

Tip: Use other keywords ;)

[freaker_TuC]

Then, use other keywords to loose your fear!

Wow, we're back in Stalin's USSR.

[Anonymous Coward]

This comment is not about child porn. It's not about movie downloading. It's not about "anti-cyber-bullying laws". The particulars don't matter. It's the bigger picture that does.

Anyone who thinks that "it will never get THAT bad - SOMEONE will put an end to this travesty" is deluding themselves. In the former USSR in the post-World-War-II years, these precise tactics were used by the NKVD/OGPU/KGB to instill fear, make people spy on each other, and learn that questioning the government will lead to your life being completely destroyed. It's not just the arrest and the broken door/seized computer, it's the devastation wrecked upon a person's life when the word "pedophile" is uttered. Friends? Employment? Social status? You can forget about it.

In the year 2008, people speak of those *accused of* what has been perceptually made into THE most heinous crime (worse than murder, actually, judging by the sentencing laws) in EXACTLY the same tones that USSR citizens referred to "Article 58" arrestants back in the 50's. And that's just scary. All it takes is an accusation, and one may as well end one's own life.

America is becoming more and more like Soviet Russia, with the government using the same damn playbook, down to the details:

Need to direct attention away from the serious problems the state cannot solve? Let's target an issue and blow it out of proportion, using any methods available (and while we're at it, let's invent a few new ones) - entrapment, denial of due process, evidence manufacturing, impossible sentencing, etc. Whether it's AIDS in Africa or child porn or torrents or 9/11 - "pick a topic, and let's get outraged over it". It's the new game, and all the cool kids are playing... why not you? Are you different? What's wrong with you? If you're not with us, you're against us. Et cetera.

Need to assure that the majority of the population does not have the will to protest? Let's instill a culture of "don't bother to vote, it won't change a thing", driven by a total lack of transparency in the political process, shameless media manipulation, destruction of the public education system, and development of the welfare state.

And so on, and so on.

What's really troubling is how accepted all of these tactical components are by the majority of the public. Present company excluded, of course. At least /.ers have the wherewithal to speak up for their (and other people's) rights. Go out on the street, and ask 20 random people what they think about Waco, or Kevin Mitnick, or the Waco massacre, or Kevin Mitnick, or Julie Amero... the list goes on. How many of those people will actually have a CLUE, much less CARE?

Hitler, Stalin, and now the US Government. Nice job. Glad to see you guys have done your homework.

Don't click that link (oblig)

[Debug0x2a]

IT'S A TRAP!

Malware?

[grilled-cheese]

Sounds like a really great exercise for malware writers to flood the data backend with entries from thier networks, and get random good people sued for child pr0n in the process.

This is another reason for botnet

[Skapare]

... so the pedoporn surfers can hide their IP and use yours instead.

We live in a world where the reality is that the majority of computers are not in complete control by their physical owners. At least in the case descriped by TFA, the guy charged with the crime apparently had other evidence going against him. But it is rather scary that even if the FBI is using this as a lead to potential suspects, and not as the convicting evidence by itself, that they could still do an armed raid on someone's home just because they happened to load an app that is really providing someone else with a means to perform massive (through many such infected computers) trolls of porn sites (frequently done by porn site operators themselves, not to evade the FBI, but to just not show up with the same IP all the time).

The FBI needs to get a better handle on the reality of not just how the protocols work, but how the protocols get used, good or bad. Just because such and such IP address accessed some dirty picture or copyrighted song does not mean the physical computer owner had anything to do with it ... not even if a copy of it is cached on that same computer. And this doesn't even cover the many cases where IP addresses (and sometimes even MAC addresses) can get used by someone else where the original user shuts their computer off. A great many networks, in schools, businesses, and even ISPs, are not so tightly secured to prevent this (and it doesn't make economic sense to go to extreme efforts to secure them when there is relatively little economic impact as a result, which is the case if they are not charging by the byte).

a much easier question ...

[freaker_TuC]

A much easier question:

I've been taking pictures of myself since I was 14; which may have included some nude pictures too.
Can I be charged as pedophile while having my own pictures on disk?

If so, I wonder, since when is possessing your own body on image illegal?

Re:a much easier question ...

[sumdumass]

If your images are pornagraphic in nature and not art, then yes. But more interestingly, if your still under 18, your parent or gardian can be charged seeing how all your posession until then are theirs. I forget where but I remember hearing about this where kids took nude photos of other kids and themselves on webcams and cell phone cams and their parents got charged because the bill was in their name.

As for when is it illegal? That would be when they passed the law in the early to mid 90's making it illegal for anyone under 18 to pose for pornographic photos and movies.

You took the wrong directory!

[freaker_TuC]

You took the wrong directory on your system, here I fixed it for you.

Didn't know you like pony's ;)

How exactly would I "keep a log"?

[Joce640k]

I've been using computers for about ten hours a day for 30 years but I have no idea how to "log" what's going through my WiFi router.

Maybe I could google for an answer but that's hardly the point. "Logging" simply doesn't happen.

Re:How exactly would I "keep a log"?

[SQLGuru]

Most routers do some logging for you.....

For example, here is a link to the manual of a popular wireless router (warning: PDF) http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheadername1=Content-Type&blobheadername2=Content-Disposition&blobheadervalue1=application%2Fpdf&blobheadervalue2=inline%3B+filename%3DWRT54G_UG_WEB_20070529.pdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1193775701174&ssbinary=true&lid=0703200349B02

On page 18 (PDF page 22), you can see a reference to the logs being kept. My Netgear works similarly. Then all you need to do is save those somewhere.

Layne

But I swear...

[Anonymous Coward]

... I thought "5_yr_old_takes_broomstick" was a Harry Potter fan video!

(OK, I am going to hell now)

Fun with TinyURL

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, that seems pretty blatantly unconstitutional.

While I'm waiting for the courts to strike it down, I'm going to put a TinyURL link on my blog that claims to go to "Not Child Porn", because that's exactly what it is.

Hilarity ensues.

Re:Something to worry about for proxies and crawle

[CyVaquero]

Similar situation, different method. I work as a Sysadmin/Programmer/Analyst but do web design and hosting for small businesses on the side. I have had clients whose current provider shut them down when they caught wind that they were talking to another provider. So as a precaution the first thing I do when talking to a new client is capture their current site via a wget crawl so they don't lose their content. As a way to sidestep bot blocking with wget you can pass arguments for it to identify itself as a particular browser and set delay between fetches so it looks like someone just browsing the site, albeit very systematically. As part of that I do an external link analysis checking for broken links, it makes for a nice bonus when I meet with them (like I said these are small businesses, a little extra on my part goes a long way). I would hate to stumble across one of those links on a compromised site or forum crawl. Now that I think about it I did have that happen at work when a faculty member wanted to move his site from his old college to ours I was running a wget crawl (he no longer had access to the file system on the host and wget'ing it was just going to be quicker than contacting the other college to have the files transferred) when I glanced over and saw it checking all these external links to porn sites. Turns out that he had a wiki in the site that had long ago been compromised was filled with porn spam.

Re:Sad bunch

[FearForWings]

Because putting children in a microwave is only a Modest Proposal?

Take Home Lesson: If You See the FBI Outside...

[patio11]

... smashing your hard drive and thumb drive, or detonating the thermite charge on them, or clicking the button labeled In Case The FBI Catches Me With My Kiddy Porn Collection, is probably not the best move.

Yeah, yeah... I know, I know, he was probably just excercizing his constitutional right to privacy, software is not a crime, blah blah yadda yadda. And you know what? He also probably, as a factual matter, masturbates to photos of four year olds. It takes a pretty amazing string of coincidences for someone's next door neighbor to log onto your unsecured wireless router and attempt to download kiddie porn AND for you to have it on your hard drive without knowing it AND when the FBI is banging on the door your first actual is "Aww f---" instead of "WTF is going on?"

Re:Take Home Lesson: If You See the FBI Outside...

[QCompson]

*Sigh* RTFA. He was found not guilty of destroying the drives.

Low-tech sting operation.

[0xC2]

Print flyers with the words "see some nasty child porn; turn me over" on both sides. Then scatter them around town: around city hall, churches, boy scout clubhouses, wherever perverts hang out. When they bend over and turn over the paper...

THEY'RE BUSTED, HA HA!

Slap the cuffs on their sorry ass, get them registered, confiscate their stuff, and lock em' up!

And of course, PROFIT!

Oh Realllllly?

[EdIII]

"But your Honor, I run TOR and Freenet on my networks".

Check and MATE. If you are running an open exit node for TOR, then the FBI cannot prove it was you at all.

Assuming that you are not actually downloading child pornography, and they don't find any OTHER evidence in your home, the FBI is screwed royal. First off, clicking a link is not enough evidence to send you to prison, which also means CONVICTING you of a CRIME.

If you are not convicted, they cannot keep any of your property and must return it. Furthermore, you have the a great foundation for a lawsuit against the FBI. Plenty of law firms would take that on contingency, and organizations like the EFF would be all over it.

I have heard of some stupid stunts before by government, but this one is more memorable than others. I can see a lot of people getting overly concerned about this, but after the first couple of false positives, the judges are going to react and shut this crap down.

Re:Oh Realllllly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm

1) Newspaper headline reads "LOCAL MAN ARRESTED IN CHILD PORN STING" and shows your mugshot

2) You can't sue the police without evidence of GROSS NEGLIGENCE. I don't think you'll get it in this case. You would not have a case, since they obviously regard IP addresses in an WWWLog as binding evidence of a crime.

3) They will give you back your stuff if you ask, provided they haven't lost it. I think they have 90 days after you submit triplicate motorized requests. However, they might have opened up your drives to investigate, in which case the data is hosed. They do tend to drop things too, once the evidence isn't useful for them.

4) Judges shut this crap down? Not with the convictions they already got. The judges are running for Mayor. It would look bad if they were "soft on pervs" and someone found out.

5) Papers please...

Re:Oh Realllllly?

[GeekAlpha]

Requests have to be motorized now? Can I file a bio-diesel hybrid request? I'm trying to keep my carbon-footprint down.

Just wait

[lowell]

is it not illegal to possess and transmit pictures of child porn. That would make the FBI guilty of some pretty severe child porn laws.

I am also going to have to guess that the FBI has probably the largest collection of child pornography, second only to the Vatican.

good idea

[fyoder]

Since there are hundreds of thousands of compromised sites out there, and millions of spam bots the internet bad guys could get almost all of us on this list pretty quickly.

That might not be such a bad idea, actually. Overwhelm them with millions of 'pervs' from all walks of life -- grandmas, teachers, nuns, and who knows? Perhaps some judges and congress critters. They might be a little more discriminating in their targeting after that.

not even

[commodoresloat]

According to this article the links were fake. So all you need is a link that says child porn here and people who click the link will go directly to jail. Or, at least, get their homes raided. Even if the link really didn't feature photos of exploitation of children. Nah, no way this rule could be abused.

Re:not even

[hesaigo999ca]

Just viewing a page that has that link hosted, might get you in trouble, what sort of person are you to visit a website that has a link to redirect you to a site that has a link, er wait a minute...

Re:not even

[Anonymous Coward]

So all one has to do is to write a program (or script) that accesses the url and get millions of people to hit it. For non windows hosts, one could probably just use fetch/wget/curl (depending what it finds). This would get Mac, Linux, and BSD systems. You could probably do a few lines in .NET and do the same thing for windows users.

Now add some code or send it in email ...

Another option is to send your "buddy" a link to a really cool website!

This is just stupid.

Re:not even

[zoips]

xml=WScript.CreateObject("MSXML.XMLHTTP");xml.open("GET", "haha_cp_url", false);xml.send();

Wrap it all up in a .js file and execute via cscript (shipped with every box since XP). Tada!

Quaint - and waste their money

[unlametheweak]

Give me their links and I will click on them. I will gain satisfaction that they are spending enormous amounts of time and energy wasting YOUR public tax dollars. Yeah, and I'll also use my skills to setup proxies on unsuspecting police prospects. No this is not immoral to have an innocent family raided by the police; it is EDUCATIONAL (for that family to realize what type of police state we live in).

I will say this with all due sincerity (and without trying to sound Troll-ish):
"Fuck off!". It should be noted that the police are the asshats here because they are specifically Trolling for victims. Yes there are assumptions involved, and my anger at this type of criminal abuse of the Police system makes me want to leave the reader to Think, rather than to give a typical reply (implying that I am a pedophile, as most AC posters and right-wing fucktards inevitably accuse me of being).

The day that clicking on a LINK!!!! is subject to a raid on somebody's home is the day when I lose ALL respect for any type of police authority. It smacks of arrogance, ignorance, callousness, and down-right abuse of that authority.

My ideals say we should respect authority. My experience says we should try to subvert authority and kick it in the ass.

About McMartin

[ObiWonKanblomi]

Don't forget McMartin.

I was in preschool at the time ABC news 7 was causing a huge firestorm over a bunch of vapor.

My mom told me my preschool reacted to the McMartin case by requiring the students' parents to take shifts sitting in class. What this meant was that at least one student parent was always around during the entire day.

While some may see it as a bit extreme, it did guarantee some parental oversight was always there.

Ironic

[StrategicIrony]

That's ironic because what the FBI is doing COULD (using the same analogy) be akin to raiding your house and taking all your stuff for some robber breaking into your house and molesting a child while he's there.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......

And all your electronics gets seized...

thinkofthechildren

reading the many comments here. its obvious....

[3seas]

....that either this is a scare tactic (not really in application) or the FBI and of course related authorities are so completely ignorant of technology, that what this would amount to in application is the wide spread court use of the "entrapment" get out of jail free card.

In other words, even the kiddy porn enthusiasts can get a get out of jail free card.

As a side note. Sex and the sex drive, as a natural human character, god given unavoidable hormones of go forth and multiply, has been used for as long as there has been the ability to think in abstract terms.... used to suppress and make guilty in the eyes of other humans in positions of power, many people.

Yet it is not uncommon to find the same guilt inducing humans to themselves be guilty of that which they impose guilt upon others with.

i.e. Has the catholic church finished up ALL sex related the cases against them?

I suspect that none of the posted FBI

[alizard]

URLs will work for that purpose anymore. The problem / challenge is to find the new ones without having the FBI breaking down your door.

But Sir, I only had installed the FasterFox add-on

[ivec]

So, the link prefetching that some browsers (or extensions) perform might take you into jail ?

See: http://fasterfox.mozdev.org/

Good use for a botnet

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm all against pedophilia and any other type of illegal porn, but this is ridiculous. The spammers could do some good for the world by sending their hoards of zombie machines against these links.

beginning to really dislike his government...

Re:Good use for a botnet

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm all against pedophilia and any other type of illegal porn

Pedophilia is not a type of porn.

Monitary gain? Seems far fetched

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been mulling over a question since I read this post....

How would someone go about paying money for child porn?

I work with payment processing systems and Visa and MasterCard and Amex and all of the other big credit companies will not accept credit for images of children. Period. They DO actually check the business you are in and verify it. It's part of their risk analysis for charge-backs, etc.

Without that, you're left with things like paypal and money orders... I don't know, but paypal would probably close that down pretty quick on request... How else would someone pay for CP?

As for advertising... yeah... uhm.... Who would advertise there? I mean I've seen some pretty weird ads on porn sites (the legal kind) that say "super young porn" etc, but if i were to click on those, I think I'd find shaved 18 year olds for the most part. Adult porn sites don't do a very good job existing on advertising models - they (the good ones) usually require subscriptions.

It strikes me that the places where CP would be distributed are things like newsgroups (I read a few years ago that USENET was basically the hub of CP distribution) and download services (depositfiles.com, etc). I know of a few incidents of hijacked FTP sites running CP distribution.

I just don't see the monetary profit...

I would wager that if there was any incentive for the pervs to share "fresh" porn, it would be purely a status symbol ("bragging" as it were), or something even more psychological... I know a guy who posted porn of his girlfriend, simply for the ego boost of imagining other people lusting for her, but knowing she was all his.

Another thing I've read a few times in studies of child porn is.... most of what's out there is old stuff. Remember, it was totally 100% legal in the US until 1976 and apparently there was quite a volume of it back then. I've heard of it being available in prominent New York City bookstores (albiet, usually in a back room, or behind the counter).

I have a feeling that this "the image creates more crime" concept is a bit of a red herring used to prop up the vilification of people we don't like.

In the Czech Republic, posession of child porn was totally legal until a few months ago, yet is has one of the lowest reported rates of child abuse in Eastern Europe. Obviously, this is due to economic situations. Slovakia, Ukraine, etc have a much worse economy, therefore more child abuse, but the simple fact is that this legal child porn law didn't "cause more abuse". I guess we'll see if there is a lower rate of abuse after this law is enacted, but I have a feeling it's much more a "lock up the pervs" law than anything about actually protecting the kids found in the pictures.

Re:Monitary gain? Seems far fetched

[DavidTC]

Almost all actual child porn commercial activity, and there is a hell of a lot less than the FBI likes to pretend, happens in person.

Think about this. The entire concept isn't just something that's illegal because of laws against possession. If you are the original child pornographer, you are selling evidence of you abusing a child. Once the authorities identify you, it's trivial for them to identify the child, and forget being charged with 'child porn', you're going away for repeated sexual assault, which you've handily documented for them. Or, alternately, once the authorities identify the child, finding you is easy.

Almost no child porn is 'deliberate abuse of a child for profit', simply because of how fucking dangerous that is to attempt to unload.

Almost all pictures of 14-17 year-old photographs are probably 'accidentally illegal', either done by the person themselves or someone in a (legal or misdemeanor) relationship with them, someone who'd have less punishment for sex with that person than taking pictures of them. Or from another country, or from before whenever child porn became illegal.

The rest, the photographs and videos of actual child abuse, are pedophiles who record their own activity, and share it with some close friends, who then share it with more, and eventually it ends up with someone who sticks it on DVD and sells it. The original abusers don't do it for money.

Oh, and almost all 'child porn' on Usenet is not actually child porn, it's legal porn pretending to be child porn. Posting child porn publically like that would be insanely stupid, especially as all Usenet services track IP. (Although the commercial ones often don't post them, they still know them.)

Re:Monitary gain? Seems far fetched

[elucido]

There obviously are child porn websites. I don't know which countries they are from, but still, US laws don't seem to even care if it's REAL child porn or not. Virtual child porn, or just something which APPEARS to be child porn is treated as child porn.

The laws basically suck and need to be completely rewritten. The guy who wrote the laws, Foley or whatever his name was, couldn't even follow the letter of his own laws! Obviously the law sucks if the guy who created it broke it.

Re:Monitary gain? Seems far fetched

[0111 1110]

There obviously are child porn websites.

All I can say is for your sake I sincerely hope that you do not live in the US or in any country with an extradition treaty with the US. You have just incriminated yourself. Utterly. I can honestly say that I have never, ever, under any circumstances, been to any child porn site. Nor have I ever searched for one on google and have absolutely no awareness that any such sites exist. None. I cannot claim that such things exist any more than I can claim that thousands of clones of Woody Allen live happily on Gliese 581 D. Even if you have 'found' such sites how could you possibly know that it is not just an FBI honeypot with blank files (which are just honeypot links themselves)? There is no way that you could possibly know what you claim to unless you have actually looked at the pictures or videos on said site which is very illegal and can result in not only many years in federal prison, but also your name on a publicly available national/international list of sex offenders, at which point you may as well kill yourself or move to antarctica and live off of penguins. Or both. Your life in human society will be over. Have you seen The Crucible? Or read other accounts of the Salem Witch Trials?

I highly suggest that whatever your views, if you currently reside in the US, you seriously consider what I am saying. Do you think that FBI agents cannot read slashdot? Or that no one they know might point out this article to them, and by extension, posts like yours? It might have been different if you were posting anonymously from an internet cafe preferably while wearing a ski mask and dark sunglasses and gloves. Do you think that anyone here or anyone else on planet earth will even think about helping you? They would be labeled pedophiles themselves if they make the slightest move to do any such thing. Even a lawyer will only defend you grudgingly and only if they have absolutely no choice. And even so, such lawyers will be treading on very thin ice. They could very well end up ruining their own lives by 'defending' you. And no one will care about what happens to you after you have been accused. Maybe not even your mother or father. Your enemies will consist of the vast majority of the human race, most of whom would like to see you not only killed, but brutally tortured and your body hacked up and burned. And your 'guilt' or 'innocence' will not matter to them. You would be just another lamb for them to slaughter, to sacrifice on their alter, in the name of all the children on the planet. So would you care to modify your original statement, sir?

In addition to all that wouldn't a potential customer have to be an absolute moron, as in perhaps genuinely mentally retarded, to use some traceable form of payment (and only hand delivered cash while wearing gloves, ski mask, dark glasses etc is not) as well as your IP address (unless you are downloading to an internet cafe) with such a site? Whether the pictures are 'real' (which in many cases is not possible to determine anyway) or not? I find it hard to believe that such sites could exist at all. And what ISP would host them? And even more to the point who in their right mind would be stupid enough to actually start and to run such a site? Unless they are in fact FBI honey pots. Then the ISPs would welcome them with open arms and they would have nothing to fear from any laws. To me it seems much more likely that any such sites are exactly that.

Of course that is yet another reason why you have to be a moron to even think about clicking on such links as the one in this story. I highly doubt this guy has ever abused a child. But it is completely irrelevant. His life is over. This guy should really make it into the Darwin Awards. Even if you were looking for child porn what could you even hope to find on the internet? A commercial web site? LMAO. Now freenet or usenet (posted from an internet cafe while disguised for instance) is maybe another matter. But even so, I d

I didn't know you could get paid to do this.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Undercover FBI agents used this hyperlink-enticement technique, which directed Internet users to a clandestine government server, to stage armed raids of homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Nevada last year. The supposed video files actually were gibberish and contained no illegal images."

http://tinyurl.com/3yln

[Kifoth]

What's in the box? :)

Re:http://tinyurl.com/3yln

[CyVaquero]

Knock, knock. Who's there? :-P

Re:http://tinyurl.com/3yln

[De Lemming]

FYI, notice Tinyurl has a preview feature for some time now. It's off by default, so you have to activate it (it uses a cookie to remember your preference, no registering needed). But after that you can safely click on any Tinyurl link, and you will see a page with the full url first.

Link: http://tinyurl.com/preview.php

Of course there are other "url shorteners." But while I don't click urls I don't trust, I can now safely click any Tinyurl link.

Better turn off

[K-Mile]

any web accelerators then... Or just use Tor.

I thought ...

[daveime]

... that entrapment was illegal in the US ?

Well...

[chazzf]

There's an interesting write-up by Orin Kerr over at Volokh Conspiracy. An important point that's lost in the hand-wringing above is that the FBI agent in question posted the link in a message board which was already known to be a distribution point for child pornography, and the link in question was clearly described as a link to child pornography. As an aside to the prefetch argument, from reading Mozilla's FAQ I'm not such a link would have been prefetched, but I'm not sure about that.

I am missing a tag...

[V!NCENT]

Where's the 'itsatrap' tag?

Held off cops for 27 minutes

[rtfa0987]

From Philadelphia newspaper

In February, when FBI agents and local police arrived at his door with a search warrant, they acted cautiously, they testified, because they believed he legally owned a dozen or more weapons.

Vosburgh didn't answer their knock. For the next 27 minutes, authorities tried to talk him into opening the door.

When authorities finally entered the apartment, they said they found a computer pried open, its hard drive smashed into several parts, strewn elsewhere. They also found smashed thumb drives, one of which lay in the toilet, they said.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/11075356.html

When authorities entered Vosburgh's apartment, they found broken and bent parts of the computer in the kitchen trash and in a bathroom toilet. A hammer was found on the floor outside the bathroom, and scissors nearby.

Vosburgh told authorities that the computer had been destroyed earlier to get rid of a virus. Still, agents were able to recover an external hard drive from his desk.

During the 2 1/2-day trial, prosecutors showed jurors images of five nude prepubescent girls found on the external hard drive that showed the girls with their legs spread apart exposing their genitals.

The hard drive also contained more than 2,000 images of a 13-year-old girl

Authorities alleged that Vosburgh also tried three times to download images from a hardcore kiddie-porn message board known as "Ranchi" in October 2006.

"Being convicted of charges like this is sort of career-ending,"

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/11074616.html

Re:Held off cops for 27 minutes

[Tony Hoyle]

Vosburgh told authorities that the computer had been destroyed earlier to get rid of a virus.

I'd heard Norton could destroy computers... but Literally? Wow.

Re:Mod parent up, +1 accurate (rare with entrapmen

[jellomizer]

Yea they may go and check you out. But the same would happen if you click a link with some javascript that emails the FBI with your email address a threatening message to do something. And that would be rather stupid to do because if you learned the link and they fine check out the guy who clicked the link then trace it back to his email (refer address anyone, or at least not the sites they posted the link from. Then perhaps they may track the email back to you. Then you are in deep do-do because you a scammed someone and B needed to search for child porn to find the correct link.

Slashdot that link

[Arancaytar]

Let's see how many millions of search warrants they can process...

(I'm SO NOT volunteering though.)

silly thought

[ImTheDarkcyde]

How many starbucks do you think they'll end up raiding?

No more childporn reports...

[Heddahenrik]

So from now on, you'll go to jail (or at least court and get your equipment taken away) as soon as you report any childporn. I bet a big portion of the people looking at these links were doing so to check if there was something there that should be reported to the police.

But FBI have made it clear that they are the enemy, and that will make any support from the public go away.

The ones using this tactics belong behind bars, and this is the most stupid thing in the field of police work I've heard of as far as I can remember.

slightly offtopic

[justleavealonemmmkay]

Suppose two perverted your 10-ish kids film themselves while having sex, * and put the videos on the net while still underage. What will they get ? The viewers are probably guilty as the kids are below age of consent. * and put the videos on the net after their majority. What will they get ? Here the situation for the viewers is less obvious, as the "kids" are above age of consent.

Re:slightly offtopic

[Tony Hoyle]

Well at least in the UK under 13s can't legally consent, even if they make the film themselves. OTOH they're legal at 16 here.

What would, alas, probably happen is the boy would be charged with rape (since the girl can't legally consent), put on the child protection register and if not jailed sent into care. The girl would get counselling.

If they avoided releasing the film until later the result would be the same, except the newspapers would be free to print 'CHILD KIDDIE PORN RING BUSTED!' with pictures of the male, and a mostly made up story about how he was a serial paedphile.

I wish I was joking, too.

For a real discussion

[Oligonicella]

I know it's not normal here, but you can find an opinion by someone who actually knows the law and read it. Look for [Orin Kerr, March 20, 2008 at 6:29pm].

Re:For a real discussion

[chord.wav]

There's no way I'm clicking that link. I know where it leads to. Thank you agent.

Re:For a real discussion

[anaesthetica]

Permanent link to the actual post.

Google Yahoo, Me

[kcdoodle]

I made my own web-crawler. It follows links and scrapes text off of pages indexes the text into my search engine. I WAS BORED. It surely isn't as good as Google or Yahoo, but it just might get me arrested now. Thank you FBI and our Luddite judges issuing the warrants.

it would have been called entrapment

[nurb432]

If it wasn't 'for the children'.

So all you have to do is embed that link and call it something else ( "free music here" ) and get a bunch of people arrested that had no clue and totally wreck their plan.

Seize basically everything in you house over clicking a link? I guess the 4th amendment is next on the list to be struck from the constitution.

allow me to be the first to say

[Anonymous Coward]

GOOD.

distorted reality

[imrehg]

Yeah, like everything is so simple and clear...
It is so sickening to think that you can be on trial, and no matter what you do, the jury condemned you after reading out the charges... People are full of prejudice and try to pass moral judgment even (or especially) when they are not any cleaner than you....

And i know this is just a comic, but it's funny because it could be real. Sadly.

Take care of the children, but with real care, not with the illusion of it to shrug of your guilt by sending random people to prison....

FBI = RIAA?

[bravo369]

Catching these guys is definately a good thing but for anyone who casts stones at the practices of the RIAA, how can anyone agree with what the FBI did here. Isn't this basically the same thing the RIAA has been doing to filesharers? post fake files on kazaa and then find the IP of anyone caught downloading it, get info from the cable company, then legal action. I don't agree with the FBI here and I think they went too far.

Entrapment?

[Samah]

Is this not entrapment? Sounds pretty shady to me.

The Terrorists have won.....

[whoppo]

... and they are us. :::sigh:::

There are 3 things you can do

[Phoenix666]

1. Buy a large caliber weapon
2. Learn how to shoot well
3. Stockpile ammunition

Seriously. It's past the "Oh I'm gonna write a letter to my congressman" or "I'm gonna vote 3rd party!" stage.

Re:There are 3 things you can do

[k3r3nsky'sr3v3ng3]

Unfortunately, by doing so you are volunteering to be burned alive like the Branch Davidians in Waco.

How to end this thing

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Identify one of these fake links (sounds hard, but there's a few potential posted already in this article)

2. Craft an e-mail to legislators that think this sort of surveillance is a good idea. Create the e-mail as a genuine message you would send to such a person, such as discussing their position on a particular bill.

3. Include links in your e-mail. Some to valid sites discussing the effects of the bill. Others are malicious XSS attacks that will direct $legislator to these fake links.

4. Use coffee shop/library wifi (since they don't keep logs usually), a spoofed MAC address, and a mail relay across the pond to send the message.

5. Lather, rinse, repeat until enough high ranking officials have been busted and see this as a bad idea.

I know, I'm dreaming, but imaging the possibilities.....

Jacobson v. United States (USPS porn sting)

[argent]

Google for "USPS porn sting" and you'll find a long history of entrapment such as Jacobson v. United States.

This happened to me...Sort of

[holmedog]

When I was 17-20 my brother and I owned a house together. We would host daily lan parties, weekend beerfests, and other general mischief.

On any given weekend we would have 10+ people in our house, on our internet. On occasion they would use our computers as well. We had four, so friends could come over and lan.

Well, all said and done, apparently someone accessed an IRC server/channel that was distributing CP. The department of Emmigration and Internal Customs busted in 3 months later while my wife (gf then) and I were asleep. Pistols in the face, flashlights, the whole nine yards. They confinscated all of my computer equipment, my cat5s, my cds, my wife's home videos, my camera, and my hub. Yep, they even took my hub.

It took us almost 11 months and tons of paperwork to get our stuff back, even after proving there was no way in hell we were home w hen the supposed infraction occured. No charges were ever pressed, but it cost me $7,000 in lawyer fees (I wasn't fucking around and hired a lawyer as soon as they started asking questions).

So yeah, this kind of stuff really scares me.

Re:This happened to me...Sort of

[nschubach]

It's just like software/music piracy and drugs. Going after the people that might happen upon the material instead of going after the cause or the distributor. It far less expensive to scare people into believing they will be raided by instances like yours than it is to track down and research where it's coming from. Simply by posting that, you perpetuate the fear and support their cause. I'm not saying that you posting your history was wrong, but I'm using it to back my opinion on the whole matter.

Re:This happened to me...Sort of

[holmedog]

I totally agree, and wouldn't post this on any discussion except one like this for that exact reason. Also, to this day (7 years later) it still causes me to have nightmares/unexplainable fear. I actually had to move from that house because of waking up in the morning and freaking out.

So yeah, no way I would go out of my way to scare people for them on a topic like this, except when the topic has already been brought up.

Re:This happened to me...Sort of

[operagost]

We so badly habeas corpus for seized evidence in the USA. 72 hours is probably too short for legitimate investigations; but even four weeks would be a huge improvement on the current method of hounding law enforcement personnel who have already decided you're guilty and wish to provide summary punishment by withholding your stuff indefinitely.

Re:This happened to me...Sort of

[holmedog]

Yeah, they tried to file papers to have our stuff withheld indefinetely, because supposedely it was used in a crime. Even though they found absolutely no evidence of it ever occuring on any of the computers.

I mean, as soon as I got the comps back (almost a year later) was to toss the HDs into the river. I just want to get them back for the peace of mind of knowing it wasn't in the possession of someone trying to pin shit on me.

Re:This happened to me...Sort of

[svnt]

So, have you scanned BitTorrent for your wife's "home videos" yet?

Re:This happened to me...Sort of

[ultranova]

When I was 17-20 my brother and I owned a house together. We would host daily lan parties, weekend beerfests, and other general mischief.

Think of this from the government's point of view: if people freely associate with each other, and assemble in large groups, they might make friends. If they make friends, they might be more loyal to those friends than to their country. Clearly, then, your LAN parties were a threat to the national security and should be stopped.

Divide and conquer. It's the oldest trick in the book.

Re:This happened to me...Sort of

[thetan]

Your story pleases me greatly.

I'm glad you had pistols and flashlights in your face, that your equipment was confiscated, that you lost $7,000 in legal fees.

I bet you choose better friends from now on, right? And that you also take a stronger interest in what people do with your equipment.

It shows that, from time to time, the systems we have in place to stamp out child pornography do occasionally work.

Re: "Open voting that is monitored by Internet"

[yoris]

Hmm,

just out of curiosity: what do you mean by open voting? Are you suggesting a system where the vote results are released in their entirety, with a one-way anonymization? So for example, i submit my vote via internet, it's registered and i get a message saying "your vote has been registered, your check number is 123456789", and then later they release the full list and i can go verify that 123456789 has indeed been counted as a vote for party X? Because I would consider that a very good system, but I've never heard anyone suggest it before... Are there known downsides to such a system?

A Steady Decline

[JDWTopGuy]

It wasn't Bush Jr. It wasn't Clinton. It wasn't Bush Sr. [etc]

It's the steady decline of the United States of America over a very long period of time. Both political parties are to blame. "Conservatives" tend to fear-monger and use their power to extend the power of the law in the moral sector, giving increased power to "law enforcement" agencies, and yes, sometimes (often, even) under false or stupid pretenses. "Liberals" tend to increase government programs to further a socialist agenda, which also leads to further increasing the power held by the government, although they tend to loosen "moral" law to give people a heightened sense of "freedom", while regulating things that true freedom requires, like business, property ownership, etc.

My intention is not to come across as an attack on either side. I admit I have a more "conservative" bias personally, but over the last few years my eyes have opened and I now disagree with most moral-law regulation, at least on the federal side. Personally, I believe that the lower you get on the scale (state - county - city), the more room there can and should be for moral-enforcement laws. (I'm just making it clear what my personal POV is in the hopes of making clear any bias with which I wrote the previous paragraph.)

One possible fix.

Re:A Steady Decline

[Jedi Alec]

Both political parties are to blame.

Really? What about the folks that keep electing them anyway?

Re:A Steady Decline

[JDWTopGuy]

Believing a lie doesn't vindicate the liar. But yes, the people are just as much to blame.

I remember when I started studying law...

[scubamage]

Back when I was starting law school they covered how specific warrants had to be - for instance, usually a warrant to raid a home had to specifically mention what portion of the house had to be searched (cabinet on second floor in rear of house), down to exactly what items were expected and where they were expected to be found (pot plants are found on top shelf). This way no one could just point their finger at someone else and say "They have something illegal in their home! Raid agogo!" Now, someone clicks a link that could be entirely by accident, posted elsewhere as a gag hyperlink, whatever, and their entire home can be raided with feds seizing a ton of personal affects when the whole time it could have been done by someone who briefly hopped on their wireless network. All of this based on a warrant that seems to have no specific location, details, etc, of any sort of locations that can be searched. Nor does it contain a way to exactly identify the user (unless they're using MAC address - not like that can be spoofed or anything). Sad, very sad.

After reading Volkoh

[oahazmatt]

After reading the Volkoh article, I'm a tad more at ease about the practice here. Not completely at ease, but my concern has slightly waned.

The original link was posted on a message board that specialized in this content declaring itself as the illegal content. The link routed out to a FBI computer to log the IP. Now, a few steps could be used to further ease my concern.

1. If the referring IP address is logged, so it can be verified that yes, the person accused of searching for that content was actively looking for such content and took the bait as intended, with any other referrals being disqualified as it reduces the credibility of the link. 2. Change the link, and change it often. Hopefully this isn't one static link, and if so, change it up after so many hits.

I was up in arms about this at first, but after reading the hows-and-wheres of this link, I'm less convinced an innocent would find it easily. And if the above steps are followed it could eliminated false-positives.

confirmation of links please.

[sgt scrub]

How can someone be sure the link is for the fed? If a link isn't for real, spoofing the ip address of someone you hate would be a lot of waisted time and effort. Even if you don't have to spoof. Like if you know they have open wireless or something it would be a pain. I mean, you go to a lot of trouble setting up on a wireless network. You have to find a spot, park the car, kismet and aircrack... If that isn't enough, then you have to make sure the links you hit are going to do someone in. I don't want to have to waist a bunch of gas keeping my laptops charged just for a bunch of sic pics.

Re:confirmation of links please.

[Tony Hoyle]

You seem to think the above is hard.

That's about 10 minutes work on the average poorly secured network.

Once you're on there are lots of attacks.. their windows box probably has open shares on it anyway. If not, DNS poisoning + redirects to illegal sites are in order. Once it's in the browser cache they're hosed.

Re:confirmation of links please.

[sgt scrub]

It is so hard to be facetious these days.

FBI invents more crimes

[Anonymous Coward]

The only crimes the FBI solves are crimes they invent. Out-of-control FBI, yet another infringement on our rights by the gov't. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like America Deceived (book) from Amazon.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting 2 illegal wars based on lies and on behalf of a foriegn gov't.
Impeach them all and save this great country.

Re:Sad bunch

[Tony Hoyle]

Well, it's only a modest lunch.

"The Way Back" (1977)

[HTH NE1]

Morag: What we need is something to discredit him. If he could be deported to Cygnus Alpha.... Doctor, am I right in thinking you can create experiences, implant them into a subject, who will then believe that they really happened?
Havant: Of course. In fact, creating an illusion of reality is quite simple.
Morag: Good. Then I think we can totally destroy Blake's credibility and get him sentenced. But I'd like to do a feasibility check. Doctor, would you come with me please.
Havant: As you wish.

Varon: I'm Tel Varon, Justice Department. I've been assigned to defend you.
Blake: I don't need a defense. I'm going to plead guilty.
Varon: Come now. Certainly the evidence against you is strong --
Blake: I just want to make a statement in open court. I want those responsible for the massacre brought to trial.
Varon: I'm sorry?
Blake: There can be no justification for deliberate murder.
Varon: There's nothing in the charges about murder. There are a number of other counts. Assault on a minor, attempting to corrupt minors, moral deviation as it pertains to--
Blake: Let me see that!
[Blake gets up. Varon presses the sheet against the glass. Blake reads it.]
Blake: All involving children! None of this is true!
Varon: Of course not. That's why you surprised me when you said you'd plead guilty.
Blake: [Splutters] Yes, but not to this, not to these charges.
Varon: They are the only ones that have been brought against you. And I must tell you frankly the evidence against you is very damaging.
Blake: Well, if there is any evidence, it's been faked!
Varon: I've had the opportunity of talking to the children -- that is, the prosecution witnesses -- and they do seem very certain of their facts.
Blake: Oh, yes, yes. Yes, their briefing would have been perfect.
Varon: If I may, I'd like to outline how I think we should conduct your case.
Blake: [In the background behind Varon's lines] They set me up beautifully.
Varon: There is a possible approach if we could cite your record: your breakdown after your involvement with those illegal political groups, the remorse that you felt, the guilt you carried has placed you under an enormous strain. And we can submit that these assaults, these aberrations were carried out whilst you were mentally unbalanced.
Blake: I will offer no defense, but I will plead not guilty.
Varon: These are grave charges. Without extenuating circumstances, you might face deportation. A mental institution would be better than spending the rest of your life on Cygnus Alpha.
Blake: [with deliberation] I will offer no defense. Right?
Varon: Won't you reconsider?
Blake: Even if you could prove me innocent, the charges have been made. I've got to hand it to them. [At the security camera] You've done a brilliant job!!

Varon: Look at that: outpatient admission, identity unrecorded. And there's another. And a third.
Maja: Three unidentified admissions on the date the victims weren't at school.
Varon: It's not absolute proof, but it gives us somewhere to start.
Maja: But why would they have been to the clinic?
Varon: Mental implantation?
Maja: What's that?
Varon: A fictional experience and emotion, implanted into the mind so vividly and permanently that it becomes reality.
Maka: Is that possible?
Varon: The process was perfected years ago, but prohibited by the medical profession. But if it is being used again --
Maja: Blake could be telling the truth!
Varon: And that could blow the top off the whole Administration. Come on.

[Over the bodies of Varon and Maja]
Dev Tarrant: I think a transporter accident. Killed instantly. Very tragic. See to it, will you?

Think of the Child Rapists (slashdot meme)

[Anonymous Coward]

This site is so liberal... they always think of the child rapist here.

Never heard about Proxies?

[Vandre]

I guess the FBI has never heard about web proxies. I'm sure the big-time criminals would not be caught because they use anonymizing networks, botnets or proxies to do their stuff.

Where's mod points when you need em?

[JSBiff]

For anyone who is tempted to gloss over the parent as simply off-topic, or a troll, make sure to re-read the grand-parent's post, then think carefully about the parent post in the context of this discussion. I think it's extremely insightful, even though it's not immediately obvious.

Checklist

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay SlashWeenies, here's your posting checklist for this topic:

• Martin Niemoeller "First they came. . ." post.
• Sophomoric "Slippery slope" posts
• Incoherent spittle-flecked anti-Bush post
• Pretentious euro-fag posts
• 'mericuns' goober-slang post

All guaranteed +5 Insightful mod points from your fellow SlashFaggots!

Its seems like a perfect excuse

[Frozen Void]

To arbitrarily raid and arrest people.
Try proving that you didn't clicked on some hyperlink as thought experiment.

Filter?

[SCHecklerX]

so how long before somebody creates an adblock rule that will protect you from hitting the FBI URIs?

Is this an explicit threat from the Gov't?

[cpu_fusion]

The subtext that I read under all of this is: the Gov't can frame you any time, any place, for a crime that -- merely in its charging -- will destroy the target's life. But the converse is ALSO true -- this opens the door for crime groups to frame Gov't officials (and blackmail them and citizens alike.)

Child abuse is (not surprisingly) viewed as among the most awful crimes in our society. As a parent, part of me is glad the Gov't is protecting us from predators. But the civil libertarian in me is shocked by the potential for abuse here.

Web browsers, operating systems, etc. -- they are buggy and ripe for abuse. Even the one's the Government is using. Judges, FBI agents, etc. We are ALL at risk here of abuse of this sort of sting investigation.

The people I've known involved in law enforcement and government work are good people. I have to think this just hasn't been thought through.

At the other extreme, this is a warning shot by an already criminal administration (e.g. domestic spying) to intimidate its critics.

We live in "interesting times", to quote a Chinese curse.

remote URL inclusion anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can now get people raided by utilizing simple remote URL inclusion or XSS bugs. How great!

Besides that, how about spamming such a link in "Storm worm" type emails? Wouldn't that be fun? Something like: Thousands killed in Storm Kyrill

ROTFL

RIAA

[apepooooop]

I am more curious about the more widespread precedence this could set. All the RIAA needs to do is get the FBI to set up a link for free music downloads, and they can confiscate you computer. I see a new tactic coming.

Minority Report

[ryanisflyboy]

This 'law' is designed to catch those who simply attempt to access it. Let's use some other common situations to ferret out if this makes any sense:

I put my foot on the gas and attempt to break the speed limit, but a car in front of me prevents me from exceending the limit.

I walk in to a bank with the intention to rob it, but chicken out and go home.

At the store I put something in my pocket with the idea of stealing it, but go to the cash registers and pay for it any way.

A pre-cog sees a vision of me murduring someone in the future, but Tom Cruise and a team of jet-pack powered cops stop me.

10 years jail time for you buddy. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200.

War on Drugs Part II = War On Internet

[elucido]

The war on drugs is about the felonization of drug addicts. First the prisons are built, later on laws are passed and crimes are invented in order to fill the prisons.

Now once again we have lots of new prisons being built. And don't be surprised when our government declares a war on the internet.
Certain websites will be illegal to access. Then you'll have internet addicts in the prison with drug addicts, and their cellmates will be pedophiles and serial killers.

The goal is merely to fill the prisons up. This is equal to opening up a smoke shop with a big sign which says "free marijuana inside" and then waiting for all the drug addicts to enter and then arresting them one by one. Nevermind the fact that you advertised the shop all in magazines, on the internet, and in places where you know they hang out. Nevermind the fact that you created TV ads. If they go to the smokehouse, the swat team enters and gives them 10 years in prison.

This isn't about child porn. It's about the war on the internet.

Re:War on Drugs Part II = War On Internet

[riondluz]

Concur 100%
if you read my earlier reply (cid=22834218) you might come away with
a different take.
As Noam Chomsky points out: No State is representative of its people
so much as its elites. If true, the from the Govt perspective, it
is a war, one they are fighting for their survival (despite this
8% controlling over 2/3 everything as it is).
But tho the State may be filling prisons as fast as they can be built,
(costplus by kbr) the war, tho it may be 'on' the Internet, is more
about datamining and honeypotting the Internet in order to profile
and control the populace.
The Govt already know about our 'public' life. Our buying habits,
our money, our past; what they dont know is our preferences, our
'alter-life', our private interests. Mining the net gives them
that power.

The ENDGAME is that, if we dont find ourselves shipped off to some
"education camp", then we are all become prisoners in our own homes.
"Good" compliant citizens who fear the State will expose our darker
secrets and ruin our lives. If nothing else, they can turn curiosity
into 'thought crimes' and send us a fine "a pervert tax"

Doesn't This Mean

[Anonymous Coward]

That the FBI is distributing child pornography? Sort of like giving someone drugs and then charging them with possession?

This is about the felonization of internet addicts

[elucido]

The purpose of these laws and of this, is similar to the purpose of the drug laws. If you hate drug addicts then you declare a war on drugs. If you hate internet addicts then you declare a war on the internet.

You start by creating laws which target ADDICTS. Maybe you set up shop, you're the cops, you pose as a drug dealer and you offer drug addicts drugs, and when they try to buy it then you arrest them and say they tried to sell it to you.

Or maybe you set up a website that offers a membership for free kiddie porn, they click the link and then you raid their house and search their computers for illegal software, music, or just one picture of a naked child, then you give them a life sentence.

This is the new war on drugs, this is the war on the internet, and it's mainly a war on internet addicts. If you are an internet addict, you have been warned.

Your Department of Homeland Security ...

[PaulG.1]

... at work. Drink coffee, eat doughnuts, post fake hyperlinks, catch "bad" guys, make 6 figures a year, retire in 20. Sheesh.

It's about the felonization of internet addicts

[elucido]

This is not about reducing harm towards children. Clicking a link or downloading some bits does not harm the child. The uploader harmed the child.

This is about created felons. This is an attack on internet addicts. It's the war on the internet, and there will be just as many victims as there was to the war on drugs. If you click the wrong URL, you could end up in a prison sell next to a REAL child killer.

And when you finally get released after 10 years for good behavior, you're in the sex offender database now. Your reputation now worse than Jeffrey Dahmer. Regardless of the fact that you got 10 years for clicking a URL, regardless of the fact that you've never harmed a child in your life, you just CLICKED, you didn't even download kiddie porn.

This started in my opinion with the to catch a predator stuff. At first it wasn't a big deal, only people who were dumb enough to go to the house looking for sex were considered pedophiles. Now you don't even have to go to the house, you just have to THINK it and you go to jail.

Yeah and we could stop drugs by getting the supply

[elucido]

The goal of this is not to protect children just like the goal of the war on drugs is not to protect drug addicts or society from drugs. The goal of the war on drugs is felonization! The goal is to generate felons.

The goal of the war on the internet is to generate sex offenders. It's one thing if you've actually harmed a child, but the goal of these laws are not harm reduction. The goal of these laws are to harm internet addicts. This is about the felonization of internet addicts, not the prosecution of actual pedophiles.

The people who upload these pictures to the internet should be arrested. They aren't trying to focus on arresting those people. Instead they want to arrest downloaders, which should tell you all you need to know about the goals of this sting. If they advertised kiddie porn, they basically enticed people into clicking on the URL.

This would be similar to having hundreds of thousands of undercover cops posing as drug dealers selling everyone drugs for years and then having everyones drug connect show up at their door with a with a gang of FBI agents to arrest them. That's just plain wrong. And thats the whole point.

The point is, if you are a drug addict, then you belong in prison with serial killers and rapists. If you are an internet addict, then you belong in prison with serial killers and rapists, and you deserve to live with REAL sex offenders, people who actually molested children, not just fools who thought about it, or who clicked on a URL which said "kiddieporn.com".

Get rickrolled. Go to jail.

[Anonymous Coward]

So all someone has to do is make a link with a misleading title, link it to the FBI honeypot and shazam, instead of getting rickrolled, you get raided by the FBI, all your stuff taken, maybe go to jail.

Thought crimes.

[elucido]

Anytime possession of a digital image is considered criminal, to the point where even if it's an animated cartoon of a child, or virtual child porn as they call it, then it's on the level of thought crime.

I think this is similar to drug possession. You get caught with crack in your car and you get 10 years in prison. You get caught with something which looks like child porn on your harddrive and it's going to get you prison time.

And the problem with this is, you could have downloaded it by mistake, they don't care. They don't care that the image was labeled as over 18 and when it loaded up it was something illegal. And you could delete it, and they can undelete it and still use it against you.

I think the law is ridiculous. But the law does not have to make sense. The goal of the law is to create sex offenders and thought criminals.

Porn Aggregators

[jalspach]

It seems that porn aggregators (pornotube, thehun, etc...) would keep you somewhat safe from just happening across a link like this. For one, they probably would not link to a blank site. And two, if they check links (which I do not know whether or not they do) they too would be raided (if they are in the US). Granted this would take some time (by which it may be too late for you) but they are not going to want to take this chance any more than you do.
I would not bet my life on this safety since I have seen (and quickly closed) some pages even off of these sites where I was not 100% sure the girls were of age. But still...it has to be better than just random surfing.

Whats feeling have to do with the law?

[elucido]

The law just is. There is no feeling behind it. At most there is a political agenda calculated to do maximum damage to whoever is the target.

It's going to criminalize internet addicts.

[elucido]

And if this can work for childporn why not for other URLs?
Sites which claim to sell marijuana and if you click it, then you get raided.

It's about criminalizing internet addiction and felonizing internet addicts.

Re:It's going to criminalize internet addicts.

[base3]

You're right--just trawl the logs for people that have read about illegal activity $X (hell, why not search the homes of those who used Google to search for fourth amendment (may it rest in piece) case law), and then get a warrant. Whether they find $X or something else doesn't seem to matter, because when there's a computer involved. What it has certainly done for me is to make me feel like less of a paranoid geek when going through the trouble to insert a layer of indirection between me and what I'm surfing.

Can you say War on Drugs?

[elucido]

The whole point of this is to felonize internet addicts. Sure you can use the next to go to "legal" hyperlinks. Sites like Myspace and Facebook are okay. But if you are an internet addict, now they are going to treat you like they treat drug addicts and sting you. Then you'll get 10 years.

Tell that to all those people

[elucido]

Tell it to all those people who have fantasies about being raped.

Rape is wrong, but the video is evidence. Sure there will be sick people who get off on it, but should they be criminals based solely on how they think? I don't think so. Otherwise all of us are criminals of some sort.

The virtual child porn thing makes no sense

[elucido]

I don't see how making virtual child porn illegal protects children. I'd think it hurts children because it encourages people to make REAL child porn.

Maybe if there were virtual child porn there would be no demand for real child porn.

Re:The virtual child porn thing makes no sense

[Reziac]

Exactly. What people can't get one way, they'll get another, be that deranged or normal pursuits. In which case, making virtual kiddie porn is actually a noble calling, since it reduces the demand for the real thing.

The other day someone posted a link to a nifty gov't chart on crime, which shows a strong correlation between reduced violent crime and the debuts of various violent games. While I was there, I also noticed that there are two distinct and permanent drops in incidences of rape and sexual assault:

The first happened in the late 1980s, when BBSs first made porn available to anyone with a modem, and anonymously enough for most folk (no more brown-wrapped magazines in your mailbox!) A limited subset of the population, yes, but still enough to notice the drop, if you realised that porn BBSs were at their height from 1988 or so thru 1995.

The second happened in 1996, when the internet suddenly took off -- and made porn available to almost everyone without restriction, and with at least some available anonymously.

Now, there's no good way to PROVE that the drop in rape stats is due to people being able to access all the porn they want without anyone chiding them for it, but I found the correlation too close to ignore.

Mark Foley

[elucido]

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/09/foley_resigns_o.html

It's the mouse click of death!

[elucido]

You click that link and you DIE.

It's the excuse they need to raid people.

[elucido]

Even if they don't find any kiddie porn on your computer, they KNOW everyone has SOMETHING illegal somewhere on their computer that they can find. Maybe it's illegal software? Maybe it's illegal music and movies? So now the FBI raids you and takes your computer and instead of locking you up for child porn, they lock you up for piracy!

Sounds like a slick stealthy way for the RIAA to go after those downloaders and illegal file sharers. I guess they will be tomorrows terrorist.

I see you are against the war on drugs.

[elucido]

Currently theres over a million people in prison. Most of the people in prison are in prison because of the war on drugs. The war on the internet could put 10 million people in prison when it's all said and done, and it's beginning right now.

The people are against the war on drugs should join forces with the people who are against the war on the internet.

The root of your problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't mind the whole "think of the children", as I'm not a bad/evil/pedophile

First they came...

You are naively mistaken.

[elucido]

These laws aren't an attempt to do good. The PRISONS were built BEFORE, not AFTER the criminals were created!
They've been building prisons non stop since the 80s. What do you think they are going to do with all of these prisons?

You might be one of those naive people who think that theres no evil forces trying to fill the prisons, but just look at all the people currently in prison due to the war on drugs, look at how the US has the largest prison population in the world.

I don't believe thats by accident. I think we might be stupid, but come on, we aren't THAT stupid. We aren't making these sorts of laws to govern Wallstreet are we?

Re:You are naively mistaken.

[MightyYar]

You must have grown up in some alternate universe from me. In my universe, the 1980s saw the rise of crack cocaine and overcrowded prisons - to the point where they were letting violent convicts go because they didn't have space. Then tougher "3 strikes" type laws created even more crowded conditions. People demanded prison beds, and they got them - along with a huge decline in violent crime in most of the country.

Now I'd argue that letting violent criminals out because the prisons were stuffed full of drug offenders was stupid in the first place, but that's another issue altogether. Prisons are for people that you need to keep away from society, or who are prone to run away from their punishment. Most everyone else can be punished through other means.

Re:You are naively mistaken.

[elucido]

The prison industrial complex started in the 80s and really picked up steam in the 90s. Private prisons run by corporations started to replace the state owned prisons. Now KBR is building prisons.

It's to the point now where the prisoners work for free and are paid less than illegal immigrants get paid. It's becoming a criminal class. The only sorta crimes I'm concerned about are violent crimes.

Rape, child molestation, murder, these are violent crimes. Most of the people being put in prisons however are not violent criminals. So I think we should tax these non-violent offenders with an income tax increase.

Re:You are naively mistaken.

[MightyYar]

I won't deny that the prison companies are large and powerful, but I contend that they had nothing to do with the strengthened laws. In fact, their power may not be all that great after all - as state revenues fail to match forecasts, some prison budgets are starting to come down. This would not be the case if the prison companies were really running the show.

I'm glad we agree on violent crime, though :)

This could be a good thing.

[mattsucks]

Over the past 15-20 years, I've amassed quite a collection of old computer hardware and electronics. I tend to be a bit pack-rattish, and it goes even farther when it comes to gadgets and geek gear. So here's my plan:

1. Move all my current, active hardware and gadgetry to my friends' house.
2. Fire up one of my vintage boxen. Mmmm Windows 3.11.
3. Click "the link".
4. Sit back and wait for the FBI to come pick up my garbage :-)

How to obscure any URL

[sckeener]

I guess some mean people might do this:

http://www.pc-help.org/obscure.htm

How to Obscure Any URL
How Spammers And Scammers Hide and Confuse
Last Updated Sunday, 13 January 2002

Since this page was first written in 1999, Internet Explorer and Netscape have both begun dealing with URLs differently, particularly in versions 6 and above. Some of the examples here will no longer work with those browser versions.

The URL (Universal Resource Locator) of the page you are now viewing is http://www.pc-help.org/obscure.htm.

It is also http://3468664375/obscure.htm. Go ahead and click on that link. It'll take you right back to this very page.

The weird-looking address above takes advantage of several things many people don't know about the structure of a valid URL.

There's a little more to Internet addressing than commonly meets the eye; there are conventions which allow for some interesting variations in how an Internet address is expressed.

These tricks are known to the spammers and scammers, and they're used freely in unsolicited mails. You'll also see them in ad-related URLs and occasionally on web pages where the writer hopes to avoid recognition of a linked address for whatever reason. Now, I'm making these tricks known to you. Read on, and you'll soon be very hard to fool.

(Note: Depending on your browser type and its version, some of the oddly-formatted URLs on this page may not work. Also if you're on a LAN and using a proxy [gateway] for Internet access, many of them are unlikely to work. Also, fear not; this page does not exploit the "Dotless IP Address" vulnerability of some IE versions.)

How It's Done

Here it is again: http://3468664375/obscure.htm

First take note of the "@" symbol that appears amid all those numbers. In actual fact, everything between "http://" and "@" is completely irrelevant! Just about anything can go in there and it makes no difference whatsoever to the final result. Here are two examples:

http://www.pc-help.org/obscure.htm

http:///^&*()_+`-={}|[]:;@www.pc-help.org/obscure.htm

Go ahead and use the links. If they work at all with your browser, you'll be back to this page again.

This feature is actually used for authentication. If a login name and/or password is required to access a web page, it can be included here and login will be automatic.

Example: http://www.whatever.com/secret/eyesonly.htm

But if the page requires no authentication, the authentication text is in effect ignored by both browser and server.

This presents interesting possibilities for confusing the unsuspecting user. How about this one:

http://3468664375/obscure.htm

If you didn't know better, you might think this page were at playboy.com!

By the way, the @ symbol can be represented by its hex code %40 to further confuse things; this works for the IE browser, but not for Netscape. (Thanks to The Webskulker for this.)

All right, so what about that long number after the "@"? How does 3468664375 get you to www.pc-help.org?

In actual fact, the two are equivalent to one another. This takes a little explaining so follow me carefully here.

The first thing you need to know (most Net users know this), is that Internet names translate to numbers called IP addresses. An IP address is normally seen in "dotted decimal" format. www.pc-help.org translates to 206.191.158.55. So of course, this page's address can be expressed as: http://206.191.158.55/obscure.htm.

Numeric IP addresses are generally unrecognizable to people, and not easily rememberd. That's wh

the usual

[Anonymous Coward]

blah blah blah, what's wrong with a couple of pictures, blah blah blah wahhhhh, I might get entrapped if I go search for kiddie porn, it just isn't fair!

I hope those of you that don't see what's so wrong with just a few pictures of children being raped never become parents.

Re:the usual

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong?

Another step on the ladder to Orwellian totalitarianism.
Huge opportunity for evil-minded folks to completely screw over anyone less tech-savvy than themselves.
Creation of a crime where none existed - now, clicking on a link can ruin your life.
Harsher sentencing rules than those applied to real-world crimes - rape, murder, etc. = devaluation of actual human lives for the sake of promoting a cause.

Need more reasons? Scroll up!

Pedophilia is wrong, plain and simple.
But the ends do NOT justify the means.

the problem with this kind of entrapment

[Orig_Club_Soda]

is that they are luring the curious as much as the perverts. Rather than discovering a crime they are creating a crime. As well as commuting a crime by posting these links. There is no integrity in these actions

Googlebot

[MikeFM]

For that matter, what about people like m that leave bots running to collect useful information? Some of them even download files as they go so I could very well have illegal content on my system somewhere and have no idea it's there. It's all to easy to follow hyperlinks without meaning to and even to download content without knowing what it is. Even if you deleted it as soon as you saw what it was they could claim you'd downloaded and viewed it.

That's part of the reason I'm considering putting my Internet search and indexing projects into a virtual machine that uses an encrypted hdd and memory. There is to much risk that simply trying to find better methods to search the Internet could get horrible charges brought against us coders.

What if...

[Nicolas Pillot]

What it you click a "legal sexy babe picture" link, and this link was a FBI-Sponsored link to an offensive page ? I mean, you've got tricked. What can you do about this ?

Want to end their little witch hunt?

[rahvin112]

If you want to end this tactic you make some prominent politicians, preferably a significant number of very high ranking legislators and directors of executive law enforcement show up on that list. Not them directly as the FBI would avoid the warrants, but their favorite grandchild or their married daughter. Someone where the name doesn't give away the connection. As long as only ordinary people are harmed by the actions nothing will stop it but someone with connections get's harmed and there will be hearings.

This IS the problem...

[darkfire5252]

You would hope that innocent people would eventually be found innocent after their computer(s) had been ransacked, copied, examined, etc., but there is also the chance that the logs alone would be deemed sufficient.

People need to understand what kind of liability they open themselves up to by not securing their wireless. Or they need to know that they had better keep excellent logs themselves in order to prove their own innocence, but then that can be turned against them as well if they don't monitor and police for illegal activity. I'm not picking on you, but this is exactly the problem with the attitude in this country. The poster is more than likely just some law abiding person who's trying to look out for others, but look at what is being said (emphasis mine):

You would hope that innocent people would eventually be found innocent
[...]
they had better keep excellent logs themselves in order to prove their own innocence The wording is unintentional, but it reflects how the poster and a lot of others have come to feel about our legal system. I remember a time when one would remain innocent until they were found guilty and only the one doing the accusing would have to prove anything...

Easier than that:

[Ungrounded Lightning]

So in order to totall screw someone all you have to do is get on their box, phisically or by cracking and download some kiddy porn. Then drop a dime on them (just in case you did not click on the honey pot) and voila! Instant conviction.

Easier than that.

Just copy the URL from the honeypot link into a hyperlink apparently to something innocent-looking and entice them to click on that. The FBI uses their click to get the warrant, seize everything, and disrupts their lives for months. Then they're embarrassed at getting the wrong guy. So if they find ANYTHING ELSE they'll prosecute anyhow.

Having the link go to a page with IMG links to offsite kiddie porn that redirects to the honeypot would also end up with the images in their web cache. But I'm not familiar enough with HTTP to know if the fact that they were redirected would be visible at the honeypot site.

Yah

[Anonymous Coward]

window.location.replace("http://cp.fbi.gov/p0wn.html")

Fucking scary shit, I'm considering adding all US government netblock to my IP blacklist.

Re:Mod parent up, +1 accurate (rare with entrapmen

[Anonymous Coward]

Entrapment is only when the police encourage, cajole, and pressure you

So here's the problem: Cops put up a kiddie porn site and assume everyone who goes there is a pedo because they put out links saying "get kiddie porn here!" linking to the site from various public forums, so they log and arrest everyone who goes to the site without checking to make sure that the person actually came from the "get kiddie porn here!" link, because obviously the only way to get to that website is through that specific link, and not through lets say google crawling the public forum and their site and deciding that it might be useful information for a new parent wanting to learn about changing diapers.

Clearly, the cops are permitted to put a fake hooker on a street corner and wait to be approached.

And clearly, the rest of us are permitted to find suckers and suggest they go strike up a conversation with the hot woman "over there" and see if they can get themselves arrested for shits and giggles. Absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. I bet I can find someone that I can convince a "dime bag" is a popular kind of wallet with pouches for coins and point them out to a friendly neighborhood salesperson as well.

That the method is trivially corrupted is worse than "entrapment", it's criminal in its own right.

Another good use of taxpayer money...

[Anonymous Coward]

N O T !

Ah right

[elucido]

So now it's criminal just to know these sites exist?


" All I can say is for your sake I sincerely hope that you do not live in the US or in any country with an extradition treaty with the US. You have just incriminated yourself. Utterly. I can honestly say that I have never, ever, under any circumstances, been to any child porn site. Nor have I ever searched for one on google and have absolutely no awareness that any such sites exist."

Whether or not these sites are real child porn or not, I don't know, but certainly there are lots of questionable "teen" sites out there. Do not assume I've searched for these sites on Google, because thats not the case. I'm just stating the fact that there is a very high likelyhood that these sites exist, because the demand for these sorts of sites is increasing.


"Do you think that FBI agents cannot read slashdot? Or that no one they know might point out this article to them, and by extension, posts like yours? It might have been different if you were posting anonymously from an internet cafe preferably while wearing a ski mask and dark sunglasses and gloves.'

I might be paranoid but I'm not that paranoid. If the FBI wanted to arrest me for no reason they could just label me a terrorist, and under the patriot act theres no need for them to have any evidence that I am. Then they could strip me of my citizenship and put me in a camp. So your point is that I should watch what I post because the FBI might be watching? I know for a fact they are watching and I want them to see it, thats why I posted it. DUH.

"In addition to all that wouldn't a potential customer have to be an absolute moron, as in perhaps genuinely mentally retarded, to use some traceable form of payment (and only hand delivered cash while wearing gloves, ski mask, dark glasses etc is not) as well as your IP address (unless you are downloading to an internet cafe) with such a site? Whether the pictures are 'real' (which in many cases is not possible to determine anyway) or not? I find it hard to believe that such sites could exist at all. And what ISP would host them? And even more to the point who in their right mind would be stupid enough to actually start and to run such a site? Unless they are in fact FBI honey pots. Then the ISPs would welcome them with open arms and they would have nothing to fear from any laws. To me it seems much more likely that any such sites are exactly that."

Paying for (funding) the production of child porn is not a victimless crime. It's not the same as clicking a URL, or having a discussion about childporn sites on Slashdot. The people who actually subscribe to and create memberships to these child porn or teen porn sites, they should be investigated. But just because a suspicious URL existed on the internet, and just because people may have clicked it, does not make them a criminal. Should the FBI raid the internet wayback machine for hosting all these illegal sites?

"
Of course that is yet another reason why you have to be a moron to even think about clicking on such links as the one in this story. I highly doubt this guy has ever abused a child. But it is completely irrelevant. His life is over. This guy should really make it into the Darwin Awards. Even if you were looking for child porn what could you even hope to find on the internet? A commercial web site? LMAO. Now freenet or usenet (posted from an internet cafe while disguised for instance) is maybe another matter.

And what makes you think freenet nodes or usenet servers aren't run by the FBI too? If you upload child porn you should be tracked and prosecuted. The debate here is about whether people who click a URL are pedophiles. The answer is no, nobody should get 10 years in prison for visiting any website. Don't you see where this could lead?

The first good reason I heard for closed wifi

[Douglas Goodall]

If someone can drive by my house and click the deadly link, resulting in huge trouble for me, that would be a bad thing. I would hope that if the FBI arrives, they would have to locate multiple physical copies of picture from their site on a person's equipment to consider prosecution.

Does this mean the FBI is hosting a web site with child porn on it?

Re:And on Slashdot

[Douglas Goodall]

So if someone found one of these links and posted it in a slashdot posting as a link, slashdot readers would click on it and we would all be in big trouble. If these links proliferate, this could be a big deal.

This is what worries me more.

[cavebison]

From TFA:
"When anyone visited the upload.sytes.net site, the FBI recorded the Internet Protocol address of the remote computer. There's no evidence the referring site was recorded as well, meaning the FBI couldn't tell if the visitor found the links through Ranchi or another source such as an e-mail message."

"Ranchi" is the name of the forum where the undercover agent posted the link to the "upload.sytes.net site" where the false illegal content was. So basically, they don't know if someone got that link *from the actual sting operation itself* or from somewhere else - like a news page or search engine or prefetch (as discussed already) or whatever!

If they only jumped on those ppl who were on that "suspicious" forum already (taking their word for it that Ranchi is where CP viewers hang out) then OK, there's more evidence to back it up. But clicking on it from ANYWHERE?

Whatever happened to skipping the small fish to get to the big fish? Whatever happened to "don't drive it further underground?" Have they learned nothing from the pointless drug war? Did they end up prosecuting anyone who actually made or even distributed this material? No! From that perspective alone, this action useless, outrageous and morally offensive.

It's much worse than that.

[Anonymous Coward]

If this method is permitted to stand, anyone in the world who wishes a US citizen imprisoned can accomplish it much more easily than a fake link. All it takes is their email address, an anonymous email account (or any of the hundreds of thousands of open email proxies out there), a picture of a naked child, and a phone call.

oh noes!

[Pinchiukas]

Google is in for a lot of trouble for it's web crawling bot following the wrong links.

Entrapment

[Anonymous Coward]

What ever happened to the word "Entrapment"?

Child porn is very bad, however

[papamike69]

Child porn is very bad and, I am in no way defending it. However, Given the understanding of what is known as entrapment. Is it legal at all to for the FBI to even post the Child pornography hyperlinks in the first place.? Or what weigh would the case bring when it came to trial?

  Entrapment: "A person is 'entrapped' when he is induced or persuaded by law enforcement officers or their agents to commit a crime that he had no previous intent to commit; and the law as a matter of policy forbids conviction in such a case"
"
However, there is no entrapment where a person is ready and willing to break the law and the Government agents merely provide what appears to be a favorable opportunity for the person to commit the crime. For example, it is not entrapment for a Government agent to pretend to be someone else and to offer, either directly or through an informer or decoy, to engage in an unlawful transaction with the person. So, a person would not be a victim of entrapment if the person was ready, willing and able to commit the crime charged in the indictment whenever opportunity was afforded, and that Government officers or their agents did no more than offer an opportunity."

"On the other hand, if the evidence leaves a reasonable doubt whether the person had any intent to commit the crime except for inducement or persuasion on the part of some Government officer or agent, then the person is not guilty."

By simply placing a hyper link on the Internet, How can any law enforcement agency determine whether a person previously intentioned to visit a child pornography web sit had the link not been introduced. Or, whether it was the person owning the IP addresses clicking the link at all.

An argument by the FBI in this case could be raised, if they placed the ads under the search phrase implying underage children in the act of pornography. However, if a link under these search phrases where clicked, how could they prove that the person clicking the link was not lead there by other means then his own persuasion, that the person had for-though and intent, or that it was the owner if the IP address that acutely clicked on the link.

Could it have been another person living in the house or a visitor? Is the computer that originated the click the computer that holds the IP address? Was there a wireless connection that was hijacked?
It seems to me that the FBI is fishing... Most likely they are hoping that will catch a pedophile that has been surfing the net and collecting child porn for a long time. At the expense of innocent people.

In the article a young man was arrested and charged with "attempts" to download child pornography. I have to question if clicking a link constitutes anything similar to downloading?

The Court does not see it this way though. As Harvey Silverglate when asked how to keep the stop the FBI from expanding this hyperlink sting stated, ""Because the courts have been so narrow in their definition of 'entrapment,' and so expansive in their definition of 'probable cause,' there is nothing to stop the Feds from acting as you posit."

The biggest question here is what is our intent when we click on a hyperlink?

The two most important thing's I feel must be considered out of this is, we really need to guard our self's as well as know what is happening on our computers and with our internet connection.

Also, what next. If we allow our law enforcement agencies and court systems to continually re-write the interpretation of entrapment and probable cause to fit what ever their need and causes might be, we run the risk of losing every conservable defense any innocent person might have. Also the precept that every man is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Re:Enticing someone to do something

[riondluz]

correction in order: not do but watch, in fairness, there
is a difference

Re:Lazy law enforcement with the lazy soviet tacti

[riondluz]

Maybe like the soviets, maybe not. But its not lazy law enforcement as much as it is State control to
whatever degree it is capable of. All under the banner of "Public Saftey" and ever-funded from the
public trough.

  You've probably noticed: the criminals are winning; it's only the
poor and unlucky who feel the pain. The rich and the connected never feel a thing. Whether its cartels
of bankers or drug barons the money involved has totally overwhelmed the legal system.
Despite overcrowded prisons, more and more laws that generate revenue through fines and taxes,
we never get ahead of the game. The "War" is a racket, a shake-down.

And the more people that it pisses off, the greater the arm of the Law has to reach out to control it.
So, here's the thing about this thread: Tracking a GET to the IP to convict of a crime!
Wow. Gives new meaning to 'reach out and touch someone'.
So, what might there be hiding under the skirts of the KP crusade? How about sniffing packets on
port 119 for specific newsgroups, then track the IP of the client to its source. Used to be that
only posters had to worry about breadcrumbs, now i'm not so sure.
A sting on alt.binaries.sex.pedo.children.under.4 headers would be sure to make headlines, but what
about ppl interested in the rec.goldenshowers or alt.binaries.pictures.zoophilia or
alt.gay.sodomy.fuck.bush.up.the.ass or alt.free.tibet? 50K newsgroups, 1000's of alts, what a goldmine!

The databases would grow in previously unthinkable ways; not only would the govt know your 'public' face (the consumer you) but also your private face (your prefs and favs). This kind of datamining would enslave
us all because everyone, at sometime, will have something to hide.

Let the InfoWars begin.

Pervert tax?! Thats the worst idea EVER.

[elucido]

I hope they don't attempt that. I will leave the country and move to China.

Wishful thinking.

[jotaeleemeese]

Unless your ISP allows you to share your connection. leaving your access point open is most likely a breach of your TOS anyway.

The criminals know better.

[Anonymous Coward]

The criminals who run the botnets know that the FBI are wasting resources on pursuing the end user instead of the producers. By leaving this alone it means that there are less resources available to pursue them for all the trouble they are causing.

So, there is no good reason for them to "help" end this twisting of the law. The FBI is helping the criminals by being negligent.

I used to have concerns about visiting the USA. Now I know it should be avoided at all costs.

Re:Lazy law enforcement with the lazy soviet tacti

[dbIII]

In the old USSR law enforcement was about catching people to prove strength of the state and not about the rule of law or justice. That is why it was mentioned.

They'll be convicted of piracy

[elucido]

Since everyone on IRC is a pirate who has mp3s, movies, or software.

Not to mention this opens up the door to the feds sending you IMs and offering you mp3s, software and other such things and then using it as probable cause to raid you.

Anonymous Web Surfing services

[Anonymous Coward]

Just goes to show that anonymous web surfing and online privacy services like Ultimate ANonymity http://www.ultimate-anonymity.com/ are worth their weight in gold. If you through a FAKE IP address to such a website sting, they will be chasing ghosts. NEVER surf the web using your real IP address. Ultimate Anonymity has been providing online privacy services for well over 10 years now.