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Porn Site Gave Federal Agents Free Rein

Posted by timothy on from the turn-out-the-lights-when-you're-done dept.

Frosty Piss writes "The operators of a notorious porn site Free6.com granted federal agents administrative access to the site, giving investigators the ability to monitor traffic and public and private chats in an effort to identify users trading 'a significant amount of child pornography.' Though some bloggers have speculated about whether law enforcement officials have secretly been given administrative access to sites where users have been known to post child pornography (like 4chan), the Free6.com arrangement is apparently the first such compact to be disclosed by investigators."

49 of 319 comments (clear)

  1. Good excuse by mangu · · Score: 3, Funny

    giving investigators the ability to monitor traffic and public and private chats in an effort to identify users trading 'a significant amount of child pornography.'

    -"I swear, chief, it's all part of an effort to catch a gang of child pornographers, that's why I've been browsing that site so much"

    1. Re:Good excuse by tacarat · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh good. I was worried those SEC guys lost their jobs. They just transferred.

      --
      "Common sense will be the death of us all"
  2. I guess they wanted free porn. by EvilBudMan · · Score: 2

    It would be my guess that the men in blue like porn and want it for free.

    1. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by melikamp · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think it's ridiculous that just possessing an image is illegal. Not only this law utterly fails to curb child abuse and child porn (sans fictional drawings!) production, but it also has the hilarious side effect of my tax money going to pay some dude for perusing 4chan. If you tell me you wouldn't want his job, you must be a girl or something.

    2. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by jgagnon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The vast majority of crap on 4Chan is not worth looking at... whether you're a girl, a boy, or something else entirely.

      --
      Remember to maintain your supply of /facepalm oil to prevent chafing.
    3. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by spun · · Score: 2

      Should snuff films also be legal to own, in your view?

      The reason that child pornography is illegal to own is that it does encourage the production of child pornography. I believe that the laws prohibiting possession of child pornography have been shown to reduce the production of same. Hopefully we can agree that abusing children and forcing six year olds into sexual situations is bad, and reducing the occurrence of said abuse is good.

      Also, I don't want to be paid to peruse 4chan.

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    4. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by Crayon+Kid · · Score: 2

      I'd rather have pedophiles get their fix by watching child porn movies than by actually going out and doing something to a real child.

      I think Japan has the right idea on this, with their simulated porn is ok approach.

      --
      i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer
    5. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by hoggoth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      standard disclaimer, child porn is bad, etc etc

      > I believe that the laws prohibiting possession of child pornography have been shown to reduce the production of same

      Citation needed.

      I find it hard to believe that throwing someone in jail and ruining their life for having a drawing of Bart Simpson having sex has any beneficial effect. (Here's my citation: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/bart-simpson-child-pornography-and-free-speech/ )

      --
      - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)
    6. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by TheFlamingoKing · · Score: 5, Interesting
      You're going to have to cite your "belief". Most studies I have seen have shown that an increase in pornography has resulted in a decrease in rape and child sexual assault.

      http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/57169/#ixzz17eM23WmL

      Despite the widespread and increasing availability of sexually explicit materials, according to national FBI Department of Justice statistics, the incidence of rape declined markedly from 1975 to 1995. This was particularly seen in the age categories 20–24 and 25–34, the people most likely to use the Internet. The best known of these national studies are those of Berl Kutchinsky, who studied Denmark, Sweden, West Germany, and the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. He showed that for the years from approximately 1964 to 1984, as the amount of pornography increasingly became available, the rate of rapes in these countries either decreased or remained relatively level. Later research has shown parallel findings in every other country examined, including Japan, Croatia, China, Poland, Finland, and the Czech Republic. In the United States there has been a consistent decline in rape over the last 2 decades, and in those countries that allowed for the possession of child pornography, child sex abuse has declined.

    7. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by clone52431 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, they’re not. They’re just pixels. The real children who were filmed have already been hurt and you’re not fixing it. I’m sorry.

      --
      Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
    8. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by Therilith · · Score: 2

      Should snuff films also be legal to own, in your view?

      (not the OP)
      Absolutely.

      The reason that child pornography is illegal to own is that it does encourage the production of child pornography.

      "I wouldn't normally rape that kid, but I would if I could legally upload it and get mad props from random people on the cp-ftw.com forums."
      Now buying (or worse yet, commissioning) it is a whole other thing.

      I believe that the laws prohibiting possession of child pornography have been shown to reduce the production of same.

      You "believe that it has been shown"?
      Do you have any actual statistics, or are you just making stuff up?

    9. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by characterZer0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      By paying for it, you are encouraging them to make more.

      --
      Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
    10. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by CookieForYou · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Is there seriously any child porn "industry"?

      I know it existed in the 1970s. You could buy it in the back room of bookstores in Manhattan, apparently.

      But wasn't most child porn distributed via USENET? How does one go about paying for distributed copies of base7 encoded binary files? And if there was no money being exchanged, should it be legal?

      Interesting questions without real answers...

    11. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by clone52431 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      False on multiple levels.

      First of all, very little money actually changes hands anymore. Secondly, very few pedos do it for money (statistically speaking almost all abuse happens by relatives or family friends, i.e. crime of opportunity, not for profit). Thirdly, the ones who do try to make money tend to get caught. Fourthly, sharing their personal stuff at all is asking to get caught, so all the more reason they don’t want to sell it or give it away.

      Source, assuming you can still access it (it was on wikileaks... good luck with that)... and probably also somewhat NSFW... http://www.google.com/search?q=wikileaks%20%22my%20life%20in%22

      --
      Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
    12. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by clone52431 · · Score: 4, Informative

      The reason that a rapist rapes women is to satisfy their desire for pornography? I think your logic is flawed.

      --
      Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
    13. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by MBGMorden · · Score: 2

      I find it hard to believe that "illegal" copying of child pornography on the one side encourages production. We've been told for years that "Copy kills music", shouldnt it then also be that "Copy kills child pornography"?

      My guess would be that "it depends". Purchasing these materials certainly would encourage further production and hence further harm to children. Non-commercial copying though, I'm really unsure on.

      Conventional wisdom would seem that with an easier source to obtain such materials, some would have their need for them filled without needing to producing it themselves - hence possibly reducing it's level of production. On the other hand, an active trading scene may encourage some others to post for attention. Much the way you have TV and movie ripping groups popup for the recognition on torrent sharing sites. Don't know which side would offset the other though.

      I think there's another possible scenario there too. Some people of deviant mind may have their needs filled by such media. A downloaded movie or picture off the net might be enough to keep them from doing anything further, whilst it's a possibility that without that they may actually go out looking to prey upon children in real life, rather than just looking at previously existing pictures or videos (which IMHO, in the long run, is relatively harmless in and of itself).

      All in all, I think rather than a knee-jerk reaction, a proper study should be undertaken in this regard. Whatever the case may be, lets find it out and act. The precedent certainly isn't that odd (possession of such materials, but not production or sale, is not legally punishable in Russia or Japan for example).

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    14. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by bjourne · · Score: 2

      This is almost correlationisnotcausation worthy. All kinds of violent crime in those countries also decreased during the periods mentioned. There was also a huge number of other societal changes that took place during that period. The studies show that increased availability of porn does not lead to more rapes. They do not show that increased availability of porn leads to fewer rapes.

      --
      Football Odds
    15. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Purchasing these materials certainly would encourage further production and hence further harm to children.

      I would like to point out, however, that we do not use this argument in all cases where it should apply equally. It is illegal to torture-kill someone, but it is perfectly legal to possess or commercially redistribute a recording of such a killing.

      Heck, there are plenty sites on the web with various recordings of beheadings and other gruesome executions from Afghanistan, Chechnya etc, and some of those have ads on them, so they directly profit from the views - but I haven't heard about any proposals to ban that practice. I wonder if it's because no-one (?) faps to such videos? Or because no kids are involved?

      Ironically, I think that a video in which a child is brutally murdered would, ironically, be quite legal to sell, so long as no nudity is involved.

    16. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by rrohbeck · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So if they don't pay for it, it's ok?

      We've all learned from the RIAA and MPAA that downloading destroys the industry, so downloading CP should be a good thing.

      --
      thegodmovie.com - watch it
    17. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by Cruciform · · Score: 4, Informative

      When reporting pedophiles using a hosting service I worked for we had regular contact with the police and heard horror stories of converted farms and other properties turned into child porn factories.
      At the time it was very hard for the police to get action taken against organizations in Eastern Europe and Russia, and it was a big deal when my friend got a call from Interpol to say that one of the tips was used to nail a large operation.
      Granted, this was a decade ago, but there were people then who would pay to get their fix from a single source and I'm sure there are now. Just like any person who prefers a "private" torrent site to limit their IP exposure.

    18. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well the part that pisses me off is that now some are getting busted for thoughtcrime. If someone with better Google Fu than me can find a link there was a guy busted not to long ago for having dirty stories involving children and is now looking at 30 years. that's right folks, not some threatening letters, no actual children anywhere in sight, just words on a a page. And of course I'm sure we've all heard about the guy looking at the same for having some lolicon comics. Again no actual children, nothing to do with reality at all, just pen and ink.

      It is THIS bullshit that scares the hell out of me. How does one prove one didn't harm a figment of someone's imagination? How can one protect oneself when a simple .txt file can be dropped somewhere on your multi-TB HDD and get you 30 years? To me we have long gone past trying to protect kids and moved into thought crime, and everyone needs to point that out at every opportunity so they can't use hot button words to keep pushing this crap.

      And a final note, one that fills this whole story with mucho irony in my book? According to a friend at the state crime lab the actual child molesters, you know the monsters they are supposedly doing this to catch and stop? Yeah they don't actually use the Internet anymore and haven't for several years now. What do they use? USPS. That's right, they only use the net long enough to set up their network which according to my friend a cop will NOT get into, because one of the prereqs is a video of a child being molested with certain items they will tell you to put in the video and they only give you a short amount of time to "prove your cred". After that it is all done by code and heavily encrypted DVDs via mail drops through good old USPS.

      The only way the cops have found out as much as they know is a few got popped after the kids they abused called the law and they found stacks of encrypted DVDs and a few of the mail drops. but if they don't hear from a guy by X he is just labeled 'doa' and dropped from the network. And since the guys are looking at 200+ years they sure ain't gonna roll and no prosecutor is gonna give them any immunity. So he said now the only ones they catch on the net are social retards that haven't touched anyone but themselves and are sitting in some basement fapping to the same crap that has been floating around since the 70s. So all that money, all that effort, and it is a total fricking waste. he said they'd be much better off using that budget to increase investigators for local child abuse, but of course that don't make the 6 o'clock news. Just more theater in the end.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    19. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Informative

      Everyone needs to read that link...seriously. I really don't care WHAT your feelings on the subject are on the Wikileaks page the insider provides links where MEDIADEFENDER is being used to find and prosecute people for CP Now think about that for a minute. You have a private corp, being paid by the government, probably on how many they "bust", to go out and hunt your fellow citizens to hit them with a charge that at best will ruin their lives. Not to mention these are the same morons that were caught doing seriously nasty shit like planting files and then calling the *.A.A on them when they were working for big media, and the same bozos who has sent extortion letters to networked printers.

      Do we REALLY want private corps with profit motives and a history of "the ends justify the means" deciding which people go to prison, possibly for life?

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    20. Re:I guess they wanted free porn. by am+2k · · Score: 2

      This comparison is completely meaningless. In Sweden, cheating one woman with another is considered rape, while in some muslim countries (and maybe others), having forced sex with your unwillingly married wife is perfectly fine (for everyone except the woman herself).

  3. Slashdotted by GiveBenADollar · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now we are slashdotting porn sites. I'm ok with paypal or amazon going down, but loss of porn on the internet could cause serious consequences. If the world goes to war over this, don't say I didn't warn you.

    1. Re:Slashdotted by Calydor · · Score: 4, Funny

      That's not glue.

      --
      -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
  4. 'ow 'bout /.? ;) by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 2

    What do we, users, know?!

    Given A55ange's background this is the place he might have visited.

  5. Re:throw away the key! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yeah, actually. I've worked with them. In spite of the hatred spewed by the anarchists, the ones I've worked with were very professional, cared deeply about their country and the people they protect, and were honest with me. That being said, I ran everything through legal to make sure.

  6. I'm torn... by erroneus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    On one hand, I like porn. On the other, I only like porn where the women are sexy... which means a woman should look like a woman, not a little girl. (I don't care about the guys, but I find the "Jurrasic cock" series to be inspirational... hey, I'm getting older too!) Anyway, I also happen to love children "in the good way" and don't like the thought of them being exploited. So on one hand, I want people exploiting children to get stopped. (punished is another thing... "helped" might be better) On the other hand, the means and method of doing what they do needs to be carefully administrated and managed. I also recognize that the ends do not always justify the means and that once they do it for one purpose, they will find it easier to do it again for another purpose.... and another and another... getting easier each time.

    So... damn... I'm just torn.

    1. Re:I'm torn... by sakasune · · Score: 5, Funny

      On one hand, I like porn. On the other

      ...well, the other hand is busy :P

      --
      "You're arguing for a universe with fewer waffles in it," I said. "I'm prepared to call that cowardice."
    2. Re:I'm torn... by TheL0ser · · Score: 2

      The way I choose to view it, so long as $porn_site decided to, of their own free will, say "Hey feds, have a look at these things and start busting the child porn pervs", that's fine. If the access was requested by the enforcers.... That, I see as going a lot closer to the slippery slope you mention.

    3. Re:I'm torn... by psithurism · · Score: 2

      Why can't the Feds just cut out the middleman at free-porn.gov?

    4. Re:I'm torn... by blair1q · · Score: 2

      The feds having access to everybodies data means that everybody is guilty until proven innocent.

      1. They don't have access to everybody's data. They have access to data posted by individuals on a third-party's server, granted by the owner of that server. They have access, in otherwords, to data freely handed to them.

      2. They don't need a warrant to get your neighbors or employer to spy on you, they just need their cooperation. They need a warrant to search you or your home.

      3. There is no pornographer-website privilege. Any protection your website promises you is something it takes upon itself.

      4. You could post anything you want, here, and the feds could ask CdrTaco for my identifying information and he could give it to them. They'd have to find a salient link from me to the things you posted, since I don't come here looking for pictures of your children. They're not indicting everyone who logged into the website. They're tracking people who actually interact with the child-porn portion of the website in ways that break the law.

  7. 4chan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    You're confusing 4chan with /b/ again. Please don't.

    1. Re:4chan by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, there's a difference. The subsites dedicated to videogames, comics, board games, military, and whatnot are all generally "wholesome" sites. Some more then others, like the origami board. Some definitely less, like the all porny boards.

      So is your opinion from actual experience, or are you being lead around by the nose by a talking head on TV?

  8. Sheesh. If you can't trust your porn site, ... by clyde_cadiddlehopper · · Score: 3, Insightful

    oh never mind.

    --
    Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
  9. Nothing to see here by diskofish · · Score: 5, Informative

    While Free6.com included a notice warning that the posting of “child pornography or other illegal material” would be reported to “local authorities,” Burdick had site administrators add a line noting that, “Free6.com may disclose these communications to the authorities at its discretion.”

    Site says to stop posting inappropriate, illegal material. Site warns that it will report such content to authorities. Site acts on threat.

    1. Re:Nothing to see here by diskofish · · Score: 2

      Every time you visit a website, there is the potential to track what you looked at and how long you stayed there. From this data, all sorts of extrapolations can be made.

      This is happening to all of us every day, it's just not as obviously creepy as a fed following you around in an adult bookstore.

  10. So. They found a lot of evidence. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So. They found a lot of evidence. Did they actually solve any crimes? I'm being a bit facetious here.

    Child porn is regarded as a crime. IMHO, it ought to be regarded as evidence. If it were legal to posess the evidence, as long as you reported it to law enforcement, then it seems like it would be easier to catch the people that actually shoot the vids/pictures.

    As it stands, if I'm taping and happen to catch a shooting in progress, there can be all kinds of blood and gore and stuff; but I'm not guilty of anything simply by being in posession of the tape. Everybody knows that, and most will willingly shares the tape with enforcement so they can convict the bad guys.

    OTOH, if I found a tape by the side of the road, stuck it in my VCR and it turned out to be kiddie porn I'd be immediately guilty of posessing kiddie porn. Knowing that, simply destroying it is a likely reaction. It could be that the tape is the only clue they have that would lead them to save the lives of the subjects involved; but because the EVIDENCE is illegal to posess, that won't happen.

  11. 'a significant amount of child pornography.' by a2wflc · · Score: 3, Insightful

    some people consider an ad for underwear 'a significant amount of child pornography' and our government is more than happy to use that term as an excuse anywhere they can to limit privacy. In this case it probably is accurate. But they also use it to shut down the Christmas Island data sanctuary, snoop on generic internet traffic, argue against apps like TrueCrypt, and on and on. So, I'm against using this argument unless they've done the police work to get a proper court order on a specific target.

    1. Re:'a significant amount of child pornography.' by houghi · · Score: 3, Informative

      Some people would say that touching up and undressing underage kids in public is some sort of porn.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSQTz1bccL4

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  12. Torn? Grease that slope! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm not.

    The FBI overstepped.

    When we start saying to ourselves, "Well it is to protect children, then it's OK." or "We're under attack and we need to prevent another 9/11" or "We need to take everyone's name down in order to stop this meth crisis!" or whatever, we start a slippery slope.

    Think the "slippery slope" is an overused argument? Remember that when you are being felt up by a TSA guy because you were randomly selected for more screening - even though you did absolutely nothing to warrant such extra screening. Or coming into the country and having a some grunt with a badge and gun rifle through your laptop or even seizing it.

    In our societal rationalization for these intrusions and spying by our government, we are just greasing that slope.

    Better yet, you want to "protect the children"? How about "random" searches of people hard drives or monitoring of all your electronic communications? Or searching people's homes just to make sure they're not making any bombs. They'll do it randomly to make sure they're not singling out any ethnic or religious group.

    The IP you were assigned for that day was linked to someone who visited a porn site at one time - doesn't matter that you had it only on one day and were on the Sunday Christian Prayer site. Nope. Someone had it while they were looking at "Young Hairy Fucking Girls". Gotta seize your computers for a full forensic analysis and search your home for any contraband.

  13. Snuff films are legal by moosehooey · · Score: 2

    There are plenty of videos of people getting killed, there's a series called "Faces of Death" I believe, that was sold commercially.

    1. Re:Snuff films are legal by blair1q · · Score: 2

      Films of poeple dying in accidents aren't snuff films. Films with scripted killings are snuff films.

  14. Snuff Films don't exist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Snuff films don't exist. Yes, videos of people dying have been found/made - and collections of accidental death footage have been sold to the public, but nothing like the deliberate filming of a murder for sexual gratification. Videos with amazingly realistic special effects have been found (ask Charlie Sheen) but nothing like what is popularly defined as a "snuff" film has ever been found. http://www.snopes.com/horrors/madmen/snuff.asp

    Also "I believe that the laws prohibiting possession of child pornography have been shown to reduce the production of same." - citation needed. Don't get me wrong, I report all that shit to https://secure.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/CybertipServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US when I see it, but what you suggest is, AFAIK, unproven - as well as the equivalent to arresting citizens for reading classified material on wikileaks.

  15. Good idea. by elucido · · Score: 2

    This is much better than that idea where they'd send you a URL and have you click it and get raided.

  16. Re:Hmm... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 2

    This porn site seems rather... submissive.

    Very good! Subtle, but good!

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  17. Huh? by Zedrick · · Score: 4, Insightful

    free6.com is/was a Swedish site, why would they give any federationalists from Mexico, USA, Argentina or some other foreign country anything at all? If they like to keep their site free of child porn, fine, that's a good thing. But isn't that something that should be done by a) their abuse administrator and/or b) the police in their own country?

  18. Re:So. They found a lot of evidence. by Locke2005 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Explain to me again how allowing people to download something for free creates a larger black market for the sale of it and encourages the production of more of it... the RIAA and MPAA have been making the exact opposite argument for years now. One of you must be wrong!

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
  19. 4chan by aBaldrich · · Score: 2

    I'd be more worried if the feds hadn't access to 4chan.
    I sicerely hope that all those "dump CP here" threads are started by the police, in order to find pedophiles.

    --
    In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.