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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."

11 of 319 comments (clear)

  1. 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.

  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'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."
  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. 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)
  7. 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.

  8. 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.
  9. 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...

  10. 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.
  11. 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