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FBI Hunt For Child Porn Thwarted By Tor
v3rgEz writes "Documents released by the FBI provide an unusual inside look at how the agency is struggling to penetrate 'darknet' Onion sites routed through Tor, the online privacy tool funded in part by government grants to help global activists. In this case, agents were unable to pursue specific leads about an easily available child pornography site, while files withheld indicate that the FBI has ongoing investigations tied to the Silk Road marketplace, a popular, anonymous Tor site for buying and selling drugs and other illegal materials."
Sounds similar to the problems that plagued freenet.
FBI SMASH TOR!
First post
"Remember, politicians and diapers should be changed often and for the same reason."
.. funded by the government... the government should be punished, someone needs to be held accountable, how could we have let this comedy run for so lo long??
my sig pwns your sig
Nothing is important enough that it takes priority over liberty and freedom of speech. Nothing.
I think theres an extra "FBI" in the title - "FBI Hunt For Child Porn FBI Thwarted By Tor"
Ken
It's just pictures. Better the creeps inside jacking off than outside doing it personally. Isn't it time to get the government out of the bedroom?
Freedom of speech, or government monitoring of all communications.
Decide which one you want and accept the consequences of your decision.
Now the great old U.S. Government is going to use this as fuel to show that privacy and anonymity needs to go away on the internet, instead of continuing to work to find these people and prosecute them.
Is it even possible? Once TOR gets a reputation for this crap, it's going to cast dispersion on all legitimate users of TOR, and further, on all who wish to have privacy for the sake of privacy, not merely for the nefarious purposes of trying to cloak illegal/immoral activity.
The Admin and the Engineer
Isn't it kind of the POINT of a darknet that nobody can trace who's who? Sounds to me like the system is working as designed.
Yes, it will be used to break laws. But that's when you break out the actual investigative skills instead of relying on tech work and unrestricted wiretaps.
This is why we can't have nice things. I would LOVE to support democracy locally and internationally by running a Tor node, but I would never run one as long as the risk existed that I'd be questioned about kiddie porn. I know I'm innocent, I could be PROVEN innocent, but anyone who ever heard would always think I was guilty. It's just not worth it to me. It's Kryptonite to free speech.
90% of everything is crap. Also, crap is relative.
Seed "dark sites" with child porn.
Then, stop it "for the children".
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
FBI: "There are secret anonymous corners of the internet, where people are trading illegally downloaded movies!"
Public: "So what?"
FBI: "That isn't all. They're ALSO buying and selling.... MARIJUANA!"
Public: "We don't care."
FBI: ".....AND CHILD PORNOGRAPHY"
Public: "Nooooooooooooo! Here's $50 million in extra funding and new broad new powers for your agency."
FBI: "We promise only to use them for your own good."
hahahahaahahah so anonoymous can do with poisoned tor application and yet the fbi is stumped.
Didnt they dump all th info after the attack. wow the FBI is lame and it has some anon member in custody and yet still trouble with tor.
If they believe that they need to crack the encryption, that just means they're going after the wrong people. Instead of wasting time going after the darknet sites and/or their customers, they should be focusing 100% of their efforts on trying to identify A. the kids and/or B. the locations where the videos were shot. This approach has several advantages:
In contrast, by going after other people in the chain, you *might* occasionally get an actual child abuser, but usually you just ruin the lives of people who did something stupid and probably would not have actually harmed anyone's child. It's a bit like the difference between jailing people who are using guns to kill people and jailing everyone who carries a gun in the wrong part of town because a few of them might kill people....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Remember kids, only use TOR to break laws the US government disagrees with.
innocence kids were raped to make it
Not under some countries' definitions of child pornography, which include drawings produced entirely without the involvement of children.
Both of these goals make it impossible for Tor as a system to prevent people from sharing child sex abuse images. Anything that could be done to prevent such sharing could just as easily be used by the Chinese to prevent dissidents from disseminating their information. Anything that could be done to track down people who share child sex abuse images could be used by China to track down dissidents and persecute them.
That is the trade-off: protecting free speech and dissidents who live under repressive governments necessarily thwarts the FBI's attempt to track down people who share child sex abuse imagery. This is a matter of priorities -- do we want to protect dissidents, or do we want to prevent child abuse images from being shared?
Palm trees and 8
I'm all for privacy, but I think they should put a 'backdoor' in the Tor system to allow the FBI to catch pedophiles.
We need to get the child rape off the internet and back in the church where it belongs.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
in the meanwhile in the vatican...
They're always going to for child abuse as a justification for taking away liberty.
It's a tried and true tactic, and it often works.
Any anonymous network is going to be used by all kinds of people. Either you're able to accept that and use the investigation techniques granted to you under the law, or you're going to attempt to change that, and disrupt the process of liberty in favor of more laws.
It is a choice and one that should be made consciously by a majority of the population rather than a chosen few.
you don't need to be protected by TOR to find that shit!!! None can track you if you browse an IP address without using DNS!
This is BS to take down TOR...
Is wiretapping and across-the-board privacy-invasion the only way to catch scumbags? I don't think so. A wee bit too utilitarian for sensibility's sake. As noble as it sounds to save the babies, it is not the primary motive. I cannot help but to think that if they were so passionate about the good health of children, they might do something about education and other things, like obesity. Maybe they could whisper to the CIA and tell them to stop running so many narcotics into the US too. Maybe we could stop soliciting them into stupid wars. America really, really does not quite seem to be honestly obsessed with the welfare of upcoming generations, as sad as it may be. I am also curious what percentage of the population is involved in baby porn and (also in comparison to) homicide. It better be a really fucking high percentage if EVERYONE is to be treated as if involved. But I have doubts. "You can't have any privacy because you might be a baby ****er or a terrorist.". .....You don't say!?
It's just bit. There is no difference to the network between an image of child porn and a manifesto to free Tibet.
If you can find the source of one you can find the source of the other.
So the "problem" is actually a case of "working as designed".
I'm all for privacy, but I think they should put a 'backdoor' in the Tor system to allow the FBI to catch pedophiles.
Do you think that the Chinese governments does not have spies in the FBI? Any backdoor would become a tool of the Chinese government, used to hunt down and persecute dissidents.
Palm trees and 8
the trouble with democracy is that it's so easy to game. All you have to do is get one big voting block to agree on an issue no matter way (say Child Porn, Social Security, or hating Commies) and you can more or less own. The rest of us get divided up and end up counting for nothing...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Whilst I am of course against child pornography, I get the feeling this isn't the real reason. Instead child-porn is now the catch-all excuse the FBI/NSA/CIA/whoever will use every time to try and legislate against any and all kinds of encryption, sharing or anonymising system that they can't get into.
No politician will stand up to defend our rights if it means they also risk being perceived as possibly defending child abuse.
I'm far more inclined to believe the real interest behind this is the RIAA/MPAA who want to make it impossible to anonymously share files at all and/or the gov itself who want to monitor every email, IM and keystroke we make online.
They should use a crowd sourcing solution. Take the photos remove the children from them. Leave the adults, where possible, and the scene. Chances are someone will recognize the adult or the location of the scene. I would gladly turn in this type of scum. They could even take it a step farther and use TOR and Freenet to post these with a link to send information anonymously. This would protect the senders from easily be found out.
You are correct in your first assessment: that this is not really about protecting children, it is about expanding police and intelligence powers. Yet it is not that they want to help people with copyrights; they want to ensure that their own authority goes unthreatened. We passed a lot of laws under the guise of protecting children, which have served the purpose of inflating arrest and conviction numbers and expanding the power of the police.
The FBI hates the fact that ordinary people have access to cryptography they could not crack even with all their best cryptanalysts working at it. That is why they keep asking for back doors. They bring up child abuse just to scare people into thinking that this is a pressing, urgent issue, one which will determine the safety of their children and grandchildren. The fact that, in practice, Tor is too low-bandwidth to satisfy the demands of many consumers and producers of child sex abuse imagery is irrelevant here -- the FBI is more concerned about monitoring people who do not require high bandwidth, people who may threaten the power of our current set of politicians and of course the power of the FBI itself.
Child sex abuse is just a bogeyman that conjures terror in the population and causes everyone to shut down the cognitive parts of their brains.
Palm trees and 8
The only reason why this was released to the public, was to drum up support to make programs like TOR illegal in the US.
You have been warned. Once the government uses the "For the children" excuse... or "Child pornography" excuse... it should immediately make you take notice that the government is trying to outlaw something.
In this case, its dark nets, because as we all know that is where piracy is heading, and they want to stop it.
The only reason why this was released to the public, was to drum up support to make programs like TOR illegal in the US.
You have been warned. Once the government uses the "For the children" excuse... or "Child pornography" excuse... it should immediately make you take notice that the government is trying to outlaw something.
In this case, its dark nets, because as we all know that is where privacy is heading, and they want to stop it.
Fixed that for you.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
Standard USA modus operandi. Burn piles of money trying to band-aid a symptom and ignore the causes. *shakes head*
What are we doing to prevent the creation of pedophiles?
Fixing our very broken criminal justice system? Nope.
Making birth control free and easy and promoting NOT breeding, to help stop abusers from creating more abusers(not to mention overpopulation)? Nope.
Providing real psychological counselling and treatment? Nope.
Introducing punishments such criminals might actually fear? Nope
Working to create a more fair and just society? Nope, in fact we seem to be heading very much in the opposite direction.
Is absolute tyrannical control over communications really the only alternative to pure unstoppable anonymity?
Maybe I'll take C), where the government obtains valid, reasonable, limited, warrants for the monitoring of communications, carries out those warrants, and finds the bad guys.
I can't believe this got modded "insightful"... methinks the mods (and the parent) need to read up on the logical fallacy called the False Dilemma.
What!? You mean a technology exists that can be used for both good *and* evil? Too bad TOR doesn't have a clear-cut legal use with no potential for abuse. You know, like fertilizer. There's no possible way to use Ammonium Nitrate for anything but nourishing crops to feed people (or fill gas tanks).
"they should be focusing 100% of their efforts on trying to identify A. the kids and/or B. the locations where the videos were shot."
Wow! I'm going to call the FBI right away and suggest they try and find out who and where those kids are so they can be rescued! I'm sure they haven't already thought of that one!
Yeah, I'm sure it's a piece of cake tracking down the precise identity of some random abused youth locked in a completely generic concrete basement. There are only millions upon millions of generic concrete basements out there in the world.
"Nothing? Not shouting fire in a crowded theater?"
Try saying 'fire' in crowded theater, nothing happens. If you're complaining about the shouting, that's not free speech.
"How about if someone rapes your daughter, films the act, and puts it on a billboard across the street from her school?"
Billboard? Again the shouting.
In each of your scenarios, you're confusing the right to speak with the non existent right to force people to listen.
Deuteronomy 22 28-29 says that a man who rapes a young girl virgin keeps her, and pay the father when discovered. Deuteronomy also says to kill those that preach against it's law.
Raping female children means you keep them. You are opposed to this law of God and need to be killed. You want males to be raped and dominated and controlled. Deuteronomy says the man is ba'al (master). You say otherwise. You need to be killed. .x.
Deuteronomy 22 28-29 says that a man who rapes a young girl virgin keeps her, and pay the father when discovered. Deuteronomy also says to kill those that preach against it's law.
Raping female children means you keep them. You are opposed to this law of God and need to be killed. You want males to be raped and dominated and controlled. Deuteronomy says the man is ba'al (master). You say otherwise. You need to be killed.
Read the hebrew. Christians and mainstream Jewish people have apologetics to erase the will of their forebears, they lie. Read the hebrew. It is pro-male. Christians are pro-female (die for wife as christ "died for the church").
Little girls are good wives to men.
Deut 22 28-29. 2 Samual 12. ( Numbers 31. )
...guess I thought Tor probably already had an FBI/CIA back door.
In the case of child abuse images, it is not necessarily true that anyone who possesses such images actually did pay for them. Like anything else that can be downloaded, child abuse imagery can be downloaded at no cost online, and people so exactly that. Arresting someone who was never willing to pay for child abuse images does absolutely nothing to the demand for those images.
If you want to combat the economics of child abuse imagery, you need to reserve prosecution for people who actually paid for the images in their possession. Otherwise, you are just going after the low-hanging fruit, while leaving the truly dangerous people -- the people who are abusing children -- untouched.
Palm trees and 8
I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery. Eventually these pedo's will screw up and get caught. Time to go do some real police work.
Surveillance thwarted? Sounds like TOR is functioning exactly as it should.
If there's any actual "problem" here, that problem is the FBI.
Liberty in your lifetime
Yeah, I'm sure it's a piece of cake tracking down the precise identity of some random abused youth locked in a completely generic concrete basement. There are only millions upon millions of generic concrete basements out there in the world.
Sounds like a hard task; we should be putting lots of agents on this one...
Oh wait, most of the arrests made for child sex abuse images are for possession, downloading, or sharing -- not producing -- and most of the police officers working on these cases are going after the low hanging fruit, parading around the occasional producer they manage to find. If the police were focused on catching child abusers, they would devote the bulk of their resources to catching such people, and not get distracted catching people who just like to look at images of child abuse.
Palm trees and 8
Reading the comments on this thread, I'm realizing that likely within our lifetimes, we'll be having the same debate about strong cryptography that we're now having about guns, likely spurred on by stories like this about pedophiles, terrorists, "hackers" and all those other scary people on the internets.
Some of the same talking points are already in use ("We'll need them when the government comes for us", "Only criminals need them", "If they're banned, only criminals will have them and we'll be defenseless", etc), and strong cryptography, much like guns, are something that the governments and law enforcement fear as they can make it possible for people to break the law (just or otherwise) without the government being able to stop them.
I hope I'm wrong, and of course, you can't quite ban code so easily, but still, a scary future and an unpleasant debate may well be ahead.
1. The FBI does not have the cash, tech, people or access to telco hardware to seamlessly track content from one exchange to the end point in the USA. .gov and .mil staff and contractors it might find
If you sent abc to your exchange, some trip, back into the USA, back to another exchange - the message is still abc.
Could a mid budget US federal agency log all US net traffic for a few days, weeks vs a large city?
2. The FBI has the tech in the form of sneak and peek, key loggers to get down to your home and collect all data in real time.
At this time it does not want people doing strange things to nice consumer operating systems to spoil the quality of tracking.
So they talk of Tor been hard work as aspects of VoIP tech once was suggested to be.
3. The FBI recalls http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ore and the reaction of the UK gov.
4. The FBI recalls the number of
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/upshot/pentagon-declined-investigate-hundreds-purchases-child-pornography.html
Budgets, laws and hardware will gift the US "net" as a simple network in real time soon.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
gee, false dilemma much?
Freedom of speech until that speech does actual harm to another or encroaches on others freedoms. .
Government monitoring of communication when a warrant has been issues by a judge.
You go live in your black and white world and I'll live in my shades of grey.
Oh snap. I forgot this is /.
everyone here thinks in 1's and 0's.
Sorry 'bout that. Carry on.
The problem with Tor is that it's based on erasure, invisibility, hiding tracks. It involves a second server which may or may not be trustworthy. FBI could compromise Tor pretty easily. In 2008 there was a firefox extention developed for what I call "cookie camouflage", aka "white noise browsing". The concept was to let a background browser search randomly, words from the dictionary, etc. But when I go to the developers and try to download antiphorm software, I cannot get anything to work. http://tinyurl.com/digihaystack
a picture of child abuse is information that the us government thinks people shouldn't posses or distribute
an embarrassing picture of a party official is information the chinese government thinks people shouldn't posses or distribute
no government can be trusted to control communications because anyone who seeks the power of government is an inherently corrupt person and will use that power to further his personal agenda
tor doesn't go far enough, there needs to be an ad-hoc network that doesn't rely on the internet backbone, one where the government can't take back control by cutting off a few central nodes - a network where anyone without technical skill can set up a node with a bit of usb stick software and commodity hardware
What ever happened to antiphorm? Noise, camouflage, false flags generated by a random search generator seems like an easier approach than Tor, and requires no second party server. I don't like getting ads based on my health care searches. I'd be fine if terms for child porn were omitted from the search.
Gently reply
Quote source - http://www.aifs.gov.au/nch/pubs/sheets/rs20/rs20.html
Of course, I was 28 at the time.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"Because it's Pure Evil", well no, it's sex with a minor.
We don't allow sex with a minor because a) it has a higher risk of physical injury. b) they may not have consented and are more open to intimidation than grown ups.
I had sex aged 12, the girl was 13. It was crap, neither of us really knew how to please the other. Was it pure evil? No, it was just crap.
"Not to mention that it might encourage the creation of more"
That's the core of the problem there. We're trading off ease of prosecution by creating a substitute crime that's easier to prosecute. Now that crime threatens anonymous free speech which in turn threatens the freedom the law was there to protect. At some point we have to decide this substitute crime is doing so much damage that it's better removed.
How many dead dissidents equals one person looking at CP?
The Silk Road works like eBay or Craigslist. They don't sell the drugs themselves, they let users sell to other users. Even if a seller did get caught, which I'm sure has already happened, the seller doesn't work for the Silk Road and doesn't know who runs the Silk Road. There's no "boss" for them to roll over on. It's just a website.
With a lot of effort, they can take down individual sellers who are basically no more than street dealers. Infiltrating the Silk Road itself is evidently proving to be much harder.
It's a biological reality that children reach puberty and become fertile and their hormones want them to have sex.
So we are way down the slipper slope already. It's already like intelligent design where religion has taken a regular idea and distorted it into a good vs evil extreme idea. Now to even suggest that CP shouldn't be illegal because the damage it causes to free speech are too great, is to invite an FBI raid.
Yet to bring you back to reality, its biologically programmed into every everyone, and the definition (18 in the US?, 16 in most places) of the legal age bears no relation to the level of hormones that drive this.
It's unbelievable to me that the FBI would attack free anonymous speech in order to prosecute some tangential crime, that isn't even the crime they want to prosecute!
Yes, it's ridiculous, but seeing this headline on Slashdot and reading the summary brought on an intense anxiety and stress attack. I'm a boy lover who's never touched one since my best friend and I were in love when we were 12. I'm 35 now and have had to deal with the stress my entire teen and adult life, but I've never done anything to a boy, ever, and don't ever plan to (and never get married, have children, etc).
It's a major stress trigger for me when child pornography gets into the news (as it often does), because it makes me so jealous (I want to have more pr0n - just boys playing with themselves would be fine). Even though I have a decent amount already, I stopped collecting in 2007 when I lost track of the constantly-moving groups on usenet. I've looked into freenet and TOR for this reason before, but I've always been too scared now. It doesn't make sense to take the risk. But it doesn't mean I don't want it to help relieve stress in my life.
You can't imagine what it's like.
So reading the summary, I was again reminded of the ability to get more pr0n and it gave me a pretty sharp wave of anxiety and cravings (I'm an addict, too - why wouldn't I be? It helped me to ignore all of these problems). Since I no longer am on opiates anymore now that I've quit, I've had to rely on kratom, and as soon as I had my reaction to TFA, I had to eat some more kratom, even though it doesn't really help.
For anyone who reads this who is thinking that I should get some help for my sexuality/porn addiction, being a drug addict (even just kratom) and on antidepressants means that my sex drive is very low. And where would I get help, anyway? There are no legitimate support groups, telling my psychiatrist would be very dangerous, and that goes for my therapist, too. I did tell my therapist, even though it was very dangerous, so at least I have someone I can unload on. I'm on medication for depression and anxiety. What else can I do?
Really? What else? I'm not going to castrate myself (chemical or otherwise) when I haven't done nor ever will assault or touch a kid. I'm not going to kill myself because of my sexuality, although my depression has made me suicidal in the past. I'm getting medication and have a therapist. I avoid situations or places where I might be exposed (haha) to boys, treat them as the enemy. My (close) friends know I'm attracted to little boys, so they also can kind of make sure I'm not put into a situation where I might be compromised. I stay away from other pedophiles or websites related to them. What else can I do?
Anyways, wish I could get more pr0n, and I don't mean child molestation pr0n, for christ's sake. an mpeg of a little kid using his webcam by himself having an orgasm would be great... but possession of even one such video can net you 20 years in federal prison. amazing and horrifying.
I can only think of the many silent others who are like me. Child pornography should be legal because free speech is free speech. Viewing a recording of a crime should not be illegal. I believe that sex with children is immoral and damaging. Yet there are many videos of children and sex that are not damaging (like my example above, or a 12-year-old taking an erotic picture of himself of his own accord and putting it on the internet. shouldn't be illegal).
Here's another comment by me:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2841383&cid=39963075
Move to bloody Somalia then, you won't pay any taxes or will be forced to do so, literally at gun point. Win-win situation for the likes of you that love to whine about taxes in free societies.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"child sexual activity (commonly found in manga)"
No, what is commonly found in manga is hyper-sexualisation (big breast girl and so forth) and scantily clothing. Porn and sexual action by children is not commonly found in manga. It is only commonly found in a sub type of manga readily called Hentai ("pervert"). In fact the only rare "sex" I can remember from all the manga I recall reading was with older teenager, and really never showed explicitely.
A statute of limitations dictates the time period within which a legal proceeding
must begin. The purpose of a statute of limitations in a criminal case is to ensure the
prompt prosecution of criminal charges and thereby spare the accused of the burden
of having to defend against stale charges after memories may have faded or evidence
is lost.
There is no statute of limitations for federal crimes punishable by death, nor for
certain federal crimes of terrorism, nor, since passage of the Adam Walsh Child
Protection and Safety Act (P.L. 109-248, H.R. 4472, 2006), for certain federal sex
offenses. Prosecution for most other federal crimes must begin within five years of
the commitment of the offense. There are exceptions. Some types of crimes are
subject to a longer period of limitation; some circumstances suspend or extend the
otherwise applicable period of limitation.
Arson, art theft, certain crimes against financial institutions and various
immigration offenses all carry statutes of limitation longer than the five year
standard. Regardless of the applicable statute of limitations, the period may be
extended or the running of the period suspended or tolled under a number of
circumstances such as when the accused is a fugitive or when the case involves
charges of child abuse, bankruptcy, wartime fraud against the government, or DNA
evidence.
Ordinarily, the statute of limitations begins to run as soon as the crime has been
completed. Although the federal crime of conspiracy is complete when one of the
plotters commits an affirmative act in its name, the period for conspiracies begins
with the last affirmative act committed in furtherance of the scheme. Other so-called
continuing offenses include various possession crimes and some that impose
continuing obligations to register or report.
Limitation-related constitutional challenges arise most often under the
Constitution’s ex post facto and due process clauses. The federal courts have long
held that a statute of limitations may be enlarged retroactively as long as the
previously applicable period of limitation has not expired. The Supreme Court
recently confirmed that view; the ex post facto proscription precludes legislative
revival of an expired period of limitation. Due process condemns pre-indictment
delays even when permitted by the statute of limitations if the prosecution wrongfully
caused the delay and the accused’s defense suffered actual, substantial harm as a
consequence.
Source: Page 1, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL31253.pdf
Freedom isn't free!
This is the cost of protecting our free speech rights, and protecting free speech worldwide. As soon as we make a system that really gives us all a chance to exercise free speech there will be some abuse of that system. It's inevitable.
We must then use other methods to catch these offenders because the encryption of the free speech mechanism will always be evolved to stay one step ahead of those who wish to break it. And I hope that anyone distributing CP gets caught, but not at the cost of sacrificing anyone else's freedom; that would punish the innocent.
Since you looked (and publicly confessed), please proceed immediately to the authorities and surrender yourself.
Good luck in prison!
Captcha: campaign
Unfortunately technology is forcing us to decide -- a repressive police state that enforces your views of censorship, or a society that allows free speech. What little middle ground there ever was is rapidly vanishing.
The middle ground isn't going anywhere... That's just FUD.
Taking responsibility for what you say have nothing to do with censorship, repressive police states and/or free speech.
You have a right to free speech, but you never had a right to anonymous free speech!
Taking responsibility for what is say is hardly a repression.
The first thing they would do is leak it sixteen different ways due to somebody using it in a high profile situation to leverage a promotion.
You are talking about a group that still uses "lie detectors" FFS because they still don't want to admit they were scammed by the writer of a comic book and Hoover taking kickbacks. They are all about appearance and politics with law enforcement as a very distant second.
Repeated behavior rewires the brain. It strengthens the impulses, potentially turning slight interest in to an uncontrollable obsession.
Billy is jerking it on the internet, going through image boards. He enlarges a thumbnail to discover it's child pornography. Despite having no history with pedophilia, his aroused state tells him the image is sexual in nature and therefore ok. It happens again and again. Eventually, Billy is turned on only by children. The dangers involved only make him more excited. Eventually, Billy feels he has the opportunity to live those fantasies while watching his 9yr old niece for the weekend. He starts while she's asleep, she can't tell anyone and the risk of her waking drives him crazy. Then, the next day, when he's built up the courage, he asks her in to the bedroom for a secret game. Just as he's about to take his clothes off, Samuel L. Jackson busts in to the room and shoots him in the motherf*cking face with a motherf*cking shotgun. He looks at the little girl and says "I pity the fool who don't stay in school!"
Don't be a Billy. Be Samuel L. Jackson.
This is really a fill-in-the-blank story. You could easily drop in "malware" or "criminals" or the "evil" empire of your choice and that would easily reboot this conversation. Tor is going to protect whoever uses it.
...what you really meant to say
The problem is everywhere.
The problem is thousands of years old.
The FBI hunt on the web, will fail, but be used to expand into areas it never was meant to be
The root of the problem is deeper than people or the FBI realize.
You can keep deluding yourselves that TOR is the problem. It's not, psychopaths are
But since you can't pay attention long enough, to learn this yourself, some "authority" will come along with quack science like the DSM and guide you the way they want, if during the war the destruction of TOR happens, it's what will happen.
What we have to start doing is recognizing these people and telling them no, and putting them where they can't hold power or hurt others.
http://inceptionradionetwork.com/the-stench-of-truth-welcomes-thomas-sheridan/
Maybe they angry !
I really love club dresses ,
Outlaw children and their making of. No more children, no more child porn. Kill everyone under 18. All good thereafter. Not to mention this solves global population explosion.
And we've run out of options. You can't openly hate people of a different race, creed or gender anymore, and a good thing, too. But it's politically correct and all fine and dandy to hate, hunt, imprison, torture and kill suspected pedos, however broadly they may be defined.
The computer experts at FBI Headquarters are not the same ones that go smashing down doors trying to find abused children.. In fact, the local "smashing down doors" bit is usually done largely by local law enforcement personnel. That means that anything useful the computer experts contribute is a bonus to what local law enforcement (or those in FBI field offices) were doing already.
And cracking open distributors is a very good way to find those that created the images... they had to be uploaded from somewhere. If the authorities are busting a drug dealer, they use that information to go after the bigger fish upstream. In addition, many articles about this topic have pointed out that admission to the most complete networks often requires the uploading of unique images. I'll leave it as a chilling exercise for the reader as to where those images might come from.
The Surveillance Industry and Coppers Without Jobs (CWJ) use "Child Porn" so that they can justify big fat government contracts and their very existence as a CWJ. There are actually tons of CWJs and they could get laid off, if they did not make up new tasks for themselves ALL THE TIME.
For me, the key difference between a debate on encryption and a debate about guns is that you can't use encryption to kill anyone.
Just because I didn't define all those words (that is what we have legislators and courts, however imperfectly, for) doesn't mean you didn't present a false choice.
There are laws that define the permissible scope of warrants that answer all of your questions, and the answers vary depending on what is being monitored, what state the laws are written in, etc. It's reasonable grounds for discussion. compromise, and a solution (that's how that whole democracy thing is supposed to work.)
Saying that your only choices are 100% tyranny or 100% freedom is not a valid basis of discussion. Hence the name for it: Logical Fallacy. Real life is usually not an either/or question.
...everyone walk instead?
Attaching TOR to child porn or any other unethical or illegal activity is no different than doing the same with cars. So how come the FBI isn't claiming FORD is a vehicle of illegal drugs? Why don;t they attach the internet to lying politicians?
Yes, we all agree it's bullshit to be prosecuted for owning a nude Bart Simpson, but I'm guessing not a lot of people jack off to cartoons, even less are arrested for it, and one or two may have actually been convicted for it. I for one seriously doubt the voracity of some of these stories simply because a more rational explaination is sensationalisim by a journalist eager to attract eyeballs, for example I tried to find court details for the Bart Simpson case when it was reported here in Oz but came up empty handed? Was he really prosecuted for the nude Bart, or was it just one image in a vast collection?
A common tactic used by pedophiles is to trivialise the offense by broadening the definition until it becomes meaningless, for example the congressman who was caught sending sexually explicit texts to 14yo boys engaged in work experience was also instrumental in broadening the scope of sexual offenders list to include things like public urniation and nudity. The tactic is not new or confined to peopdophiles, the Bard wrote about "protesting too much", now I'm not claiming that this is what the journalist is doing but if you assume for a moment that the story is sensationalisim then it certainly becomes a possibility.
Bottom line is I think the nude Bart Simpson case is tabloid bullshit that belongs on snopes, but if you (or anyone else) have a link to some primary sources for it I would be both gratefull and humbled.
Personally I used to think that the right to free speech trumped the victims right to privacy. However that was when I was younger, since that time I have learned ideologies are supposed to be guidelines for wise choices, not a rule book for a dogmatic life. Having 'flip flopped' on the issue over several decades I now firmly believe it should be a offence to knowingly posses what the GP described (images of pre-pubecent child rape, or for that matter any rape). Yes that opinion puts a limit on free speech but it does not have to limit the visual and theatrical arts. Yes it's debatable if jacking off to CP is harmful/helpful to society, but contrary to popular opinion around here we do in fact live in a democracy and the vast majority of the population (including me) think prosecuting these people who jack off to rape videos is The RightThingToDo(TM), like me they are not going to change their minds just because someone, somewhere, (allegedly) abuses the justice system once in a blue moon*.
* - Unlike the (alleged) abusive prosecution above, I know "blue moons" exist because I've seen them first hand on several occasions. Prosecuting the prosecuters who knowingly abuse the justice system is also The RightThingToDo(TM).
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Unless a manga volume involved inappropriate sexual contact with a minor
Some graphic novels originating in Japan do depict inappropriate sexual contact with a fictional minor. The problem comes when child porn laws are written to redefine "involved" to include any depiction of abuse, even if no abuse was actually performed during production.
My guess is its not Tor that is preventing them from finding the distributors and downloaders of CP. I would hazard its other priorities. There are well know vulnerabilities in Tor's secrecy all you need to do is run enough exit nodes.
Tor does two things with regard to finding pedophiles.
1. It makes it a little more complex than just setting up a honey pot collecting IP address and then phoning up the ISP. So not just any agent can do it, it has to be folks with real technical skills, and supply is no doubt limited.
2. It creates a little chilling effect on actions against perps. If they can't make it look more likely they were discovered through other means, it exposes to what degree the three letter agencies actually monitor and have compromised Tor. That might lead to a loss of intelligence access about higher priority targets. Frankly if I were running a terror network or large organized crime ring I'd be very tempted to have some low level (expendable) gang members send each other CP. Knowing just obsessed our government is with finding anyone who has gone anywhere near it. Seeing if the expendables get picked up our not would be a good way to know if the, secrecy and to a lesser extent the integrity of my communications channel was solid.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I tried to find court details for the Bart Simpson case when it was reported here in Oz but came up empty handed
According to this Wikipedia article, the case is McEwen v. Simmons & Anor [2008] NSWSC 1292: "In my view, the Magistrate was correct in determining that, in respect of both the Commonwealth and the New South Wales offences, the word 'person' included fictional or imaginary characters".
http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/scjudgments/2008nswsc.nsf/6ccf7431c546464bca2570e6001a45d2/ef4625a9db3003f1ca25751500066d48?OpenDocument
TLDR-
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I disagree. By your argument you have "free speech" as long as your expression itself isn't impaired. That's hardly possible, even for the most repressive regimes. Sew your mouth shut and cut off your fingers?
The whole point of the principle of free speech is that you can express yourself without fear of consequences (or as you say, "responsibility") or reprisal, especially from government. To the extent that one needs to fear reprisal above and beyond logical counter-argument, they should have anonymous speech.
The viewer/reader/listener should weigh any unattributed speech with skepticism, but banning it through the power of the state? No way.
[Unlike child pornography,] hobbyist music carries no risk of jail
No risk of jail per se, but there's still a risk of financial ruin if some major music publisher sues you on grounds that your song is too similar to an existing song that you might have heard ten years ago on the radio. Compare Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music
I guess he really meant piracy, even though privacy is correct as well. Because let's face it: in the eyes of the US government, there ain't not crime more heinous as sharing a couple of files with your friends. They'll abolish all basic freedoms in the blink of an eye to stop piracy... if they could get away with it.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
For looking at freenet portal pages and noticing most of the links were for child porn pages?
You don't think I actually visited the pages or viewed any images do you? Christ no, I've no interest in that.
Once a mechanism is in place to penetrate Tor, every asshole in law enforcement will manufacture a reason that they, too, should be allowed in. This is a place to defend our civil liberties in the US. There has long been an adversarial relationship between the police and the public. My parents taught me that the police were our friends; boy was that illusion shattered when my ex-wife had me arrested for some made-up b.s. to get me thrown out of the house when she decided she wanted a divorce.
It is true that slimeballs will take advantage of Tor; but they tend to cluster among themselves. Why let the slimeballs with badges in? I say "No".
The idea that material like this could run through my home network bugs me. The bigger issue is that a judge or prosecutor might not understand what it is.
TOR is a transparent proxy people
look up what it means and if the fbi are whining its to get someone to do something rash
you can be seen and tracked so dont kid your selves
FBI ARE LYING
let me repeat FBI ARE LYING
Christ no, I've no interest in that.
Completely irrelevant.
If you have any such pictures anywhere on your computer (most likely in your browser cache) then you are in possession.
Any intent, or lack thereof, on your behalf is inconsequential.
Yes, this particular law is broken.
Child Pornography is Illegal, and yet, at the same time, the mass media wants us to oogle at young girls dressed in skimpy outfits, singing some songs produced by five different hit song makers and oozing of sexual innuendos. Think about Britney Spears.
But oh yeah, as long as they are 18, its all rightyo! No wonder people are lusting over underaged girls, we are being forcefed this crap ALL THE TIME. This is stupid bullshit that big companies with enough money can advertise with SEX all the time, and Porn can be found everywhere with adults in it, and then at the same time we are prosecuting child porn distributors like they are murderers, while these advertisers and big media companies get paid big bucks.
We are being fed the image of "young and sexy is good, buy this!" and then we wonder why we have so much people interested in child pornography.. it's sad really that our lust for money overcomes everything in our modern world. Good thing it's crumbling to pieces as we speak!
GeoKone.NET
Completely failed at reading comprehension.
Did you read the part where I don't click links to child porn?
Since it was the CIA that first developed TOR I find this truly a hilarious idea.
Captcha: guilty
Unfortunately, this is one of the problems we've got today, with politicians realizing the popularity in taking an anti sex crime hard-line stance. There are few things more universally accepted than the idea a child molester deserves harsh punishment. The problem, of course, is that true child molesters really aren't very common. Certainly not common enough to sustain a division of the FBI devoted to nothing but capturing them. They need better "performance metrics" than that! So what you wind up with is all of this vast over-reaching....
Child porn is one of those convenient "value added" crimes easily attached to the pursuit of child molesters... After all, the producer of it is clearly abusing the kids involved, and it's not hard to get the public to buy into the fact that anyone obtaining that sort of material is just as guilty, right? Except no, they're very OFTEN not!
Many years ago, I ran a computer bulletin board system, and on at least 2 or 3 occasions, people uploaded child porn photo collections, zipped up into archives and incorrectly described as completely different types of files. (I recall catching one, one time, that simply said "Great OS/2 screen saver collection!") As soon as I discovered such things, I immediately deleted them -- but what if I hadn't caught it before someone else did who reported it to authorities? Yep, you can bet I would have been arrested and charged with possession and intent to redistribute, or at least something along those lines!
And perhaps some would say, "Well, you ARE guilty if you found the stuff and didn't report the person who uploaded it to you!" But again, I'm afraid I don't agree. MANY times, people using the BBS's used to download a file from source A and immediately re-upload it to destination B, without ever looking at it first. Most people just assumed the descriptions stated were accurate and they wanted to earn upload credits, so they could download something else they wanted. There's a good probability the uploader of those files had no clue what was in them, and maybe the site THEY got them from wasn't aware either.
I'm sure everyone already knows, but I'll say it anyway. Tor has plenty of legitimate uses; it's meant to give people freedom to access and post whatever they want without fear of being tracked down. The fact that people can upload illegal material is merely an unfortunate byproduct of this.
Is this a real article? Or is it just an attempt to make pedophiles feel safe using Tor so they can be swept up?
Surely if investigation efforts weren't progressing they wouldn't be publicizing them.
More Twoson than Cupertino
I know I'm wondering and I think it'd be beneficial for everyone if someone could perhaps explain how a website can be hosted completely within the Tor network. It just sounds impossible but obviously they're doing it. Does it bypass DNS and go straight to an IP? How would people find it in the first place if it's not in a Google search because it's not on the open and indexed internet? How does anyone's web browser navigate to a page on a server without knowing the end point? You can't just send a request down the Tor network that says "I want to get to a page called this, go find it." That seems to violate every rule of how the internet works on a basic level. It seems like someone attempting to host a website like this would have to expose themselves at some sort of level that would make them as easy to catch as any other website. Anyone know how this is possible?
It is the only situation where possession of evidence is criminal in itself.
Possession of state secrets is evidence that someone leaked them. Never mind "innocent until proven guilty," the burden of proof is on you that you didn't knowingly possess or acquire them.
To a lesser degree and depending on the attitude of the police and prosecutors, the same frequently goes for possession of marked bills that the cops know were used in a crime, possession of counterfeit currency, possession of stolen goods, etc.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In at least one US state, penetratively-raping a preschooler will just about guarantee a multi-decade-before-parole or possibly even life-with-the-possibility-of-parole sentence unless you plea down.
Killing the same child will just about guarantee life in prison without parole or death unless you plead down.
If the case is high-profile, the prosecutor is unlikely to offer a plea unless he has a weak case, you've got something very valuable to offer, or there are extenuating circumstances demanding compassion, such as a mental defect.
In that same state, mere possession of small amounts of child porn that is prosecuted at the state level will probably get you 5-10 with parole likely after about half of that, and possibly deferred-adjudication-probation on a non-sex-offender charge if you have something to offer as part of a plea bargain or if circumstances such as "I'm 19, she's my 17 year old girlfriend" make you look very sympathetic.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In short, he would have probably served a shorter time if he actually was a pedo who raped and killed his own kids without taking pictures of it.
The person in question got a 15 year federal sentence for "advertising" child porn. If he gets 15% off for good behavior, that's 12.75 years of time.
If he murdered his children, he'd probably get 25+ years, life, or death in state court. At best, he wouldn't get parole for well over a decade and likely would serve much longer.
If he raped them with penetration, he would probably get a nominal 10-20 year sentence if they were teenagers and much longer if they were younger, but would likely be eligible for release after 50-75% of the sentence. If he merely fondled them the sentence would be much lower.
Bear in mind that if the feds charge you with ONLY a handful of counts of child porn and there are no aggravating circumstances, you'll probably get a sentence of 5-10 years, not the 15 years this guy got.
I do agree, this guy got screwed. He's not innocent but the charge should be something like "through gross negligence and without taking reasonable and customary steps to prevent or report it, allowing others to use a computer under your control to transmit, receive, and/or advertise child pornography" with a sentence of no more than a few years in prison and confiscation of the computer equipment. The key phrases being "gross negligence" and "not taking reasonable and customary steps to prevent or report it" - we don't want to turn computer operators who make reasonable good faith efforts to keep this stuff off of their servers and/or report it into criminals.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The courts tossed it. Since that court ruling, if the person in the picture is over 18 and is not a minor in the eyes of the law, that's pretty much an absolute defense to CP charges.
Ditto if the picture is not of a person.
However, if the person in the photo looks real and looks under well under 18, the burden of proof is on the defense to prove otherwise. I expect this to change once computer-generated imagery becomes so good that a court will say "it used to be that 99.999% of pornographic pictures that looked convincingly like a kid well under 18 were of a kid under 18, but now that is no longer the case, so the burden mush shift to the prosecution."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If you were a small fan of Marlon Brando, then I would recommend that you steer clear of the other NAMBLA.
But since you are a big fan, I'll still recommend you steer clear of them unless you are carrying a badge and watching them to make sure they stay legal.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I can't speak for child porn, but I have given photographs that I have taken to others simply because I know it brings them pleasure and in giving them pleasure, I get pleasure.
I imagine the same motivation drives many teenage "sexters" sharing images of their own bodies.
I also imagine that this same motivation drives many adults whose risk-assessment skills are so lacking that they don't appreciate the risk they are taking by 1) making child-porn pictures, and 2) letting them out of their own hands / out of their control.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It's not something I like in this case, but freedom for everyone means freedom for some criminals too. It's delusional to pretend that there's any way to actually stop this kind of thing. The technological cat is out of the bag. If they get TOR, the criminals will move to whatever other technology, and they'll have to go for that, and we get stuck in and endless loop of cat and mouse.
As you say, increased availability "could conceivably increase the occurrence of child rape" among those who would be satisfied by "mere" imagery.
But you are ignoring the other side:
Many people - perhaps more than 5-10% of adult males - have a small part of them that finds such imagery sexually stimulating, but their moral code, social conditioning, fear of damage to their marriage or reputation, and perceived difficulty in getting such images without getting caught prevent them from even trying. If such images were widely available or available with less of a stigma, more of these people would seek out such images. A good percentage of them would wind up hurting their marriages and ability to be a full-time father. A few of them might find that the images are "not enough" and they might go on to rape their own kids.
There are a lot of "mights" here, both in your statement and in mine. Obviously, no controlled, reliable, large-scale studies have been done on this.
The bottom line:
We can't say definitively whether making child porn more widely available and less socially unacceptable will increase or decrease the overall number of children who are raped or otherwise sexually exploited. We CAN reasonably say that if it is increased, SOME children who would otherwise become victims will be spared harm and that SOME children will be harmed who would otherwise not be.
Oh, and this completely ignores the psychological harm to those whose images are circulating: By far most victims of child pornography would rather that the images be seen by only a relatively small number of people vs. them being seen by a relatively large number of people.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Seed "dark sites" with filenames that imply child porn videos.
Then LMAO when the horny old men get rick-rolled.
OK, that's just a thought experiment. I would advise against visiting such sites for any reason. If the feds ever do figure out how to monitor who is visiting those sites, you don't want to be on their suspected-pervert list.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Are you male (in an era of same-sex weddings I have to ask)?
If you are you need to cover your legal butt by immediately reporting this film, along with the point in the movie the offending image can be found, to the FBI, your local police, your local sensationalist news outlet (or a one in a nearby city or state if your local news outlets are reasonably rational).
Failure to do so can get you branded as a kiddie-porn-lover and no amount of hiding behind an "AC" nick will protect you.
---
I exaggerate only slightly, for effect. Seriously, you make some very good points.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Piracy is killing the for-profit music industry and that part of the non-money-oriented industry that requires money to exist (e.g. artists who sell album and videos for just enough to cover the costs of producing their art).
It is not hurting artists who give away their stuff for free because 1) they don't need the cash and 2) the cost of production is small enough to eat. Just look at all the free stuff by non-professionals out there on YouTube and elsewhere.
Child Porn production can roughly be divided along similar lines:
* The stuff that is made for profit
* The stuff that is made for barter, or given away with the understanding that those receiving it will eventually "return the favor" as part of an implied social contract
* The stuff that is given away because the "artist"/producer gets to feel good knowing others are seeing his work.
Piracy (distributing copyrighted material without permission of the copyright owner) will encourage, not discourage, the last group.
Interestingly, since it's considered evidence of a crime, I doubt most child porn is copyrightable. That doesn't mean it is in the public domain, only that the creator has no right to control its distribution. The exceptions might be images that were created either at a time or in a country where they were legally produced, or images such as medical images which, while it can be used as porn, was created lawfully and can still be used for a lawful purpose. In such cases the producer or his successor-of-interest likely has an enforceable copyright. Yes, folks, a medical doctor or forensic photographer can probably use the DMCA to force CP sites to take down pirated copies of his legitimate medical photographs of children's up-close-and-personal private parts.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The definition of obscenity is a very high and somewhat flexible bar, but yes, some sexual images involving consenting adults are nominally illegal in the United States. They are hard to prosecute but there have been successful prosecutions in the United States even in the last couple of decades.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
The military rules aren't always the same as civilian rules.
If he had been an American who was over there on vacation, and was charged, AND if he had enough money for a good lawyer, he could probably beat the rap PROVIDED the camera angle was "normal" for photographing a similar child in a bathing suit - e.g. not aimed at or zoomed in on the privates.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Minors should be allowed to film themselves for documentary purposes, and parents should be allowed to film their children for documentary purposes if the films are held closely to those involved until all actors are and age when most adults are emotionally mature (typically low-20s), financially-independent (typically living on their own without parental support for several months), AND legal adults (typically 18, unless mentally retarded) and at that time the actors are given control / veto power over further use of the images.
I recognize that, like adult pornography, the existence of pornography or of non-pornographic photos which are commonly used as pornography taken of people when they were children is harmful to society. However, this must be balanced against the rights of people to document their own lives and the rights of adults to disseminate such documentary photographs or videos even if they were taken before the now-adult was of legal age.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In the decaying remains of Soviet Russia...
Zombies f*ck YOU!
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Interesting or insightful perhaps, but definitely NOT funny.
I say this on behalf of everyone who was raped in a church or by someone acting under the church's authority or color of authority.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
They should do what China is probably already doing:
Set up enough TOR nodes that look like they are run by average-joe volunteers that heavy TOR users will, sooner or later, wind up sending at least some incriminating traffic "end to end" through government-controlled TOR servers.
Once the government knows that Joe American with a specific IP address is using TOR to visit site xyz that carries mostly kiddie porn, they should have no problem getting a warrant to not only wiretap the guy but install other surveillance as well, including video cameras so they can see WHO is accessing the site and WHAT is showing up on the computer screen.
Once China knows or suspects that one of their citizens with a specific IP address is using TOR to visit site abc that carries mostly dissident material, they can do what they like with him and those around him. After all, they are the government of China, they don't need warrants.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Think about it; more than 100,000 kids go missing and get traded. Likely the real culprits are as much a part of the establishment as the billions laundered for Drug money at major banks. Surely someone at the NSA and CIA knows exactly what is going on with every user of TOR, but they don't help investigations unless it leads to greater power for themselves.
If the FBI tracked the people exploiting the kids, they'd then find the people who SOLD the kids. Baptist church groups who were trying to adopt kids in Haiti and "import them" to child slavery friendly latin american countries comes to mind, as well as pedophile friendly Vatican. I do remember the Bush administration stopping a measly statement of Condemnation of Saudi Arabia for importing child sex workers -- and all the NeoCons seemed to donate to charities related to "missing children hotlines". Anyone remember that former white house page who was whisked away from a sex crime charge in Japan because he admitted to molesting JonBenet Ramsey? As soon as the Bush administration got him into the USA -- his admission of guilt became a "mistake" and nothing further about it was mentioned.
Who knows what we find if we actually went down that particular rabbit hole. The number of world leaders connected to the NeoCon and Globalist agendas who end up caught in a sex crime is too statistically high to ignore. There is no better way to control people than evidence of a dead woman or a live boy. I'm pretty sure the great carrot and stick of diplomacy is the child sex trade.
Does anyone REALLY think that the FBI is stopped by some do-gooder free speech organization? They have handlers that can follow psychotics for 5 years until they plant a bomb, they can break down any door they want. They just don't WANT to break down doors that have gold door knobs.
Yet there is a picture in the Minneapolis Institute of Art called "The Little Girl" which features a naked little girl painted in a gaunt fashion displaying full frontal nudity. And the people responsible for it's display are not charged for any crimes.
If you didn't notice, the post was a bitter commentary on the very double-standard which you speak of.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I have gigabytes of porn of willing children. How does that make you feel?
You should believe I do have it because it's easy and safe to get it on Tor, Freenet, and I2P.
The 17-year-old was in the paragraph about child pornography.
In the eyes of the feds, porn involving a 17 year old minor is a felony.
As to your original question:
Only a few states have an age of consent of 18. Many of these have close-in-age exceptions that would make the 19/17 situation legal.
Here are a few that don't:
In California, it's a misdemeanor for for someone to have sex with someone under 18 if the age difference is less than 3 years. It's a misdemeanor for both minors if both minors are under 18 and within 3 years in age.
In North Dakota, an adult having sex with a close-in-age minor commits a misdemeanor.
Virginia is similar.
In Wisconsin this could be prosecuted as a felony or misdemeanor.
Source. Caveat reader - I didn't fact-check this information, but the odds of ALL of these examples being wrong is very low.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
That's the way I would expect any FBI honeypot to be run. It would eliminate almost anybody who didn't hurt an actual child. From there, you wait, gather information, and eventually begin providing files that require a custom tool to extract them—a tool that surreptitiously phones home. You've now caught thousands of actual sexual predators.
Are you seriously suggesting the FBI solicit unique child pornography?
Think about that for a minute and get back to me if you don't realize why that is a pretty bad idea.
I would try wiretapping the entire Internet. You could use voltage converters and single-purpose processors to get the kind of bandwidth that you'd need.
Bullshit. No sane studio would distribute that.
I doubt majority of Tor users are pedophiles. I think FBI is dealing with normal software pirates, people downloading illegal music and movies and occasional people searching for tips how to grow marihuana.
I hate it when any organization just says "Please, think of the children!" and you are automatically labeled a pedofile just for opposing restictrions, limitations in privacy and giving up your legal rights.
I have children myself. I could see me trying to kill a person for abusing my children, and I a totally wish to support the effort to catch child predators, but I doubt whatever FBI wishes to do with Tor isn't just about that..
How To Get Around the Constitution of the USA 1. Say it is Terrorism 2. Say it is Copyright Infringment 3. Say it is Child Porn
It will not undo the abuse that has taken place.
It will not help abused kids to cope and deal with what happened (Not that I want to imply that this is even possible at all).
It will not help the parents of these children.
It will not prevent other sites and perverts from continuing what they are doing.
It will not prevent rapers from raping and dealers from dealing.
It will not bring all those involved to justice.
Networks don't create problems. As almost with anything, people do. If it wasn't for psychos, this world would be a much nicer place to live in. What we need is a gene that wipes out every psycho on this planet.
TOR is a good tool for people to express their opinions. Just like anything good, it can be used as a weapon and to harm innocents.
You'd have thought after the Columbian Prostitute Scandal they would want to publicize they were now looking for CP!
Why not? From a legal perspective, the police solicit prostitutes, and that's on the right side of the law when it comes to entrapment; there's really no difference. And from an ethical perspective, the people who do these things are going to do them anyway. At least if the FBI is doing the solicitation, it puts the child abusers one step closer to getting caught.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Your comparison of Prostitutes vs. Pedophiles are not the same at all! Not on a legal or ethical perspective.
When a cop hints to a prostitute that he would like to take advantage of his/her services, he/she offers, and he/she gets arrested. Nobody gets hurt, and the offered services do not take place. Note that the cop cannot actually explicitly request illegal services, as that would be entrapment. (This works in real life because many actual johns are shy enough that they don't directly ask for what they want, so hookers can't use "not directly requesting illegal services" as a cop filter.)
If you request that pedophiles submit unique content to a honeypot, and they don't happen to have any on hand at the moment, an actual violent crime must take place before the criminal dutifully submits the incriminating evidence. And what do you do if you can't trace the evidence? Ask for more? When do you give up? How much crime do you actively solicit from a single perpetrator?
And no investigator in his/her right mind is going play the "would this have happened anyway?" game. That's a question that's impossible to answer.
and then we wonder why we have so much people interested in child pornography
I don't believe there are that many people at all. And you don't just turn into a pedophile one day, either.
Some anonymous folks infiltrated "darknet" and exposed thousands of these sickos a couple of months ago. Anon has been outing pedo's left and right for about a year where the FBI seems to be fumbling.