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FBI Admits It Controlled Tor Servers Behind Mass Malware Attack

MikeatWired writes "It wasn't ever seriously in doubt, but the FBI yesterday acknowledged that it secretly took control of Freedom Hosting last July, days before the servers of the largest provider of ultra-anonymous hosting were found to be serving custom malware designed to identify visitors. Freedom Hosting's operator, Eric Eoin Marques, had rented the servers from an unnamed commercial hosting provider in France, and paid for them from a bank account in Las Vegas. It's not clear how the FBI took over the servers in late July, but the bureau was temporarily thwarted when Marques somehow regained access and changed the passwords, briefly locking out the FBI until it gained back control. The new details emerged in local press reports from a Thursday bail hearing in Dublin, Ireland, where Marques, 28, is fighting extradition to America on charges that Freedom Hosting facilitated child pornography on a massive scale. He was denied bail today for the second time since his arrest in July. On August 4, all the sites hosted by Freedom Hosting — some with no connection to child porn — began serving an error message with hidden code embedded in the page. Security researchers dissected the code and found it exploited a security hole in Firefox to identify users of the Tor Browser Bundle, reporting back to a mysterious server in Northern Virginia. The FBI was the obvious suspect, but declined to comment on the incident. The FBI also didn't respond to inquiries from WIRED today. But FBI Supervisory Special Agent Brooke Donahue was more forthcoming when he appeared in the Irish court yesterday to bolster the case for keeping Marque behind bars."

189 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. The NSA controlled the servers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Nope, the NSA controlled the servers, it led to an NSA controlled IP address and they have the hackers needed. The BIG FAT LIE was that this block could be used by other agencies. Since potentially NSA broke the law for USA domestic Tor users, we have the FBI stepping forward to take the blame.

    But we know its the NSA that tracks and monitors TOR because it was in their leaked document as one of their many excuses for surveillance:
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/20/exhibit-b-nsa-procedures-document

    Also go read the first leaked warrant that let the NSA collect all the data (link below), it had the FBI's name on it. It was an FBI request to hand the data from Verizon's phone records to the NSA, a simple reacharound the domestic spying laws. The FBI acts as wing man for the NSA:

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/verizon-telephone-data-court-order?guni=Article:in%20body%20link

    FBI doesn't have the experts, or the IP address or the interest in Tor, it was NSA and it was timed just as the NSA was trying to prevent further leaks from its own analysts. At best the FBI simply provides the excuse, as it did with the Verizon incident.

    1. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by russotto · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nope, the NSA controlled the servers, it led to an NSA controlled IP address and they have the hackers needed.

      Don't be ridiculous. The NSA hackers were probably laughing and pointing at the FBI and snickering about how they were amateurs. Remember the NSA has only gotten caught when they've been betrayed, not because their technical means were discovered.

    2. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 4, Informative

      Remember the NSA has only gotten caught when they've been betrayed, not because their technical means were discovered.

      Only for very specific definitions of "caught" - back in 2007 we were pretty sure they had fucked with Dual_EC_DRBG.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    3. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by SpaceLifeForm · · Score: 3, Funny

      Did you have a point to make or did you just not like the message?

      --
      You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
    4. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by innocent_white_lamb · · Score: 5, Interesting

      TFA sez "The official IP allocation records maintained by the American Registry for Internet Numbers show the two Magneto-related IP addresses were part of a ghost block of eight addresses that have no organization listed. Those addresses trace no further than the Verizon Business data center in Ashburn, Virginia, 20 miles northwest of the Capital Beltway."
       
      So it's not clear if those addresses belong to the FBI, the CIA, NSA, or anyone else.
       
      Is this even "legal" on the Internet? Perhaps those IP addresses should be reclaimed and reassigned by ARIN since "nobody" is using them and IPV4 addresses are now in short (nonexistent) supply.

      --
      If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
    5. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by Burz · · Score: 1

      Nope, the NSA controlled the servers, it led to an NSA controlled IP address and they have the hackers needed.

      Don't be ridiculous. The NSA hackers were probably laughing and pointing at the FBI and snickering about how they were amateurs. Remember the NSA has only gotten caught when they've been betrayed, not because their technical means were discovered.

      Uh... why would the FBI care about being caught? They are a domestic, (supposedly) civil police organization, while the NSA are military and international.

    6. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Re technical means and what was Operation Fairplay back in ~2005~2008:
      Senator: Let's monitor P2P for illegal files
      http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9920665-7.html
      "for purposes of longer-term tracking, the software captures "unique serial numbers" from the person's computer "
      Tor seemed to be the next step or was on the list with irc and any other method of moving files?

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    7. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      The FBI would be facing a US court or a non trivial extradition hearing. Real US lawyers and open foreign courts do like to see some evidence and some aspects surrounding a real warrant.
      Would the NSA with its military and international background and constant Russian interest really like to hint at vast long term databases in court? Any FBI investigation could use it to make 'hidden' connections and get warrants?
      Sooner or later crime and countries under FBI watch would wonder about the near perfect digital tracking and change their methods.
      You also have the 'freedom fighters" been run by the CIA/MI6 - would the NSA ever let the FBI get to close to international operations funded from the US?
      I dont think the FBI would be caught as too so many other agencies have very good reasons not to share too much.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    8. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      The FBI isn't "domestic". The only organizations with rules on operations are the CIA and military, who have rules against domestic operations. The FBI is the international investigations point for international kidnapping of US citizens. Though, in practice, that consists almost solely of representing one US citizen parent against another US citizen parent when one has fled the country with a child. International domestic disturbances is most of the FBI's international activity, but not the only international activity.

    9. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Surely the NSA knew that any involvement in these matters on their part would be found out, especially as the FBI used the information gained from these operations to prosecute and secure convictions? That is after all what the FBI does, secure convictions. The NSA on the other hand has now blown what might have been a valuable intelligence source just to help the FBI catch a few pedophiles? Something doesn't add up here. Why would the NSA waste an unpatched exploit of the TOR browser bundle, one that could have been used to identify terrorists or perhaps spies, on this. If they did, then I say that they wasted the taxpayers' money going after targets that are utterly worthless from a national defense or counterintelligence standpoint. If that's how the NSA plans to spend our money then maybe we ought to withdraw their funding.

    10. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You seem to have forgotten that the FBI has to broken computer laws in 'other' countries. The mind boggles as this FBI agent turning up in a foreign court after breaking computer laws, claiming evidence obtained by hacking computers. The judge in that Irish court has to be the biggest lame duck in history. As soon as the FBI agent admitted what they did, the judge should have ordered the agent arrested and held for trial. The law is the law and US law is not law in Ireland and the FBI has zero right to break Ireland's computer laws. Any evidence obtained, well, might as well be fantasy father than fact as there is no way for a court to tell what was real and what was fabricated on an 'illegally' hacked computer.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    11. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Uh... why would the FBI care about being caught?"

      Because they illegally interrupted service of hundreds if not thousands of other customers of the hosting service.

      See 18 USC 242, "Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law"

      When there is danger of infringing on the rights (which includes contracts) of innocent parties, law enforcement is, at the very least, required to use "narrowly tailored" means to effect their business.

      They used pretty much the opposite of "narrowly tailored" means. They just took over the whole hosting company and surveilled ALL the users.

      Definitely a no-no. Definitely illegal.

      No reasonable person is in favor of child pornography. But law enforcement is not allowed to break the law in order to enforce the law.

    12. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by houghi · · Score: 1

      Yes, it is illegal, but why would the FBI care about being caught?

      They will fire some lower pion that was the reason for their embarrassment and if we are lucky, they will change the law so it won't be illegal anymore.

      Other then that, nothing will change. As long as all the agencies can get away with it, this will worsen. As long as there is not a serious protest, nothing will change.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    13. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by countach · · Score: 1

      You mean like when Megaupload was shutdown?

    14. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by Dynamoo · · Score: 1

      So it's not clear if those addresses belong to the FBI, the CIA, NSA, or anyone else.

      Is this even "legal" on the Internet? Perhaps those IP addresses should be reclaimed and reassigned by ARIN since "nobody" is using them and IPV4 addresses are now in short (nonexistent) supply.

      Correct, the IP address block (65.222.202.48/29) was allocated to a Verizon Business customer probably located in the Washington DC or Virginia area. Some neighboring blocks in the same /24 included the US government, some government contractors and some private commercial businesses. Given the geographical location and nature of the customers then it is almost definitely a government agency or contractor, but there's nothing else to be gleaned. I did an analysis analysis at the time when people were screaming that it was the NSA via a private firm called SAIC.

      As for "legality".. the block is allocated to Verizon who break it down into smaller chunks for customers who may or may not wish to identify themselves in the WHOIS records. It is just 8 IP addresses in any case.

      --
      Never email donotemail@WeAreSpammers.com
    15. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by Burz · · Score: 1

      Thx!

    16. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by swalve · · Score: 1

      The NSA isn't military.

    17. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by mdielmann · · Score: 1

      Also go read the first leaked warrant that let the NSA collect all the data (link below), it had the FBI's name on it. It was an FBI request to hand the data from Verizon's phone records to the NSA, a simple reacharound the domestic spying laws. The FBI acts as wing man for the NSA:

      I've never had a wing man, so I'm not sure, but I don't thing the expectation is that they'll be engaging in reacharounds.

      --
      Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
    18. Re:The NSA controlled the servers by N0Man74 · · Score: 1

      But law enforcement is not allowed to break the law in order to enforce the law.

      That's a quaint notion. If only that were true in practice.

  2. Welcome to the USA... by Zemran · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Land where Freedom will not be tolerated.

    --
    I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
    1. Re:Welcome to the USA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The server was in France, and the the admin is being prosecuted in Ireland.

    2. Re:Welcome to the USA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      " You shouldn't be free"

      That phrase is very telling and describes every file service on the Internet.

    3. Re:Welcome to the USA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, actually, you're wrong. You should be allowed to post any content you wish. In this case, though, you should be mentally equiped with the moral, ethical code that would tell you that child porn is wrong. Of course, that observation only moves itself along to yet another point.. That is the failing of society and culture to properly cultivate those skills. A conversation beyond the scope of /.

    4. Re:Welcome to the USA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, you're wrong as well. Focusing simply on the child porn in this case is basically ignoring the larger picture and the people who were NOT engaged in illegal activities in this matter. It becomes a far less trivial thing when innocent people are involved, especially since they moved to a system like Tor because they couldn't trust their own government, who just proved their lack of trust right.

    5. Re:Welcome to the USA... by schlachter · · Score: 1

      XXXX, XXXX, it's all XXXX, I tell ya.

      --
      My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
    6. Re:Welcome to the USA... by game+kid · · Score: 1

      Explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate? Sounds like the US government, actually.

      --
      You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
    7. Re:Welcome to the USA... by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

      None was hosted there. It wasn't until after the FBI planted it when anyone was linked to child porn.

    8. Re:Welcome to the USA... by AlphaWoIf_HK · · Score: 1

      No, I do not. I'd be very happy if all paedophiles were rounded up tomorrow and executed. Yes, executed.

      PROVIDED you do not TRAMPLE ALL OVER *EVERYONE'S* RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS, TO DO SO.

      Then you do not care about freedom at all.

      --
      Da derp dee derp da teedly derpee derpee dum. Rated PG-13.
    9. Re:Welcome to the USA... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No, I do not. I'd be very happy if all paedophiles were rounded up tomorrow and executed. Yes, executed.

      Yes! Also other sexual deviants (homosexuals, bisexuals, asexuals, masochists, paraphiles, etc.), those with any other mental illnesses (easily determined by searching prescription databases for patients using psychotropic medications), anyone with a criminal record, those with genetic markers predisposing them to illness or criminal behavior, gypsies, welfare recipients, malcontents, leftists, third-party voters, non-voters, undocumented workers and their employers, and anyone opposed to our final solution, or suspected of — or genetically predisposed to — opposing it. Should any "innocents" (heh...) be "accidentally" cleansed, paradise in the company of our Lord God awaits them.

    10. Re:Welcome to the USA... by rvw · · Score: 1

      Land where Freedom will not be tolerated.

      The server was in France, and the the admin is being prosecuted in Ireland.

      Those are minor details in the war on freedom.

    11. Re:Welcome to the USA... by Zemran · · Score: 1

      I realise that it is stupid to expect logic from an AC but the case has nothing to do with child porn. The person arrested did not have any involvement with child porn any more than the DNS servers or Google did. If a child porn user uses Tor it does not make Tor connected with child porn. I realise that this may be a bit complicated at your age.

      --
      I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
    12. Re:Welcome to the USA... by swalve · · Score: 1

      There is no right to break the law.

  3. Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by BenEnglishAtHome · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Remember when we used to think that U.S. LEOs still had some sense of ethics and would never actually send child porn to anyone to make a case? Now we know that, at least for a while, the FBI was running the servers. The FBI was responsible for serving up, by all accounts, half the *.onion-based child porn sites in the world.

    Is this the first time they crossed this line? Or have they done so before?

    1. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      According to the summary: On August 4, all the sites hosted by Freedom Hosting — some with no connection to child porn — began serving an error message with hidden code embedded in the page.

      The FBI didn't serve any child porn. While they had control of the servers, the sites served nothing but an error page with their trojan.

    2. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by sribe · · Score: 1

      Is this the first time they crossed this line? Or have they done so before?

      IIRC, the USPS did this as long ago as the 80s...

    3. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by Man+On+Pink+Corner · · Score: 1

      US authorities have a long history of peddling pornography through the mail, whatever kind was most offensive to society at the time. Nowadays it's kiddie porn, but that wasn't always the case.

      Goes back a hundred years at least.

    4. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

      Remember when we used to think that U.S. LEOs still had some sense of ethics and would never actually send child porn to anyone to make a case? Now we know that, at least for a while, the FBI was running the servers. The FBI was responsible for serving up, by all accounts, half the *.onion-based child porn sites in the world.

      Are you trying to claim that the FBI pushed child porn to people that weren't looking for it? Or are you complaining that they seized an existing child porn distribution network and ran a sting against people that came looking for it?

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    5. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by Adult+film+producer · · Score: 1

      That's the cover story..

    6. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by Pseudonym+Authority · · Score: 4, Informative

      They had control of the servers since late July (citation: the summary, try reading it). They started serving malware in August.

      What calender are you using during which August comes before July? Or did I miss the announcement that we'd have a dozen or so extra leapdays this year?

    7. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by Pseudonym+Authority · · Score: 4, Interesting

      *.onion sites do not work that way. They are hosted within the Tor network itself, and should never see an exit node. The only thing the server communicates with is localhost, on a port that Tor runs on. They are designed to protect the identity of the server operator, but are also useful in that they can get around almost any NAT bullshit going on. Anyway, the FBI would have to be actively running those servers that were serving child porn, so they don't get a pass with that excuse.

    8. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by Burz · · Score: 2

      Remember when we used to think that U.S. LEOs still had some sense of ethics and would never actually send child porn to anyone to make a case? Now we know that, at least for a while, the FBI was running the servers. The FBI was responsible for serving up, by all accounts, half the *.onion-based child porn sites in the world.

      Is this the first time they crossed this line? Or have they done so before?

      Yes, and they also browbeat poor and indigent people (sometimes a hundred times or more) into acts of "terrorism". And they do it within the environs of leftist political movements. Making the population unnecessarily afraid of death/dismemberment from otherwise peaceful political groups is terrorist activism in a class of its own.

    9. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      Is this the first time they crossed this line? Or have they done so before?

      First time? The *entire premise* of the government model is to do some wrong in order to do (some other) right. "The ends justify the means" is baked in the cake.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    10. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by nbauman · · Score: 2

      IIRC, the USPS did this as long ago as the 80s...

      Jacobson v. United States
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._United_States

      The bad news is that it was a 5-4 decision.

      The current Supreme Court probably wouldn't vote that way again today.

      It's almost impossible to win an entrapment defense today.

    11. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by nbauman · · Score: 1

      Is this the first time they crossed this line?

      No.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._United_States

    12. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      They seized a hosting service and then served child porn. You are presuming too much when you assume the porn was there before they seized it. It's also possible (or probable) that the FBI seized it, then uploaded to catch anyone who came looking for a Rhianna song.

    13. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by rtb61 · · Score: 2

      Sorry not a sting, straight up breaking of computer laws by the FBI. I have ended up upon hundreds of thousands of internet pages I never intended to, some by misrepresentation on search results, some by redirects, some by stumble upon, some by other random web site selectors, some by bad web page adds, some by simple eye hand coordination between mouse pointer and mouse clicks (overall the worst has been re-directs, ending up going from one place to another without ever getting to the place intended until you give up and start again). On today's internet the claim by the FBI that every one who ended up on that site purposefully is laughable and that they had the right to hack a visitors computer based upon that is a criminal lie, especially when they had no idea from where the visitor comes or how they got there.

      The absolute limit of what the FBI could do is to make available a downloadable file, an executable, with claim of illegal contents being made available, which the end user has to voluntarily download and execute. A trojan web site is and always will be a criminal act because everyone with half a brain knows once it is found out or suspected, bogus links will appear all over the web to suck people into going there.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    14. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by wbr1 · · Score: 2

      Let us not forget, they ran ALL of freedom hosting and brought down ALL of freedom hosting, even non pedo sites. What do you think would happen if they took over all of AWS because someone set up a child porn server?

      --
      Silence is a state of mime.
    15. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Is this the first time they crossed this line? Or have they done so before?

      Why would the FBI would draw up lines that they'd constantly be on the wrong side of? US federal law enforcement agencies are no better than the other criminal gangs they're overtly trying to distance themselves with PR and rhetoric, but their actions are clear and consistent indicators of their moral bankruptcy and their contempt for the laws they're paid to enforce.

    16. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by Kjella · · Score: 2

      It has long been a court approved policy that if the cops find a running server they don't have to take it down, they can keep the lights on and record all the people accessing it. As far as I know that has been the case since FTP servers in the 80s if not before. However, it's the first time I've heard of them serving trojans, that means actively breaking the law in all other countries of the world by compromising clients that aren't under US jurisdiction. In particular if this happened on sites that weren't in any way related to the child porn except being hosted on the same provider then it's a pretty blatant case of cyberterrorism. State supported terrorism, Afghanistan and the USA fuck yeah!

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    17. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by countach · · Score: 1

      Well... I suppose they'd argue it isn't terrorism if the bit of code they inserted merely reported on the identity of the user, and didn't do anything else nefarious.

    18. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by X.25 · · Score: 1

      Are you trying to claim that the FBI pushed child porn to people that weren't looking for it? Or are you complaining that they seized an existing child porn distribution network and ran a sting against people that came looking for it?

      You are beyond naive if you seriously belive these 'raids' have anything to do with child porn (of their case about children).

    19. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Well, most people have a mistaken understanding of what entrapment is in the first place. Most of them should read this:

      I was entrapped

      Really it's a very tight needle eye that says you weren't predisposed to commit the crime or you were under actual duress and not just enticement to commit the crime, that is to say the police forced you not merely gave you the opportunity. Quite specifically they've got every right to act like a horny 13 year old on the net, and if you respond to that you're guilty because you'd respond to a horny 13 year old on the net. Or they in some way gave you the opportunity to to buy pot and you did it because meh why not, doesn't matter that the "pusher" was pushy and was giving you a good deal. You really have to show that you wouldn't under any circumstance buy pot unless the police had pushed you to it. That's a tall order for anyone, most people are "corruptible" and entrapment only applies if you aren't.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    20. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by nbauman · · Score: 2

      Well, you can't argue with a comic book. That's the law.

      But the law is wrong. It goes against my sense of fairness. If you wouldn't have broken the law, but for the cops encouraging and facilitating your lawbreaking, that's entrapment.

      There were a lot of recent cases where undercover agents found somebody who couldn't change a tire, much less build a bomb, and set him up in a whole bomb plot, together with fake explosives. Cops are very manipulative, and they have a track record of finding people who are mentally subnormal or desperate and manipulating them.

      Or people who had never been involved in terrorist activities, who were offered enormous amounts of money, or tricked into getting into a plot that they didn't think they could get out of. I'm thinking of a couple of stories I heard on NPR, one of them an elderly man who was tricked and led into buying anti-aircraft missiles in a supposed plot to down a passenger plane, the other who was running a pizzaria in upstate New York who had financial problems and was offered a large amount of money by an undercover agent. Did I say they were arabs?

      As the Illustrated Guide to Law points out, duress is a defense. A lot of those cases seemed to involve duress and manipulation, but the jury just convicted them anyway. One juror admitted that she agreed it was entrapment, but she just went along with the rest of the jury so that she could go home.

      Entrapment isn't a defense when you have a predisposition to commit a crime. But a lot of these people had no predisposition to commit a crime until a manipulative undercover agent talked them into it.

    21. Re:Takeaway: The FBI Served Up Child Porn by Keith+Henson · · Score: 1

      "and would never actually send child porn to anyone to make a case?"

      They did it to Robert Thomas in the Amateur Action BBS case. Almost 20 years ago.

      http://www.zoklet.net/totse/en/law/high_profile_legal_cases/aabust.html

      Charged him too. But even a jury of Sunday School teachers didn't convict on that particular charge.

      --
      End MGM. Get prospective parents of boys to Google: Men do complain
  4. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by arbiter1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Its called "unauthorized access of a computer" which is a federal offense.

  5. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's far more likely a case of planting "pedo" porn so they would have an excuse to break in and monitor everything in a fit of Snowden based paranoia.

  6. Re:Tormail... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You're a fool if you actually believe their attack was against pedophiles.

    Lets just face it already. Our government is out of control and it won't be easy to stop now that things are so far in motion.

  7. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by return+42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First they came for the pedophiles on Freedom Hosting, and I said nothing because pedophiles are scum.

    Then they came for the drug dealers on Silk Road, and I said nothing because drug dealers are scum too.

    Then they came for the leakers on {Wiki|Live|you pick one}Leaks, and I said nothing because I don't have time to read that stuff anyway.

    Then they passed a law against using privacy tools such as Tor, Mixmaster, proxies, and crypto, because terrorists 9/11 OMG, and I said nothing because I have nothing to hide.

    Then I tried to fly to my Dad's funeral and found out that I'm on the no-fly list. I still am. No one will tell me why, and there's nothing I can do to change it.

    Then the police broke down my door because I had set up my wireless router wrong and someone had done something illegal over my connection, and it took me three years to get the charges dropped, and I lost my job and had to file bankruptcy, and I never did get my computer back. And what happened to the government agents who had wrongly prosecuted me? Nothing whatsoever. And what compensation did I get? The court ruled that the government had not violated its rules and therefore I was not owed anything. Have a nice day.

  8. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by DoubleJ1024 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You joke about that but the county next to mine just had the sheriff arrested for that very thing. He would find his opponents or others who made him angry, arrest them for child porn, plant the child porn, and then splash their name all over the news to ruin their reputation. He finally got caught when he arrested the wrong person. This guy called the FBI and the County District Attorney, who both pressed charges against him. I think the total charge count is around 30 felony counts of evidence tampering, witness tampering, intimidation, and other corruption issues. This stuff is too good to be made up sometimes.

  9. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by fractoid · · Score: 1

    Then the "child porn" has done its job nicely.

    --
    Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
  10. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Uhh ... given that he who was the gold makes the rules, if there was a court order allowing it, or a clause in some law allowing it, it was authorized, just not by the owners of the computers.

    Sorry, but I'm failing to follow your point here. Since when is an electronic device a waiver to standard privacy and due process?

    Perhaps if the FBI were trying to break into my car I would understand this analogy better, but my point still stands. A "computer" is not automatic grounds for illegal wiretaps (and when I use the term "illegal", I'm referring to my Constitutionally protected Rights, not some secret court horseshit that "authorized" a waiver around said Rights, which remains illegal no matter who granted it.)

  11. What the fuck is going on? by Kevin+Fishburne · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How is any of this remotely legal? Every day we have a new article explaining how the feds have been pounding our apparently imagined liberties in the goat ass, they get 300-500 comments (a lot for ./ these days) and then nothing happens. I'm a healthy skeptic, but this is literally the paranoid conspiracy-theorist's worse nightmare incarnate. I'm flabbergasted. In all seriousness, do we need to just move to a different country at some point? Is this what the start of a pseudo-democracy looks like and we just can't believe the warning signs are real? Just crazy...

    --
    Buy your next Linux PC at eightvirtues.com
    1. Re:What the fuck is going on? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      People are starting to do things though. Snowden waiting to see if Obama would reverse it but when Obama only made it worse Snowden had to go public. So , yes, people actually ARE hitting a breaking point.

    2. Re:What the fuck is going on? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It has been this way for decades. Now that enough of the population grew up in a sham republic they can be more blatant about it because there aren't enough people left who can tell the difference.

    3. Re:What the fuck is going on? by Martin+Blank · · Score: 4, Informative

      You can't win by moving to another country. As much as Germany got up in arms about the NSA spying on it, German intelligence agencies have also been found to be skirting their own laws regarding monitoring people. If you want to move you have to find a country that is:
      * Not part of UKUSA (knocking out United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK)
      * Not part of NATO (knocking from the list Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Turkey)
      * Not extremely friendly to or reliant on US intelligence assets (removing Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, Israel, and much of South America)
      * Not part of the former Soviet Union (even Ukraine is working closely with Moscow these days)
      * Not making a public point of monitoring its residents (China, India, and others)
      * Still reasonably democratic and not horribly corrupt (seriously, US corruption has nothing on most of the world)

      The list gets very small at this point. You have Finland and Sweden, but they're not trivial places to move to weather-wise unless you've lived in, say, Alaska or Maine, and Sweden may have been working with the NSA and/or monitoring its residents. Switzerland is also a possibility. But these require some very significant personal choices, involve massive lifestyle changes, and may not be possible as even the short list of nations that do fit the bill don't make immigration easy.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    4. Re:What the fuck is going on? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is there any example of the FBI or NSA misusing any of the data they are supposed to collecting?

      Yes, there is. The Special Operations Division of the DEA used NSA intercepts to target people for arrest. "After an arrest was made, agents then pretended that their investigation began with the traffic stop, not with the SOD tip, the former agent said. The training document reviewed by Reuters refers to this process as 'parallel construction.'"

    5. Re:What the fuck is going on? by flayzernax · · Score: 1

      Honduras was supposed to be pretty good. Though Latin America is a playground for these people.

      However if your just a meaningless expatriate who does not get involved in corrupt local politics or drugs. You could potentially live out 2-4 decades peacefully in a South American country, or one that may have recently gotten back in good standing with the IMF, such as Argentina. But don't take my word from it. This is only gleaned from my cursory research googling the web.

    6. Re:What the fuck is going on? by flayzernax · · Score: 1

      My personal favorites are hostile and extreme environments with the lowest population densities. Where you will not be of interest.

    7. Re:What the fuck is going on? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      So neither the judge nor the court knew of the illegal nature of the method used to make the initial investigation so they couldn't rule on its legality. Catch 22.

    8. Re:What the fuck is going on? by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      I'm a healthy skeptic, but this is literally the paranoid conspiracy-theorist's worse nightmare incarnate.

      and the most troubling part is that the reality hasn't changed - it's just become apparent. The "tinfoil crowd" has been right all along.

      I'm flabbergasted. In all seriousness, do we need to just move to a different country at some point?

      A less drastic step is to join others who feel this way in the same country. There is strength in numbers, which is causing them to gather. Be careful of selection bias - a great many people (I'd dare say even the majority) are not paying attention and have no idea how extreme the situation is. And - also - 'cause holy shit - we're not even 10% of the way though the Snowden disclosures.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    9. Re:What the fuck is going on? by hammyhew · · Score: 1

      I do legitimately wonder why there aren't entire legions of freedom fighters laying siege to capitol hill right now.

    10. Re:What the fuck is going on? by TheSeatOfMyPants · · Score: 4, Insightful

      if you are concerned about the low number of people protesting or not protesting maybe you should consider that your opinion is not widely shared with the majority.

      Based on the people I know, the lack of protests is actually because of two things:

      1) They rely on mainstream media outlets for news, and those sources only cover government misbehavior on the late-night news (and then it's often to discredit the opposition), if at all -- they only hype the stuff that will bring them ratings in the short-term, which is primarily entertainment shows like Dancing With The Twats.

      2) Most of the people that are aware of it at this point are demoralized and feel hopeless. The past decade has shown us that writing our representatives or peaceful 1-2 day protests will be ignored regardless of size (Iraq War protests), and the OWS protests showed that sit-ins/lie-ins or anything lasting over a day will be met with aggression & violence by police while politicians ignore it & the media discredits the protesters.

      So what effective options do we have left? What can we do that will actually make a difference, and not merely result in our faces being pepper-sprayed or bashed in?

      --
      Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
    11. Re:What the fuck is going on? by philip.paradis · · Score: 1

      That person may be someone who was born in the United States, but is presently living elsewhere. I have no evidence to back up such a hypothesis, but I am noting the possibility.

      I have several friends who have left U.S. soil over the last five years without any intention of returning. I am still here, and I still dearly love what my nation is supposed to stand for. Unfortunately, reality is moving farther and farther from that ideal, all in the name of supposedly protecting the very freedoms that are being destroyed from within.

      --
      Write failed: Broken pipe
    12. Re:What the fuck is going on? by trifish · · Score: 1

      Your personal *dream* favorites. You wouldn't survive there more than a few weeks, bud. Because, as you said, "you will not be of interest" there (for instance, when you break a bone and need help, or food, or protection from bandits...)

    13. Re:What the fuck is going on? by Martin+Blank · · Score: 1

      These often require one to get involved in the very corruption that people decry within the US, only on a much more local scale. Many people in these areas must bribe their garbagemen to get regular service--when there are such services. Other than that, getting a government clerk to respond to a form within weeks or months often requires a bribe, getting the police to ignore you for something petty requires a bribe (and bribing them too low may result in much worse charges).

      There are countries where someone can live quietly off the grid for a long time. I'm told that Belize is one of these countries. But for a modern technogeek, it gets much more difficult.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    14. Re:What the fuck is going on? by Howitzer86 · · Score: 1

      This is their reasoning, yes. But how far should it go without some sort of challenge?

    15. Re:What the fuck is going on? by hyades1 · · Score: 1

      Got mod points. Can't put you up any higher. Yes, at some point the sheeple will have to start protesting about the level of predation.

      I wish I had even the slightest confidence that it would happen.

      --
      I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
    16. Re:What the fuck is going on? by he-sk · · Score: 2

      Sweden cooperates closely with Five Eyes. Apparently, their intelligence service is out of control as well. Sorry, no links, but you can google it yourself. Incidentally, that brings a few incidents of the past into a new light, e.g., the raid on the pirate bay servers as well as the charges against Assange.

      --
      Free Manning, jail Obama.
    17. Re:What the fuck is going on? by Moskit · · Score: 1

      People use up all their energy to write a comment on Slashdot.
      There is nothing left to perform actual protest.

    18. Re:What the fuck is going on? by Ragzouken · · Score: 1

      Swedish FRA were part of the conspiracy to weaken encryption implementations along with GCHQ and the NSA :(

    19. Re:What the fuck is going on? by mellyra · · Score: 1

      German intelligence agencies have also been found to be skirting their own laws regarding monitoring people.

      citation needed The BND is legally allowed to evaluate to 20% of internet communications between Germany and foreign countries and only just got granted 100m € over the next five years for additional infrastructure because so far they only manage to evaluate about 5% of traffic.

      Seeing how the vast majority of internet services is hosted outside of the US this pretty much allows them to monitor the internet usage of Germans without having to break any laws.

    20. Re:What the fuck is going on? by cavreader · · Score: 1

      "They rely on mainstream media outlets for news"

      This kind a statement along with the idea that Americans only get their news from US media outlets only exposes the hubris of those making the claims. Do you think using the Internet for wide ranging news services is a secret that only a few people know about it? The non-US based news services just offer another view point of the topic and usually one slanted to serve their own editorial lines. The OWS protests where not broken up for a week. Most of the demonstrations were blocking traffic and inconveniencing businesses and residents in the area. Add to the fact that the OWS protests had people wondering what in the hell was being protested against since there did seem to be any coordination amongst the various protesters. People protesting anything ought to be able to suggest how to fix whatever it is the are up in arms about. Unless you can provide a viable steps to achieve the changes you are looking for. Look around the world at all the protests and you will see it is not really that hard to bring a government down with a little violence but most of them don't have a clue about how to build a viable government to replace the one they are bringing down and chaos takes over. The OSW protests were complaining about income equality but how do you go about accomplishing that lofty goal? Kill the rich and distribute their money to everyone? You could take all the money from the much ballyhooed 1% and distribute it equally amongst the 99% and each recipient may get about $10. I also heard a lot of complaining from people who went to college and could not find a job after they graduated. If you want to go to college and spend all that money you should probably look at the job market before you spend all that money and see exactly what jobs are in demand today. A political science or History degree will not offer up very many jobs.

      " met with aggression & violence by police while politicians ignore it & the media discredits the protesters."
        The aggression only started after over 2 weeks of protesting.

    21. Re:What the fuck is going on? by swalve · · Score: 1

      it's legal because it's right in the law as passed. Almost all laws have exceptions that say things like "except when done by law enforcement agents while working on a case." Speeding, kiddie porn, cell phones while driving, it's all over the place.

  12. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Martin+Blank · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If there's a court order behind this, it's less problematic in my mind. Not all court orders are publicized even by normal courts; search warrants aren't provided to the targets to challenge before execution precisely so they can't hide or destroy evidence.

    The problem I have with this operation is that it was conducted on servers located in France, which means that either French law enforcement was also involved (very possible) or the FBI is hacking servers across international boundaries. That puts at risk any agents involved as they could be tried under French law for such trespass, though given that it was to deal with child pornography, the political result is that it probably wouldn't result in much more than a warning.

    --
    You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
  13. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Pseudonym+Authority · · Score: 3, Funny

    And now they can serve gigabytes of child porn to pedophiles, then serve malware to practically everyone who uses Tor, pedo or not, and even stupid fascists who love to ramble on about justice and other shit to justify practically everything will still defend them.

    Maybe next they can sell crack too schoolchildren in an attempt to find the crackheads who steal it from them.

  14. Re:Why is he being extradited? by Martin+Blank · · Score: 5, Informative

    The bank account in Las Vegas means that he was paying for (and perhaps profiting from) the servers. That provides US jurisdiction no matter where the data was being stored. The same thing happens around the world: if part of an action happens within a given country and it's illegal in that country, jurisdiction applies. They may have to work through extradition, but in this case, France may also look to get a piece of him, especially if he's not convicted in the US. France may then go through extradition to get him into their courts for storing child porn on French soil.

    --
    You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
  15. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Apothem · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So what source do you have to prove this?

  16. Re:Why is he being extradited? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Because no one wants pedophiles. There's been many suggestions to deport all of them to a small (5*10 meters) island in the pacific ocean (Pedoph Isle), but funding is unavailable at this time.

  17. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    yes! stand up for rights and freedom regardless.

  18. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." -- H. L. Mencken

  19. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by cheater512 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A US court order might as well be toilet paper in France or anywhere else in the world. No US court has the authority to authorise that.

    In fact many countries would take that as an act of war.

  20. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by cheater512 · · Score: 1

    *cough* alleged paedophiles technically.

    Oh an a whole lot of completely legal, less seedy things like email.

  21. Re:Why is he being extradited? by myowntrueself · · Score: 1

    Oh, I forgot. The internet is US soil, right?

    Soil? Its dirty, I'll give you that...

    --
    In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
  22. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Burz · · Score: 1

    Then the police broke down my door because I had set up my wireless router wrong and someone had done something illegal over my connection, and it took me three years to get the charges dropped, and I lost my job and had to file bankruptcy, and I never did get my computer back. And what happened to the government agents who had wrongly prosecuted me? Nothing whatsoever. And what compensation did I get? The court ruled that the government had not violated its rules and therefore I was not owed anything. Have a nice day.

    Ah, yes....

    Remember all those long-ago Slashdot discussions with one side shouting "Tin-foil hat!" every time possible chilling effects like this were postulated?

    Dude, your ID shows that you signed up not much longer after I did (in an era when we told ourselves the old baddies--those twisted, ruthless peronality types--couldn't possibly exist in our groovy postmodern times.

    --now--

    --here we are!

    You're probably on that list for being an opinionated online malcontent.

    Good luck to you (and me).

  23. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Tatarize · · Score: 1

    Maybe there is such a law or court order allowing it and it's just hidden? Do you have security clearance enough to know whether they broke the law?

    --

    It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
  24. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Tatarize · · Score: 4, Funny

    France should take it as such too!

    Surrender in 5...4...3...2...

    --

    It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
  25. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Tatarize · · Score: 1

    Actually you'd need to turn scripts on in tor, and use it outside of tor too. Two things you are never suppose to do with tor. In fact, it's a security problem that the tor browser pack even allows either of those things to be turned on at all. It ended up serving malware to pretty much nobody, I'd figure. I don't know how stupid the average tor user is.

    --

    It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
  26. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by flayzernax · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The presidents of European nations all heal to the same masters as ours. Seen a NYTimes photo of Turkeys elected leader. Same suit, same tie, same generic lapel pin, on the same side. They are uniformed soldiers doing their duty. If there's any outrage from a local or lower government official it will just be to placate the masses, save face, the end of said officials careers. Might as well be clones IMO.

  27. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by flayzernax · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Its not the first time I have read about it. I read about an incident similar to this several years ago in a mainstream news outlet... NYTimes, Time, or some other magazine.

    The problem is that it occurs more then once every few years.

  28. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I have no strong feelings on this controversy.

    Paedophiles, huh?

    So you have no strong feelings against YOUR rights being violated as long as it's to catch paedophiles.

    Greeting citizen, you have passed the first step towards being permitted to remain a citizen.

  29. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by dadelbunts · · Score: 1

    Why are drug dealers on SilkRoad scum? Is your local bartender scum as well?

  30. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Try felony counts evidence tampering, witness tampering, intimidation and sheriff in google with a one year date limit.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  31. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    A US court order might as well be toilet paper in France or anywhere else in the world. No US court has the authority to authorise that.

    In fact many countries would take that as an act of war.

    They don't need a court order in France or anywhere else in the world other than the US. The concept of "legality" doesn't work the same when you're talking about a government agency operating inside the borders of a different nation.

  32. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    The insight is a list of ip hunting drag net operations and how just been found reading news via privacy tools on the 'net' could soon be a life changing event ie no-fly list or soon a no buy list.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  33. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    This might be the story, or at least a similar one: http://www.wlox.com/story/23305442/look-back-mike-byrds-career-as-sheriff

  34. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by larry+bagina · · Score: 1

    Did the court order also say they could plant child porn on those computers?

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  35. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by LandDolphin · · Score: 1

    Using that same logic, no court ordered warrant was needed then.

    --
    Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
  36. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by AK+Marc · · Score: 1, Troll

    They hacked servers to stop "sharers", and in doing so, planted pedo to make more arrests.

  37. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, that is the implication. If they take away your right to speech by targeting the pedos first, then yes. It's your rights that are gone, and if you don't speak up for the social democrats or gypsies, there won't be anyone left to speak up when they come for you.

    That saying was just a re-telling of "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

  38. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by LandDolphin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is why the ACLU gets so much bad press. They tend to protect the rights of everyone by protecting he rights of the worst of us.

    --
    Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
  39. Re:Why is he being extradited? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Neverland?

  40. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by cheater512 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh good since I'm in Australia I can hack the CIA with impunity! :D

  41. Re: So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by tolkienfan · · Score: 1

    In fact, no country would actually act on such an "act of war" and few would even claim it was such.

  42. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by JohnVanVliet · · Score: 3, Interesting

    not correct
    for some yet to be explained well reason
    ff 17.0 and up in the tor-bundle
    have "allow javascript " turned ON BY DEFAULT !!!!!
    you as the user must DISABLE IT !!!!!!

    the BS reason so far has been
    "we want more people to use tor on the "clear net" and most clear-net sites NEED javascript

    --
    "I don't pitch OpenSUSE Linux to my friends, i let Microsoft do it for me
  43. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by JohnVanVliet · · Score: 1

    All they did was to create there very own "home grown ...( fill in the blank ) " .

    and the Govt. wonders where they come from
    the Govt. makes them .

    --
    "I don't pitch OpenSUSE Linux to my friends, i let Microsoft do it for me
  44. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by return+42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You're probably on that list for being an opinionated online malcontent.

    And for openly giving money to WikiLeaks :)

  45. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now you touch the point the FBI relies on... Yell childporn and most people shy away. Defending rights and such is nice and well, but who want to be seen as defending childporn. And so people happily ignore the rights of other users being ignored. It works equally well with terrorism. The RIAA screaming how illegal downloading supports terrorists. By now any bittorrent traffic is seen as something illegal.

  46. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

    That may cover Larry Flynt, for better or worse, but it won't cover Geoffrey Portway .

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  47. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by return+42 · · Score: 1

    Eh, well. Don't really have a problem with bartenders or those who only sell weed. Relatively harmless. Was thinking more in terms of the people, at all levels of the business, who made meth and sold it to my brother, thereby helping him thoroughly fuck up his head and destroy his life. (Unlike the no-fly list etc. above, not speaking rhetorically this time.) And all the other people who likewise make their living by helping people fuck themselves up.

    (Of course, the perfectly legal tobacco industry is ethically in the same category -- only difference is that it generally doesn't destroy the victim until after they've left the workforce, so people don't care as much.)

  48. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It shows exactly the point. Yes you need the defend the rights of pedophiles and drugs dealers. The are the same rights as the rights of the innocent people. It leads for example to laws against encryption because terrorists and pedophiles can use encryption. Rights are stripped away because we fight terrorists and pedophiles, but its not just the rights of pedophiles and terrorists that are being stripped away, it's everybody's rights that are being stripped away...

  49. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

    He wrote "pedophiles," not "alleged pedophiles," and "drug dealers," not "alleged drug dealers ." I assume he knew what he meant with his rhetorical device.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  50. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is no "right" to molest children.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  51. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by xenobyte · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." -- H. L. Mencken

    Brilliant, as most of the stuff Mencken said/wrote!

    --
    "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
  52. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

    You have this correct, "Yes you need the defend the rights of pedophiles and drugs dealers. The are the same rights as the rights of the innocent people." They have the same Constitutional rights as other people, but they do not have the right to engage in their crimes. Pedophiles have the right to remain silent, and trial by jury, but not to molest children.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  53. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by cold+fjord · · Score: 2

    Yes, including this: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." - H. L. Mencken

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  54. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by istartedi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So the FBI had a treasure trove of evidence that would lead to the prevention of actual children being abused, and instead of tracking down all those leads they decided to prosecute the people who provided them that treasure trove.

    There. FTFY.

    Were I director of the FBI, I'd be obtaining warrants based on this info left and right. That would be perfectly legitimate; but NooooO. They have to go after the network instead. Why? Is it possible that they actually depend on pedos? Kinda like the DEA--make drugs a public health issue rather than a law enforcement issue, and they're out of a job. Get the actual kiddie porn producers off the street, and a lot of FBI agents might be out of jobs too.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
  55. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    And being a socialist/communist is wrong, why?

  56. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by blackest_k · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.wlox.com/story/23301502/byrd-indictment-details-charges-involving-surveillance-sex

    might be more relevant

    http://ftpcontent4.worldnow.com/wlox/Byrd%20Indictment.pdf

    However although there are charges essentially relating to misuse of police resources and abuse of his position. There are no charges relating to planting of evidence with regards to the 2 cases of child porn and cannabis where the defendants were cleared. However if there were such charges then you would have to assume that any cases brought by his department may be tainted and that is a massive can of worms to open.

       

  57. No - the US charges people for that by Bruce66423 · · Score: 1

    The famous case of the UK hacker who got into US government computers looking for an alien cover up established that the US will seek to extradite people who do that even if they don't set foot in the US.

    1. Re:No - the US charges people for that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's a bad one, since he hacked an American server.

      A better one would have been Richard O'Dwyer, who had never been on the U.S. and that the Americans demanded to be extradited because he had a website set up for streaming TV shows.

  58. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by return+42 · · Score: 1

    I don't watch the show, but it sure would be ironic if someone in W.W.'s family ended up addicted to meth, wouldn't it? I don't know if they've done that or plan to, but I'm sure they've thought of it.

    Actions have consequences. W.W.'s score: plus 10 for trying to provide for his family, minus several million for doing it by enabling hundreds of people to destroy their lives.

  59. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Tatarize · · Score: 1

    Would it be that conspiracy theorist to suggest the feds just asked them to turn it on.

    It shouldn't even be able to be turned on. Like even if people tried. And it shouldn't let you access clear-net either. If you're going to write a bundle with clear security problems, if people do things wrong, you should not allow those things to be done.

    --

    It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
  60. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    straw men much?

    Nor is there a right to trample over the rights of everyone to get a very few...

  61. Re: So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    There is no treatment. Repeat offenses are more than 90%.

    100% wrong on both counts.

  62. There's no right to arrest them. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    There's no "right" to teach your child creationism. And it's as demonstrably harmful to the psyche of the child to teach them christianity as to fondle their hairless bits.

    So shall we arrest parents who indoctrinate their kids?

    There is also the right to a fair trial.

    Or is that not possible for people who are accused of paedophilia, you paedo scumbag?

    (NOTE: There is no need for me to prove my case, all I have to do is accuse it. And, being an accused paedo scumbag, you cannot defend yourself, since there's no "right" to molest children, you paed shitstain).

    1. Re:There's no right to arrest them. by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

      There's no "right" to teach your child creationism.

      There kind of is: freedom of religion.

      (Yes, it disturbs me that in the 21st century there are still religions and denominations that teach creationism. Thankfully they're a small minority worldwide, and at least as far as Christian denominations are concerned, largely confined to the United States.)

      --
      sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  63. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

    How is judging a political leader's skills and ideology by the clothes they wear, insightful?

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  64. "back to a mysterious server in Northern Virginia" by Serif · · Score: 1

    Time to start null routing all address blocks known to be used by the FBI?

  65. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by return+42 · · Score: 2

    Don't really have time to debunk this properly, but I do recall that the ACLU has defended the right of Nazis to have a parade. How does that jibe with your claim?

  66. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Pav · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Murderers have rights. Pedophiles have rights. Rapists have rights.

    They have rights because the best of us and the worst of us share these rights. The powers-that-be want to nibble away at rights of the seemingly most deserving parts of the community, but we'll ALL suffer if these rights cease being universal. As someone else here quoted : "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." -- H. L. Mencken

  67. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by gl4ss · · Score: 1

    >I have no strong feelings on this controversy.

    They kept servers running distributing illegal media. For a while FBI was probably the biggest distributor of child pornography on the planet.

    That is the american law enforcement way: "we're the good guys so we can break the law". actually that is the whole american government way.

    but tor itself appears safe from government intercept for time being(due to them having to stick to this).. it's just what you visit it that might not be.

    and also due to the way their tracking hack worked(if it worked as reported some time ago already) they probably had a high false positive rate(if they went on to bust everyone on their list) on their tracking and if you ran a tor exit node you probably ended up on their tracked list.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  68. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by sjwt · · Score: 1

    Child protection is one of those Law enforcement things that seems to have gotten its shit together with better than normal coporation.

    --
    You have 5 Moderator Points!
    Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
  69. just firewall them out... block in linux kernel by cheekyboy · · Score: 2

    Get Linus to perm block NSA IP addresses in the linux kernel.

    Get every one at home and at all levels of business etc... and android phones/tablets to block all those IP addresses too in all firewalls/modems.

    Infact we could probably black list dozens of A classes by default, and not one would notice.

    We need a distributed ipchains black list that includes all governments of all countries.

    --
    Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
  70. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Flentil · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If you blame drug dealers for messing up your brother's life, you also have to blame bartenders for all the alcoholism, convenience store clerks for all the smoking related deaths, farmers for the obesity epidemic, etc, etc, etc. Or you could just admit that your brother made his own choices and it's no one's fault but his own.

  71. Re:just firewall them out... block in linux kernel by Charliemopps · · Score: 1

    There already is such a thing.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerGuardian
    It's been around for years and there is a "Government IP blocklist"
    The problems with these lists are they are overly broad. You end up blocking a lot of ranges that really aren't what you think they are.
    And the NSA/FBI/CIA can just get new IP's at a whim. They likely have compromised equipment in nearly every company out there as well so they could make it look like they were coming from just about anywhere.

    The anonymity of the internet is one of their greatest weapons despite the fact it's what they're trying to destroy.

  72. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by RoboRay · · Score: 1

    I don't think a US court order granting permission to hack a computer in France is valid in France, and probably not in Ireland either.

  73. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Dogtanian · · Score: 4, Interesting

    France should take it as such too! Surrender in 5...4...3...2...

    Dude, it's 2013, not 2003. France are the US's new best chums now, because they were going to help with the planned strikes in Syria. In fact, John Kerry referred to France as their "oldest ally" in a manner widely interpreted as a snub to the UK, whose parliament had voted against taking part (although the Prime Minister had been in favour).

    Of course, we've been here before with the positions reversed- we all remember when the UK went along with the Iraq war and France were against, how pathetically childish Bush was towards France and how he publicly flattered the UK and Tony Blair as the US's closest ally and best chum. Of course, Blair being an egotistical ***** continued sucking up to the US in the belief that this would buy further influence over them long after it was obvious to anyone that the US only did what it would have done anyway (and admitted as much in private). I commented on this circa 2007 and also noted that- even though Bush was still in power then- France (and Germany's) defiance of the US earlier in the decade had not resulted in any long term damage to their relationship with them, just as the UK had not gained any substantial influence with its sucking up.

    In short, even if one is an amoral realpolitician (realpolitikian?!), it shows that public sucking-up to- and being publicly flattered as a junior partner by- the US buys little substantial long-term influence, and isn't worth worrying about as much as paranoid-about-losing-global-power British leaders like to think.

    --
    "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
  74. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by elrous0 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Corrupt sheriffs and cops getting busted for planting evidence against political opponents is all-too-common where I'm from in the South. I can think of dozens of cases just off the top of my head. It's almosr a shock here to encounter cops who AREN'T corrupt.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  75. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by dkleinsc · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's a common argument that is told to conservatives to convince them that the ACLU is an evil liberal organization who should be hated. It was, as you point out, originally created to defend Communists from unconstitutional harassment, but that had a lot to do with the fact that Communists and people with communist ideas were unconstitutionally targeted by the US government from about 1880 until about 1990.

    Some examples of causes the ACLU has helped protect their civil rights:
    - National Socialist Party of America.
    - Westboro Baptist Church
    - atheist Michael Newdow
    - NAMBLA
    - Anyone who drives
    - Anyone who wants to be able to view adult images on the Internet
    - Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KT)
    - An ISP that didn't want to spy for the government

    --
    I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
  76. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Pav · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Noone said they did, so pack away that straw man. ;) The argument is our privacy is sacred, and even though it can sometimes shield the guilty it shields the innocent from tyranny too.

  77. Re: So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    "No one it going to war for more thing like this. Go watch more tv dramas."

    Exactly, they'll stop harassing copyright violators for a couple of years , let US cars rot for months in customs an other such niceties.

    Or they just take away Justin Bieber's monkey.

  78. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    They also have the rights to:

    speech, or of the press;
    or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,
    to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
    The right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,
    the right to have no Warrants issued, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

    Note, an awful large number of there have to do with things the FBI did wrong. Also, note, that we have no idea who the murderers, pedophiles and rapests are until AFTER the speedy, fail trial by jury.

  79. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by I'm+New+Around+Here · · Score: 1

    He didn't say it was wrong. He said they focus more on rights that lead to the empowerment of the socialist/communist, and not so much on rights that do the opposite.

    --
    If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
  80. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Lawrence_Bird · · Score: 1

    there are two issues here: illegal search of the hosting computers and the illegal installation of software on computers visiting those hosts. You might be able to get away with the first if the servers are hosted in your country of jurisdiction and you have a warrant. I do not see how any court order can allow the installation of malware on other computers. This would be akin to the FBI installing a tracking device (and one which might cause harm) on every car which parks in a lot which serves legit businesses as well as an "adult bookstore of interest". That doesn't fly.

  81. So, is TOR worthless now? by plazman30 · · Score: 3, Informative

    So. has TOR now been permanently compromised?

    1. Re:So, is TOR worthless now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It was never designed to provide a level of anonymity which would allow you to do incredibly illegal things like buy controlled drugs and download CP, and anybody using it for those activities is retarded. It's a censorship evasion mechanism, that's all. It's an open network, only does 3 hops, is relatively low latency, outproxies to the regular web, and a lot of nodes are outdated versions still using older encryption which is known breakable. Given the NSA's resources and what we now know about their capabilities this means they can fairly easily mount network takeover, Sybil, timing, endpoint compromise and cryptographic attacks against Tor and evidently they have been doing all of those.

      The question was never "is Tor compromised" but rather "how badly."

    2. Re:So, is TOR worthless now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Also the Tor routing algorithm favours fast nodes with high speed links, which is a pretty blatant tradeoff of security for performance. All the NSA has to do is set up a few thousand "supernodes" and stealthily DoS its competitors (who do in fact report getting DoS'd by someone or other) and they can control enough of the network to compromise many communications, for the equivalent of some change they found down the back of their sofa relative to their huge budget.

  82. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by dissy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So let's follow your logic to its final conclusion.

    I accuse you of being a pedophile. By your own admission, you now have NO rights what so ever, as pedophiles don't have the right to rape children, which I claim you did.

    I have a secret court order that I can't show you, and you can't even tell anyone about under penalty of death.
    You'll just have to trust me on that one (Clearly not a problem for one such as yourself who admits people such as yourself have no rights)

    Now you have just given me the right to murder you, I mean "kill you" as you put it. (Murder is the crime, killing is when its legal like this)

    If you resist, I can rely on the fact you have no rights due to being called a pedophile that rapes children, which you have no right to do, and you make no distinction based on if you have actually done it or not so thankfully that detail doesn't matter.

    If you DON'T resist, I can also kill you, since the secret court order I can't show you says I can, despite the fact you can't even verify that as truth.

    Lastly, not only are you dead, but due to your opinions on the law, literally anyone can kill anyone else using the same rules you setup justifying your own murder.

    Way to destroy freedom, pedo!

  83. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Spottywot · · Score: 3

    Murderers have rights. Pedophiles have rights. Rapists have rights.

    That's right, they do. They have the same rights as the rest of us, including the right to a speedy, fair, trial by jury, and the right to remain silent. What they don't have is the right to murder, molest children, and to rape. I don't know how people don't get that.

    I don't see anyone here suggesting otherwise.

    --
    In a cybernetic fit of rage she pissed off to another age...
  84. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 2

    ... a US court order granting permission to hack a computer in France isn't legal in the US either.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  85. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 2

    How the hell did they miss "possession of child porn"? Are they too slow to figure out that you can't plant child porn if you don't posses it?

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  86. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by steelfood · · Score: 1

    Dude, it's 2013, not 2003. France are the US's new best chums now

    So you're saying that they surrendered beforehand to save everyone the trouble of declaring war.

    --
    "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
  87. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

    You should learn to see. You should also learn basic civics. Nobody is suggesting that people "stand up" for the rights of pedophiles and drug dealers to be pedophiles and drug dealers. It is the right against unreasonable search and seizure, and lets not forget evidence planting. Your rationalization (it isn't a rationale, it's a rationalization) is that the people are guilty and so there is therefore no reason to follow due process to determine their guilt.

    That being said, the US government absolutely stands up for the rights of drug dealers to be drug dealers all the time. Perhaps you have never heard of Anheuser-Busch or a Methadone clinic? The US is fine with drug dealers as long as they get their cut and there isn't too much public outcry with the hypocrisy dial set to 11.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  88. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 2

    I know what you mean. I think we can fairly criticize them for not taking their unlimited temporal, manpower, and financial resources and failing to defend every wrong. Whomever came up with the idea that you have to pick your battles clearly was a scoundrel!

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  89. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

    It isn't that they pick their battles, but what battles they pick.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  90. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Pav · · Score: 2

    Actually, reading more carefully perhaps one could argue they did. I don't think that was the meaning, but if it was I guess they'd be saying "all men have the freedom to be good or evil, unless they don't in which case they are not free". I wouldn't agree - it sounds libertarian to me, and I'm not of that flavour and believe that some impingements on freedom given human failings are warranted. In the tradeoff between dangers, however, an out-of-control secret service is FAR more terrible than even a pedo epidemic, and terrorists are a pathetic crazy few unless they actually have a legitimate grevance or their host population is humiliated enough to give them popular support eg. parts of Iraq and Afghanistan. I've also got family history backing up the danger of secret services and state power too (disappeared family members, multiple state-based dark events to escape from over the years). Hell, democracy is based on division of power precicely because concentrated it is so corrupting and dangerous.

  91. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1
    From the first ridiculous article to which you linked:

    " That’s right: your kids have a constitutional right to absorb misinformation."

    Yes. They do. OTOH, reading something isn't "absorbing it as information." It can be used as a talking point just like Tom Sawyer is often used. Why the hell would anyone think otherwise. Unless you want to outlaw the Bible it is certainly a right for people to read mass quantities of ludicrous information.

    " They’re not nearly as interested in allowing both evolution and intelligent design to be discussed in science classes, or in letting a student who disagrees with homosexual behavior present his views openly and peacefully to a fellow student. "

    It is fine to discuss these in Science class, and they have never said it wasn't You can't teach it. Discussion of why they are morons is totally acceptable. I'm sure the ACLU also won't allow the banning of Tom Sawyer from access to students. That doesn't make the ACLU pro-slavery. The whole article reads exactly like what it is: the ramblings of idiots who feel that their imaginary friend has been insulted. I'm not even going to follow the second link.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  92. Re:Tormail... by anagama · · Score: 1

    Our government is out of control and it won't be easy to stop now that things are so far in motion.

    I think we've actually had a velvet coup by the Executive branch. For example, waging war with Libya without Congressional authorization was an usurpation of the power to make war. It looks like Syria isn't going to happen, but a few days ago after Putin suggested negotiating and the Obama admin said that it would talk, it also said that military strikes are still on the table (1). WTF? The Executive branch does not have the power to engage in such strikes without Congressional authority unless it faces an actual imminent threat to America, and it's stretching credulity beyond breaking to suggest Syria is a threat such that it represents "a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces" (2).

    Then we throw in all the ways Federal Agencies like the NSA and FBI are ignoring the constitution, and a reasonable conclusion you can draw is that there has been a coup by the Executive branch. It has come on by increments and was enabled by the courts and Congress, but the Constitutional separation of powers has become so weak, and Constitutional protections so riddled with exceptions (thanks to the War on Some Drugs and more recently, PATRIOT Act), that the time is ripe for the Executive to usurp power. And people don't even know or care that it's illegal -- I saw a poll where something like 30% of Americans thought the president should attack Syria without Congressional authorization (3).

    We are sliding into a democratic-authoritarian government, one where we elect a new dictator every eight years from a slate of handpicked individuals trained in the art by the GOP or DNC.

    (1) http://www.timesofisrael.com/leaving-strike-on-table-kerry-says-syrian-words-on-arms-deal-not-enough/
    (2) War Powers Act: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/1541 ; Constitution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Powers_Clause
    (3) http://www.people-press.org/2013/09/09/opposition-to-syrian-airstrikes-surges/ see section "Majority Says Congress Has Final Authority on Airstrikes"

    --
    What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
  93. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

    That is like saying you found a bigger turd in the toilet bowl.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  94. Is it already too late? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I have to wonder how much longer the people in this country are going to sit back and shake their heads whenever the government breaks the law for convenience, or the congress hacks off another chunk of the bill of rights, or middle class America is handed the bill for another round of horrible investments made by professional investors in banks, , before they begin standing up over such events and making a big noise about it. Apathy may have already led us too far, I'm not sure. My crystal ball sees middle class America continuing to lose their rights, ultimately their right to vote. Those in control think the country would run better if decisions were made by knowledgeable people of their chosing, and put a stop to too many uninformed Joe Blows throwing wrenches in the works. Get rid of most of the government and remove restrictions on business. The middle class will come to serve corporations, who will control most everything anyway. These same corporations will continue to treat their employees as they do now, or it will get worse. Social Security will be cut--after all, old people aren't productive and contribute little to the economy, so why help them to live longer? Besides, they can't complain as well as younger people, so what they have is like a reserve asset to be raided when necessary.

    Until US citizens stand up and in no uncertain terms let the politicians know that we're not going to tolerate it any more, things are going to get progressively worse, I'm afraid.

    NR

  95. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

    Nobody is suggesting that people "stand up" for the rights of pedophiles and drug dealers to be pedophiles and drug dealers.

    Actually yes there are, not only in advocacy, but also in various legal and legislative fights. There are people that post such advocacy on Slashdot with some regularity.

    It is the right against unreasonable search and seizure, and lets not forget evidence planting.

    That should apply in any case. There will obviously be debates about what constitutes "unreasonable."

    Your rationalization (it isn't a rationale, it's a rationalization) is that the people are guilty and so there is therefore no reason to follow due process to determine their guilt.

    No, I think that due process must be followed.

    You should learn to see. You should also learn basic civics.

    I might suggest the same to you, as well as to become better informed.

    "Pedophilia Chic" Reconsidered

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  96. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 2
    It looks like you need to learn about context as well. The phrase "Nobody is suggesting that people "stand up" for the rights of pedophiles and drug dealers to be pedophiles and drug dealers." refers to nobody in this thread. It isn't a claim that there are no such people on the planet.

    "No, I think that due process must be followed."

    It must have been the line "are you suggesting that people "stand up" for pedophiles and drug dealers?" that confused me. For some reason I thought that meant that they don't have the right to due process. In my defense, that is because that is exactly what you implied.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  97. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

    From the article at the first link:

    ... Last week, the ACLU was in federal court, arguing that a Miami-Dade County school board broke the law by removing from its school libraries a book entitled Vamos a Cuba (Let’s Visit Cuba), which offers a strangely luminous view of life in Castro’s island “paradise.” A federal judge has already ruled that the book be returned to the shelves until the case can play out in court.

    The school board’s beef isn’t with what is on the pages, but with what isn’t. Parents filed complaints after finding the book to be devoid of any mention of the oppressive regime instituted by Fidel Castro nearly 50 years ago. Instead, its pages are filled with breezy commentaries on how Cubans enjoy chicken with rice (under the country’s subsidized ration plan, the average Cuban is allotted a whopping 8 ounces per month) and boating as a leisure activity (“boating” being a rather ironic term for the fragile, homemade rafts so many launch out onto the ocean, in desperate bids to escape the regime).

    The book’s cover, available in both English and Spanish versions, is adorned with beaming children dressed in the uniform of the Pioneers, the Communist youth organization that Cuban children are required to join. They look like Cuban Bobbsey Twins.

    Obviously, the Miami children targeted for this book have never been told that questioning the Cuban government is likely to lead to imprisonment that milk is far too expensive for most on the island to purchase that access to everyday activities like surfing the Internet is not only severely limited, but closely monitored by the government for any shred of dissent against Castro and his cronies.

    Absent from the pages of Vamos a Cuba is any mention of the ruthless 20-year prison sentences levied on Cuban poets and journalists and priests who failed to fawn over their fearless leader. Instead, the book depicts Cubans as living as freely as they please.

    I think that is a more substantial concern that you let on.

    I'm not even going to follow the second link.

    I think I can understand why you might find it disagreeable.

    The ACLU’s untold Stalinist heritage

    Other documents released in the 1990s by KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin show the American Communist Party was under the Moscow’s direct control until 1989.

    “These guys were advocating a regime that arguably was the biggest mass murderer in all of human history,” Kengor said. “Where is the moral authority in that?”

    Kengor told The Daily Caller he found numerous other documents in the Soviet Comintern archives that also show a close relationship between the Communist Party and the ACLU.

    These documents corroborate rumors that have circulated about the ACLU’s founders and early leaders dating back to the 1920s.

    The ACLU would not comment on Kengor’s research, but the ACLU’s official history describes its founders as a “small group of idealists” who began the organization amid the “Palmer Raids” of late 1919 and early 1920 against “so-called radicals”.

    “The problem here is what is being left out of the narrative,” Kengor said. “Palmer, who was attorney general to Woodrow Wilson, the great progressive’s progressive, understood, as did the Wilson administration, that many of these radicals were American communists who were literally devoted to the overthrow of the U.S. government and its replacement with a ‘Soviet-American republic.’

    “American communists actually stated such things in their proclamations, documents, and fliers.”

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  98. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 1

    Plonk.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  99. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by phorm · · Score: 1

    Accused "X" have rights, which is probably the most important thing.
    A person accused has the right to a FAIR trial. Fair includes not having one's life ruined in pursuit of a witch-hunt.

    Convicted "X" have less rights, but they still have rights too. However these days even the accusation is being treated as assumed guilt.

  100. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Tatarize · · Score: 1

    They are. I totally love France. They are great. But, just because Bush was actually an asshole about it above and beyond a gentle ribbing. Doesn't mean the standard fair of croissant eating surrender monkeys stopped being a go-to joke. What next I can't make fun of the British's teeth because their health plans added it and they largely have fine teeth now? Or that they boil their food because sometimes they don't?

    --

    It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
  101. Yo, dawg! by PPH · · Score: 1

    We put a virus in your virus. So we could pwn your computer while it was being pwned.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  102. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 1

    The US doesn't extradite anybody for any action which is protected here by the US constitution. So for example, if I were to post Nazi propaganda on a German server somewhere, Germany wouldn't have any luck getting me extradited since it is protected by the first amendment.

    I'm not sure how far down that extends to regular laws though, but I do know that it does. If these agents were acting within US laws (i.e. everything was done by the book,) France would have an extremely difficult time seeking extradition.

    --
    Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
  103. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by flayzernax · · Score: 2

    For those of us that aren't averse to conspiracy, Masonic symbolism is a big one =)

  104. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by flayzernax · · Score: 1

    Also, birds of a feather, flock together. Fashion is dictated more by station then personal preference in those circles.

  105. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by flayzernax · · Score: 1

    th[a]n

  106. Re:Why is he being extradited? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Tracking down root suppliers is difficult, time-consuming, and potentially even dangerous. It also has the possibility of actually reducing the amount of crime. On the other tentacle, busting users is easy because they're ubiquitous and seldom much of a threat. Even better, no matter how many you arrest, harass, or fine, it's unlikely to do much to the demand and is thus unlikely to negatively impact the perceived need for and importance of your job.

  107. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by cold+fjord · · Score: 1

    Straw man? Hardly. It is fairly common to see people advocate for the normalization of aspects of pedophilia and their interests on Slashdot, and there is an undercurrent of it in society.

    Nor is there a right to trample over the rights of everyone to get a very few...

    Fair enough. But uncritically accepting whatever content is in a passage aping a respected literary form is a way to end up in an absurd position. "First they came for the pedophiles...." indeed.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  108. Re: So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by cheater512 · · Score: 1

    Unless it is the US and the target is a government organisation of course.

    How many people has the US attempted to extradite who have never stepped foot in the US again?

  109. Re:just firewall them out... block in linux kernel by swalve · · Score: 1

    No kidding. If I was a governmental agency trying to act all secretive, I'd probably start with a comcast or fios account that leads to a storage unit or something. It would be mind bogglingly stupid to engage in surveillance that can be traced back to the IP block of the agency.

  110. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

    Its called "unauthorized access of a computer" which is a federal offense.

    What the FBI is saying is that they planted the PORN, and all the other crap, since they had taken over his servers.

    --
    Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
  111. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Pseudonym · · Score: 1

    Why were communists targeted? Because they wanted to overthrow the US government!

    All of them?

    --
    sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
  112. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by LandDolphin · · Score: 1

    Protecting any groups right to assemble and speech protects everyones right to assemble and speech.

    --
    Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
  113. Re:So the FBI hacked servers to find pedos? by Martin+Blank · · Score: 1

    It depends on the treaty involved, but generally one cannot be extradited for an act which is not a crime in the hosting country. As you mention, someone in the US (even a German citizen) who posts something pro-Nazi is protected from extradition to Germany because the First Amendment applies to anyone in the US. A US citizen who goes to Europe and has sex with a 17-year-old has broken US federal law, but not necessarily the laws in some countries in Europe, and so might not get extradited to the US.

    Extradition law gets complex, though. Even where there is overlapping criminal law, there can be subtleties in the laws broken, whether there would be enough evidence if the crime occurred in the hosting country, etc.

    --
    You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.