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Judge: No Privacy Expectations For Data On P2P Networks
An anonymous reader writes "A federal judge in Vermont has denied a motion to suppress evidence filed by three defendants in a child porn case. The three had alleged their Fourth Amendment rights were violated when police used an automated P2P query-response tool to gather information from their computers. That information subsequently led to their arrest and indictments. The judge held (PDF) that the defendants had either inadvertently, or otherwise, made the information available for public download on a P2P network and therefore couldn't assert any privacy claims over the data."
So when AT&T made their iPhone subscriber list "available for public download" that implicitly gave people on the internet permission to access this private information? Oh wait, they sentenced Weev to jail time for that. I'm so confused.
And no, I'm not defending child porn users. Well, I guess I sort of am. But not... Darn it, you guys know what I mean.
Silly peasant, aristocracy have their own set of laws and courts.
If you run a service on the internet, you have no expectation of privacy of the data you serve. That sounds reasonable enough. But why then was weev imprisoned for downloading data from a publically facing web server?
If weev can be imprisoned for computer hacking by using a publicly facing server in ways not intended by the owner, why aren't the police here facing similar charges?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The ruling is on, "made the information available for public download on a P2P network" there are plenty of private p2p services. If you make your information available to everyone then of course the police don't need to go through red tape to get that information. Non-story
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
And no, I'm not defending child porn users. Well, I guess I sort of am. But not... Darn it, you guys know what I mean.
Kiddie porn pirates are not the problem, the problem are all the people involved in the production. If you believe the MAFIAA's rhetoric the pirates are the solution since they are destroying the jobs of all the hard-working people in the kiddie porn industry.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
my privates have been on the internet.
Especially on a P2P network like Gnutella where you can do search by keywords and then directly view what people have on their computers. It's like hanging a poster in your living room of a child being abused and someone walking by seeing it. They made the materials available for the public to see. I hope more people who are into sick stuff like that make the mistake of having the files publically visible. Especially p2p users since given the nature of p2p they can also be slapped with a distribution charge which will add years to their sentence.
If you believe the MAFIAA's rhetoric the pirates are the solution since they are destroying the jobs of all the hard-working people in the kiddie porn industry.
I was gonna say the same but couldnt come up with a way of saying "think of the children and download kiddie porn" without it coming across the wrong way.
Yeah, I don't see what the issue is. They were sharing these files, or left them in folders their P2P software would automatically share.
The article shows the police went ot of their way to deliberately not download the files, presumably for 4th Amendment search reasons, though why even that would be a problem I don't know. They were deliberately and knowingly sharing those files.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
In this case they implied consent of making their information public by using that network, an AT&T customer did not imply consent of their information being made public.
AT&T implied consent of that information being made public by not implementing any sort of authentication. From TFA:
Could you not say exactly the same thing about AT&T's "private" data? Substitute "peer to peer" with "web server" where appropriate.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I was gonna say the same but couldnt come up with a way of saying "think of the children and download kiddie porn" without it coming across the wrong way.
I think the take-away here is that the MPAA and RIAA are steadfast in their support of kiddie porn producers.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
False analogy. This case is not controlled by copyright law. This is a fourth amendment case. Those two bodies of law have almost nothing to do with each other substantively (yes, there may be fourth amendment implications to how police investigate copyrights, but that's separate from the substance of copyright law). The question here is whether the defendants had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the data, not what they subjectively hoped people would do with it. If you grow weed in an open field, with a sign that says, "Cops don't look!" it doesn't matter that you subjectively intended to exclude police from seeing what was in the field. Your expectation of privacy, if you had any, was not reasonable.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
In other news, the Police also do not need a warrant to attend your public meeting. They don't need a warrant to read the book you published on the rack of the local bookstore. They don't need a warrant to browse around your open store in the local strip mall.
And they don't need a warrant to download data you offered up to any member of the public and browse through it to find incriminating evidence.
RFTS, dude:
The judge held (PDF) that the defendants had either inadvertently, or otherwise, made the information available for public download on a P2P network and therefore couldn't assert any privacy claims over the data.
"inadvertently made public" == "did not intend to make public."
Intent has fuck-all to do with the ruling; per the judge, what these pervs did and what AT&T did are exactly the same thing.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Thanks to the power of precedent, not any more.
Child porn is very handy for setting a precedent, because judge and jury alike will usually so loathe the victim they'll do anything to see a strict sentence happen. If you've a defendant you can prove had child porn, you could probably charge them with regicide and conspiracy to blow up Pluto - and still have a chance of a conviction.
"2) Going down the eugenics and forced sterilization route is a slippery slope straight to hell. Look at what we used to do in the 1930s. It's the stuff of nightmares."
Sorry - I have to disagree.
By that logic, all firearms should be outlawed, because some firearms have been used to commit crimes. A LOT of people will latch onto that, and clamor for stricter gun control - but the logic doesn't stop there. Since some automobiles have been used to commit murder, then all automobiles should be outlawed. Knives have been used to murder, so all knives should be outlawed. Rocks have been used to commit murder, blah blah blah.
Horrible things have been done, in the name of science, and specifically eugenics. Does that necessarily mean that any studies into eugenics is evil? I say, "Not only NO, but HELL NO!"
While I will readily admit that eugenics can be pretty damned scary, it has the POTENTIAL of weeding out a lot of hereditary diseases and conditions. If scientists announced tomorrow that they could screen for cystic fibrosis, with greater than 99% confidence, and abort the fetus early in the first trimester, would you object to that? Or, even better for those who oppose abortion for any reason: Mother could take a prenatal supplement that would guarantee that she couldn't conceive a child subject to cystic fibrosis. She simply rejects any sperm. Yes, I'm pulling this out of my ass, it's entirely from dreamland - but IF it were possible, would you object?
How 'bout if we could prevent elephantiasis, or mongoloids, or any number of deformities and conditions? Would you object to weeding out alcoholism?
Eugenics isn't evil in and of itself. I feel that we have a responsibility to take reasonable actions to make future generations healthier. Or, smarter. Or stronger.
Forced sterilization? If we got so far along that we could screen for all the many conditions that make people's lives so miserable, sterilization wouldn't be a necessity. Instead, Mother can pick and choose traits, simply rejecting any and all number of undesirable traits.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br