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FBI "Took Over World's Biggest Child Porn Website" (telegraph.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from The Telegraph: The FBI took over the world biggest child pornography website in a sting operation intended to catch viewers of sexual images of children sometimes 'barely old enough for kindergarten', it has been revealed. The controversial operation ran for nearly two weeks last year, when the bureau took control of the Playpen website in an effort to weed out users who would normally be hidden because they accessed such sites through encrypted addresses. Agents have defended the dubious of ethics of a government agency running a child porn site by insisting there was no other way to catch offenders.
I think the only real issue people have with this is that if the FBI can justify such tactics then whats to stop them from doing the same to WikiLeaks
In Australia, is it illegal to view obscene, cartoon images depicting child pornography? Not depicting any real life person. Here in the US, it might be. This is a problem because it seems like our politicians want to look like they're getting something done, when in reality they're doing nothing to solve the problem. Or so I think.
The solution? We need psychiastrists or psychologists to help determine what to do so the cycle of abuse stops. The American justice system might be too focused on retribution than reform.
Don't forget that there are many young, underage kids that are now sex offenders in the glorious United States.
"Throughout the United States, children as young as nine years old who are adjudicated delinquent may be subject to sex offender registration laws"
http://bostonreview.net/blog/y...
http://www.sacurrent.com/sanan...
http://www.justicepolicy.org/n...
I can recall several years ago a story about two young girls, not even in middle school becoming registered sex offenders for sending pictures of themselves to each other. Under current laws, they were "producing child pornography".
Sure, there are a lot of sick fucks out there, but the current method is completely broken.
It wasn't a honeypot trap. The site existed before the Fed's took over. They got around the Tor encryption by getting some JavaScript/Java/PHP code to run on the host PC and extract the IP address that way. Stack Overflow and a hundred other blogs will all explain how to do this within a standard webpage. No illegal downloading of executables, DLL's, shared object files or modification of kernel permissions. Just plain web page design:
http://javascript.about.com/li...
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I'm fairly sure the people visiting the site were going there regardless of whether or not the FBI had control of it, so in this case it's not entrapment.
Now if they were running targeted ads against a group group advertising the site, that would be entrapment. This is simply bait.
People watching child porn are not a danger to my children.