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FBI Must Reveal The Code It Used To Hack Dark Web Pedophiles (engadget.com)
schwit1 writes: A judge has ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation to turn over the complete code it used to infiltrate a child pornography site on the Dark Web, Motherboard reports. The FBI seized the Tor-based site known as "Playpen" in February 2015 and kept it running via its own servers for two weeks -- during this time, the bureau deployed a hacking tool that identified at least 1,300 IP addresses of visitors to the site worldwide.
Playpen was "the largest remaining known child pornography hidden service in the world," according to the FBI. Roughly 137 people have been charged in the sting so far, Motherboard says. On Wednesday, a lawyer for one of the defendants won the right to view all of the code that the FBI used during the Playpen operation, apparently including the exploit that bypassed the Tor Browser's security features.
Playpen was "the largest remaining known child pornography hidden service in the world," according to the FBI. Roughly 137 people have been charged in the sting so far, Motherboard says. On Wednesday, a lawyer for one of the defendants won the right to view all of the code that the FBI used during the Playpen operation, apparently including the exploit that bypassed the Tor Browser's security features.
Submissions should preferably link to primary sources instead of sites that just repackage the story from the original, i.e. just link to Motherboard's article to begin with and give them the clicks instead of Engadget.
Which is to say, here: http://motherboard.vice.com/re...
In the case of Stingray cellphone interceptors, when a defendant asks about that evidence, the FBI usually drops the case. Seriously, they'd rather drop a case altogether than have a Stingray be challenged in court. So if they'd rather hide behind an NDA or something here, they're gonna need to withdraw some charges.
Lying isn't illegal in and of itself.
It depends upon who lies to whom. Lying to an FBI agent investigating a crime is itself a crime. That's what they got Martha Stewart on, not the actual insider stock trade but lying to investigators about her level of involvement in the scheme. That's why any competent attorney will advise their client never to answer questions unless the attorney is present and able to advise the client on whether or not to answer a particular question and the advice to the client, when answering, will always be to answer truthfully or else refuse to answer the question on 5th amendment grounds. Of course the investigators are free to lie or trick the person being interviewed which is what makes speaking to the police without an attorney present so incredibly dangerous that nobody should ever do it.
Not the first time they have done something like this. I remember reading that back pre-Internet when the last publishers of Dutch mail order CP magazines closed up shop due to the changing laws the FBI actually started to reprint the magazines for a time so they could continue to advertise, mail and then arrest anyone who ordered them for possession of CP. So apparently the FBI was actually running a CP magazine business for a time. Of course it was all to protect the children.