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FBI Must Reveal The Code It Used To Hack Dark Web Pedophiles (engadget.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the overturned-malware dept.

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.

13 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. FBI not in trouble? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the bigger story here is that the FBI actually ran a child porn site instead of knocking it offline... WTF. We all understand the premise of why they did it but that can't be a legal way to catch those people. You can't break the law to uphold the law. That's an oxymoron right?

    1. Re:FBI not in trouble? by jonwil · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Its no different to an undercover cop pretending to be a drug dealer and engaging in a drug deal so the hidden cops can spring forth and bust the bad guy.

    2. Re:FBI not in trouble? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Its no different to an undercover cop pretending to be a drug dealer and engaging in a drug deal so the hidden cops can spring forth and bust the bad guy.

      No, there's a difference. In the fake drug deal the drugs themselves are often fake as well. For example, baking powder for cocaine or milk chocolate for heroin, etc. This is effective because the real drug dealers already cut their drugs with these and other substances and it's easy to prepare and package these materials so that they look very convincing at first glance. Not so with child porn. If an image is CP, of the sort often sought out by those who want it, it's patently obvious whether that image is the real deal or not both to the police and anyone else. Moreover, the mere transmission or possession of that image is itself a crime, regardless of intent. Since it's impossible to show the images to anyone without committing a crime and the people they caught could not be arrested immediately, the FBI was effectively engaged in bona-fide illegal activity for a matter of weeks of the sort that would never have occurred in a sting like your fake drug bust or for example on the television program "To Catch a Predator", where there was never any actual CP on offer. Do you understand the difference now?

    3. Re:FBI not in trouble? by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Its no different to an undercover cop pretending to be a drug dealer and engaging in a drug deal so the hidden cops can spring forth and bust the bad guy.

      Uh, it isn't even similar. In a sting operation, the operation ends when the person buys the drugs. The purpose is to get them to buy the drugs, but at that point, they arrest the person. In this case, they download the fake porn that tattles on them, but they also continue to download real porn from systems run by the government, upload new porn to systems run by the government, and trade porn in a marketplace run by the government over an extended period of time.

      This is more closely equivalent to a rogue CIA agent infiltrating a drug cartel and then continuing to run it for a decade, growing and selling drugs, killing members of competing cartels, and advertising the availability of drugs in an effort to entice (entrap) people who otherwise might not have bought them, all under the pretense that while his or her organization deals drugs, he or she will also periodically slip the police a list of some of the people who are buying so that they can eventually do a sting operation and bust them....

      This is so far outside the bounds of what should legitimately be legal in a free society that it is downright terrifying. There's a bright line between pretending to be part of a criminal organization and participating in the operation of a criminal organization, and from what I've read about this operation, I would say that they crossed that line by a large enough distance that they couldn't even see it in their rearview mirrors....

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    4. Re:FBI not in trouble? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So does the mob that hangs the politicians.

    5. Re:FBI not in trouble? by quintessencesluglord · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You say that so nonchalantly, as if there isn't a huge moral problem with law enforcement goading people to break the law.

      I mean it's not enough that the police claim they don't have the manpower to investigate crimes people really do care about, like robbery and murder, and yet can devote substantial resources to busting petty drug users.

      Here's a clue: if your government can justify deceiving you in the name of some greater good, it has moved from servant to paternalistic.

      Which is exactly what posing as a drug dealer is.

  2. IT Dept by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Can you imagine working for their I.T. department when that order came down? "You want me to do what?"

  3. Suggestion for submissions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Could the FBI hide behind 3rd party code? by swb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let's say the FBI wanted to do some task with software, but didn't have the expertise in house. So they discuss what they want done with a third party, who decides they can do it but will only license the software to the FBI, not sell it to them outright. As part of their agreement, they supply a binary module (like a graphics driver blob file) to the FBI they can interface with.

    Now, the FBI ends up being required to reveal its code to a defendant. The third party module ends up being key to the defendant's discovery. The FBI doesn't have the source code to the module, so they can't supply it -- in fact, they have a binding contract saying they can only have the binary module.

    Does the third party have to reveal their source code? Can the FBI effectively hide behind their contract with the third party?

    If yes, it seems kind of scary -- the FBI can basically outsource their techniques and then hide behind their contracts. Scary because I would imagine the defendants might be making a case that the evidence convicting them is false, but because the FBI could hide behind a third party contract, the defendant can't verify the claims. The FBI, could, in theory at least, use sham agreements to ensure their dirty work remains beyond discovery.

    The similar kinds of things I can think of are the DWI cases that were challenged over the source code to breathalyzers and the contract language of at least one of the Stingray makers who forbid the details of their device being revealed.

    1. Re:Could the FBI hide behind 3rd party code? by JoeRandomHacker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Possibly, but the defense has the right to question how the evidence against them was collected. If such a tactic were to prevent such inquiry, it could be grounds to have the evidence tossed out.

  5. Re:Justice v. Executive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "run major pedophile websites for a couple weeks without any consequences" The consequences was the arrest of over 100 pedophiles. They did not run the website. They basically created a honey pot to collect information on any visitors. Law enforcement agencies engage in undercover actions all the time. One example is when undercover agents buy a few kilos of cocaine to go after the dealer. Purchasing the drugs does not mean they are dealing drugs. Buys of this nature go right into the evidence lockers and are eventually destroyed when no longer needed. anymore. I imagine in this case that the entire website will be saved as evidence. Depending on where the site was hosted they will go after any server logs related to this site.

    "it looks like they aren't really in that whole "following the law" business" Every thing they did in this investigation so far was perfectly legal. And you do realize you are actually support the suspected pedophiles? You are going after the FBI instead of the pedophiles. You are awarding the pedophiles the benefit of a doubt while giving none what so ever to the law enforcement agencies in this case.

  6. Re:Sexual deviants today, political deviants tomor by gweihir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Unfortunately, that seems very, very likely. The very amorality of running the site for a time, when the DOJ's says that a main reason to make this type of content illegal is that it victimizes those depicted again is staggering. Only this time they were raped again by the FBI with official sanction. If that is not much, much worse, then I do not know what it. Hence I conclude that this is not about those targeted at all, and it certainly is not about protecting any victims.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  7. Re:Justice v. Executive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I agree with everything you said, right up to this:

    And do you realize you are actually support the suspected pedophiles?

    You're goddamn right I do, because the word "suspected" is different from the word "convicted". These people are innocent until proven guilty, and they ABSOLUTELY get the benefit of a REASONABLE DOUBT. The onus is always always always on the accuser to prove guilt, period.

    Anything less than that is facism.