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Mystery Solved: FBI Closed New Mexico Observatory to Investigate Child Porn (washingtonpost.com)
"The mysterious 11-day closure of a New Mexico solar observatory stemmed from an FBI investigation of a janitor suspected of using the facility's wireless internet service to send and receive child pornography, federal court documents showed..."
An anonymous reader quotes the Washington Post: In July, FBI agents investigating child sexual exploitation traced the location of several IP addresses linked to child pornography activity to the observatory, according to a 39-page search warrant application. During an interview with federal authorities on Aug. 21, the facility's chief observer said he had found, on a number of occasions, the same laptop hidden and running in various seldom-used offices around the observatory. He described the contents of the laptop as "not good," according to court documents. A federal agent immediately went to the observatory, located deep within Lincoln National Forest, and took the laptop into evidence...
Aside from continuing to "feverishly" search the facility, the documents state that the janitor said, "it was only a matter of time before the facility 'got hit,'" and that he "believed there was a serial killer in the area, and that he was fearful that the killer might enter the facility and execute someone." In response to the janitor's behavior, the management of the observatory, without input from the FBI, shut it down and evacuated its personnel. The facility's cleaning contract with the janitor's parents was also terminated.
The warrant application specified that the janitor "has a key to the building and unlimited access to the building, and is familiar with which offices are used only a handful of times a year."
It also says that the janitor was the only person in the facility at the time of the alleged downloads.
An anonymous reader quotes the Washington Post: In July, FBI agents investigating child sexual exploitation traced the location of several IP addresses linked to child pornography activity to the observatory, according to a 39-page search warrant application. During an interview with federal authorities on Aug. 21, the facility's chief observer said he had found, on a number of occasions, the same laptop hidden and running in various seldom-used offices around the observatory. He described the contents of the laptop as "not good," according to court documents. A federal agent immediately went to the observatory, located deep within Lincoln National Forest, and took the laptop into evidence...
Aside from continuing to "feverishly" search the facility, the documents state that the janitor said, "it was only a matter of time before the facility 'got hit,'" and that he "believed there was a serial killer in the area, and that he was fearful that the killer might enter the facility and execute someone." In response to the janitor's behavior, the management of the observatory, without input from the FBI, shut it down and evacuated its personnel. The facility's cleaning contract with the janitor's parents was also terminated.
The warrant application specified that the janitor "has a key to the building and unlimited access to the building, and is familiar with which offices are used only a handful of times a year."
It also says that the janitor was the only person in the facility at the time of the alleged downloads.
what could go wrong?
Is it very common to dispatch a military helicopter circling the area when FBI are looking at a computer inside?
It's like usual, make accusations involving child porn and nobody dares say anything, ask any questions.
Just that simple, nobody would tell a whole town to evacuate just over some kitty porn......
"not good" == not very important and not worth my time in most cases. I wish people wouldn't use it so much.
A laptop serving child porn is goddamn horrible.
black helicopters, agents climbing to antennas and this for catching a pedophile...
blake7 anyone?
Shit, weâ(TM)ve got an alien threat recorded on our disks and backups! How can we get rid of them, prevent the public from seeing them, and keep them from poking further? We need a cover story that people will feel really awkward about. I know!
Yeah sure.
Lies! All lies!
They found aliens.
and gigantic sunspots going to destroy earth.
and giant asteroids.
11 days? A blackhawk helicopter? Swarms of agents? Yeah right.
I can see it now in FBI headquarters "Agent Ike, we need a plausible cover story for that spy device that was watching the AFB, there is no train track so we can't say it's a crash and chemical leak... what will the sheep, I mean good American people believe?"
It could very well be the whole thing is just over the kiddie porn. People do mind-bogglingly dumb things all the time. But the response does seem a bit overblown.
Possibilities:
1. The FBI was investigating something that ended up being a big nothing, and they need a story to cover an embarrassing over-response
2. The FBI is investigating something national-security related (spies/moles/etc...) and need a cover story
More?
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Nothing to see here, move along.
A coworker found child porn by accident while transferring data between old computer to new computer and noticing a large number of image files with disturbing filenames. He reported it to our supervisor. Security confiscated both computers. The user, an accountant, demanded his old computer back and refused a loaner computer to get him back to work. He spent two days banging on the doors of IT and security, chasing after IT techs in the hallways, and making an ass out of himself in front of the security cameras. Third day, he was gone.
Ironically, users were was given six weeks of warnings to get their personal files (i.e. iTunes music library) off their old computer for faster deployment of a new computer. No matter how many warnings, some users just don't listen.
Goodbye, Slashdot!
... is that it was alien child porn.
anal-probing and senso-ringing each other. Highly illegal even on Remulak, errm France.
The only thing Americans freak out about more than aliens... a 17 yr 349 day old white girl with her clothes off
thinking of the children.
Between the abuses in Britain from high ranking government and political members to activities going on in the US, the people 'thinking of the children' are the last ones you want with that sort of power over either adults or children. But until the citizenry is willing to do what is necessary to purge that cancer from our governments and society the abuse will continue eternal.
They Were Vulcan Children.
Won't anyone think of the Vulcan Children?
That was just Too easy, lol.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
If the solar observatory were to have observed aliens, it would have been by tracking something passing in front of the Sun and then altering course under power. The aliens obviously would know where the semi intelligent life is in the solar system and would probably be able to jump to the other side of the Sun if they wish to hide. There are other solar observatories in the US and across the globe but were they all in use at the time that something may have been observed? But at the very least SOHO at the Sun Earth L1 point would have observed something.
There were reports that other facilities were shut down, but I believe that has been debunked. As much as I want this to be aliens or FAIRY GOD PARENTS!!!, I think it's most likely that it was just an extreme overreaction by the Feds.
Shut up already. We are talking about children in peril and all you can do is talk about Slashdot users you dont like, shame on you.
My applause to the F.B.I. for keeping kids safe.
Ok, not so funny... but it is a building made to observe things far away.
Did the intern aim the telescope into an open window?
That was a huge reported police reaction for some kiddie pictures; BTW, some adults have gotten into trouble for innocent nude pictures of their children. It's bad enough that people actually 2nd guess taking what used to be cliche baby photos.
It's more likely they think the found a child porno server. It's probably an insecure server that stockpiled millions of photos and the staff has no idea; maybe somebody on staff was involved which would make it look like a big target. Huge amounts of photos with a great internet connection? Somewhat remote location that people don't pay attention to?
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Didn't you watch Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind?
This is the same thing, only the cover story was a big bad Gas leak...
is anyone seeing strange images inside your head that is compelling you to go somewhere?
Well, to be fair, the Federal Government has always had a tendency to be overly militarized in their duties of law enforcement. Don't forget, during the Obama Administration the FBI launched a full SWAT team raid on Gibson Guitars searching for illegal wood. They had imported wood from an endangered species of tree that had been legally harvested from a tree farm in Madagascar, but the letter of the law says you can't use that wood. Even though the law the EPA used for their justification for that raid related to harvesting wild examples of that tree.
But that said, does anyone really believe the Federal government anymore? The same government that said that 'you could keep your plan', that 'there are WMDs in Iraq', and that 'the Russians are hacking everything'?
The CP allegation is way to convenient and is something would be easily contrived to quiet any public concern.
The hysteria over CP (most of which is self made teen porn, btw) has reached the point where shutting down buildings as a precaution seems reasonable.
https://www.iflscience.com/space/sunspot-solar-observatory-new-mexico-reeopened-heres-why-closed/
This is obviously just an excuse to seize the computer hard drives. Most likely what they were looking for (recordings of test flights of alien/human hybrid spacecraft on the nearby white sands missile range) is on those computer hard drives, and they want it back!
Yeahhh right! And what the purpose of shutting down everything including the postal office?!? If anything keep the man using the network inside and bust him on the act. This version doesnâ(TM)t have a leg to stand on.
That is the biggest BS I've read since the (infamous) Roswell "weather balloon" incident. There were multiple observatories AROUND THE WORLD that were summarily shut down at the same time. Explain that. Followed by photos of (alleged) objects flying near the sun that had been captured on video. Child porn? Good one, but stupid.
It seems a FBI's conspiracy: instead of detaining the responsibles, they closed the observatory until further notices.
How many observatories of the world can see the happenings of our sky now?
They wanted to maintain secret all related to aliens.
The warned extraterrestrials and humans are ready for any apocalyptic happening.
Almost as good as the "national security" magic spell they invoke when CP is too ridiculous. Oh, wait...
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Like always: The butler^h^h^h^h^h janitor did it.
1. Almost every janitor has a key.
2. Almost everybody else too, it's a fucking observatory! People come and go 24/7.
3. Computers are perfectly capable of downloading stuff even when nobody's on site.
4. It's completely overkill and overreach to close down a professional site just because somebody might have downloaded some nekkid pictures.
5. "the facility's chief observer said he had found, on a number of occasions, the same laptop "
On a number of occasions? How many times, 10, 20, 1582? How many times have you to find child porn before calling the cops?
So all the previous times he just enjoyed the porn until there was something that disturbed him?
Sorry, does not compute.
Perhaps a super-secret satellite was due to pass directly between the observatory and the Sun, or it already did, and the government didn't want high-resolution pictures of it, even in silhouette, leaking to the public.
What about the post office and the homes around the area. That must have been one busy janitor.
While CP is disgusting, the ability for a govt LEA to stop scientific research for some moral high ground is absolutely disgusting. People wonder why the citizens of the US are starting to lack faith in their govt...
A military takeover of a government research facility in the desert? Isn't this how Half-Life started?
https://slashdot.org/comments....
This stuff never results in anything deep or crazy going on.
It's got to be a cliche by now.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Might be a legal loophole if space aliens were involved, as first suspected.
Kill the Satanic Monster Vladimir Putin today!
Or not, as it is barely believable.
Its more like the solar observatory has uncovered the same situation as in the Nick Cage movie, "Knowing" and is in the process of suppressing the knowledge from the general public for as long as possible. This sort of knowledge would just result in mass hysteria, civil breakdown, and billions of deaths much quicker than they will occur naturally. Just let things unfold until its obvious, and by then it will be so late into the inevitable that it won't matter about the rioting.
Face it, we are all screwed. Once the process gets obvious, our only real choice will be how we'd like to die.
"In response to the janitor's behavior, the management of the observatory, without input from the FBI, shut it down and evacuated its personnel."
"Janitor's behavior" constituting babbling about "a serial killer" in the neighborhood. Given what they already suspected of him, that may be an overabundance of paranoia. On the other hand, if the janitor had shot up the observatory, there'd have been Hell to pay for not taking his babbling seriously. (Kiddie porn vs. mass shooter ... hard to say which one destroys all prospects for having a future life more.)