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The Dark Web is having a rough time right now... although the victims in this case won't earn too much sympathy. An Anonymous-linked hacker speaking to Motherboard brought down about a fifth of the Tor network's 'secret' websites (over 10,000 of them) in a claimed vigilante move. The intruder decided to attack a Dark Web hosting service, Freedom Hosting II, after discovering that it was managing child porn sites it had to be aware of -- they were using gigabytes of data each when the host officially allows no more than 256MB. Each site had its usual pages replaced with a message that not only chastised FH2, but offered a data dump (minus user info) and explained the nature of the hack.
Reportedly, the attack wasn't difficult. The hacker only needed to have control over a site (new or existing) to get started. After that, it was mostly a matter of modifying a configuration file, triggering a password reset and getting root access.
From early indications, the perpetrator is handling the data relatively responsibly. It's going to a security researcher who'll hand it over to law enforcement, which might just use it to bust the porn peddlers.
Source:
https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/05/hack-knocks-out-fifth-of-dark-web/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @09:55PM
Sorry, I disagree. Parallel construction is a thing that is *kept secret* from courts and defense attorneys. Does it go on? Of course. But not in a way the defense can use in court, normally.
If defense attorney cannot specify exactly the parallel method used then it is whistling in the dark. But if defense attorney can reasonably prove that evidence was obtained illegally prior to the act of "parallel construction" the subsequent evidence falls as fruit of the poison tree. By the way "parallel construction" is really a near-oxymoron. The illegal evidence is obtained first.... THEN they go back and find a plausible legal route for the court-used evidence. It ain't really "parallel" is it? All it takes is a VERY hard job of proving that. One that our "friends" have made a lot easier.
Anyway, the publicity around this hack means that any person busted prior to this timeframe will have the investigators raked over the coals by even a barely competent defense attorney. "So, Investigator X.... you stated for the record you got this evidence by blah-blah-blah. I call your attention to Defense Exhibit A. The site allegedly used by the defendant was hacked by these so-called white-hat hackers. [Where did the defendant obtain this alleged evidence you're presenting, Investigator? You don't know? Hmm.] Are you aware of that? Don't follow the news, investigator? You mean you weren't exposed to that information at all? Well, Investigator, how can you be sure that the access logs for the site weren't tampered with by those people. You knew them, right? Withdrawn. Isn't it true, Investigator, that you'd do anything to put child pornographers out of business? If a white hat hacker approached you, wouldn't you feel compelled to examine what they said they had? etc. etc."'
Before a jury, all you'd need is to establish reasonable doubt that defendant Pedobear might just be the innocent victim of these so-called do-gooding vigilantes. At a minimum, they've made the prosecutor's job all that more complex. At maximum the CPers will go free now when maybe the cops would have had a shot with their own parallel constructions. (Constitutional or not.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 08 2017, @06:35AM
You assume that the defense is competent, and cognizant of this interweb thingy.