A US judge overseeing an FBI "Playpen case" has told agents to reveal whether or not their investigative hacking was approved by the White House.
The case is one of several the Feds are pursuing against more than 100 alleged users of the child sex abuse material exchange network called the Playpen. The prosecutions have become test grounds over investigators' use of hacking tools to unmask Tor users – Playpen was hidden in the Tor network and agents injected tracking software into Playpen visitors' browsers to identify users.
In June, a judge hearing one of the Playpen cases in Virginia ruled that the FBI can hack any computer in any country, if it wants.
During its investigation, the FBI compromised Playpen's Tor-protected distribution servers, leaving them in operation to keep users visiting the service. The Feds then hacked the targets' computers to identify the owners.
It's not a crime if the President orders it.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @03:41AM
https://youtu.be/IG0OIice9to [youtu.be]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @03:54AM
tor-pedo?
groan
Somebody is too clever for their own good
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Bogsnoticus on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:31AM
It's not a crime if the President orders it.
There were a bunch of people who "were just following orders" that were tried, convicted and sentenced at this place called Nuremberg 70-odd years ago.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:44AM
And yet some people demand doctors perform abortions BECAUSE ITS THE FUCKING LAW somesuch other nonsense from majority rule to whatever ruffled shirt political fad is in fashion these days.
No real point, but apparently the Nuremberg defense is a-okay if it aligns with your greater good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @07:00AM
Seriously? I'd have expected that "sorry, I'm not an abortion doctor" would get you out of such a rule.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Thursday October 27 2016, @09:16AM
I'd have expected that "sorry, I'm not an abortion doctor" would get you out of such a rule.
It does.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @07:01AM
President’s order is not a law.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by art guerrilla on Thursday October 27 2016, @11:24AM
heh, a non cow:
do i own my own body or not ? ? ?
sounds like a pretty basic question of morals, and yet it appears you are answering 'no, you don't own your own body, i, a non cow get to determine what you do with it...'
alrighty then, kindly FOAD, is my DEMAND for 'our'/your body...
why not, you have established that 'principle'...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @03:58PM
You do know that abortion was illegal in nazi germany don't you. It's harder to conquer the world without lots of cannon fodder.
(Score: 3, Informative) by stormwyrm on Thursday October 27 2016, @06:15AM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Sarasani on Thursday October 27 2016, @06:50AM
But the Nuremberg Trials were only possible due to the Nazis losing the war. Otherwise, we might all be reading about the London Traitors' Trials (and instead celebrate the annual Nuremberg Nazi Appreciation Parade). In such an outcome, all the reprehensible things the Nazis did would have been considered legal.
(Score: 0, Troll) by aristarchus on Thursday October 27 2016, @07:18AM
only possible due to the Nazis losing the war
Keep telling yourself that, you loser Nazi! International law is not established by the whims of dictators and Trumps, it is the considered judgment of humanity as a whole, over all. So even if the Nazis had won, international law would have ruled against them, in the end. And they would have met their end, sooner rather than later. Trump. Who will follow the Trumpster? Treason? Who? Oh, you, too? See, authoritarianism is only a safe mode of governance if we put absolute power in the hands of a Mightry Buzazard, because he is usually gone fishing, so no damage done, not even to the fish.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 27 2016, @09:03AM
Jesus, Aristarchus - have you never read an alternate reality story? Sarasani is perfectly right - and history proves his statement to be right. For hundreds of years, Romans captured whoever, wherever, and shipped them to the circuses in Rome. Or, sold them off as slaves. Or, just killed them for amusement. Might makes right, and Rome was the mightiest of the mighty for a long time.
Had Hitler been a little less insane, if he had listened to his wiser generals, had Hitler NOT launched the offense into Russia, he may very well have consolidated his gains in the rest of Europe. Having done so, history would have proclaimed him to stand in the ranks of Hannibal and other conquerors. The Holocaust would have been glossed over, if not forgotten by all but the Jews.
It doesn't take a Nazi, or a neonazi, or any other political or racist mindset to understand all of that. Might makes right, throughout history.
International law? Much of that was established AFTER World War Two. Much of it was established right there at Nuremburg. In effect, we created the law because we were the mightiest sons of bitches in the world at that time. Might makes right.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 27 2016, @12:46PM
I think you and Sarasani are correct. I would add that on this point the Holocaust also heavily targeted Gypsies, homosexuals, the handicapped, and other groups the Nazis didn't like. They would remember it, too. Americans associate the Holocaust with the Jews because the Jews have spent decades refining it into a political weapon; that weapon got them a homeland and billions upon billions of free American tax dollars and a free pass to commit any number of atrocities they want against people they don't like. Gypsies and homosexuals have never had that kind of PR muscle.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday October 28 2016, @01:07AM
Romani or Roma, not Gypsies. Just like it is Jews, not Kikes. Sadly the Roma are still persecuted in too much of Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people#Contemporary_issues [wikipedia.org]
The joke on the Nazi's was that the Roma are pure Caucasian.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 28 2016, @12:02PM
You're correct, but very few know them as Roma, they're that downtrodden. Imagine if the Jews had only ever been known as Kikes, such that saying "Jews" drew blank stares, while "Kike" would be the common term.
The question remains--why don't the Roma now have a homeland carved out of somebody else's territory, billions of dollars in free US tax money, and a license to beat up on a random people?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday October 29 2016, @02:22AM
Amazing what a good PR team can do, especially if you control some of the media.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Francis on Thursday October 27 2016, @02:08PM
You're absolutely correct, how much do we talk about Stalin's or Mao's genocides. We talk a bit more about the Khmer Rouge, but most folks have no idea about King Leopold's genocide in the Congo during the 19th century.
The reason why the Nazis got prosecuted was primarily because without the Nazi government and war apparatus there was no shielding them from foreign intervention. But, if you look at those examples, only the Khmer Rouge had any folks actually prosecuted for it. I don't believe a single person was prosecuted in any of those other governments for related crimes.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 27 2016, @10:43PM
You use the word "we", and I presume that "we" are western people of European descent.
In China, they haven't forgotten such atrocities as the rape of Nanking. The atrocities committed by the communist government get a lot less lip service, primarily because the communists are still officially in charge. Badmouthing the party can cause citizens to assume ambient temperature.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Friday October 28 2016, @04:16AM
That is true, but that's more or less my point. If the Chinese government had been overthrown, it's highly likely that there'd be more awareness of that in general. I doubt very much that most Chinese distinguish between the dead from Mao's leadership and the dead from the typical famines that ravaged the country up until the '70s.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @04:58AM
In China, they haven't forgotten such atrocities as the rape of Nanking. The atrocities committed by the communist government get a lot less lip service, primarily because the communists are still officially in charge.
I knew it! Trump groped Ms. Nanking, and then raped her. So why does not the Communist party own up to this? What are they trying to hide? And what does Runaway not know? (Skip that last question, we do not want to be downloading infinite sets onto SoylentNews!)
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Friday October 28 2016, @06:21AM
In China, they haven't forgotten such atrocities as the rape of Nanking.
The question was about Mao.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong#Great_Leap_Forward [wikipedia.org]
Not about war with Japan. Same with Stalin, most have forgotten and some celebrate Stalin every year in Russia. None of such things do not happen with Hitler and Germany.
Basically it is 100% true - history is written by victors. Victims of Carthage extermination probably could vouch for that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Punic_War [wikipedia.org]
For *centuries*, that history was written with Romans being the poor victims of evil Carthaginians. And battle hardened Roman soldiers wrote that what they were doing in Carthage was perversion of war - all kept hidden until few decades ago.
So yes, if Hitler won the war, the Holocaust would have been glossed over. Few would care. Heck, look at more recent examples of genocide - Rwanda. Or Armenian genocide by Turkey, which is still denied. Why? Because victors can't admit it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @04:04PM
The Holocaust would have been glossed over, if not forgotten by all but the Jews.
Very true. Just look at things like the Firebombing of Dresden, or the internment of Japanese Americans by the US government (and things like the Trail of Tears). None of them are denied and people who know such things know of them... but none of them are really emphasized and the majority of the population only has passing familiarity with them.
Or they could handle it like the Great Leap Forward and Tiananmen Square in China, which I think are more of an open secret.
There are lots of models of how a nation buries a dark chapter of history. It's easy to imagine a victorious Nazi government being held up as a shining example of what a country can be (and how to break out of the spiral of economic stagnation and oppression).
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday October 27 2016, @11:01PM
The internment of the Japanese was atrocious, but not up to the level of the Nazis or the Trail of Tears. There was no particular attempt to kill the Japanese-Americans, merely to exclude and impoverish them. Just about all survived. And, as far as I can determine, the goals were strictly economic, and merely enabled by popular racist sentiment. E.g., it wasn't done in Hawaii, which had a much higher proportion of Japanese.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday October 27 2016, @08:35PM
Jesus, Aristarchus
You are confusing me with someone else!
Realpolitik Does not become you, Runaway! Best to stick to the homespun doctrines of international relations, like how each nation has a right to built a wall.
Might does not make right. Might makes stupid. Arrogant, careless, and stupid. As Gandhi said, "Yes, there have been tyrants, but they have always fallen. Always."
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 27 2016, @10:45PM
" Does not become you, Runaway!"
I think that you are a poor judge of what is becoming. I do think for myeslf, thank you very much.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday October 28 2016, @12:50AM
I think that you are a poor judge of what is becoming.
We may have isolated the problem: you are a very poor judge of judges of what is becoming. Just thinking you think for yourself does not make it so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @09:10AM
Why you got such a hard on for the buzzard? He catches more fish than you do? Or - wait - I got it - he uses you for a trolling motor!
(Score: 3, Touché) by Dunbal on Thursday October 27 2016, @09:18AM
Well if we're going to cite international law... the United States is notorious for simply ignoring it because it believes that law only applies to "other countries".
(Score: 2) by Sarasani on Thursday October 27 2016, @12:36PM
One such example: the US dissin' the World Court ruling on contras [theguardian.com] back in 1986.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Thursday October 27 2016, @12:42PM
No worse than Spain declaring itself a universal jurisdiction for some crimes, or the kidnapping of Eichmann.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Thursday October 27 2016, @03:58PM
Ahh yes, the "But other people do it too!" defense.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday October 27 2016, @06:15PM
Universal jurisdiction is part of international law. If a crime against humanity occurs, every nation has the right to intervene and prosecute. The ICC is meant to alleviate the need to create a new tribunal every time there is some new nastiness, such as was done with the Balkan conflict, and Rwanda. In some cases, notably the The Convention on Genocide [ohchr.org], there is not just a right, but a positive duty to intervene and prosecute. This is why the Clinton administration tried so mightily to not call what was happening in Rwanda a "genocide", because once they did, the United States would have been obligated under international law to stop it.
And denying universal jurisdiction over your own nation and personnel is kind of the opposite of taking up the responsibility of enforcing international law. If you are an American, I can see who this subtle and obscure difference may be too much for you to fathom.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Thursday October 27 2016, @07:27PM
There is no such thing as international law.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday October 27 2016, @08:38PM
Oooh! You outlaw, you! Must be good, to be soooo bad! But don't come crying to us when you end up in front of the ICC after your "vacation" to some "conflict zone". Mercs, the only thing dumber than Republicans.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday October 27 2016, @11:06PM
Depends on what you mean. There's a general, but not unanimous, agreement on some things. You can argue that those are only international treaties, of course, but when 90% of the force is on one side, then there's effectively a law, even if enforcement is extremely sloppy.
And if you argue that if it isn't enforced honestly it's not a law, there are a large number of cities and states that don't have any internal law.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday October 27 2016, @12:54PM
(Score:0, Brain Dead)
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday October 27 2016, @03:00PM
> it is the considered judgment of humanity as a whole, over all
Even if I probably agree 100% on the rights attributed by constitutions and international courts, I still have to challenge this line. When did you vote for that judgment?
A bunch of people wrote documents talking about inherent rights. They are not inherent, they always come from revelation (religion) or reasoning.
I also suspect those masons writing Liberté Egalité Fraternité did it as a stopgap measure to annihilate the existing aristocratic bullies using the poor. 200 years after the very same system began hacking at those very same rights. Which is not surprising at all since, as I wrote many times already, it called the process Revolution, which is cyclical and so implies return to the initial conditions.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 28 2016, @02:26AM
Fucking useless dipshits have arrived to parrot the talking points of their masters! Good chimp!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday October 28 2016, @04:50AM
Fucking useless racists have arrived to parrot the men's right points of their dominatrixes! Good Republican!
I'm sorry, I cannot scan this message in any way that makes sense. Perhaps you could rephrase?
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday October 27 2016, @01:46PM
To be fair, the Allies did a fair amount of internationally illegal stuff during the war, too. Just not, y'know, concentration camps and purges and stuff.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2, Touché) by Francis on Thursday October 27 2016, @02:23PM
The US absolutely did have concentration camps, it's just that we called them internment camps. That and the fact that they weren't adjacent to death camps.
It's rather unfortunate, that we've chosen to roll the notion of a death camp into the notion of a concentration camp when they're not really the same thing.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Thursday October 27 2016, @09:23AM
So the US judge has made this decision, and nobody can see a problem with this? When Russia or China hacks into a computer in the US, it is viewed as a belligerent act almost sufficient to warrant a military response or at least a diplomatic complaint. The media splash it around - DNC, hacking of US power networks, autistic people hacking into NASA or the DOD, DDoS attacks that can disable US companies in the US. Yet if the US wants to do so in return then the rest of the world must just suck it up. After all, a judge has said that the FBI can do it anywhere and anytime it wants to, so it must be OK, right?.
The US might see itself as the world's police force, and sometimes it does some good by taking a lead. But believing that it has the right to hack into any computer anywhere in the world is not going make it any friends elsewhere. The NSA has a specific role and purpose and, although we might not accept its interpretation of that task we can at least understand why it might choose to do so. But the FBI does not have the same tasking. In fact, it has no jurisdiction whatsoever elsewhere in the world, unless host countries have granted it such authority.
The judge is talking crap and if nobody in the US can see the down side to his proclamation then they are in for an interesting time ahead. The US has just opened the floodgates to hacking attacks on themselves. After all, the US doesn't get to decide which individuals are working on behalf of a foreign state and which are doing it for their own gain. How does it decide whether the hackers that brought Twitter, Facebook and others to their knees last week weren't doing it on the behest of their government which would be, if the US view is accepted, entirely legal?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by TheRaven on Thursday October 27 2016, @10:23AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 27 2016, @01:15PM
You're right, but we're already there. Read the Snowden documents about how the NSA does that. The flip side is also that the government has given itself permission to ignore real evidence. The FBI can both plant evidence that isn't there, and ignore evidence that is really there. Power does what it wants now, with no constraints.
Won't that be fun when people who have an enemies list that's 30-years long take over? Labor activists, conservatives, and all who don't kiss the ring will learn.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 27 2016, @01:09PM
We can see the downside, janrinok, but we have no remedy left until the guillotines are dusted off and put into service again. Nobody in government, from the humble hamlet to the leviathan in the Maryland/Virginia swamp, gives one whit for the rule of law anymore. The NSA doesn't. The FBI doesn't. The DEA doesn't. The IRS doesn't. Congress doesn't. The Whitehouse doesn't. Criminals have completed their coup over democracy and are about to annoint one of their own as a symbol of their final victory, after having rubbed our noses in their diffidence toward our collective naivete. On the local side, cops summarily execute citizens without ever being charged with murder, because they are enabled by prosecutors and a judiciary whose stock-in-trade is bullying and punishing; no amount of data about the rate of false convictions or parallel construction deters them or invites politicians, the ones who are supposedly accountable to somebody, to do anything about it.
Everything here is broken. The only thing left is for gravity to pull the pieces asunder.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DonkeyChan on Thursday October 27 2016, @02:36PM
FBI - "Every time a picture of pedophilia is shared that child is revictimized."
FBI - We shared over a million pictures to catch 100 (84) non producers.
(Score: 3, Funny) by darkfeline on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:06PM
Don't worry, the FBI is just thinking of the children.
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