In a surprising and worrying move, the FBI has dropped its case against a man accused of downloading child sex abuse images, rather than reveal details about how they caught him.
Jay Michaud, a middle school teacher in Vancouver, Washington, was arrested in July last year after visiting the Playpen, a dark web meeting place tens of thousands of perverts used to swap mountains of vile underage porn.
Unbeknown to him at the time, the FBI were, for about a fortnight, running the site after taking over its servers, and managed to install a network investigative technique (NIT) on his computer to get his real public IP address and MAC address. The Playpen was hidden in the Tor anonymizing network, and the spyware was needed to unmask suspects – about 1,300 public IP addresses were collected by agents during the operation.
According to the prosecution, a police raid on his home revealed a substantial hoard of pictures and video of child sex abuse on computer equipment. But now, guilty or not, he's now off the hook after the FBI filed a motion to dismiss its own case [PDF] late last month.
Why? Because Michaud's lawyer insisted that the FBI hand over a sample of the NIT code so it could be checked to ensure that it didn't breach the terms of the warrant the FBI obtained to install the malware, and to check that it wouldn't throw up any false positives.
US District Judge Robert Bryan agreed, saying that unless the prosecution turned over the code, he'd have to dismiss the charges. The FBI has since been arguing against that, but has now decided that it's better to drop the case than reveal its techniques.
-- submitted from IRC
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Rather than share the now-classified technological means that investigators used to locate a child porn suspect, federal prosecutors in Washington state have dropped all charges against a man accused of accessing Playpen, a notorious and now-shuttered website.
The case, United States v. Jay Michaud, is one of nearly 200 cases nationwide that have raised new questions about the appropriate limitations on the government's ability to hack criminal suspects. Michaud marks just the second time that prosecutors have asked that [the] case be dismissed.
"The government must now choose between disclosure of classified information and dismissal of its indictment," Annette Hayes, a federal prosecutor, wrote in a court filing on Friday. "Disclosure is not currently an option. Dismissal without prejudice leaves open the possibility that the government could bring new charges should there come a time within the statute of limitations when and the government be in a position to provide the requested discovery."
https://threatpost.com/doj-dismisses-playpen-case-to-keep-tor-hack-private/124102/
Intent on keeping details private about how it hacked the Tor browser, prosecutors with the U.S. Department of Justice on Friday asked to dismiss a case involving a suspect who visited the Playpen dark web child pornography site in 2015.
"The government must now choose between disclosure of classified information and dismissal of its indictment," Annette Hayes, a US attorney, wrote in a court filing (.PDF) on Friday. "Disclosure is not currently an option."
Hayes asked the court to drop charges around the case without prejudice, insisting the government has "simply acted to protect highly sensitive information from criminal discovery as was its obligation." There's a chance, if the exploit is unclassified later down the line, the government could reopen its case, she claims.
"Dismissal without prejudice leaves open the possibility that the government could bring new charges should there come a time within the statute of limitations when and the government be in a position to provide the requested discovery," Hayes wrote.
News the government is unwilling to disclose the exploit–something the FBI refers to as a "Network Investigative Technique" (NIT)–has seemingly been a long time coming; the DOJ has remained resolute to keeping the exploit under wraps. Last April the FBI refused to comply with the judge's request to describe how it compromised the Tor browser.
Previously: FBI Let Alleged Pedo Walk Free Rather Than Explain How They Snared Him
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @01:07AM
Innocent until proven Guilty, erring on the side of Not Guilty if the evidence is in doubt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @01:13AM
The evidence is not in doubt, he had "a substantial hoard of pictures and video of child sex abuse on computer equipment". They (FBI) just don't want to let their secret code out. Hopefully he doesn't still have a job at a school.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @01:15AM
Oh don't worry. Accusation is Conviction. His life is finished. Will never work again. Might as well kill himself now.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @08:29AM
Similar software in Germany was shown to contain code to plant evidence on the suspects computer.
When a judge tells the police to demonstrate that they are not breaking the law, and they rush to withdraw the case, you shouldn't trust ANY evidence they have touched. Evidence can be planted or faked.
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Tuesday January 10 2017, @09:33AM
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday January 09 2017, @01:58PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @01:13AM
I see you want to ignore the abundant evidence against this pedophile because you are also a pedophile.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @01:22AM
Children are easy to rape because they're small and weak and can't run fast on those little legs.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zeigerpuppy on Monday January 09 2017, @02:19AM
A NIT is essentially malware that gets installed on a target's computer.
If you can install a NIT, it's trivial to plant incriminating material too.
I'm not saying he's innocent but there's a pretty good argument from his defence that the images may have been tampered.
The problem with using intrusion techniques is that the evidence itself may well be tainted.
But of course, law enforcement would never stoop so low as to plant evidence, and police actions are never politically motivated.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday January 09 2017, @05:10AM
If you can install a NIT, it's trivial to plant incriminating material too.
Probably one can claim that as soon as the NIT got loaded, the accused lost control over his PC and cannot be held responsible for the content. Even if the NIT code has no obvious downloader, it may create a hole for another tool that does the download and sets the access date/time.
If this defense is successful, then the TLAs will be less enthusiastic about planting bugs onto people's computers because they cannot be used in court.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 12 2017, @08:39PM
If this defense is successful, then the TLAs will be less enthusiastic about planting bugs onto people's computers because they cannot be used in court.
Not in the slightest. The TLAs will be more enthusiastic than ever about using them. They'll just be ever so much more careful in assuring a parallel construction such that there is never a chance that the penetrations will come forward in court nor offered in disclosure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @04:16PM
If catching a pedo is that important - which it is - then why not do your fucking job and do it properly, follow all procedures and check all requirement boxes the right way; that way, your evidence will be admissible in court.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday January 09 2017, @09:25PM
If catching a pedo is that important - which it is
It really isn't. Merely being a pedophile (i.e. someone who is sexually attracted to prepubescent children) isn't actually illegal, and even if someone has child porn of some sort, the mere act of possessing it does not actually inflict harm upon anyone. There's no guarantee it was paid for, either. It's a waste of time going after these people. Resources are limited, so they should focus on going after the ones who actually create the child porn in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 11 2017, @06:05AM
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Monday January 09 2017, @02:11AM
This is not about guilty or not guilty. The guy is guilty as fuck, and the prosecution proved that. This is about punishing the FBI, because they used illegal means to prove his guilt.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @02:32AM
Is he? They found pictures on his computer, but they have to prove that the pictures were there and weren't the result of tampering. Whether or not he's actually guilty, his life is pretty much over and he'll never work in education again. Which is fine if he's actually guilty, but if the FBI put the pictures there the way that they gave "terrorists" plans and weapons in order to arrest them for terrorism related crimes, then that's not doing anybody any good.
Bottom line here is that it's incredibly irresponsible of the media to publish the names of people who have been accused of crimes, but not yet convicted as they might well turn out to not be guilty or are outright innocent of the charges. The prosecutors and cops have a tendency to interpret circumstances in a way that leads them to believe people are guilty, even though the evidence might be lacking. The whole point of jury trials is that the police and prosecution are likely to arrest and charge more people that are actually guilty.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by black6host on Monday January 09 2017, @04:08AM
I have a friend whose ex accused him of molesting her children. The local newspaper reported that he had been arrested and confessed. He had made no confession. This was front page news. He was self employed and it hurt his business. A few days later a retraction in the paper was made. In the back, in small print. He was eventually acquitted but the damage had been done. The children admitted that his ex put them up to it.
It's terribly important that we adhere to the innocent until proven guilty system of law that we here in the US enjoy. Sure, a few will get away. More importantly, those who are innocent should be protected. When it comes to children, it doesn't work that way. All someone needs to do is make the accusation. Game over. Sucks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @05:13PM
Tell that to all the pizzagate loony's. It's a terrible shame when a regular Joe is *supposedly* set up by the FBI. But some incredibly vague emails from a questionable source equals a global conspiracy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @09:28PM
Pizzagate is ridiculous, but the actual source isn't that questionable. It's been practically admitted already on numerous occasions that the emails were real.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @01:12AM
US District Judge Robert Bryan agreed, saying that unless the prosecution turned over the code, he'd have to dismiss the charges. The FBI has since been arguing against that, but has now decided that it's better to drop the case than reveal its techniques.
Am I reading this correctly then that we should expect much more parallel construction; i.e.: they will/want to keep using this NIT thing and then just set up parallel constructions for how they got it so that they don't have to reveal NIT?
Is that is, FBI (Yeah, I'm talking to you guys... I know there's at least 2 FBI agents reading this site)? Something ... something... defend the constitution against enemies foreign and domestic... You guys should really rethink what you are actually doing all day!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @01:19AM
FBI (Yeah, I'm talking to you guys... I know there's at least 2 FBI agents reading this site)
Wow. That's some paranoia you have there. Please log in so the court of public opinion can lynch you for being insane, and not in the good way like that crazy guy MDC. The bad kind of crazy where you're a terrorist raghead with plans to blow up every linode.
(Score: 3, Funny) by tangomargarine on Monday January 09 2017, @03:49PM
by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08, @07:19PM (#451267)
[...]
Wow. That's some paranoia you have there. Please log in
Mmhm.
"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) by Immerman on Monday January 09 2017, @05:52PM
Really? We're a site frequented by technologically savvy malcontents - seems to me the security agencies would be slacking in their job not to keep at least a casual eye on things here. Plus "Yeah boss, I *am* browsing slashdot at work - see it's on my list of things to monitor..."
(Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Monday January 09 2017, @08:23PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Monday January 09 2017, @03:17AM
But don't they already have that? They proved he was a pedo through good old fashioned raiding his personal home computer physically. Maybe I missed something, but it sounds like they are saying that even that is deemed invalid if the reason they suspected him in the first place is because of potentially illegal behavior. It sounds like their is really not all that much they can do, if their method is breaking tor is considered illegal and not ground for a warrant.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by black6host on Monday January 09 2017, @04:14AM
Sure, he may have been a pedo. But the means don't justify the end if you wish to maintain our constitutional rights. Some will get away with it but the goal is to protect the innocent. Use legal means of investigation is you're gong to pursue that. Otherwise, they can fuck off.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @04:24AM
The issue is there was no legal justification to raid his computer in the first place so whatever they get from that is inadmissible. That's the whole point 'parallel construction'. They find out somebody is guilty through unlawful, if not illegal, means and then try to get that same proof in a legal way even if by relying on "anonymous informants", though I imagine there are limits on how far they can go with that.
I'm not really fond of the system mostly because it's starting to feel more and more like we're approaching the old, much maligned, police states of the past - the stasi, KGB, and so on. Going from normalcy to the degrees of privacy violations and unlawful behaviors that these various law enforcement groups would become infamous for is not something that happens overnight. It slowly builds up and we're certainly headed in that direction fast and sure. And our technology has already long since outpaced our ethics and capacity for oversight. Snowden's leaks included mention of the fact that NSA officers with access to information would spy on their significant others or exes, copy 'private' photos of attractive people, and so on. At some point you really just have to slow down, even if it means some undesirables through the net.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @08:35AM
FBI: Your honor, the evidence clearly shows that the accused is guilty.
Judge: Please demonstrate that you did not plant the evidence.
FBI: Err... We withdraw the case.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @08:38PM
They proved he was a pedo through good old fashioned raiding his personal home computer physically.
Unfortunately that was after they pwned his computer. They took control of his computer before legally raiding his house. Who knows how much of the content on his computer he is actually responsible for?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GungnirSniper on Monday January 09 2017, @04:32AM
I wonder who some of these out-of-nowhere editors are, being some have joined with little to no history of comments or submissions. They can see IPs on every post.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by charon on Monday January 09 2017, @07:19AM
Actually we can't. We only see a hash of the IP, which is usually consistent for a particular user. Maybe the site admins can, though I've never asked.
But of course, that's what an FBI agent would say...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @12:55PM
> We only see a hash of the IP
How can someone say stupid shit like this unless they are a complete ignoramus without any clue of computer science, programming, mathematics and basic logic?
There are only 4 billion IP addresses, if you have a HASH of the IP address you HAVE the IP address!!!!
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday January 09 2017, @02:01PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday January 09 2017, @03:45PM
unless they are a complete ignoramus without any clue of computer science, programming, mathematics and basic logic
Somebody needs to review the definition of a hash.
"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) by tibman on Monday January 09 2017, @06:34PM
He's saying you could build an IP dictionary by hashing every single IP and doing a comparison against the target hash. You would have to know the has algorithm and salt though.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday January 09 2017, @07:06PM
Wanted to follow up. I poked around the source for a few min and it looks like a plain md5 hash is used. A rainbow table is doable. 16 bytes for IP and 16 bytes for md5 with a total of 4,294,967,296 records is ~137 GB. If someone could find a way show a user hash for a specific comment then i could be motivated to build the rainbow table with a small web front-end for people to use : )
https://github.com/SoylentNews/rehash/blob/e90330293ad9a27e3975a88ea8c17dccec74e130/Slash/Utility/Environment/Environment.pm#L3108 [github.com]
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 09 2017, @08:23PM
Yup, which is why we haven't bothered changing the hashing algorithm or anything. That small of a key space you don't gain anything by using a better algorithm. Use our .onion site or a VPN if it bugs you too much.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @01:16AM
So first the FBI RUNS a child porn website, then drops a case against some asshole child porn collector since they don't want to reveal how they caught him? They really are coming off as being just as bad.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @02:16AM
Child porn should always remain illegal! Because reasons!
(Score: 5, Informative) by requerdanos on Monday January 09 2017, @01:16AM
To protect "our" rights, that is, us, mr. joe or ms. jane average individual, from overreach by governments and their agents, we often have to defend those rights as applied to people we'd perhaps rather see convicted.
This may apply to a child pornography defendant, or a murderer/rapist, or a person of any class that it's still okay to be down on for whatever reason.
I support this guy's rights and I am glad that the judge does too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @01:19AM
To protect "our" rights, that is, us, mr. joe or ms. jane average individual, from overreach by governments and their agents, we often have to defend those rights as applied to people we'd perhaps rather see convicted.
Words of wisdom!
But just watch, what you just said will be twisted into you supporting child porn or being a pedo by at least one or two morons... (even though you didn't indicate that whatsoever)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @09:08AM
But just watch, what you just said will be twisted into you supporting ...
If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged. ~ Cardinal Richelieu
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @02:21AM
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @04:15AM
Only a true scoundrel would keep child porn illegal.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @05:54AM
Hi Aristarchus, nice to see you're coming out of the pedo-cabinet.
(Score: 0, Troll) by mattTheOne on Monday January 09 2017, @03:07AM
This must be a white dude.
When I went to court, I noticed the judge looks at the defendant, see he's black and decides he's guilty regardless of the evidence or legality of obtained evidence.
I can definitely see the concern here, lets say the police found 1TB of illegal material, was it planted by the FBI or...? But rarely does it play out like that IRL. Judge rules how he wants, and its up to the losing party to go to Appeals to get a proper hearing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @07:11AM
here's another idea - a correct one. the judge has seen a lot of criminals and makes a quick decision about guilty or not by looking at them. statistically there are many more black criminals, so most of the time, his "guilty" decision is about a black man. blacks are statistically much more likely to commit crime. not because of the color of their skin, but because niggers are black.
(Score: 1) by zraith on Monday January 09 2017, @06:28PM
A very related 33C3 talk:
Law Enforcement Are Hacking the Planet [33c3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg5VR6XzsXs [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 10 2017, @02:42PM
What the hell? We were sold all these abuses of human rights exactly because "then we can catch those nasty pedos". Now suddenly they walk??!!!