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The FBI is not eager to reveal (more) details about methods it used to identify Tor users as part of a child pornography case. FBI's Operation Torpedo previously unmasked Tor users by serving them malicious scripts from secretly seized .onion sites.
The FBI is resisting calls to reveal how it identified people who used a child pornography site on the Tor anonymising network. The agency was ordered to share details by a Judge presiding over a case involving one alleged user of the site. Defence lawyers said they need the information to see if the FBI exceeded its authority when indentifying users. But the Department of Justice (DoJ), acting for the FBI, said the details were irrelevant to the case. "Knowing how someone unlocked the front door provides no information about what that person did after entering the house," wrote FBI agent Daniel Alfin in court papers filed by the DoJ which were excerpted on the Vice news site.
The Judge ordered the FBI to hand over details during a court hearing in late February. The court case revolves around a "sting" the FBI carried out in early 2015 when it seized a Tor-based site called Playpen that traded in images and videos of child sexual abuse. The agency kept the site going for 13 days and used it to grab information about visitors who took part in discussion threads about images of child abuse.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2016, @06:56PM
as a general rule they have no need to know the method by which it was obtained
And what if that evidence is illegally obtained? Warrantless mass surveillance is unconstitutional, regardless of what some kangaroo court says about it. "Parallel construction" sophistry is also an affront to our justice system.
If you're being charged with some crime, you ought to want to know how the evidence was obtained. If it was obtained illegally you can get it thrown out. Our justice system does have an obligation to operate in this way.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bitstream on Thursday March 31 2016, @07:09PM
If court isn't willing to prove the evidence was collected legally can one dismiss the case on legal grounds then? or even using the constitution?
That is unless the whole system is just because-we-can-style a la Soviet 1960-style.
Just because they refuse to provide the means of evidence gathering one might actually accuse them of collaborating with that less than four letter agency to triangulate by the means of routing traces. This of course is against any policy of those systems only to be used for serious matters for which this case isn't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2016, @07:55PM
That is unless the whole system is just because-we-can-style a la Soviet 1960-style.
I, for one, would like to welcome you into proper adulthood. You now see the world closer to the way it is. Your membership card is on its way!
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday March 31 2016, @08:17PM
Countries based on western values are supposed to follow the law and not allow for loose wild west cops.
It's quite well known what that 1960's soviet country ended up.
Even worse there's a reason why western countries got ahead of the rest for a few hundred years starting with Magna Carta in 1215 and acceleration since 1845, something about a specific set of structural killer-apps..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2016, @08:23PM
"are supposed to" being the keyword. We've diverted from that path a while ago now...
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday March 31 2016, @08:45PM
Thus America is perhaps Russia light?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2016, @09:08PM
Russia hi-tech.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday March 31 2016, @10:30PM
Gorbachev called [slate.com] the Chernobyl disaster “perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.” Although the meltdown at Santa Susana was uncontained [wikipedia.org], American reactors often have containment buildings. Long live America.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday March 31 2016, @09:59PM
Russia with more tv advertising and better "circuses" (viz. Fox 'news' and all the others)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 31 2016, @08:10PM
If the means of identifying the Tor users was (hypothetically) breaking in to every single Windows user's PC and planting a trojan, would that constitute illegal search?
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by bitstream on Thursday March 31 2016, @08:38PM
It means breaking into every network exchange.. oh wait that sounds familiar! ;-)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2016, @09:11PM
Why would they do that when they can simply wait for Windows 10 to send them the info in your computer's regularly scheduled "telemetry transmission"?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Thursday March 31 2016, @07:28PM
No, it doesn't have to operate that way, it was officially decided to operate that way because the alternative that was seen as equally just was to convict the officer of criminal activity on the ground of officially admitted testimony.
Personally, I'm more in favor of the second option, but that's not what the courts decided.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday April 01 2016, @12:59AM
Personally, I'm more in favor of the second option, but that's not what the courts decided.
The second option would allow martyrs to illegally collect evidence to convict someone even if we properly held cops accountable, which we probably wouldn't. I care more about stopping abuses of government power than stopping bad guys.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday March 31 2016, @10:44PM
To that, you have to add that running a kiddy porn site is illegal.
And so is entrapment, in most cases.
But for the FBI to do both together, seems doubly bad.
Just about every terrorist the FBI catches these days are clueless idiots induced into taking delivery of inert weapons or explosives.
These wanna-bes probably would never progress to that level of stupid without the FBI egging them on.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.