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FBI Resists Revealing its Tor User Identification Methods in Court

posted by CoolHand on Thursday March 31 2016, @06:02PM   
from the keep-it-secret-keep-it-safe dept.

takyon writes:

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.

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Original Submission

• Re:Again, I'm agreeing with the FBI on this oneRe:Again, I'm agreeing with the FBI on this one (Score: 2) by bitstream on Thursday March 31 2016, @08:45PM

  by bitstream (6144) on Thursday March 31 2016, @08:45PM (#325463) Journal

  Thus America is perhaps Russia light?

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• Re:Again, I'm agreeing with the FBI on this oneRe:Again, I'm agreeing with the FBI on this one (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2016, @09:08PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2016, @09:08PM (#325470)

  Russia hi-tech.

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  • Re:Again, I'm agreeing with the FBI on this one(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday March 31 2016, @10:30PM

    by butthurt (6141) on Thursday March 31 2016, @10:30PM (#325508) Journal

    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.

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• Re:Again, I'm agreeing with the FBI on this one(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Thursday March 31 2016, @09:59PM

  by MostCynical (2589) on Thursday March 31 2016, @09:59PM (#325492) Journal

  Russia with more tv advertising and better "circuses" (viz. Fox 'news' and all the others)

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  "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

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