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FBI Resists Revealing its Tor User Identification Methods in Court

posted by CoolHand on Thursday March 31 2016, @06:02PM   Printer-friendly
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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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2016, @11:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 31 2016, @11:27PM (#325534)

    sleep with the officer first.

    I'm going to off-topic nitpick for no reason here but just say suck/fuck/screw/bang/etc. Sleep is a silly euphemism made up for the sole purpose of bypassing the puritan filters imposed on and by the media. We are all adults here (well, most of us) and we can handle the reality of what happens when you solicit a prostitute. You sure aren't looking for someone to spoon with at night.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2016, @02:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2016, @02:13AM (#325581)

    But, after I'm sucked/fucked/screwed/banged/etc. I always fall asleep. This is due to a chemical release in my brain, which is normal male physiology -- otherwise we'd probably fuck/screw/bang/etc. our partners raw.

    The association with sleep is more than arbitrary.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2016, @05:10PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 01 2016, @05:10PM (#325783)

    what happens when you solicit a prostitute. You sure aren't looking for someone to spoon with at night.

    Not true at all. Buying a prostitute is a method of obtaining companionship for a night, not necessarily just sex.