Honestly, I'm very satisfied with the work the FBI did in this case.
To those mad about the FBI overstepping privacy rights on shaky grounds: how could you possibly need more evidence than proof of visits to a website that distributes child pornography?
What constitutes "a visit to a child pornography site"?
Say this was not on TOR but the regular internet. Say I masked the URL of this child porn website with a popular URL shortening service and posted that link here saying "read this!" You click this link and are surprised and quickly close the page.
You visited a child porn site!
But now imagine in that ONE visit the FBI exploited an undisclosed vulnerability in your browser. Now they spy on your malware infected machine.
Would you be happy? I'm not saying this happened but it's possible when you allow this sort of activity to happen in your country.
Say this was not on TOR but the regular internet. Say I masked the URL of this child porn website with a popular URL shortening service and posted that link here saying "read this!" You click this link and are surprised and quickly close the page.
But that isn't what happened here. Or even close to it.
A better analogy here is something like the FBI staking out an illegal dog fighting ring (which isn't exactly easy to get into in the first place) and then tracking the cars of people who visited it.
Maybe they should have to get a warrant, maybe not - I think there are valid arguments on both sides of that.
But let's not pretend these people didn't know exactly what they were doing. These aren't innocent people tricked into it.
I mean the argument still holds for TOR I imagine. Aren't there .onion URL shorteners (I honestly don't know)?
You're probably right that these people weren't tricked at any point. But setting a precedent that it's ok for government agencies to inject malware and attack citizen computers seems like a very slippery slope.
Boobytraps, land mines, etc. are often banned because they attack people without discretion. Injecting malware into someone's machine just because they stumble upon an URL (be it .com, .onion, .xxx or .whatever) sounds criminal to me regardless of who is running the show.
I can't imagine what a warrant for this scenario would look like given it was on TOR? Who would it be issued for?
I would guess that you could put a proxy in-front of the Tor URL on a clearnet domain and set the X-Forwarded-For header to the IP of the actual visitor. If they trust forwarding proxies than it's easy to implicate someone. If they don't, it's easy to hide from them.
But the same argument holds true for general possession laws. Take some illegal images, plant it on someone's computer, phone in an anonymous tip, boom jail time for an innocent person. It's the whole problem with possession of anything being a crime. Same with drugs. Just accessing something is an even scarier thought.
This is precisely why it's kind of scary that the FBI did what it did to apprehend these people. But we should not think that at the end of the day, the people caught should be free to go because of the means by which the FBI caught them. They each have their days in court.
I'd rather say that I'm very impressed with the extent to which the FBI went to compromise these people from a technical standpoint. What they did is scary, yes. But I'm still very satisfied knowing that the FBI will put in not only so much manpower, but also technical and strategic effort to achieve its goals.
That sounds like you're glad that the FBI is technically competent at bypassing the very constitutional protections that each of its agents is sworn to protect.
Which constitutional protections did they bypass exactly?
The Federal Court has found the fourth amendment does not protect a home computer[1].
One might disagree with that, but claiming the FBI is "bypassing the very constitutional protections that each of its agents is sworn to protect" seems quite emotive given that an actual court found the exact opposite.
Illegally obtained evidence is not admissible in any sane court of law. How is this any different?
This reads to me like: there's this bad area in town where drug dealers are known to congregate. Does that make every person who hangs around there, or even passes by, a drug dealer by association?
That's a ridiculous argument. You don't just "hang around" child porn websites without participating.
Furthermore, the FBI achieved their goal at the end of the day. Just because evidence is obtained illegally doesn't mean that people who distribute CP are just off the hook. Sure, that's abuse of power. But it's absolutely ridiculous for any sane person to argue that these people should walk free because the FBI overstepped its bounds.
Ugh... I've had friends who use to send people links to child porn sites as a joke. Use to say "Now you're on the FBI's wanted list"
> Just because evidence is obtained illegally doesn't mean that people who distribute CP are just off the hook.
In the U.S. that's exactly what it is supposed to mean. If the FBI, police, or just about anyone oversteps the law it's not admissible in court. There has to be a reasonable suspicion and motive to get a warrant - that could have been as easy as simply getting a warrant to host a Tor node and sniff traffic. They didn't do that.
Now, lets get to what's scary about your argument. What if all the sudden it was illegal to visit Hacker News? Perhaps it was declared that way by your new president Trump. Trump got sick of people "hacking" things, so instead of just blocking all the websites he decided he wanted to simply monitor all the users who visit hacker news, then charge all of them with "hacking". It is a hacking website after all... And, although our justice branch of the government was never consulted, i'm sure you'll find some CNN poll showing 40% of American's should be jailed for life for hacking.
Later on the news, someone in a suit will be saying "it's absolutely ridiculous for any sane person to argue that these people should walk free because the FBI overstepped its bounds."
.... Hence, as a democracy we all try to get along, and that includes respecting each-others privacy as long as there is not a reasonable suspicion we are harming others. It's there to protect democracy, not the pedophiles.
> I'm pretty sure his argument was that the site could have had other purposes.
But in this case it didn't. Not a single case coming out of it has claimed that it was some kind of mistake, or inadvertent visit or they were there to do something else.
> how could you possibly need more evidence than proof of visits to a website that distributes child pornography?
That question is misleading. What people is worried about is "How much power has the FBI to spy on ordinary citizens?". Even the worst authoritarian governments put assassins in prisons, but that doesn't justify their systems.
What we need is a balanced dialog about privacy. Yes, there are good uses to spying. Yes, spying is open to abuse from institutions and individuals for personal gain. Lets work inside the constitutional framework and create laws that empower good uses and limit bad uses instead. That's why we have separation of powers.
To those mad about the FBI overstepping privacy rights on shaky grounds: how could you possibly need more evidence than proof of visits to a website that distributes child pornography?