Posted on 03/06/2017 2:00:33 PM PST by Titus-Maximus
US prosecutors have dropped a case against a man accused of using a child porn site because the government refused to divulge how it revealed his identity.
The Playpen site was located on the Tor network which is used to anonymise web-browsing activity. The FBI found a way around this to reveal the users' real IP addresses and led to 200 prosecutions. But it refused to reveal to the court how it managed the feat.
The site was located on the Tor network which many people use to browse the web anonymously. It conceals their location and identity by routing their connections through a chain of different computers and encrypting data in the process.
To get round this the FBI used what it called "network investigative techniques" and revealed people's identities.
But it refused a request for information on its technological investigation techniques. Federal prosecutor Annette Hayes wrote in a court filing on Friday that "because the government remains unwilling to disclose certain discovery related to the FBI's deployment of a 'network investigative technique'" it was "deprived of the evidence needed to establish defendant Jay Michaud's guilt beyond reasonable doubt".
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
They do not want to disclose the means they used to spy on him, I bet.
TOR was a DARPA project from the get go. They pushed it for “public” consumption to build enough traffic to hide agents’ communications.
Even if they choose not to prosecute, someone can anonymously leak the details about the perv for all to see. That’s about 90% of what the NYT does these days, so it’s got to be protected under the 1st Amendment, right?
Apparently, the methodology was to download a Windows exploit that sent the MAC address of the user’s NIC and Windows hostname to an SAIC server in Reston VA.
See here: https://hacked.com/child-porn-bust-fbi-may-used-malware-innocent-users/
and here: https://www.wired.com/2013/08/freedom-hosting/
They have broken TOR and don't want others to know how they did it - worth more to them than letting a few kiddie porn sickos off the hook.
The good thing is that the case was thrown out (even though the perp needs to be put away)- if they can't prove their data is valid, they shouldn't be able to use it - it becomes hearsay....
Interesting.
Interesting.
No, they are protecting how they were able to defeat an anonymizing network designed to conceal a user’s source IP. Criminal networks rely on TOR to conceal their traffic and if the FBI has figured out a way to skirt around it, it only makes sense that they would not want to disclose how they did it.
That is more valuable to them than proceeding with the case.
This is a bit of conundrum for the FBI, if they aren’t willing to reveal how they have compromised TOR to charge criminals, then how do they propose bringing them to trial?
It’s almost self defeating.
Exactly - they want to be able to bring charges w/o any proof that their info is reliable. Reminds me of the Dems - "It's not the provable facts, it's the seriousness of the charges"...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.