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 ...
Are they protecting someone?
FREE PIZZA!.......................
That reminds me, has B.J. Clinton visited the island of underage girls lately?
Yeah, they found out it was a Democrat big wig.
Interesting, figured Tor was breakable given enough resources.
They pinged the IP address and came back Clinton-Email.com
Sources and Methods, bummer.
“The only thing that’s cured is HAM”
My guess is they’ll still end up getting him in the future.
It may be that divulging it would reveal some of the, er, occupants.
Wjo is running that show, Obama holdovers or Sessions’ people? Sounds fishy.
this is horse$hit
They should take it into chambers with just the attorneys and first prove that it is a national security requirement THEN allow the data if it was not obtained illegally
Just another reason I think AB was “taken out”.
Of course, I’m a proud member of Nully’s tinfoil crowd.
But I still think AB was “taken out”.
Yeah Right. If these fools thought they could browse anonymously, then I have a certain bridge to sell them.
In an unrelated thread last week it was discussed that they couldn’t prosecute you for browsing. Only if you down-loaded or up-loaded the photos.
Sure seems like it, but we new a couple years ago TOR was compromised, see Silk Road Prosecutions.
They are just protecting how they ran the crack (hack). Sources and methods are frequently more valuable than any one particular case.
It is unfortunate, but it is reality.
The way I understand it, it’s like trying to track a suspect through a packed mall. Hard to follow on foot. If you cover all the exits, or enough of them, thougb eventually you’ll nab him.
Well there you go: ignore the children who are victims of abuse to help protect some sleaze.
Seems they screwed the pooch on this no matter what. At the very least, the bad guys have now been put on notice that Tor isn't secure.
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