View Full Version : FBI Child Porn Ring
http://www.sfgate.com/local/article/FBI-shared-child-porn-to-nab-pedophiles-4552044.php
OK, I'm not so sure about this one. Don't get me wrong, I want to catch as many child predators as possible, but this tactic rubs me the wrong way. Distributing images of children being raped is a real problem since there is a good chance that those images are going to be duplicated or further distributed.
Imagine if the DEA sold drugs on the street for a week to record who was the buyers. Better yet, imagine if the ATF let guns be purchased illegally and cross the border…wait a minute…damn.
I think they use images that are already out there.
So very typical of the FBI lately. They have to create the circumstances around which the crime can be committed. It's not too dissimilar from their terrorism investigations like with the Hutarree Militia where they were incapable of committing any crimes until the FBi agent gave them the money and told them where to buy weapons....even giving them a ride to do it....
Damn near every thing they are doing is enticing or entrapping.
I think they use images that are already out there.
Well one would hope that they weren't making new ones :eek:
It appears that they raided a web porn distributor, commandeered the server, and kept it running for a week to gather intel on patrons.
Imagine if the DEA took over a crack house and started giving out crack to collect information on users. Maybe not a perfect analogy, but I don't like the idea of drugs or child porn being distributed by the government after it is seized.
From what I read, the context seems to be that they left the server up and watched those who were accessing it. It does not at all sound like the FBI engaged in the distribution of child pornography.
It appears that they raided a web porn distributor, commandeered the server, and kept it running for a week to gather intel on patrons.
Imagine if the DEA took over a crack house and started giving out crack to collect information on users. Maybe not a perfect analogy, but I don't like the idea of drugs or child porn being distributed by the government after it is seized.
Maybe a better analogy would be DEA letting drug sales continue to see who buys it before shutting it down. This is also different from what happened here, but I do think it is a closer analogy.
So very typical of the FBI lately. They have to create the circumstances around which the crime can be committed. It's not too dissimilar from their terrorism investigations like with the Hutarree Militia where they were incapable of committing any crimes until the FBi agent gave them the money and told them where to buy weapons....even giving them a ride to do it....
Damn near every thing they are doing is enticing or entrapping.
Meanwhile the self motivated criminals go largely undetected.
It's a strange program to lessen crime by creating crime.
It appears that they raided a web porn distributor, commandeered the server, and kept it running for a week to gather intel on patrons.
Imagine if the DEA took over a crack house and started giving out crack to collect information on users. Maybe not a perfect analogy, but I don't like the idea of drugs or child porn being distributed by the government after it is seized.
Down here the BSO under Nick Navarro was actually making their own crack to provide to undercover officers for purposes of making deals.
That'd be like the CIA being involved in drug trafficking...
That'd be like the CIA being involved in drug trafficking...
Or the D.O.J......
Alaskapopo
05-30-13, 17:46
So very typical of the FBI lately. They have to create the circumstances around which the crime can be committed. It's not too dissimilar from their terrorism investigations like with the Hutarree Militia where they were incapable of committing any crimes until the FBi agent gave them the money and told them where to buy weapons....even giving them a ride to do it....
Damn near every thing they are doing is enticing or entrapping.
So you think they would not have done it down the road when they got money on their own and learned where to get the weapons.
Pat
So you think they would not have done it down the road when they got money on their own and learned where to get the weapons.
Pat
Are you saying they would have done it without a doubt- had outside forces NOT decided to nudge them along and put them on the easy path to do so?
Sometimes people change ideals and/or have a change of heart Pat.
Why is it our Govt nudges them along and provides such an easy path, instead of watching them and waiting?
What the FEDS do (IE- intices these individuals to commit these crimes) is not much different than what terrorist organizations are doing- giving hee info, means/training to pull this tuff off and fometning their anger to push them in the direction of extremism & violence.
The way the Feds are hadning out cash, getting these angry people riled up further and pushing people along to commit crimes is criminal IMO.
Alaskapopo
05-30-13, 18:03
Are you saying they would have done it without a doubt- had outside forces NOT decided to nudge them along and put them on the easy path to do so?
Sometimes people change ideals and/or have a change of heart Pat.
Why is it our Govt nudges them along and provides such an easy path, instead of watching them and waiting?
What the FEDS do (IE- intices these individuals to commit these crimes) is not much different than what terrorist organizations are doing- giving hee info, means/training to pull this tuff off and fometning their anger to push them in the direction of extremism & violence.
The way the Feds are hadning out cash, getting these angry people riled up further and pushing people along to commit crimes is criminal IMO.
I look at it like stings where an investigator poses as a hitman and answers an add from a husband or a wife to kill there husband and then arrests them. The consequences for not taking these people off the street is too great.
Pat
FBI + Entrapment = Terrorism thwarted!
Without the FBI funding, planning and providing the materials most of these "terrorist masterminds" couldn't terrorize their way out of a paper bag.
Some of you people need to grow the hell up. Raiding a place that was distributing child porn and then allowing those to access the site and perform downloads is not in entrapment. The FBI did not email them or say hey come down load free child porn they went looking for it and they got nailed. Does nobody have ****ing common sense anymore?
Some of you people need to grow the hell up. Raiding a place that was distributing child porn and then allowing those to access the site and perform downloads is not in entrapment. The FBI did not email them or say hey come down load free child porn they went looking for it and they got nailed. Does nobody have ****ing common sense anymore?
My concern has nothing to do with entrapment. Instead, my interest has more to do with letting those images of exploited kids get repeatedly downloaded and presumably distributed after the raid. I can only imagine my outrage if my child was abused at daycare and the authorities allowed the images to remain in the public domain to further an investigation.
Smuckatelli
05-30-13, 19:47
Some of you people need to grow the hell up. Raiding a place that was distributing child porn and then allowing those to access the site and perform downloads is not in entrapment. The FBI did not email them or say hey come down load free child porn they went looking for it and they got nailed. Does nobody have ****ing common sense anymore?
The DOJ has gotten out of hand. I understand what you are saying but I think it would have been better to shut it down and collect the data on the server and not keep it running.
To me this looks a lot like the same method that the DOJ used for Fast & Furious except there has been an arrest with this case.
HighSpeedDreams
05-30-13, 20:47
Some of you people need to grow the hell up. Raiding a place that was distributing child porn and then allowing those to access the site and perform downloads is not in entrapment. The FBI did not email them or say hey come down load free child porn they went looking for it and they got nailed. Does nobody have ****ing common sense anymore?
Amen brother.
Moose-Knuckle
05-30-13, 20:51
My concern has nothing to do with entrapment. Instead, my interest has more to do with letting those images of exploited kids get repeatedly downloaded and presumably distributed after the raid. I can only imagine my outrage if my child was abused at daycare and the authorities allowed the images to remain in the public domain to further an investigation.
This is my thoughts on the matter as well. Kind of like happening upon a victim being gang raped and sitting back to see who else joins in so you can arrest them after the fact.
To me this looks a lot like the same method that the DOJ used for Fast & Furious except there has been an arrest with this case.
You're over reacting....geezzz. They all already said they "didn't know nuthin bout nuthin"....what else do you want? The truth?? LOL
They believe what is going on is bad enough to raid the place (I would agree with them), but no bad enough to immediately remove the pictures and make them inaccessible? That's where they lose me.
Smuckatelli
05-30-13, 20:59
They believe what is going on is bad enough to raid the place (I would agree with them), but no bad enough to immediately remove the pictures and make them inaccessible? That's where they lose me.
That is where they lose me also...
My concern has nothing to do with entrapment. Instead, my interest has more to do with letting those images of exploited kids get repeatedly downloaded and presumably distributed after the raid. I can only imagine my outrage if my child was abused at daycare and the authorities allowed the images to remain in the public domain to further an investigation.
The data was already "in the wild". The way to stop it is to get to the people who are producing and distributing it. The best way to do that is to catch them in the act. You can also identify traffic patterns, distribution networks, etc. by watching it in real time. If they'd simply shut down the server, all they'd have to work with are the forensic snapshots in time provided by server logs, etc. I say it was a smart play by the FBI.
Thank you.
The data was already "in the wild". The way to stop it is to get to the people who are producing and distributing it. The best way to do that is to catch them in the act. You can also identify traffic patterns, distribution networks, etc. by watching it in real time. If they'd simply shut down the server, all they'd have to work with are the forensic snapshots in time provided by server logs, etc. I say it was a smart play by the FBI.
The data was already "in the wild". The way to stop it is to get to the people who are producing and distributing it. The best way to do that is to catch them in the act. You can also identify traffic patterns, distribution networks, etc. by watching it in real time. If they'd simply shut down the server, all they'd have to work with are the forensic snapshots in time provided by server logs, etc. I say it was a smart play by the FBI.
I agree. They need to control that computer for a while with their own tools installed. Otherwise all they are doing is shutting down a communications hub and basically placing everyone on alert. They won't be removing the data from the Internet. Once it's out there, it's out there for good.
The data was already "in the wild". The way to stop it is to get to the people who are producing and distributing it. The best way to do that is to catch them in the act. You can also identify traffic patterns, distribution networks, etc. by watching it in real time. If they'd simply shut down the server, all they'd have to work with are the forensic snapshots in time provided by server logs, etc. I say it was a smart play by the FBI.
I'm not following you. So, you are saying that shutting down that site would not significantly decrease the viewership of the illicit images? This runs contrary to my experience with the internet even on this forum. Moderators remove portions of threads all the time and I'm not able to access those. Keep in mind that we are talking about kids whose parents were not notified that images of their children were going to be left on the internet to assist in an investigation. Had I been one of those parents, I'd want that site shut down pronto.
I'm not following you. So, you are saying that shutting down that site would not significantly decrease the viewership of the illicit images?
Unknown, but unlikely. People who engage in child porn collect and trade those materials like normal folks would baseball cards. Once images are on the Internets, they're out there pretty much for good. The next server they shut down is practically guaranteed to contain many of the same images.
This runs contrary to my experience with the internet even on this forum. Moderators remove portions of threads all the time and I'm not able to access those.
The goal of moderators here is to moderate. The goal of a child porn site is distribution; to make those materials available. Images posted here are not mirrored across multiple other sites in a distribution network or generally collected and redistributed by the user base. Child porn sites do exactly that. A lot, if not most, of the larger sites operate as part of a ring.
Keep in mind that we are talking about kids whose parents were not notified that images of their children were going to be left on the internet to assist in an investigation. Had I been one of those parents, I'd want that site shut down pronto.
Unfortunately, most of the children may never be identified. A lot of those materials come from overseas.
SeriousStudent
05-31-13, 00:44
I'm just going to offer this thought. Do some web searches on the terms steganography and honeypot.
Then think that these creatures were downloading image files. As an computer security geek by trade, I'm not giving away any secrets when I say you can uniquely identify a specific image sent to a specific machine at a specific time. And do it to the specific user that was logged onto that machine at that time.
RWK is correct, they trade this stuff. What the Bureau did will almost certainly lead to many, many more arrests.
Personally, I'd boil them all in Wesson Oil. But a forensic exam of their hard drives will yield convictions and more of these people will be locked up.
My thoughts and prayers are with the victims, may they find peace.
Moderators remove portions of threads all the time and I'm not able to access those.
Not having access and it not being there are two different things. You don't have access to the vast majority of what's out there.... and that's the crux of the matter.
What are we willing to do/allow to capture all the Wizard's of Oz across the world? Our vantage point is that of movie watcher. Ideally we would really like to be the movie director so we could see the whole stage and all it's actors and support crew. So the job for the FBI is to entice an actor to break the 4th wall and actually communicate with them, or to sneak backstage unnoticed and start working as a stage hand to find out who's who. Rolling up on Friday afternoon and nailing a "Closed" sign on the theater doesn't provide all the desired results. It only stops people from watching the show that weekend at that theater.
So you think they would not have done it down the road when they got money on their own and learned where to get the weapons.
Pat
Who knows....all we do know is they were acquitted due to the circumstances.
But the FBI is failing in finding real terrorists so they have to fabricate them: LINK (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-plots-helped-along-by-the-fbi.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)
What are we willing to do/allow to capture all the Wizard's of Oz across the world? Our vantage point is that of movie watcher. Ideally we would really like to be the movie director so we could see the whole stage and all it's actors and support crew. So the job for the FBI is to entice an actor to break the 4th wall and actually communicate with them, or to sneak backstage unnoticed and start working as a stage hand to find out who's who. Rolling up on Friday afternoon and nailing a "Closed" sign on the theater doesn't provide all the desired results. It only stops people from watching the show that weekend at that theater.
The metaphor needs work. It's kind of painful to read, Dorothy. :sarcastic:
The metaphor needs work. It's kind of painful to read, Dorothy. :sarcastic:
Feel free to do the re-write... I started off with a NexTag analogy... you should have seen that one...... ;)
Crow Hunter
05-31-13, 09:58
The issue I have with it is are their innocent people getting caught in this? Are there legitimate business interactions being done on this server?
I have read horror stories that people have just entered search terms completely unrelated to this and wound up getting thumbnails in their temp internet files and having the Feds bring cases against them.
I also heard of someone who accidently downloaded a video clip as part of another file transfer, found it, deleted it, then had the FBI raid them, seize their computer, reconstruct a portion of the video clip and charge them. They considered each frame of the video an "image" so they could be charged with a higher number of images.:confused:
I don't know that this is true, but it is pretty scary if it is. Especially if the FBI is intentionally out "fishing" for people rather than actively shutting known known sites. Are they catching active sexual predators or "dragnetting" people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time who are otherwise constructive members of society?
Are there legitimate business interactions being done on this server?
Could be if someone hacked it. They could set up shop on someone else's gear. Or they could be criminals running a legit business as well.
But that other part of your scenario sounds like urban myth.
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