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That objection applies to almost any possible evidence gathering technique. Framing someone has always been a possibility. It's the subject of many stories, and
by ivebeenframed 9y ago
That objection applies to almost any possible evidence gathering technique. Framing someone has always been a possibility. It's the subject of many stories, and more than a few real life cases. But we don't know or (IMO) have reason to believe it's become more common in the digital age. You need motive and ability to do it still, and those often don't come together.
- quuquuquu 9y agoThe duty of law is to prove guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt". Is it unreasonable for my account to have been hacked and used to hold illegal material? There are accounts of mine that I don't even remember existing. Multiple use multiple devices of mine from time to time. Should my dad be hauled to prison when I use his computer, and I catch a virus that stores child porn in his dropbox account from 5 years ago?
- ivebeenframed 9y ago> Is it unreasonable for my account to have been hacked and used to hold illegal material? I wouldn't necessarily say unreasonable. Incredibly unlikely, though.
- parenthephobia 9y agoHow unlikely is that, though? The question is whether there could be reasonable doubt that, given there is CP on an account, it was put there by the account owner. What we don't know is what proportion of Dropbox accounts that contain CP had that CP planted by a hacker. If a significant enough proportion of CP on Dropbox was not put there by the account owner, it's reasonable to at least consider the possibility. It doesn't have to be an attempt to frame the account owner: somebody who wants to exchange CP with other people might well use a hacked Dropbox account to do that, in an attempt to cloak their identities.
- danso 9y agoGetting charged with a crime is definitely not nothing, and the age of automation brings with it new kinds of problems (or at least, ones of different scale). But as the prior comment points out, the possibility of getting framed applies to virtually every other kind of evidentiary process. Such as eye-witness testimony, which is why (ideally), you aren't convicted based on that evidence alone. If it's the case that someone illegally accessed your account and stored child porn on it, there would presumably be evidence to show that illegal access, such as IP addresses that you don't use that were used to upload that porn.
- quuquuquu 9y agoI do mostly agree with you. What if someone roots my machine and uploads from my house? What if it was (somehow) accidentally uploaded byy little brother who torrents? Technical evidence, is difficult to associate with meatspace users. I'm not trying to give criminals potential defenses--- I am trying to prevent people from going to jail for malleable evidence.
- kelnos 9y agoIf Dropbox logs the IP address used when the files were uploaded, and the ISP can verify that the IP was assigned to the user's home when the files were uploaded, I'd think that gives more weight. There's still the possibility that some malware on the user's laptop uploaded the files and then deleted itself, but if that were a reasonable excuse, you could use that to get out of basically any computer-related crime.
- EGreg 9y agoI think some grandmas were invaded by a SWAT team because someone used their wifi to seed copyrighted material.
- quuquuquu 9y agoAnd a grandma in texas has been served thousands of warrants due to her address being closest to the geographical center of the US in Kansas, where IPs default to on a map.
- emiliobumachar 9y agoWhat has changed in the last few decades is the possibility of framing someone with little personal risk to the framer.