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I read the IRC logs, and I'm skeptical that anyone not deeply versed in the lingo, tone, and character of that scene could fake them. It's not impossible, but

by influx 8y ago

I read the IRC logs, and I'm skeptical that anyone not deeply versed in the lingo, tone, and character of that scene could fake them. It's not impossible, but it was pretty convincing to me.

zeth___ 8y ago
So you're saying you're "deeply versed in the lingo, tone, and character of that scene"? Reminds me of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYkbqzWVHZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYkbqzWVHZI
jessaustin 8y ago
Maybe I'm missing something here, but ISTM the question isn't really whether the logs are of a genuine conversation about CP, but rather whether the accused really was a part of that conversation? After all, if he really took part in a conversation about procuring such material, it wouldn't have mattered if he talked like a newb. Likewise, if he wasn't in on it, it doesn't matter that everyone who was in on it got "the lingo" right. ps. How would one know enough about the scene to motivate such skepticism?
- influx 8y ago
  Read the transcript and decide for yourself, I'm referring strictly to how I've seen people speak on IRC. Warning, there is disturbing text in there. https://dd80b675424c132b90b3-e48385e382d2e5d17821a5e1d8e4c86b.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/external/joshua-a-schulte-fbi-warrant.pdf https://dd80b675424c132b90b3-e48385e382d2e5d17821a5e1d8e4c86...
  - Semirhage 8y ago
    I’ve been on IRC for decades, a few years running a file distribution for audiobooks, which sadly meant I ran across some things I’ll never unsee. I’ve never seen anyone actually say “kiddie porn” who was actually looking for or offering it. It’s all “loli” or filename references, and “#yo” stuff. Those chat logs sound ridiculous, but I have to admit that my experience is limited to channels where cp wasn’t welcome. Maybe when they’re on their own they start talking like a special agent? To me, it would be like being in a warez channel full of people saying, “I want pirated material.” That at least I have experience with, and someone saying “Where the copyright violations at?” Rather than “any good ftp’s and xdcc’s?” Would raises red flags.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    Wow you really misrepresented those chat logs. The personas portrayed within appear to be interested in the concept of CP, seemingly mostly for its forbidden nature. Whenever they discuss an individual file, there are questions about whether the participants are 15yo or older, or whether the file is "really porn". If these are really the deepest depths plumbed by that "scene", the whole thing has been wildly misrepresented.
- gowld 8y ago
  Send an undercover agent to immerse himself in the community, learn the lingo, etc, and use opsec to protect him from detection by external authorities (the same authorities that failed to bus everyone else in the community already). Then when you want to disappear someone, create some links between the real person and the online persona created by the undercover agent.
cortesoft 8y ago
You don't think the CIA would be able to fake the lingo, tone, and character of the scene? I mean, they certainly have access to a ton of real IRC logs about the subject, would probably be pretty easy to swap out some usernames.
- Cacti 8y ago
  The IRC logs are minor pieces of evidence. It’s the VM that is hard to explain away.
  - anonymous5133 8y ago
    Can you elaborate further?
    - Cacti 8y ago
      The complaint is here: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6359557/united-states-v-schulte/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6359557/united-states-v... Pages 3-6 detail the VM. Basically, they found a VM on his computer that was encrypted, with an encrypted file in it, that they unlocked with a password they found on his phone. In the encrypted (truecrypt) file, they found a large amount of what was unmistakenly CP. When they examined the file system, their claim is that there was evidence of a history of using that VM and moving those files around, etc., so it's not like they just appeared one day. Partial files that weren't deleted yet, caches, inode meta data, that sort of thing. I mean, it's possible to fake, but it would be incredibly easy to fuck that up, and incredibly risky to get caught doing that. If they really wanted to make his life hell, there are easier, less risky, and even legal ways to do it without going to the effort to fabricate 8 years of computer usage that would withstand expert cross examination.
      - selectodude 8y ago
        >I mean, it's possible to fake, but it would be incredibly easy to fuck that up, and incredibly risky to get caught doing that. Maybe, but how hard would it be to convince a tech-illiterate jury of that? Is there a lawyer on earth that could explain the minutiae of metadata on virtual machines to one? And if they get caught, they go "oops!" and pay out a few million dollars as a sorry, at best.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
The IRC logs in the papers linked in this thread make the suspect out to be an imbecile -- discussing highly illegal activity in plain text using the most obvious keywords ...?
- jumper_F00BA2 8y ago
  Not to mention... searching... Google? Really. Does that sound like something anyone would ever expect to return fruitful results enabling criminal activity? Does anyone imagine this being the sort of thing a person operating an encrypted server would do either deliberately or inadvertently? And what would it even mean, to have that in Google search logs? Here on HN, to most of us, figure it means less than nothing. On some level, it might actually harm the authenticity of the prosecution's technical credibility. I'd imagine the goal of the prosecutors though, is to select the most technically inept grandmas, to pack the jury with.
politician 8y ago
Honestly? If we can generate a video of Barack Obama saying that "Killmonger was right" and render existing paintings in the style of other paintings, then we can absolutely generate culturally-sound text.
- anonymous5133 8y ago
  Excellent point.
saas_co_de 8y ago
> I read the IRC logs Oh really, and did you ask how it is that IRC logs from 2009 just happened to be sitting in someone's back pocket? It is actually quite obvious from the conversation that "STURM" is a CI or other operative who is trying to entrap "JOSH". If this guy was breaking the law back in 2009 why did the CIA hire him exactly? Maybe we should be investigating how law enforcement and intel agencies use child exploitation and child pornography to entrap people, and how many of the people involved in those ops have "inclinations" that trend in that direction. Then we might find some real criminals.
- anonymous5133 8y ago
  Completely agree. To me it seems unlikely that people working for the cia are pedos. It is possible but goes counter to all demographic studies on the characteristics of pedos. Most pedos are low income, uneducated social misfit types. The educated people who do it are mostly the outliers in the demographic studies. Meanwhile all of these leakers having some sort of cp charge is a significant enough to look deeper into what is going on.

by influx 8y ago

I read the IRC logs, and I'm skeptical that anyone not deeply versed in the lingo, tone, and character of that scene could fake them. It's not impossible, but it was pretty convincing to me.

zeth___ 8y ago

So you're saying you're "deeply versed in the lingo, tone, and character of that scene"? Reminds me of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYkbqzWVHZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYkbqzWVHZI

jessaustin 8y ago

Maybe I'm missing something here, but ISTM the question isn't really whether the logs are of a genuine conversation about CP, but rather whether the accused really was a part of that conversation? After all, if he really took part in a conversation about procuring such material, it wouldn't have mattered if he talked like a newb. Likewise, if he wasn't in on it, it doesn't matter that everyone who was in on it got "the lingo" right. ps. How would one know enough about the scene to motivate such skepticism?

influx 8y ago
Read the transcript and decide for yourself, I'm referring strictly to how I've seen people speak on IRC. Warning, there is disturbing text in there. https://dd80b675424c132b90b3-e48385e382d2e5d17821a5e1d8e4c86b.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/external/joshua-a-schulte-fbi-warrant.pdf https://dd80b675424c132b90b3-e48385e382d2e5d17821a5e1d8e4c86...
- Semirhage 8y ago
  I’ve been on IRC for decades, a few years running a file distribution for audiobooks, which sadly meant I ran across some things I’ll never unsee. I’ve never seen anyone actually say “kiddie porn” who was actually looking for or offering it. It’s all “loli” or filename references, and “#yo” stuff. Those chat logs sound ridiculous, but I have to admit that my experience is limited to channels where cp wasn’t welcome. Maybe when they’re on their own they start talking like a special agent? To me, it would be like being in a warez channel full of people saying, “I want pirated material.” That at least I have experience with, and someone saying “Where the copyright violations at?” Rather than “any good ftp’s and xdcc’s?” Would raises red flags.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jessaustin 8y ago
  Wow you really misrepresented those chat logs. The personas portrayed within appear to be interested in the concept of CP, seemingly mostly for its forbidden nature. Whenever they discuss an individual file, there are questions about whether the participants are 15yo or older, or whether the file is "really porn". If these are really the deepest depths plumbed by that "scene", the whole thing has been wildly misrepresented.
gowld 8y ago
Send an undercover agent to immerse himself in the community, learn the lingo, etc, and use opsec to protect him from detection by external authorities (the same authorities that failed to bus everyone else in the community already). Then when you want to disappear someone, create some links between the real person and the online persona created by the undercover agent.

cortesoft 8y ago

You don't think the CIA would be able to fake the lingo, tone, and character of the scene? I mean, they certainly have access to a ton of real IRC logs about the subject, would probably be pretty easy to swap out some usernames.

Cacti 8y ago
The IRC logs are minor pieces of evidence. It’s the VM that is hard to explain away.
- anonymous5133 8y ago
  Can you elaborate further?
  - Cacti 8y ago
    The complaint is here: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6359557/united-states-v-schulte/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6359557/united-states-v... Pages 3-6 detail the VM. Basically, they found a VM on his computer that was encrypted, with an encrypted file in it, that they unlocked with a password they found on his phone. In the encrypted (truecrypt) file, they found a large amount of what was unmistakenly CP. When they examined the file system, their claim is that there was evidence of a history of using that VM and moving those files around, etc., so it's not like they just appeared one day. Partial files that weren't deleted yet, caches, inode meta data, that sort of thing. I mean, it's possible to fake, but it would be incredibly easy to fuck that up, and incredibly risky to get caught doing that. If they really wanted to make his life hell, there are easier, less risky, and even legal ways to do it without going to the effort to fabricate 8 years of computer usage that would withstand expert cross examination.
    - selectodude 8y ago
      >I mean, it's possible to fake, but it would be incredibly easy to fuck that up, and incredibly risky to get caught doing that. Maybe, but how hard would it be to convince a tech-illiterate jury of that? Is there a lawyer on earth that could explain the minutiae of metadata on virtual machines to one? And if they get caught, they go "oops!" and pay out a few million dollars as a sorry, at best.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago

The IRC logs in the papers linked in this thread make the suspect out to be an imbecile -- discussing highly illegal activity in plain text using the most obvious keywords ...?

jumper_F00BA2 8y ago
Not to mention... searching... Google? Really. Does that sound like something anyone would ever expect to return fruitful results enabling criminal activity? Does anyone imagine this being the sort of thing a person operating an encrypted server would do either deliberately or inadvertently? And what would it even mean, to have that in Google search logs? Here on HN, to most of us, figure it means less than nothing. On some level, it might actually harm the authenticity of the prosecution's technical credibility. I'd imagine the goal of the prosecutors though, is to select the most technically inept grandmas, to pack the jury with.

politician 8y ago

Honestly? If we can generate a video of Barack Obama saying that "Killmonger was right" and render existing paintings in the style of other paintings, then we can absolutely generate culturally-sound text.

anonymous5133 8y ago
Excellent point.

saas_co_de 8y ago

> I read the IRC logs Oh really, and did you ask how it is that IRC logs from 2009 just happened to be sitting in someone's back pocket? It is actually quite obvious from the conversation that "STURM" is a CI or other operative who is trying to entrap "JOSH". If this guy was breaking the law back in 2009 why did the CIA hire him exactly? Maybe we should be investigating how law enforcement and intel agencies use child exploitation and child pornography to entrap people, and how many of the people involved in those ops have "inclinations" that trend in that direction. Then we might find some real criminals.

anonymous5133 8y ago
Completely agree. To me it seems unlikely that people working for the cia are pedos. It is possible but goes counter to all demographic studies on the characteristics of pedos. Most pedos are low income, uneducated social misfit types. The educated people who do it are mostly the outliers in the demographic studies. Meanwhile all of these leakers having some sort of cp charge is a significant enough to look deeper into what is going on.