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"Anonymous" Hackers Take Down Child Porn Websites, Leak Users' Names
- bengoism 15y agoTimeline and details of the Hack: http://pastebin.com/T1LHnzEW http://pastebin.com/T1LHnzEW
- codezero 15y agoWhile I support the vigilante destruction of child porn sites, I do want to point out that in doing so, they may have interrupted an ongoing investigation. Outing the names may embarras the users, but it may also make it harder for authorities to prosecute them or to move up the food chain.
- ryandickherber 15y agoThis is just free market law enforcement. No reason to wait some self-designated "authorities" to deliver justice. Edit: I'd appreciate it if people who downvote all my comments explain why they are downvoting. I am writing thoughtful responses to any of your questions. Downvoting just because you disagree isn't cool.
- bartonfink 15y agoWhich is a terrible idea.
- ryandickherber 15y agoI think it's a much better than a monopoly on force, which is a moral hazard that will always be abused. We'd be much better off with a free market of law enforcement and courts, like with anything else.
- rosser 15y agoYeah, because for-profit courts will never be abused.
- zmmz 15y agoI'm having a hard time imagining what a free-market court system would look like and how it would operate. Can you elaborate on how the system would look like? I understand how law enforcement could work (and in some ways, it does, for example public transport officials that check if you have a ticket), but leaving arbitration to the "free-market" seems far fetched. Can you clarify?
- ryandickherber 15y agoSure, I can tell you how I would think it would likely work, but of course people could be innovative and invent solutions that are better than what I envision. Basically, if you are the victim of a crime, you wouldn't want to just seek justice yourself, because your community might think you are the aggressor, and then your reputation would be damaged. So you would go to a court and pay them to rule on the issue. You would pick a court with a good reputation, so that everyone knew you're not just trying to cheat. The court would then rule, and if you won, you would be justified in paying some police to seek justice. The police would also want to make sure you had first sought judgement from a good court, since they have to worry about their own reputation as well. For instance, if someone stole something from you, you would bring your evidence to a court, and have them rule. If they rule in your favor, you could higher police to go retrieve your stolen property. Or if you are the victim of violence, you would follow the same procedure, and then be justified in having the aggressor locked up for a while. You'd probably want to have police/court insurance in case you are the victim of an expensive crime. For more info, here is a good video on this subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=V0_Jd_MzGCw http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=V... Also check out the works of Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio, and read the works of Murray Rothbard.
- wanorris 15y agoSo then organized crime could just set up its own courts and its own police force, confident that they're rich and powerful enough to outgun other forces. And after all, if mobsters paid you a visit and "suggested" that you use their court system, you wouldn't be dumb enough to turn them down would you? And if you would, then I bet the next guy wouldn't, after he heard about what happened to you. Another obvious problem is that if you rob someone thoroughly enough, they won't have the resources to hire police to get their stolen property back. It's the perfect crime! I haven't read all your source material, but from what you've said so far, these ideas simply don't make any sense.
- codezero 15y agoAnonymous isn't putting anyone behind bars, that's the difference. Yes, the "authorities" will take more time, but that's because they have to build a case that will convince a jury and hopefully 1) lock the guys up, or at the very least 2) get them into a sex offender registry. The list of names released by Anonymous won't be considered authoritative.
- nanijoe 15y agoBut surely, it will curb the activities of those involved, which should be the number one priority.
- codezero 15y agoNot likely. Anonymous isn't a credible threat to them because they have no authority. Anyone whose name is released by them can just say they are the target of a smear campaign by a group of anonymous internet hackers.
- tptacek 15y agoPart of the reason we don't stop at shutting down child porn sites is that the people who use them the most are dangerously unlikely to themselves stop at just viewing pornography.
- there 15y agocitation needed
- tptacek 15y agohttp://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/content/82/4/457.full http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/content/82/4/457.full
- nkurz 15y agoStrong citation, thanks! I'm not quite sure it proves your point, which seems to be that the sites are a gateway to criminal behaviour. "Studies and case reports indicate that 30% to 80% of individuals who viewed child pornography and 76% of individuals who were arrested for Internet child pornography had molested a child. It is difficult to know how many people progress from computerized pedophilia to physical acts against children and how many would have progressed to physical acts without the computer being involved. It is interesting that the NIBRS data from 2000 show that most child pornography crimes reported did not involve a computer or the Internet but were related to photographs, magazines, and videos." So while it's seems undeniably true that many users of child pornography sites are child molesters, I'm not sure that "stop at" has the right progression. I presume the more common case is that real life molesters are attracted to illegal sites, rather than that casual online viewers become criminals. Consider applying the same logic to heterosexual adult pornography sites, which are also illegal in some jurisdictions. I'd presume that the majority of individuals viewing such sites have also engaged in adult heterosexual behaviour, but I'd probably assign the causation in the other direction. As honeypots, though, the sites seem like great bait. But where's the line, and what should the response be. I've recently bought lye (for brining olives), sulfuric acid (for scarifying seeds), controlled antihistamines (for allergies) and looked at Erowid (for trying to understand SSRI's). How much intense police interest do I deserve for my "obvious" profile as a meth producer? Which, to be very clear, I'm not.
- culled 15y agoThe actual authorities aren't self-designated, they're designated by our democratically elected government. Anonymous are the ones trying to act as "self-designated authorities".
- ryandickherber 15y agoBut voters don't really have any power if all they can do is vote for representatives every two years. This is basically meaningless. They would have much more power if they could choose which police they used, which courts they went to, etc.
- rauljara 15y agoI'm not sure you've taken any time to think through the implications of what you've just suggested. You are advocating multiple competing authorities (both police and courts). Who gets to decide which set of authorities gets used, the defendant or the prosecutor? If the prosecutor, courts that heavily favor the prosecutor with little regard for defendant's rights would gain dominance (why wouldn't a prosecutor choose one of them?). If the defender, the opposite problem would arise. How would you resolve either of those problems? What happens when two sets of authorities disagree? What happens when officers from competing police departments try to arrest the same person? If an authority is corrupt (confiscates property, basically acts like the mob, etc.) how will they be enforced against? If these are free market forces, what happens when someone is unable to afford to enlist the help of an authority? Absolutely no rule of law for them?
- ryandickherber 15y ago> I'm not sure you've taken any time to think through the implications of what you've just suggested. Why would you assume that? I've put enormous thought into this and read much literature on it. See Murray Rothbard, Stefan Molyneux, Lew Rockwell, Doug Casey, etc., and my twitter feed @ryandickherber. > Who gets to decide which set of authorities gets used, the defendant or the prosecutor? The person who is the victim of the crime will obviously go to the court of their choice. The defender, meanwhile, may choose a different court. The courts will have to decide on an arbitrator. Since they only have finite resources and their reputations are on the line, all parties have an interest in working this out, and so it will happen. > What happens when two sets of authorities disagree? There are no "authorities", but if two people disagree they will seek arbitration. > What happens when officers from competing police departments try to arrest the same person? Only one will get there first, so only one will be able to arrest the person. > If an authority is corrupt (confiscates property, basically acts like the mob, etc.) how will they be enforced against? Again, there are no "authorities". If some police or courts become aggressors, then obviously people have a right to defend themselves and will employ resources including other police and courts to do this. The existing police already are corrupt in many cases, but because they have a monopoly, people are just screwed. A free market would solve this problem. > If these are free market forces, what happens when someone is unable to afford to enlist the help of an authority? Absolutely no rule of law for them? Most people have some community resources they can access in time of need. If they have nothing at all, then they are screwed. But it's the same way under a monopoly of force.
- SCdF 15y agoSounds like the wild west to me. I didn't get a say in whether or not some random bored kids downloaded a bunch of CP and possibly wrecked a long term investigation run by people I actually did get in a say in electing (well, I don't live in the US, so I didn't, but you get the point).
- vaksel 15y agowhat investigation? I don't know for sure, but I'm fairly sure that in the past 5 years there was not a single major crackdown on CP in the news(reddit banning /r/jailbait doesn't count). It always seems to be a case of someone just getting reported by neighbors, photo stores. So it doesn't seem like the authorities are all that proactive in stopping it
- asdf1234qwer 15y agoSince they've hacked numerous police departments and government agencies of those pursuing them, how do we know they haven't inserted some of the names of those people into the list?
- codezero 15y agoThat would be hilariously ironic, since that's exactly the kind of thing the Church of Scientology does to discredit its detractors.
- dextorious 15y agoYes, because Anonymous is such a moral entity, that they would never use the bad tactics of their enemies...
- pyre 15y agoThe irony comes from Anonymous being vaulted into the MSM spotlight via their campaign against the Church of Scientology, and then later adopting their tactics.
- HeyItsDiogenes 15y agoThis is a list of pseudonyms, if a police officer's name is in there then they're either undercover or pedophile.
- crizCraig 15y agoPOLL: Does this improve your impression of Anonymous? http://www.wepolls.com/p/4088470/Now-that-Anonymous-has-taken-down-a-huge-child-porn-ring%2C-are-you-more-supportive-of-what-they-do http://www.wepolls.com/p/4088470/Now-that-Anonymous-has-take...
- S4M 15y agoWhat I find really scary in this article is the existence of the "darknet" that contains pedophile website and also apparently an assassination service. This creates many questions: how many people get access to this hidden network? who created it? Had the authorities knowledge of its existence? While this could give topic for science fiction books, I also makes me feel insecure.
- lambada 15y agoThe ability to securely and anonymously host websites is a standard feature of the freely available, open source Tor software. Tor was originally funded by the EFF and the US Navy. So yes, the authorities most definitely know of its existence.
- S4M 15y agoThanks for the pointer, I'll have a look at Tor software. But I find it scary the existence of a website offering highly illegal services where only a selected few can access.
- LancerSykera 15y agoWhat's so scary about it? It's no different than meeting someone in a park, or the basement of a bar, to do the exact same things. Places where "highly illegal" services are offered where only a select few can access have been around for ages. It's just much more convenient to do it on the internet.
- drivebyacct2 15y ago> only a selected few can access. Anyone can access it...
- bri3d 15y agoSo Anonymous: - Downloaded a bunch of child porn. - Released a useless list of psudonyms extracted from the forum's DB. - Claim to have used a timing attack against Tor to find the physical location of the machine hosting the CP, without providing any details. Tor is vulnerable to timing attacks but I don't think any are trivial enough for any "Anonymous members" to handle. - Also, if they had the level of access to Freedom Hosting's server which they claim to, they should have reverse-connected across the non-Tor Internet and located the machine (and presumably the machine's hosting provider and datacenter) that way. Given the amateur-looking setup illustrated in the Anonymous press-releases, I highly doubt the Freedom Hosting machine was firewalled from connecting back across the normal Internet. - Then Anonymous removed the machine from service so it can't possibly be located by real law enforcement and the real owners can't be found. It sounds like this is a net loss in any kind of real battle against CP - I'm all for removing obvious distribution points for CP when they're found, but doing so in this manner makes it much harder to track down and prosecute the actual producers and consumers of child porn. Also, the linked article is poorly researched and written - The Examiner doesn't report anything; it's a pay-per-pageview CMS that anyone can write for, with limited-to-no editorial oversight. The original author should be cited instead.
- andrewflnr 15y agoWould you prefer it if they had taken more steps to locate the machine and find the owners, then turned that over to law enforcement? If they had done so, would you still prefer they had done nothing and let the authorities handle it? Also, would you regard it as a net win if they took down a majority of CP distributors this way (feasibility aside)? I'm really curious about your position.
- sophacles 15y agoThis isn't a comic book. Whether or not you think Anonymous are mostly good or mostly bad, there is a simple fact about them: they are humans. You are aware that people are not strictly good or evil right? Most hardened criminals still love their kids, and most regular Joe's have asshole moments or have even committed crimes! (think, half the people in the us are guilty of using illegal drugs at some point, half have driven drunk, and so on). I'm sure if anonymous tracked down the stuff and told the police they would all have been arrested for child porn themselves, as this seems to be well on the side of "going to jail", based on precedent previously set by prosecutors all over the US. Further, (because details are lacking) if the server and/or the viewers are not in the same country, full prosecution becomes quite difficult. But whatev, they did a bad because they are anonymous. No credit to them for stopping something that proper authorities were apparently ignoring or completely ignorant of -- either way those authorities were being completely ineffective.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- lambada 15y agoFor anyone who hasn't used Tor before, I'm going to clarify some of the inaccuracies/FUD in the article. - A darknet did not 'grow out' of the Tor software. The ability for anyone to host websites on their computer anonymously is a standard feature of the Tor network. - Tor is not strictly a set of browser plugins. Tor is routing software that routes over TCP/IP. Any program can use it assuming they have set the proxy settings on their computer/program correctly. There is a plugin for Firefox, but the functionality of that is limited to one-click setup of the correct settings, and changing some default Firefox settings to increase anonymity and security. - The site the article mentioned called 'Hard Candy' is a standard wiki page hosted on the Hidden Wiki. The purpose of the Hidden Wiki is to be a huge directory of all the sites on the Tor network, as search bots are impractical. As distasteful as it is, it would be impossible to enforce those links to be removed. - As far as I'm aware Freedom Hosting never had a normally accessible domain name, so the article claiming things about WHOIS data is almsot certainly irrelevant. EDIT: These are my own views, and not those of any other person/organisation. I have experience with the Tor network due to my pet interest in Anonymous networks, and how they function.
- smashing 15y agoMob rule, 21st Century Style.