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My BIL used to work CP with the DHS, a tech going in heavy with the first wave to secure devices. I asked him if he had ever run into Tor exits, he said no, bu

My BIL used to work CP with the DHS, a tech going in heavy with the first wave to secure devices. I asked him if he had ever run into Tor exits, he said no, but they did sometimes run into people with unsecured wireless that had been used by third parties and once it was clear that was what happened it was pretty much dropped. I'm sure they would have ways to deal with people leaving their WiFi open as a way of camouflaging their activities... He also said that one thing they're usually do if there are multiple people in the house is sit them all down on the couch and say "We are here because someone has been downloading CP", and often everyone would turn and look at one person.

insickness 3y ago
>everyone would turn and look at one person So the person everyone thinks would do it is pronounced guilty. I don't see any way that could go horribly wrong.
- toby- 3y ago
  It at least gives you an idea of where might be fruitful to begin your investigation...
- linsomniac 3y ago
  That's likely the starting place for the investigation, not the end.
  - adastra22 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - colechristensen 3y ago
      I don’t know how you think the courts work but your roommates looking at you does not end up convicting anybody. Used as perhaps part of justifying probable cause or convincing people to say enough to do a more thorough search, sure.
      - adastra22 3y ago
        A jury trial of your peers is a rare thing these days. This is how it would go down: The investigator says "who's been downloading CP?" and everyone looks at you. Probably because you're the weirdo internet geek among the family/roommates. They now have a suspect, and nothing you say then will convince them otherwise. They interview everyone separately leading the conversation to get statements about circumstantial things that out of context don't make you look good. It's enough to get a search & data warrant. They take your phone, your PC, all your hard drives, and pull every website you've ever accessed and every email you've ever received or sent. They trawl through this for anything out of place, or which can be construed out of context to be something they can pin on you. This is no longer about CP--they "know" you are guilty, but the fact that they can't find any CP on your computer just means your smart enough to know how to hide it. Now they're just trying to find something to stick to put you away. The Al Capone nail-him-on-tax-evasion-or-whatever-sticks strategy. You don't hear anything for a while so you think this whole thing is behind you, and you're just pissed you can't get your PC and phone back. Then they show up and arrest you. Your lawyer explains there are five felony charges against you, including the CP thing, and you're looking at 30 years to life where the survival time of a CP convict in the general population is about 3 days. The evidence is flimsy and you can fight these charges in court, but it'll cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and your success at winning all counts is really up to the whims of the judge and/or jury. The DA offers a plea deal: 3 years house arrest, community service, and registration on the sex offenders list, but critically: no prison. The weekend is coming and you're going to be shipped out from the local police lockbox to county jail. The DA is dragging his feet on getting you into protective custody. You sign the plea deal and walk out alive, but fucked for life. Welcome to the modern criminal justice system. [This more or less happened to a college roommate of mine (not CP though), and a Tor developer I knew through work.]
        geysersam 3y ago
        That sounds incredibly dysfunctional and rather scary. However, if I'm to be a bit sceptical, of the five felonies the cops found evidence for on your roommates computer, how many had he actually committed? Maybe he was just guilty but told you he's innocent. That's what most people do, what I'd do.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    You don’t want to be a suspect though as now you need to hope they will play fair.
- fknorangesite 3y ago
  [flagged]
BLKNSLVR 3y ago
How often do they raid a residence and find nothing?
- linsomniac 3y ago
  I have no firm data on it, but he did mention some cases where there was CP but it wasn't clear where it was coming from (open wireless situation I mentioned), and it sounded like they didn't pursue it once it was obviously not the resident. What he said sounded like they didn't go into a place without having evidence of CP already though, things like "This IP address has uploaded CP to these locations at these times" evidence.
pyinstallwoes 3y ago
What's BIL?
- tyree731 3y ago
  Brother-in-law
throw0101a 3y ago
> I asked him if he had ever run into Tor exits, he said no, but they did sometimes run into people with unsecured wireless that had been used by third parties and once it was clear that was what happened it was pretty much dropped. Could one have open Wifi "accidentally" (on purpose) as a defence mechanism against one's own actions to introduce reasonable doubt? Bruce Schneier in 2008: * https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wireles.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wirel...
- grepfru_it 3y ago
  Yes, but it is a very weak defense that can be smashed e.g. your device is seen communicating with the BSSID of the closed wifi, or your mac address (open wifi) is seen communicating with surveilled target. Maybe in 2008 this was plausible, but it was also plausible to disguise one's self and walk to mcdonald's free wifi with a burner wifi card and/or Kali Linux. With the proliferation of surveillance devices everywhere it becomes an uphill battle
  - krabizzwainch 3y ago
    In college I used this excuse when my apartment buildings self managed wifi cut off my internet for torrenting. I just went into the office and was like “a torrent? Idk what that is…”. But it wasn’t anything more official than a guy in my apartment’s office’s ability to turn my internet back on. I didn’t even have to prove I had an open Wi-Fi network.
    - jtokoph 3y ago
      I had a similar lockout problem but it was because I hit a honeypot when port scanning the entire university network for fileshares.
optimalsolver 3y ago
>and often everyone would turn and look at one person Slowly, like in sitcoms and cartoons?
nitwit005 3y ago
> and often everyone would turn and look at one person. Probably falsely assuming it's the 12 year old son instead of the 35 year old father.
- alexeldeib 3y ago
  This sounds far more like a roommate situation than a semi-nuclear family. Still applies, albeit less so. Not like looks are real evidence, but it points them the right direction.
  - fknorangesite 3y ago
    > This sounds far more like a roommate situation than a semi-nuclear family. Think again. If there's someone in the house who downloads CP, do you think that person's kids don't know who it would be?
    - rootusrootus 3y ago
      I struggle to imagine the cops bringing a family together in a living room to accuse them collectively of downloading CP. Any halfway competent parent is going to utter the words "I want a lawyer and you do not have permission to talk to my children" way before the cops sit anyone down.

insickness 3y ago

>everyone would turn and look at one person So the person everyone thinks would do it is pronounced guilty. I don't see any way that could go horribly wrong.

toby- 3y ago
It at least gives you an idea of where might be fruitful to begin your investigation...
linsomniac 3y ago
That's likely the starting place for the investigation, not the end.
- adastra22 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - colechristensen 3y ago
    I don’t know how you think the courts work but your roommates looking at you does not end up convicting anybody. Used as perhaps part of justifying probable cause or convincing people to say enough to do a more thorough search, sure.
    - adastra22 3y ago
      A jury trial of your peers is a rare thing these days. This is how it would go down: The investigator says "who's been downloading CP?" and everyone looks at you. Probably because you're the weirdo internet geek among the family/roommates. They now have a suspect, and nothing you say then will convince them otherwise. They interview everyone separately leading the conversation to get statements about circumstantial things that out of context don't make you look good. It's enough to get a search & data warrant. They take your phone, your PC, all your hard drives, and pull every website you've ever accessed and every email you've ever received or sent. They trawl through this for anything out of place, or which can be construed out of context to be something they can pin on you. This is no longer about CP--they "know" you are guilty, but the fact that they can't find any CP on your computer just means your smart enough to know how to hide it. Now they're just trying to find something to stick to put you away. The Al Capone nail-him-on-tax-evasion-or-whatever-sticks strategy. You don't hear anything for a while so you think this whole thing is behind you, and you're just pissed you can't get your PC and phone back. Then they show up and arrest you. Your lawyer explains there are five felony charges against you, including the CP thing, and you're looking at 30 years to life where the survival time of a CP convict in the general population is about 3 days. The evidence is flimsy and you can fight these charges in court, but it'll cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees and your success at winning all counts is really up to the whims of the judge and/or jury. The DA offers a plea deal: 3 years house arrest, community service, and registration on the sex offenders list, but critically: no prison. The weekend is coming and you're going to be shipped out from the local police lockbox to county jail. The DA is dragging his feet on getting you into protective custody. You sign the plea deal and walk out alive, but fucked for life. Welcome to the modern criminal justice system. [This more or less happened to a college roommate of mine (not CP though), and a Tor developer I knew through work.]
      - geysersam 3y ago
        That sounds incredibly dysfunctional and rather scary. However, if I'm to be a bit sceptical, of the five felonies the cops found evidence for on your roommates computer, how many had he actually committed? Maybe he was just guilty but told you he's innocent. That's what most people do, what I'd do.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  You don’t want to be a suspect though as now you need to hope they will play fair.
fknorangesite 3y ago
[flagged]

BLKNSLVR 3y ago

How often do they raid a residence and find nothing?

linsomniac 3y ago
I have no firm data on it, but he did mention some cases where there was CP but it wasn't clear where it was coming from (open wireless situation I mentioned), and it sounded like they didn't pursue it once it was obviously not the resident. What he said sounded like they didn't go into a place without having evidence of CP already though, things like "This IP address has uploaded CP to these locations at these times" evidence.

pyinstallwoes 3y ago

What's BIL?

tyree731 3y ago
Brother-in-law

throw0101a 3y ago

> I asked him if he had ever run into Tor exits, he said no, but they did sometimes run into people with unsecured wireless that had been used by third parties and once it was clear that was what happened it was pretty much dropped. Could one have open Wifi "accidentally" (on purpose) as a defence mechanism against one's own actions to introduce reasonable doubt? Bruce Schneier in 2008: * https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wireles.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wirel...

grepfru_it 3y ago
Yes, but it is a very weak defense that can be smashed e.g. your device is seen communicating with the BSSID of the closed wifi, or your mac address (open wifi) is seen communicating with surveilled target. Maybe in 2008 this was plausible, but it was also plausible to disguise one's self and walk to mcdonald's free wifi with a burner wifi card and/or Kali Linux. With the proliferation of surveillance devices everywhere it becomes an uphill battle
- krabizzwainch 3y ago
  In college I used this excuse when my apartment buildings self managed wifi cut off my internet for torrenting. I just went into the office and was like “a torrent? Idk what that is…”. But it wasn’t anything more official than a guy in my apartment’s office’s ability to turn my internet back on. I didn’t even have to prove I had an open Wi-Fi network.
  - jtokoph 3y ago
    I had a similar lockout problem but it was because I hit a honeypot when port scanning the entire university network for fileshares.

optimalsolver 3y ago

>and often everyone would turn and look at one person Slowly, like in sitcoms and cartoons?

nitwit005 3y ago

> and often everyone would turn and look at one person. Probably falsely assuming it's the 12 year old son instead of the 35 year old father.

alexeldeib 3y ago
This sounds far more like a roommate situation than a semi-nuclear family. Still applies, albeit less so. Not like looks are real evidence, but it points them the right direction.
- fknorangesite 3y ago
  > This sounds far more like a roommate situation than a semi-nuclear family. Think again. If there's someone in the house who downloads CP, do you think that person's kids don't know who it would be?
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    I struggle to imagine the cops bringing a family together in a living room to accuse them collectively of downloading CP. Any halfway competent parent is going to utter the words "I want a lawyer and you do not have permission to talk to my children" way before the cops sit anyone down.