The Justice Department contends that the act of viewing a child porn image revictimizes the child each time the view occurs and is the basis for arguing that viewing child porn is not a victimless crime. Yet the FBI seized a server and allows such images to be downloaded and viewed thousands of times over a 2 week period. This would be like seizing the operators of an underground rape dungeon where patrons pay to rape children - and allowing such an establishment to run for 2 extra weeks to catch the patrons, regardless of any collateral damage that occurs to innocent children as a result. People would be up in arms over this. So, does viewing an image of child porn cause additional harm to the child in the image or not? Which is it? (This of course excludes instances where the viewer is paying/supporting production of the material)
Unless this is different from the shellcode they used when taking down Freedom Hosting, I'm not sure what releasing it would do. There are already numerous analyses of the code:<p>- Vlad Tsyrklevich: <a href="http://tsyrklevich.net/tbb_payload.txt" rel="nofollow">http://tsyrklevich.net/tbb_payload.txt</a><p>- Gareth Owenson: <a href="http://owenson.me/fbi-tor-malware-analysis/" rel="nofollow">http://owenson.me/fbi-tor-malware-analysis/</a><p>- My own analysis based on running it in PANDA: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ReverseEngineering/comments/1jpln2/has_anyone_else_taken_a_look_at_the_shellcode/cbh1qpe" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/ReverseEngineering/comments/1jpln2/...</a> (you can also get the recording of the shellcode executing and step through it here: <a href="http://www.rrshare.org/detail/26/" rel="nofollow">http://www.rrshare.org/detail/26/</a> )<p>It's not big, and we have a pretty good idea what every piece of it does.<p>Of course, I suppose we don't know that the malware it used in this case is the same as the one in the Freedom Hosting case, so I guess it would be nice to compare and contrast them.
I am more concerned that there is no limits to what they can do in regards to a honeypot (trap/etc). You would think child porn would be one thing they would not go this far with.<p>Regardless, I think someone with expertise should be allowed to review any code developed by the government in such operations only to ensure it does not somehow violate the rights of innocents
So the headline uses the word "pedophiles", but in the article the word is nowhere to be found. Maybe that's because this sting isn't necessarily about pedophiles, but about people watching and trading child pornography. Using "pedophiles" only serves to reinforce the stigma of a already heavily stigmatized minority.<p>The word "pedophile" should be defined as someone with a sexual attraction towards children. It doesn't describe behavior: people can choose to not act on the attraction, and many, invisible as they are, in fact do not. Also, the people operating and visiting that hidden service could have had other reasons for visiting. They are not necessarily all pedophiles.
URL should be changed to the source <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/read/judge-rules-fbi-must-reveal-malware-used-to-hack-over-1000-computers-playpen-jay-michaud" rel="nofollow">http://motherboard.vice.com/read/judge-rules-fbi-must-reveal...</a>