FBI posts fake hyperlinks to snare child porn suspects
The FBI has recently adopted a novel investigative technique: posting hyperlinks that purport to be illegal videos of minors having sex, and then raiding the homes of anyone willing to click on them.
Undercover FBI agents used this hyperlink-enticement technique, which directed Internet users to a clandestine government server, to stage armed raids of homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Nevada last year. The supposed video files actually were gibberish and contained no illegal images.
A CNET News.com review of legal documents shows that courts have approved of this technique, even though it raises questions about entrapment, the problems of identifying who's using an open wireless connection--and whether anyone who clicks on a FBI link that contains no child pornography should be automatically subject to a dawn raid by federal police.
Roderick Vosburgh, a doctoral student at Temple University who also taught history at La Salle University, was raided at home in February 2007 after he allegedly clicked on the FBI's hyperlink. Federal agents knocked on the door around 7 a.m., falsely claiming they wanted to talk to Vosburgh about his car. Once he opened the door, they threw him to the ground outside his house and handcuffed him.
In October 2006, Luders posted a number of links purporting to point to videos of child pornography, and then followed up with a second, supposedly correct link 40 minutes later. All the links pointed to, according to a bureau affidavit, a "covert FBI computer in San Jose, California, and the file located therein was encrypted and non-pornographic."
Some of the links, including the supposedly correct one, included the hostname uploader.sytes.net. Sytes.net is hosted by no-ip.com, which provides dynamic domain name service to customers for $15 a year.
When anyone visited the upload.sytes.net site, the FBI recorded the Internet Protocol address of the remote computer. There's no evidence the referring site was recorded as well, meaning the FBI couldn't tell if the visitor found the links through Ranchi or another source such as an e-mail message.
With the logs revealing those allegedly incriminating IP addresses in hand, the FBI sent administrative subpoenas to the relevant Internet service provider to learn the identity of the person whose name was on the account--and then obtained search warrants for dawn raids.
The search warrants authorized FBI agents to seize and remove any "computer-related" equipment, utility bills, telephone bills, any "addressed correspondence" sent through the U.S. mail, video gear, camera equipment, checkbooks, bank statements, and credit card statements.
While it might seem that merely clicking on a link wouldn't be enough to justify a search warrant, courts have ruled otherwise. On March 6, U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt in Nevada agreed with a magistrate judge that the hyperlink-sting operation constituted sufficient probable cause to justify giving the FBI its search warrant.
Huh. I'm conflicted. I mean, on one hand, people who want child pornography are fueling the demand for it, thus hurting children who are parts of those videos. So the people who want it must be taken down. But to dawn raid people for just cliking a fake link?
I dunno. Clicking a link is easy, it requires no thought and shows no preexisting intent. Hell, people accidentally click links all the time, I do. But if you look at other FBI entrapment issues, like MSNBC's To Catch a Predator, I think that's different, because then you can argue that if these people showed up to a child's house, they had the intent to do something. Clicking a link while sitting on your ass at a computer? I'm a little more nervous about that.
It just needs to be incredibly specific where these links appear. Like Serephel said, people do click links accidentally. If the link would be guaranteed to only appear in a completely specific 'I am looking for child molestation' scenario, then I think it's worthwhile.
anon1: Hey, dude check out this video it's so cool!
anon1:
anon2: dude what was that? it was just a bunch of gibberish
anon1: haha! you just got RAIDROLLED!
anon2: what?
anon1: don't worry, you'll get it soon enough.
Actually.... that brings up a VERY valid point, Jhonny. Seriously, people can be quite spiteful.... I'm scared now. I'm never clicking on a link again.
anon1: Hey, dude check out this video it's so cool!
anon1:
anon2: dude what was that? it was just a bunch of gibberish
anon1: haha! you just got RAIDROLLED!
anon2: what?
anon1: don't worry, you'll get it soon enough.
Exactly what I was thinking. Just keep rickrolling me mario. you'll see what happens.
WESTON -- An 11-year-old girl died after her parents prayed for healing rather than seek medical help for a treatable form of diabetes, police said Tuesday.
Everest Metro Police Chief Dan Vergin said Madeline Neumann died Sunday.
"She got sicker and sicker until she was dead," he said.
Vergin said an autopsy determined the girl died from diabetic ketoacidosis, an ailment that left her with too little insulin in her body, and she had probably been ill for about 30 days, suffering symptoms like nausea, vomiting, excessive thirst, loss of appetite and weakness.
The girl's parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, attributed the death to "apparently they didn't have enough faith," the police chief said.
They believed the key to healing "was it was better to keep praying. Call more people to help pray," he said.
The mother believes the girl could still be resurrected, the police chief said.
Telephone messages left at the Neumann home by The Associated Press were not immediately returned.
The family does not attend an organized church or participate in an organized religion, Vergin said. "They have a little Bible study of a few people."
The parents told investigators their daughter last saw a doctor when she was 3 to get some shots, Vergin said. The girl had attended public school during the first semester but didn't return for the second semester.
Officers went to the home after one of the girl's relatives in California called police to check on her, Vergin said. She was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.
The relative was fearful the girl was "extremely ill, dire," Vergin said.
The girl has three siblings, ranging in age from 13 to 16, the police chief said.
"They are still in the home," he said. "There is no reason to remove them. There is no abuse or signs of abuse that we can see."
The girl's death remains under investigation and the findings will be forwarded to the district attorney to review for possible charges, the chief said.
The family operates a coffee shop in Weston, which is a suburb of Wausau, Vergin said.
The thing that absolutely kills me is that even after such a tragic loss they continue to believe that crap. That's like trying to fly by flapping your arms and assuming the only reason it didn't work is because you didn't flap hard enough. People like that are too fucking stupid to have children.
That reminds me of this one family I knew that believed in SCIENCE! When their kid got sick, they believed in the power of SCIENCE, so they went to a fucking hospital.
GALVESTON, Texas (AP) -- A jury sentenced a young father Wednesday to 25 years in prison for severely burning his infant daughter after putting her in a microwave and turning it on for up to 20 seconds.
Joshua Mauldin was teary-eyed after hearing the sentence. His mother sobbed loudly in the courtroom.
The jury had convicted Mauldin on Tuesday of felony injury to a child, rejecting his claims that he was insane when he put his daughter Ana in the microwave last year.
Prosecutors had wanted him sentenced to the maximum of life in prison. Still, Galveston County prosecutor Xochitl Vandiver said she was satisfied with the sentence.
"It's extremely important for people to know that just because this case was sensational, it doesn't mean that (child abuse) goes away," she said. "Child abuse is an important issue. It should be focused on."
Sam Cammack III, Mauldin's attorney, had asked jurors to consider his client's long history of mental illness and sentence him to probation so he could be treated at a hospital.
"He still doesn't get the treatment for mental illness that he needs," Cammack said. "He's not going to get that in prison."
Jurors deliberated for 61/2 hours over two days before sentencing Mauldin. They also fined him $10,000.
Prosecutors said Mauldin hurt his daughter because he was angry that he was in a loveless marriage. They also said Mauldin had a history of violence and of lying about being mentally ill to get out of trouble.
Mauldin claimed he started hallucinating when he was left alone in a Galveston hotel room with his daughter, feeling like mud was running up his body and consuming him.
Just before putting her in the room's microwave, he punched the then 2-month-old child and placed her in the room's safe and refrigerator.
Mauldin at first told police his daughter had been severely sunburned, later changing his story and saying he had accidentally spilled hot water on her while making coffee.
Ana suffered second- and third-degree burns to her left ear, cheek, hand and shoulder and required two skin grafts. Part of her left ear had to be amputated.
Joanie Mauldin pleaded for mercy, saying her son did not know what he was doing.
The girl's foster mother, Heather Croxton, told jurors Ana, now 1, screams during the daily process of cleaning the wounds and endures physical therapy five days a week.
Croxton, whose husband is a step-cousin to the girl's mother, Eva Mauldin, said she hopes to adopt Ana.
A trial to terminate the Mauldins' parental rights is scheduled for April. Eva Mauldin refused defense attorneys' requests to testify and lives in Arkansas.
WOH WOH WOH.....what? "If this T-rex was designed to eat meat from the beginning, then what would he have had to do until Eve ate the apple? Fast and pray for the fall. Does that make sense? No, it doesn't" What the fuck is wrong with these people!
If saw these people, I would follow them around and counter all these points they're making.
Fuck it, we need to hire scientists to find out their tour dates and do it.
Comments
I dunno. Clicking a link is easy, it requires no thought and shows no preexisting intent. Hell, people accidentally click links all the time, I do. But if you look at other FBI entrapment issues, like MSNBC's To Catch a Predator, I think that's different, because then you can argue that if these people showed up to a child's house, they had the intent to do something. Clicking a link while sitting on your ass at a computer? I'm a little more nervous about that.
It just needs to be incredibly specific where these links appear. Like Serephel said, people do click links accidentally. If the link would be guaranteed to only appear in a completely specific 'I am looking for child molestation' scenario, then I think it's worthwhile.
anon1: Hey, dude check out this video it's so cool!
anon1:
anon2: dude what was that? it was just a bunch of gibberish
anon1: haha! you just got RAIDROLLED!
anon2: what?
anon1: don't worry, you'll get it soon enough.
Although you'd hope that they could see it was a 3rd person link, rather than the direct access.
My computer 'skillz' aren't enough that I could say that is an easily doable thing though. Tech people - respond!
Exactly what I was thinking. Just keep rickrolling me mario. you'll see what happens.
Hopefully.
Far from it, Mr. Naivety!
Like I said, "hopefully". Hope isn't the same as naïveté.
Well it's on mister.
You'd better believe it's on.
I certainly don't have that sort of conviction.
That seems to be exactly the case.
As does the stupid of the subject matter.
Man gets 25 years for microwaving baby
AUGH WHY AM I STILL WATCHING THIS?
God damnit....
Fuck it, we need to hire scientists to find out their tour dates and do it.