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How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

washingtonpost.com

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Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#141

Post by boosting7669 »

nxzero wrote: post #92
boosting7669 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how this is relevant to my comment. Please explain

Your comment appears to me to assume that if a jury knew someone was not guilt by law, that they would vote not guilt. My point is that a jury in the US can intentionally convict someone as guilty that they're aware is "legally" not guilty.

They can also intentionally acquit someone they know is guilty of the law simply because they don't think the law should exist, this is called jury nullification. My point was that the typical jury is just not sophisticated enough to understand how easy it is to plant digital evidence. I doubt they'd convict in a case like this believing the defendant to be innocent.

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#142

Post by patcheudor »

maqr wrote: post #139
patcheudor wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One, I don't know anyone who doesn't use non-secure WiFi networks & even if they don't, they typically still do without knowing, ergo., the 'attwifi' situation. Two, I've reviewed a number of VPN solutions over the years and they are far from perfect. Amongst some of my more notable findings: 1) Banner / update text delivered via HTTP to the client in a fully renderable state within the VPN client. Yeah, that was a f…

Can you elaborate on the femtocell vector and mitigation strategies?

Here's a good intro:

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:7r-Vd2...

Mitigation? Effectively none for end-users. You can always monitor your connection and if you go down to 2G, run. But no one does that. You can also test each and every app on your phone to ensure:

a) It's using HTTPS for every request / response which is rendered in the app & b) It's validating the server public. This one's easier said than done and well beyond the capabilities of most pen-testers. They might think they have it covered but rarely test for all man in the middle conditions.

I've not looked at it in detail, but someone I know tried out Network Signal Info on Android claiming it could help detect a femtocell attack:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.android.tel...

However, they didn't really know what the app was telling them and kept accusing me of running a femtocell so I wasn't impressed. As far as I'm concerned it's an interesting app to use in attempting to get a confession out of someone you are pretty sure is running a femtocell but likely if that person is running a femtocell they wouldn't "fall for it."

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#143

Post by patcheudor »

alanwatts wrote: post #104
patcheudor wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Knowing what I know about computer security and how EASY it is to plant digital evidence without leaving a trace." This right here is the conversation which needs to happen around this particular topic. In the security community the topic of forensic discovery of child porn tends to get a hand-wave because child porn. It's there so someone must be guilty. The fact is, it is trivial to plant such evidence on anyone's…

>to catch someone who is guilty is very difficult. Difficult to the degree that it should require video and/or photographic evidence of the perp at the computer looking at the images. That would be very easy to fake too.

I would argue that it's orders of magnitude more difficult by way of comparison to simply injecting naughty bits into an HTTP response.

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#144

Post by x1798DE »

lsh123 wrote: post #66
SeanDav wrote: post #55

If, during the entire history of the USA, some FBI agents had never been proven to be corrupt, if judges had never been proven to be corrupt, if evidence had never been proved to be planted by authorities, then maybe, just maybe this would be justified. In the real world, however, this is very, very scary and I consider myself lucky I am not subject to this travesty. Since there does not appear to be any proof that h…

The past does not predict the future. Even if all the "ifs" were true, then it is still a bad idea and scary thing to do.

The past is not a guarantee of the future, but it's very often a great predictor of the future.

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#145

Post by themartorana »

rconti wrote: post #93
SeanDav wrote: post #55

If, during the entire history of the USA, some FBI agents had never been proven to be corrupt, if judges had never been proven to be corrupt, if evidence had never been proved to be planted by authorities, then maybe, just maybe this would be justified. In the real world, however, this is very, very scary and I consider myself lucky I am not subject to this travesty. Since there does not appear to be any proof that h…

Yeah, the disturbing/relevant line is: "During his initial appearance in a federal courthouse in Santa Ana, Calif., the prosecutors indicated a willingness to reduce or drop the child pornography charges if he would tell them about the C-17, said Sara Naheedy, Gartenlaub’s attorney at the time."

After:

“When law enforcement lawfully obtains evidence of a serious crime, in this case a crime against children, we will pursue further investigation of that crime,” he said.

We will pursue! Unless you tell us what we want to hear.

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#146

Post by themartorana »

boosting7669 wrote: post #75
SeanDav wrote: post #55

If, during the entire history of the USA, some FBI agents had never been proven to be corrupt, if judges had never been proven to be corrupt, if evidence had never been proved to be planted by authorities, then maybe, just maybe this would be justified. In the real world, however, this is very, very scary and I consider myself lucky I am not subject to this travesty. Since there does not appear to be any proof that h…

And yet a jury convicted him. This kind of thing is far beyond the comprehension of the common juror. Knowing what I know about computer security and how EASY it is to plant digital evidence without leaving a trace, even from thousands of miles away, I'd have to see video evidence of the defendant downloading the material as it happens before rendering such a verdict, especially if it's going to mean decades in priso…

Attitudes 20 years ago:

"Child porn? Fry him!"

Now:

"Child porn? The government set him up."

Obviously attitudes towards child pornographers hasn't changed, so check out how much the distrust of government has become constant and near absolute.

Thanks, Snowden.

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#147

Post by fiatmoney »

tptacek wrote: post #124
fiatmoney wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The warrant establishes the provenance, it's the whole point!

I feel like we're about to argue about the meaning of the word "provenance". I meant it as "where the evidence came from". You mean it as "the legal authority required to collect it". Both uses are valid, but I meant the former.

The law is not being kept secret. The facts supporting the issuance of the warrant and the circumstances of its execution are. That is the causal definition of "where the evidence came from". That in and of itself is evidence.

"I first heard about the defendant's shenanigans when I was attending my support group for compulsive liars, from Joe, the defendant's bitter ex-husband. As I recall he was covered in blood at the time." That is a factual circumstance related to the issuance of the warrant that would be relevant to the case, not just the issuance of the warrant itself.

This is not a difficult distinction, it's one you're trying for whatever reason to ignore.

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#148

Post by jordanb »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #107
coffeedean wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the key bit of the whole story. I can only imagine how many more cases have been handled like this, with drug crimes or tax evasion charges used instead of pornography.

The CEO of Quest went to jail for insider trading after refusing to bend to the NSA.

Downvoters: What the parent says is true:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2007/10/qwest-ceo-nsa-punished...

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#149

Post by tracker1 »

jnbiche wrote: post #84
webjprgm wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Booted out by whom? The board of directors votes. Well, that is We the People who have to vote in this case.

> Well, that is We the People who have to vote in this case. Well, you go on and boot out the current incumbents, and then vote in the next wave, and see what happens.

Which is why, for the next decade, I will not vote for any incumbent, or successive seating of a political figure in any office that I vote for... No repeat... no return... I encourage everyone to do the same.. ignore party, and policy... simply don't vote for anyone who's running for re-election for anything, or for that matter looking to seat switch, where term limits are imposed.

After a decade, the shakeout from the real source of many of the problems (follow the money) would be in such disarray, that maybe then we can talk about fixing the system.

Re: How a federal spy case turned into a child pornography prosecution

#150

Post by SeanDav »

upofadown wrote: post #140
boosting7669 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet a jury convicted him. This kind of thing is far beyond the comprehension of the common juror. Knowing what I know about computer security and how EASY it is to plant digital evidence without leaving a trace, even from thousands of miles away, I'd have to see video evidence of the defendant downloading the material as it happens before rendering such a verdict, especially if it's going to mean decades in priso…

Isn't mere possession illegal in the US? If so then the jury returned the correct verdict. If we don't like it then we have to fix the law.

If the evidence was planted, then the jury most certainly did not return the correct verdict.
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