You’re over reacting…geezzz. They all already said they “didn’t know nuthin bout nuthin”…what else do you want? The truth?? LOL
They believe what is going on is bad enough to raid the place (I would agree with them), but no bad enough to immediately remove the pictures and make them inaccessible? That’s where they lose me.
That is where they lose me also…
The data was already “in the wild”. The way to stop it is to get to the people who are producing and distributing it. The best way to do that is to catch them in the act. You can also identify traffic patterns, distribution networks, etc. by watching it in real time. If they’d simply shut down the server, all they’d have to work with are the forensic snapshots in time provided by server logs, etc. I say it was a smart play by the FBI.
Thank you.
I agree. They need to control that computer for a while with their own tools installed. Otherwise all they are doing is shutting down a communications hub and basically placing everyone on alert. They won’t be removing the data from the Internet. Once it’s out there, it’s out there for good.
I’m not following you. So, you are saying that shutting down that site would not significantly decrease the viewership of the illicit images? This runs contrary to my experience with the internet even on this forum. Moderators remove portions of threads all the time and I’m not able to access those. Keep in mind that we are talking about kids whose parents were not notified that images of their children were going to be left on the internet to assist in an investigation. Had I been one of those parents, I’d want that site shut down pronto.
Unknown, but unlikely. People who engage in child porn collect and trade those materials like normal folks would baseball cards. Once images are on the Internets, they’re out there pretty much for good. The next server they shut down is practically guaranteed to contain many of the same images.
The goal of moderators here is to moderate. The goal of a child porn site is distribution; to make those materials available. Images posted here are not mirrored across multiple other sites in a distribution network or generally collected and redistributed by the user base. Child porn sites do exactly that. A lot, if not most, of the larger sites operate as part of a ring.
Unfortunately, most of the children may never be identified. A lot of those materials come from overseas.
I’m just going to offer this thought. Do some web searches on the terms steganography and honeypot.
Then think that these creatures were downloading image files. As an computer security geek by trade, I’m not giving away any secrets when I say you can uniquely identify a specific image sent to a specific machine at a specific time. And do it to the specific user that was logged onto that machine at that time.
RWK is correct, they trade this stuff. What the Bureau did will almost certainly lead to many, many more arrests.
Personally, I’d boil them all in Wesson Oil. But a forensic exam of their hard drives will yield convictions and more of these people will be locked up.
My thoughts and prayers are with the victims, may they find peace.
Not having access and it not being there are two different things. You don’t have access to the vast majority of what’s out there… and that’s the crux of the matter.
What are we willing to do/allow to capture all the Wizard’s of Oz across the world? Our vantage point is that of movie watcher. Ideally we would really like to be the movie director so we could see the whole stage and all it’s actors and support crew. So the job for the FBI is to entice an actor to break the 4th wall and actually communicate with them, or to sneak backstage unnoticed and start working as a stage hand to find out who’s who. Rolling up on Friday afternoon and nailing a “Closed” sign on the theater doesn’t provide all the desired results. It only stops people from watching the show that weekend at that theater.
Who knows…all we do know is they were acquitted due to the circumstances.
But the FBI is failing in finding real terrorists so they have to fabricate them: LINK
The metaphor needs work. It’s kind of painful to read, Dorothy. :sarcastic:
Feel free to do the re-write… I started off with a NexTag analogy… you should have seen that one… 
The issue I have with it is are their innocent people getting caught in this? Are there legitimate business interactions being done on this server?
I have read horror stories that people have just entered search terms completely unrelated to this and wound up getting thumbnails in their temp internet files and having the Feds bring cases against them.
I also heard of someone who accidently downloaded a video clip as part of another file transfer, found it, deleted it, then had the FBI raid them, seize their computer, reconstruct a portion of the video clip and charge them. They considered each frame of the video an “image” so they could be charged with a higher number of images.
I don’t know that this is true, but it is pretty scary if it is. Especially if the FBI is intentionally out “fishing” for people rather than actively shutting known known sites. Are they catching active sexual predators or “dragnetting” people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time who are otherwise constructive members of society?
Could be if someone hacked it. They could set up shop on someone else’s gear. Or they could be criminals running a legit business as well.
But that other part of your scenario sounds like urban myth.