Details of the full extent of the FBI's hacking of child pornography sites hosted on the Dark Web have been revealed by Motherboard. The webσελίδα reports that the Federal agency used unusual means to collect evidence to prosecute users of the sites.
In order to do this, the service has undertaken hosting the site on its servers for 13 whole days.
During the period the site was functioning normally. In short the FBI was accepting child sexual abuse images for distribution (which is against any legal procedure), για να μπορέσει να συγκεντρώσει διευθύνσεις IP και να μοιράσει malware που μεταδίδουν πληροφορίες σχετικά με τους users of the site.
The goal of course was to arrest the members of the site, and as it seems the purpose continues to sanctify the media…
The result of this researchς; Η συγκομιδή διευθύνσεων IP και άλλων πληροφοριών από περισσότερους από 1.300 people που είτε συνδέθηκαν είτε καταχώρησαν κάτι στην ιστοσελίδα during this period.
The court confirmed that the FBI was in charge of the site, also known as "Playpen", from February 20, 2015 until March 4 of the same year. The site had more than 215.000 registered users at the time.
According to USA Today, 137 people have been charged with crimes so far. In a statement he issued on the service, the former FBI agent Ron Hosko explained the rationale behind this kind of action:
"We had a window of opportunity to get into one of the darkest parts of the internet, and we had no choice but to do so. There was no other way. "
Σε μια άλλη ενημερωμένη έκδοση για την υπόθεση (αποκαλύφθηκε από την Motherboard), φαίνεται ότι το FBI συνηθίζει να hackάρει υπολογιστές σε διάφορες χώρες, μεταξύ των οποίων η Δανία, η Ελλάδα και η Χιλή, σε συντονισμένες επιχειρήσεις της EUROPOL, όπως την Operation Pacifier,' που οδήγησε σε μια σειρά συλλήψεων σε όλο τον κόσμο.
The unusual decision to continue to allow the distribution of illegal material was expected to be used by some advocates who argued that the arrests were done with deception.