With a rather worrying and unexpected move, the FBI stopped prosecution against a man accused of taking pictures of child sexual abuse, not to reveal details of how they were traced.
Jay Michaud, a teacher from Vancouver, Washington, was arrested in July of last year after visiting the Playpen, ένας web χώρος συνάντησης που υπάρχει στο dark web για δεκάδες χιλιάδες διεστραμμένους που το χρησιμοποιούν για να ανταλλάξουν εικόνες και βίντεο με πορνό και κακοποίηση ανήλικων.
Unknowingly at the time of his visit, the FBI was for about a fortnight, The Admin of the site, when he managed to acquire access on the servers he used.
This way the feds were able to install a network investigative technique (NIT) that helped them find real IP and MAC addresses. For those who don't know Playpen was hidden in the anonymous Tor network, and spyware was necessary to unmask the suspects (about 1.300 IP addresses were collected during its operation server from the FBI).
According to the prosecutor's office, a police raid at the actor's house revealed too many photos and videos of child sexual abuse on his computers. But guilty or not, it does not matter why the FBI filed an application to stop the prosecution [PDF] at the end of the previous month.
Why
Because Michaud's attorney was persistently asking the FBI for a sample of the NIT code he used to review to ensure he did not violate the terms of the warrant the FBI used to installation of malware.
US District Judge Robert Bryan agreed, saying that if the prosecution did not show the code, it would have to reject the charges.
The Playpen case has proven to be a legal minefield in more than one way. For starters, the assumption that the same FBI for 15 days at least shared images and videos of child abuse had troubled many.
Continuing the service requested only one warrant for the distribution of NIT spyware worldwide, which was illegal at the time.
This is no longer the case since the change to Article 41 of the Federal Criminal Procedure Code approving such international warrants entered into force on December 1 of the previous year.
And in the past the FBI has stopped prosecution to uncover their research techniques, particularly with Stingray mobile tracking equipment. However, the cases were minimal and were not as severe as cases of child sexual abuse.
