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 website states that the Federal agency used unusual means to collect evidence to prosecute the 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), to be able to collect IP addresses and distribute malware that transmits information about site users.
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 researchs? Collecting IP addresses and other information from more than 1.300 people who either logged in or entered something on the website 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. "
In another update on the case (revealed by Motherboard), it appears that the FBI routinely hacks computers in various countries, including Denmark, Greece and Chile, in coordinated operations EUROPOL, such as Operation Pacifier,' which led to a series of arrests around the world.
The unusual decision to continue to allow the distribution of illegal material was expected to be used by some counselconditions who claimed that the arrests were made by deception.
