Comment by fishtacos | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fishtacos | Hacker News Reader

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The Tor network hasn't been shut down, has it?

Dark sites of all types still continue to run uninhibited for the most part. From my readings, the major or at least known/researched security holes have been plugged already by the developers, and the rest of convictions have happened because of user error, not the technology involved.

If memory serves me correctly, one particular pedophile abuser was caught after years of being investigated because he was identified through skin marks (I want to say it was freckles on his hand, though I don't recall the exact details of the article) that led investigators to him, not anything technological.

I'm a proponent of total anonymity online because it allows for whistleblowers to leak information that is untraceable to them (again, without consideration of human error). In the case of Wikileaks, for example, even though they weren't on an anonymous network, it still led to the largest classified information leaks known, from NSA tools to national and international communications between heads of states, diplomats and everyone in between. The general consensus was that it was a good thing. I don't necessarily agree with that, but one can't discount its value.

There was a large bust of a pedophile forum years back. Police took over the site and run it for years and it was ran on TOR. Pretty interesting story overall:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/jul/13/shining-a-li...

From what I recall, most of these TOR sites are only taken offline because of some server misconfiguration or some other opsec weakness in the people who run these sites.

The interesting part about that to me is the authorities seem to break the law with impunity under the guise of enforcing the law.

Seems a bit disingenuous to do this.

Why not sell drugs as a cop to arrest people for buying them... er wait... they do that too.

If they just shut down the site, those who weren't busted would just migrate to a new one. If you run the site under the guise of the owners, you can keep catching more and more users as they come in. Not just the people who are seeking the kids, but possibly also the ones supplying them. It's a grander version of the old trope of an FBI agent posing as a 14 year old girl in a chat room to nab a predator.

I agree with you that selling a dimebag to a teenager to bust them is shitty and shouldn't be done. But there's a world of difference between busting kids for weed and catching pedophiles. If they're taking these people off the streets I really do not care if they're "disingenuous" to get them.

We criminalize possession and distribution of child pornography on the basis that doing so constitutes further abuse of the child in question.

If we allow the FBI to distribute child pornography, under this rubric we are basically allowing them to commit child abuse. We allow law enforcement to commit some acts -- like buying or attempting to sell illegal drugs -- which would normally be crimes. But we would find acts of actual harm to innocents by law enforcement abhorrent. For example, if an FBI agent posed as a hitman online and then actually committed the contracted murders, that would be abhorrent and not a legitimate law-enforcement use.

Either distributing CP is child abuse or it isn't. If it is, the FBI shouldn't be doing it irrespective of how many criminals they may catch by doing so, because they are further victimizing innocents. If it isn't, that calls into question the basis on which distribution of CP is exempted from First Amendment protection.

Oh wait, I forgot. Different rules apply to those in power.

>It's a grander version of the old trope of an FBI agent posing as a 14 year old girl in a chat room to nab a predator.

If it was I wouldn't have a problem with it. The reality is, by running the sites, they are actively enabling what they consider harmful.

Consider other examples of police stings. When doing drugs, they often use actual drugs because the mere presence of drugs at a sting is not an issue. But when dealing with more dangerous material, they use fakes to ensure that people don't get hurt, and the times when they haven't used fakes it has been considered extremely bad and had people push for policies to change it.

In this particular case, the sites are not like drugs which are inherently harmless just by being present, but are far more dangerous material which results in significant harm to those the police allow to continue to be victimized.

Imagine if police ran a human trafficking front and actually kidnapped people, justifying it by saying they were working to get the guys running the whole thing. Would that be acceptable?

I think not.

The comparison in your last paragraph doesn't really work unless the police were the ones producing the child pork in the first place...

You explanation only works if you assume only production and not distribution is harmful. Current moral and legal standards strongly disagree with this, including those of the police enforcing the laws.

You should care and at some point you will.

When you let the rules slip eventually that slippage will be used against you.

History shows this...

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

I have seen and appreciate your quote, but I will not be the one speaking for pedophiles.

If you think that running a sting operation to catch pedophiles is going to lead to a Third Reich-esque roundup and extermination of minorities I really don't even know what to say.

If you think breaking the law to get bad people doesnt set a precedent that will be abused you havent been paying attention at all.

The patriot act and the revoking of rights without due process was sold as something to fight terrorists. Now we have common street criminals being charged as street terrorists to circumvent due process.

It simply is fact that govt is the most serious threat to citizens. This is why the constitution was created and the nation was architected as a constitutionally bound republic.

This tripe of "think of the children" has always been used to get more power by govts and will continue to happen.

You know that you can easily replace pedophiles with most groups in your post, right? Such as for example "jews". The sad part is that there are actually people who think and thought in the past the same thing, but it is a real danger (as history has shown).

I suggest an alternative: how about judging people by the harm that they have committed to others rather than their race, attraction, opinions, etc?

The US Government developed Tor so that covert agents around the world would be able to effectively hide their internet traffic. See https://www.torproject.org/about/history/

They need other people to use it to be effective. They aren't going to shut it down until they have a replacement. They might even control >50% of the network.

The reason why it hasn't been shut down is because they already have ways to compromise it, so it's better to act like they want to get rid of it, all the while knowing that they can crack it if they really need to. It creates a false sense of security.

If there's truly a guaranteed secure way of doing things, the government would act a lot quicker.

This makes the assumption that the government has the ability to go after everyone using it to harm people, including tens of thousands of children, but chooses not to. Under such an assumption, one can no longer consider the government the good guy.

The USG routinely ignores crimes that would reveal sources and methods. Some known moles have gotten off scot-free while they were fed disinformation because it was more valuable to keep their adversary in the dark about what the US knows.

And you've reached this conclusion how?

The sense of security in anonymity is not false as long as the dark web continues to proliferate its services.

Your conclusion is invalid without providing further proof. If you want counter-proof, just visit the dark web one of these days. it's as vibrant as ever.

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