Ex-judge Gets 27 Months on Evidence From Hacked PC 610
netbsd_fan writes "A former California judge has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for possession of illegal pornography, based entirely on evidence gathered by an anonymous vigilante script kiddie in Canada. At any given time he was monitoring over 3,000 innocent people. The anonymous hacker says, "I would stay up late at night to see what I could drag out of their computers, which turned out to be more than I expected. I could read all of their e-mails without them knowing. As far as they were concerned, they didn't know their e-mails had even been opened. I could see who they were chatting with and read what they were saying as they typed."
I'm curious how you people think about this (Score:5, Insightful)
-> clear violation of privacy of thousands of people
-> use of that information for private gain
-> passing off vigilante-collected information to the police
-> (plus or minus) collecting that same porn
All this obviously without a court order, or even being in the police force.
This is also seriously worse than the riaa has ever done. So what should the punishment for the hacker be ? Clearly he cannot go free, despite having caught this criminal.
protect children (Score:3, Insightful)
This sounds about as bad as it can get.
From the article:
"He... ignored police threats that if he didn't stop he'd be arrested for breaching privacy"
I guess since "His motives was always to protect children who can't protect themselves", it is all ok.
Re:Illegal evidence (Score:3, Insightful)
Once the ex-judge's computer had been hacked by "some guy" the state of that system should be considered to be tainted. Who's to say that Brad Willman wasn't using that system as a proxy?
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:2, Insightful)
Still very shady legally, and you can't have a society where people just trespass for whatever reason. However, he did very intelligently target it and accomplished a good thing. He was a better man than those that make us have laws, and that says something. At least, so far.
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:5, Insightful)
While his actions are most likely altruistic, he should be punished for his deeds and then be enlisted by some the Canadian police and do it legally.
Hacker Must be Prosecuted for Committed Felonies (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what I would like to do? (Score:2, Insightful)
What this virus would do is infect as many computers as it could, and then implement some kind of basic bittorrent protocol, and download GIGS of child porn onto every single computer it touched. Thousands of images. Thousands of videos. The more the better.
Maybe then, and only then, we'd see an end to this type of case - destroying an otherwise harmless old man's life just because he had some fricking images on his HD. I don't know how Americans can keep a straight face when we say we favour free speech on one hand, but on the other we can talk about "illegal pornography"
So, watch out for this virus, if I ever do make it. I might call it "Ashcroft"
Shocking that this is allowed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Illegal evidence (Score:3, Insightful)
Well... just because evidence was gathered illegaly doesn't mean it can't be admited. IANAL but I seem to recall provisions in the law for this. If you are law enforcement... then they are obligated to obey certain rules of conduct. On the other hand, ordinary citizens are not required to. I also seem to recall the fact that wiretaps cross boarders are totally admissible... at least according to moaning canadians who were concerned over the US gathering evidence via illegal wiretaps back in 2000 or so. While I disagree with this practice for matters not related to national security, America seemed to have opened a can of words with a double edged sword.
Now... dispite the fact that the ex-judge was spyed with kiddy porn, something which is a huge no no, I believe that the regular laws of telephony devices should apply. I feel that this should be considered to be an illegal wiretap. Good intentions or not it's as serious a violation of privacy as tapping someone's telephone.
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this type of evidence really admissable? It's not like the hacker can be trusted, after all he DID illegally hack into computers. Perhaps it was his intent to incriminate somebody. He was able to monitor a large number of computers and it just happenned to be an ex-judge's computer that had the pictures? It may be true, but it's a damn big coincidence.
Re:More vigilantes please (Score:5, Insightful)
There should be limits on what can be done legally. And that script kiddie should be jailed, too.
If one hacker does it for 'good' (Score:5, Insightful)
But similar to what posters earlier have pointed out - How can we solely trust a trojan writer? How do we know that the hacker didn't simply set people up? Once he had taken control of their computers he could have planted the files himself.
Not to mention the fact that he must have broken into a great many innocent people's computers and read their emails. I wonder if they will be so happy of the methods that this superhero used.
If he knew the places pedophiles frequent, why didn't he just forward that info to the authorities, he can't claim that they weren't putting enough effort into fighting child pornography.
How can you find them guilty..? (Score:5, Insightful)
To do this he broke into systems and spied without a warrant, probable cause, or any authority whatsoever. Most of the people he did this to were innocent, but in any case the 'evidence' he found cannot be used to prosecute with. I doubt if he has much concept of the 'chain of evidence' anyway, so it will be inadmissable for all sorts of reasons.
'Never mind', you say, 'he has gained valuable intelligence. The authorities can mount a raid later and do things properly'.
But by his own admission these target machines have been hacked by a person anxious to 'find' kiddyporn distributors and users. Surely this makes ANYTHING on that system suspect thereafter? When accused, all the judge has to do is claim that he has never seen these photos before, and they must have been placed there by the hacker. Indeed, from TFA I think that is a credible possibility.
Not only has this idiot committed a nasty computer crime by hacking into innocent people's machines, he has messed up the possibilities of any future prosecution of people who may or may not have been involved in an actual crime.
{irony}
Of course, the above is only going by the Constitution. Everyone knows that nowadays the rule of law is suspended whenever:
Patriotism is mentioned
Children are mentioned
Global Warming is mentioned
Security is mentioned
Road Safety is mentioned
{end irony}
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:5, Insightful)
None of the cases he's uncovered will ever succeed (Score:5, Insightful)
And every single child pornographer he's uncovered will do the same. Many of them will get away with it, and precedent will be set.
There's a reason why we have search laws. Willman has now tainted the evidence in thousands of child porn cases, by his own admission. That's pretty much the definition of "well meaning idiot."
A lesson to be learned here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Reasonable doubt then has a good chance to keeping you free. If evidence is not properly gathered from the very beginning, how can proof beyond a reasonable doubt ever be presented?
This guy copped a plea, though, so much of the background is moot at this point. But I have seen many other cases (typically surrounding divorce where the woman would like to secure custody of children and such) where people's lives had been ruined on the basis of an accusation that could not be defended easily enough. As the article shows, this guy's whole life fell apart during all of this and while the resources of the prosecution are unlimited, the resources of the accused deteriorated and suffocated while he defended against the charges.
We, the public, will never know the full truth of this. A confession after all the strife he faced is nothing short of coerced and tainted.
Terrified on both counts. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, but he could also view any email correspondence by that judge, which could have included sensitive court material.
Show me a judge who handles sensitive court correspondence by e-mail and I'll show you a judge I dearly want to smack in the face really, really hard.
he should be punished for his deeds and then be enlisted by some the Canadian police and do it legally
I wouldn't find it at all more comforting that the guy who has the job (self-appointed or not) trolling through private e-mails has a badge. Wouldn't that make him *more* dangerous to the average privacy-loving John Q. Whatever?
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whenever a politician wants to push some privacy invading law he has only to utter the magic words "kiddie porn" and there's no rebuttal. If a hacker invades your privacy and reads your e-mail that's terrible; unless he suspects you're a child molester, in which case he's a "hero".
One of the funniest, most well adjusted people I know was molested at six; it doesn't scar you for life, a savage beating from bullies just might though. Why do we practically encourage bullying but go to any lengths to stop child molesters?
Obviously here I have to clarify my stance, or people will start taking out their pitchforks.. Child molestation and kiddie porn is revolting, but what about getting stabbed? What about being forced to take addictive drugs and prostitute yourself to earn them? What about privacy?
No-one in power has the guts to say "we're going too far", because then they'll be labeled as a sympathizer.
What about the child prostitutes that everyone knows about, but won't donate money to build good orphanages to put them in? We go to any lengths to stop the abuse of children, unless it costs us money. If Brett is such a anti-child molester hero why not get a job, and donate money to take kids off the streets?
Because Brett just wants an excuse to get a rush from "hacking" (ie installing a trojan on gullible users computers, the nirvana of incredible hacks). He's just like loads of other "hacktivists"; working and donating money just isn't as exciting.
I'm not saying the evidence shouldn't be counted, but I do think calling Brett a "hero" for reading thousands of peoples e-mails for years on end is absurd.
Out of those thousands of people were any of them not child molesters? I'm guessing the majority weren't, since he has only a couple of arrests attributed to him. Would you call Brett a hero if you were one of the people he had been monitoring for years? Personally I'd want to lodge the end of my boot up his asshole.
Not YRO? (Score:2, Insightful)
Logical, since you have *no right* in the first place to view child pornography in this country in the first place.
Que the next YRO article, where someone claims the "right" to commit a crime. Go call ACLU/PETA/NMBLA.
Re:protect children (Score:2, Insightful)
Did the Judge ever touch a child? (Score:4, Insightful)
The hacker could have placed the pictures there...
I think this is way too shady.
Even if they were his pictures... isnt it a thought crime?
Re:The script kiddy part... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course it could just be the reporter exaggerating for effect.
Either way, here's the relevant part of the second article:
Berlin zoo. Paris Gare du Nord. (Score:2, Insightful)
You WHERE might sound funny to people not being confronted to child prostitution, but once you get asked if you want sex favor from a 12 year old your life is not the same afterward, and you tend to see the world with darker shade of gray. And it is even worst when you realize that you cannot do much.
LOTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, mod me flamebait because I didn't think of the chiiiiildren. It's still a fact that we yell and cry about the horrors of tyranny if people are forbidden from reading any book they like, but in our own culture people don't have the freedom to look at any pictures they like. And there are cases where people have been sentenced for child porn that was created digitially, with no actual childs harmed.
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the evidence shouldn't be counted. It was obtained illegally, by a vigilante. What kind of a precedent are we setting here. That some self righteous group of private citizens will take it upon themselves to police everyone else. There's a recipe for disaster if ever there was one.
Brett isn't a hero. He's a zealot. A criminal zealot. I don't care how may witches^Dpedophiles may or may not walk free. Frankly I will trust the pedophile before I trust vigilantes, because at least with the pedophiles you know where they stand.
Vigilantes are just hungry for blood and power. Guilt, innocence and even the crime itself are secondary concerns to them.
Re:More vigilantes please (Score:5, Insightful)
I know it's hard for the thinofthechildren masses to comprehend it, but there is a reason there are limitations to what the police can do, and they are not "those commies hate kids!"
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:5, Insightful)
He's an informer of the worst kind. What's the difference between this guy and people who spied on their neighbours for the gestapo and stasi? He did it for the children? Keep telling yourself that when your frienda and neighbours start getting hauled away on fantasy charges.
Re:Waits for it.. (Score:1, Insightful)
They searched his work computer also and found a crap load of child porn. The hacker only had access to his home computer.
Dumbass.
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:4, Insightful)
No pitchforks here. I agree with you - when the accusation includes anything at all similar to 'kiddie porn', the high moral ground has been occupied, and it seems like everything else goes out the windows
Glad to see the ex-judge busted, but wouldn't trust the kid as far as I can throw him. He weirds me out at least as much as the judge.
I mean, you can't argue the result here. But the method sure creeps me out. By focusing on child porn images, this dude gets to stalk 3000 people. And he does is by distributing a trojan, and manually reviewing the material on target computers.
The alt.comp.virus FAQ http://www.faqs.org/faqs/computer-virus/alt-faq/pa rt3/ [faqs.org] references a backgrounder on the legalities of computer crime. It's venerable (1998), so I don't know to what extent the author's assertions are still accurate, but he is pretty clear: Distributing a virus affecting computers used substantially by the government or financial institutions is a federal crime under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. So if this had ended up on a qualifying computer, the kid would (should) have been busted. Furthermore, Most states have statutes that make it a crime to intentionally interfere with a computer system. These statutes will often cover viruses as well as other forms of computer crime.
The referenced document can be found at http://www.loundy.com/E-LAW/E-Law4-full.html#VII [loundy.com] in Section D.
As well, if the judge hadn't admitted the journal in question was his, and disclaimed knowledge of the images, how far could they have gotten with this prosecution? The kid admits distributing a trojan, how far is it from there to distributing material? I think a defence lawyer could have a field day with this, but IANAL, just another guy with an opinion.
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:3, Insightful)
I say give 1 medal and 3000 tresspassing charges (Score:3, Insightful)
The end doesnt justify the means.
How many of the 3000 where innocent ?
Re:Berlin zoo. Paris Gare du Nord. (Score:3, Insightful)
The world is a crappy place. If you need to come face-to-face with it for it to sink in, then you do - but a lot of people don't. But making jokes about it is some people's way of dealing with it - if you can't make fun of something, you're probably taking it too seriously anyway.
Re:More vigilantes please (Score:5, Insightful)
What I find most disturbing is that this isn't discussed anywhere except Slashdot (which seems to be split about 50/50 on the issue of whether there should be one set of laws and standards for KP and one set of laws for "everything else"). Consider the outrage and public debate that the Patriot act sparked in the US - everybody had an opinion, it was debated to death (although it did pass), and will undoubtedly be one of the primary focii of the 2008 election. What about the PROTECT act that had been successfully used to prosecute posession of drawings? No debate. No discussion. No concern. Anywhere.
This means that either the 50% of /. that finds this line of reasoning irrational is completely insane or (more likely) the fear of being seen as a sympathizer is so great that nobody risks talking about it - not even the die-hard civil libertarians.
It's for the Children, uuuh, uuuuh (Score:4, Insightful)
thousands of yearsand will still be around long after the internet is gone.
Sadly child molestation is not even by far the worst thing to happen
to a child. War and starvation are what KILL hundreds of thousands
of children each year(!), and do speak to that little african girl
who had her right leg blown away if she'd rather stripped and danced
naked in front of dirty old men than step on that Made in U.S.A
land mine. Talk of old men abusing children, that little girl had
a virtual sit on Donald Rumsfeld's abusive lap instead.
That's as far as the hubris here is concerned, now how about the
civil liberties angle. Here we have the "Uuuuh, uuuh it's for the
children"angle yet again but what is next? Does our sociophobic
sour drop gobbling citizen vigilante get to break into our homes
next and search them forillegal substances? Does he get the right to
assault me on a street and go through my pockets??
Damn summary. 3000 innocent people? (Score:3, Insightful)
The trojan was spread through usenet in specific pedofile newsgroups. Downloading an image file (wich is how the trojan was diguised) from such a group is NOT something an innocent person would do. Downloading childporn is a crime in most of the western world. End of story. If you download a file from such a group then you are apparently willing to commit a crime.
Oh yeah, "innocent" until proven guilty. Well by that logic the police makes a habbit about arresting innocent people all the time.
There is in the west the idea of a fair trial. I think the mistake made here is that some people think that means fair as in fairplay. The way that in golf a better player should handicap himself to make the game "fair" to a lesser player.
It does not mean that. Instead it means fair as in honest. No false evidence, a chance to defend oneself and such. At no time does it mean that the police should have to handicap itself to give a criminal a chance to get out of a conviction.
The problem is that it is hard to do this. We don't want the police constantly being able to search just anyone and anything they like BUT the countermeasure does lead to criminals using their so called right to privacy to hide evidence. THAT was not the idea but it is the sideeffect.
Privacy is there to protect the innocent NOT the guilty. Sadly it is impossible to have one without the other.
But it is still hard for me not to cheer this guy on. No I don't enjoy the idea of me being snooped upon just because I downloaded something innocent (the trojan was after all NOT real childporn) BUT this guy did get a man arrested who put his 8yr old daughter up for use by pedofiles. (another case mentioned in the article that this guy uncovered)
I am sorry, but that overrules a lot of privacy concerns for me. I am that most rare of slashdot readers. A middle of the roader. A moderate. I believe that communist, capatilists and liberals are ALL wrong. Their ideas are based on the idea that humans are perfect in one way or another when they are not.
This guy showed us that our rules of privacy and allowed methods of police investigation allow very serious criminals to go undetected and unpunished.
You might say that you consider your privacy to be worth the sale of a 8yr old girl. I do not. Maybe I am damned for that to live in a police state. But what is the alternative? A free society OR something much worse then a police state?
Look at russia, they went from a police state but I don't think they are exactly living in a free society either.
We should use this case as an eye-opener. Clearly there is a gap between the type of crimes commited and what the police is allowed to detect. If the police had been allowed to use this guy's methods how many pedofiles might have been arrested who are now still free to commit their crimes?
On the other hand, how much of our private lifes would we all have to give up to make this possible?
It is balancing issue and at the moment I think the balance favors the criminals too much. Consider this,"the innocent may have somethign to fear from the police, but they certainly have something to fear from criminals the police cannot touch".
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:5, Insightful)
He should be locked up for whats done already and to put a stop to his creepy voyueristic behaviour once and for all.
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Try reading the F***ing Article...... (Score:3, Insightful)
Fair enough I'm also doing it for my own enjoyment but if at the end of day I rob 3000 old ladies and happen to find one who can be prosecuted for the crimes I've uncovered than I agree thats absolutely fair enough.
US of A (Score:1, Insightful)
Age of consent and marriage laws need serious rethinking the world over. But the schizophrenic approach currently practiced in the US is not the way to go.
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More vigilantes please (Score:5, Insightful)
Making a thing illegal and getting tough on it has never solved the problem any more than drilling holes in peoples' heads cured mental illness. The way to deal with this and the majority of problems is from a logical, measured, and scientific approach. Here's a couple of things to consider:
1. What aspects of our current social arrangement allow these problems (exploitation of other humans in the numerous forms it takes)?
2. Would we be better off to actually spend resources to study the problem?
3. How do people become that way?
4. If/how can we stop that from happening and/or detect them early on and/or fix them?
When subjects like this come up we're faced with this overwhelming emotional response that we choose to cloud or judgment rather than face the reality. We explain this away as all-too-human and bask in it. Just read comments online or talk to people about cases involving crimes of passion or the various incidents of parents (generally fathers) murdering molesters and abusers. The majority of reactions are "I'd do that too."
While I can understand that reaction and the comments that support it, they fail to engage the brain and understand the implications of such things. Which brings me back to the initial point, which is that the attitude the majority of the world holds towards crime is ultimately counterproductive and self-destructive. We owe it to the past victims and to the children and to ourselves to actually solve the problem rather than merely seeking vengeance.
When someone is abused it may as well be us or those that are dear to us. We should be less concerned with adding equal or greater suffering to the life that caused the pain as finding a way to understand why that pain was caused and constructing a world where less pain is possible. It's the old 'do you not destroy your enemy if you make him your friend?' situation where by eradicating a mental disorder that allows for abuse and exploitation we effectively destroy all child predators and their ilk.
I'm sick to death of "think of the children" assholes that are so damned blind with their emotions to recognize they're not solving a goddamned thing and that more kids will be harmed because they're too fucking slow on the uptake to actually set things right.
Sorry, I know this got a little bit repetitive.
Re:Terrified on both counts. (Score:2, Insightful)
Show me a judge who handles sensitive court correspondence by e-mail and I'll show you a judge I dearly want to smack in the face really, really hard.
Quite a few companies use internal mail servers to handle sensitive material. As long as the emails are not routed through public mail relays on the internet, there is nothing wrong with it.
Rule of Thumb (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The script kiddy part... (Score:2, Insightful)
Cue Apple copyright infringement lawsuit in
5... 4... 3...
You're so smart,dumbass (Score:5, Insightful)
And you're even more stupid if you're relying on posting as an AC to protect your identity.
Which will be shortly after they subpoena Slashdot and track you down via your IP... assuming Slashdot would want to protect the identity of someone who wrote such a virus anyway.
You *might* just about have been able to put forward a plausible argument regarding the level of damage caused by someone who solely looks at photos. And that only stands up in the absence of *any* any form of payment- or even other forms of encouragement- to others who *create* such material. But neither applies to the "harmless old man" you describe.
(*1) Yeah, I know it's out-of-date and improbable. But I couldn't resist, sorry
thank you for the object lesson in propaganda (Score:3, Insightful)
"Welcome to the Land Of The Free, where you can be locked up for two years for driving your car."
that sounds downright awful, right? except i neglected to add that the guy locked up for driving his car was DRUNK. do you think that bit of information changes the situation?
so you go:
"Welcome to the Land Of The Free, where you can be locked up for two years for looking at pictures."
damn, what an evil place!
oh... i think that changes things a bit
by cutting out key bits of information in your words, you are creating what is called propaganda: half-truths, only looking at half of the situation in order to inflame passions
the idea of justice is all about connecting actions with consequences. therefore, it is antithetical to the pursuit of justice or morality to try to take subsets of a situation, to look at only some actions and consequences, and ignore others. then you aren't concerned with right or wrong anymore, you're concerned with manipulating dumb emotion: propaganda
so to ignore, for example, the creation of th child pornography, and only focus your opinion on the consumption of the child pornography means that at best, you've made a half-assed attempt at rationalization, and at worst, you're a propagandizer (engaging in half truths, ignoring half of the situation, ignoring the larger context of creating and consuming child pornography)
i think a lot of people's criticisms of the bush administration, for example, and the approach on the iraq war, focused on their manipulation of the truth of the iraqi regime and their supposed WMD. it was a classic propaganda campaign by the bush administration to manipulate public opinion and inflame their fear post-9/11
so congratulations: you've established your credentials for getting a job with the bush administration's war machine
you operate the same way they do
you're a propagandizer
Re:i think everyone here (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm going to quote Penn Jillete when I say that, "As a society, I would hope that we would do better than I would do alone in that situation." Yes, if I were involved in one of those cases, I would want them all put away forever. But we have to be rational, and look at the consequences of our actions. If we allow this kind of thing, we open the doors for all kinds of corruption, and that can send innocent people to jail in the future, even if it helps us catch one guilty person now. So we have to draw a line, because if you're charged, even if you're innocent, this kind of thing can ruin your entire life.
Re:Waits for it.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:4th Amendment Anyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
The amendment applies to only the government; it does not guarantee to people the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures conducted by private citizens or organizations. More specifically, the Bill of Rights only restricts the power of the federal government
Re:i think everyone here (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why Evidence Resulting from Illegal Search OK H (Score:5, Insightful)
Judges should be brighter than that.
Real world example (Score:3, Insightful)
The intent is different but the end result is that one illegal act is uncovered during a less illegal one. Usually they let the lesser act slide, although there's still 2999 people that were hacked and I can't see why they'd let the hacker walk on those charges.
Re:Waits for it.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's irrelevant though, and I think you're missing the point: the guy who did this WAS NOT a cop, and has none of the legal protections that they do. He gets cut no slack to "uphold the law" because he is not charged with doing so, nor is he legally allowed to enforce it.
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Waits for it.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Law Enforcement vs Privacy (Score:2, Insightful)
When contemplating the balance between preserving privacy and enforcing the law, I think its best to reflect on a brilliant quote by Nietzsche: "He who fights with monsters should take care lest he thereby become a monster." The fact that some people can tolerate, and even worse commendate the actions of a vigilante is appalling. Two wrongs have never made a right, except in the minds of those who believe in a perverted sense of justice.
Many people are completely fine with these tactics when employed against child molesters. But if we truly were to advocate this sort of behavior, do you think it would really stop with child molestation? Once we got enough of THOSE bad guys off the street, whats to stop the next "gevious offense to society" from taking its place?
And while looking for child molesters, if we happen to uncover someone who likes to practice recreational pharmacology, do we expect our vigilante to overlook this much more minor offense? Perhaps... But perhaps some employers would be very interested information like that when evaluating prospective employees. They may be interested enough to pay a fair amount of money for information like that. Is your vigillante so morally upright as to not be seduced into profiting from their social espionage?
This guy installed a trojan virus on 3000+ computers to spy on them in hopes of catching a predator. How many emails did he read about what was going to be eaten for dinner? How many about who was taking the kids to the soccer game? There is something dark and creepy about the whole topic. In a very serious way, we was molesting the privacy of several people in trying to discover something awful about them.
What do you say of a man who stalks people, searching for something dark and evil about them? I call that a man who struggles with the darkness in his own mind, who is really looking for the monster festering within him. One must take care when fighting monsters that he doesn't become one in the process, indeed.
Re:Lousy summary (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:3, Insightful)
The hacker may be a hero in his own eyes.
But, to a judge, the only question is whether his evidence is relevant and admissible.
Private citizens aren't held to the same standards as the police.
One of the funniest, most well adjusted people I know was molested at six; it doesn't scar you for life, a savage beating from bullies just might though. Why do we practically encourage bullying but go to any lengths to stop child molesters?
You present a string of false dilemmas and you generalize through use of a single example.
That said, the molester may be uniquely corrupting and dangerous because he operates from a position of authority within the family or in society. He is the doctor, the priest, the teacher, the policeman.
here is some intellectual charity for you (Score:3, Insightful)
do you understand that concept?
if you understand that concept, you understand why "just looking at pictures" has moved way beyond being a simple act of expression or a thought crime. the judge has entered the marketplace of creation and consumption of pictures of naked children. it's not just thoughts anymore. his viewing of those pictures supports the creation of those pictures
do you deny that fact? then why are there paparazzi stalking celebrities if that is not a fact? get the concept yet?
justice and morality is all about looking at all of the actions and all of the consequences. justice and morality is not arrived at by selectively ignoring some actions or consequences. you have to look at the context of things, not just tiny disconnected actions. you need to think about cause and effect. because the very concept of justice and morality is all about cause and effect. so to purposefully ignore some causes and some effects when shaping your opinion is to willfully disregard the ideas of justice and morality
so with child porn, you are talking about a marketplace: the creation, distribution, and consumption of pictures of naked children. the entire marketplace is the crime, not the act of just the distributor, or just the creator, or just the consumer. they all need to be punished if justice and morality is what you are concerned with. and you can't fight a marketplace by focusing just on supply, or focusing just on demand. you must fight both
if you think that marketplace approach to fighting child porn is wrong, that just looking at naked pictures of children is not wrong, then you don't understand why paparazzi stalk celebrities and why they get $50,000 for a picture of a bald britney spears
same dynamic at work
now, think carefully about this little piece of intellectual charity, ruminate on the concept of a something larger than just one person going on here, and then open your mouth
or call me an idiot again without actually showing any understanding of a larger reality beyond satisfying immediate selfish impulses without any regard for consequences. your choice
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:in the early 1980s (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, really, don't. This guy knowingly, systematically broke the law for an extended period, invading thousands of people's privacy in the process. He should spend the next few months in jail. He should then spend the next few years prohibited from going near anything that has the slightest chance of spying on others: networked computers, camera or video equipment, binoculars and telescopes, the works. If he ever talks about anything else he saw during the period to anyone, he should automatically spend the next few years in solitary confinement. And he should be banned from holding any public office that requires access to confidential information for the rest of his life, including any possibility of ever serving in the police or security services. There are enough good people on the right side of the law that we don't need ethically unstable people in that sort of position of responsibility.
Seriously, privacy invasion is one of the nastiest things you can do to someone. It's subtle, but as with related concerns like identity theft, the damage can be life-changing and can last a very long time. With modern technology making covert surveillance and data collection on a massive scale a realistic possibility, the only defence is to annihilate the people who would abuse such technology to violate the basic rights of others.
This guy should not be hailed as a hero. He should be made an example. And the evidence against the judge should be given zero weight in court as a matter of legal principle. The end cannot justify the means in cases like this, or the world will become a very nasty place to live.
Re:Waits for it.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only that, but it's a very short step from vigilante pursuit of evidence to actually planting evidence, because after all you KNOW that $target WOULD do $evil if only he knew where to get $evil, or whatever excuse is politically convenient this week.
As I recall, that was exactly what happened back in the days of the informer leagues you mention.
Re:Also... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. And no, I don't feel I need to justify my reason to you. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Re:Bust the buster? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:1984... (Score:3, Insightful)
There are plenty of people in law enforcement who would love to throw out a lot of the rules. It's much easier to get things done when you can just go house to house and kick down doors to hunt for evidence. I don't particularly want to live in that world though. Privacy is essential to allowing us to be who we are without having to share every aspect of our lives with everybody else. Giving police the right to invade the privacy of anybody they want, anytime they want, without the evidence needed to get a warrant, would destroy privacy completely. Even if it doesn't get "abused" as you say, the simple act of allowing it at all is an abuse.
At least then they could be prosecuted for it. If they are powerful enough to be above the law, then that's an entirely different problem, and one that would probably have to be solved outside the law.
Re:The script kiddy part... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actual leet speak, it seems to me, is/was used more so by people invoking the stereotype as an insult or in a comical/self-deprecating sense:
"Who designed your web site, your l33t h4x0r little brother?"
"I got the VCR to stop blinking. ph34r m3h."
Re:Also... (Score:2, Insightful)
Unless you are talking about animation, there is no such thing as a "mere picture".
There is still an Adult and a Child involved in some sort of activity that takes gross advantage of a minor.
If you take that into account, the difference between a Pederast and a Pedophile becomes indistinguishable.