Comments on Have You Ever Clicked on a Web Ad By Accident?

How doesn't that count as entrapment?

Even better, they could use this as an excuse to take political opponents into custody, and then use "terror" as an excuse to have you never heard from again. No more habeas corpus or due process, remember? Whee!

Maybe I should move back to Canada where you have Rights and Privacy ...

Come on. No fucking way could those charges ever stick without more evidence, any more than someone who took a wrong turn in a restaurant's back hallway and found an illegal casino could be sentenced for gambling.

This makes me feel sick.

This is going to get thrown out on appeal sooooooo fast it'll make Robert Mueller's head spin like a freaking roulette wheel.

Well, it WOULD be entrapment if we still had a Constitution in this country. But thanks to W, that's no longer an obstacle.

if someone is guilty, get them for what they are guilty of. i know it might be harder, but it's better for the guilty to get away then for the innocent to be wrongfully punished.

It's probably pretty damn weak as evidence on it's own. But the fact that this is strong enough to be probable cause, which gives the G-men justification for breaking down your door at 4am, is pretty fucking scary.

Child porn is considered so egregious that just getting charged with it is probably enough to fuck up your life but good, even if the evidence is as sketchy as this.

can you imagine the trouble caused by a fake link leading to this address? "click here to unsubscribe to Animal Planet email updates..." talk about a prank.

@1 Entrapment is incredibly hard to prove, basically the defendant has to prove that the Police overcame the will of the defendant in the enticement.

You could get in trouble if a stranger sitting in a car outside your house clicked on one of these links while using your home WiFi account.

why the fuck would you leave your wifi router unsecured in the first place? forget about this particular entrapment thing--which is bogus and could never stand up in court--but ANYONE could use an unsecured wifi router to do ANYTHING and have it all point back to the victim's IP address.

Secure your shit, people! You can't keep the FBI from doing bush league shit like this, but you can do things to protect yourself.

@y'all: Read the whole article, like Dan suggests. The link was part of a post that made it clear that these were pornographic links. Moreover, this user purportedly clicked many times, not just once. They also found evidence of child porn on his computer.

HOWEVER: They only had his IP address - they didn't even submit a referring URL. He could pretty easily be a victim of someone using his computer (or network) as a proxy, and then seeding his hard drive with a couple pieces of kiddie porn to throw the feds off. There's some paranoia for ya!

It also wouldn't be too hard to make the incriminating link look like a link to something else -- just hide it in something innocuous. Voila! Instant probable cause!

Framing people has never been easier.

@14 - you're right, i read this really crazy article about a guy who got in trouble at work for watching videos because someone sent him an innocuous link as a joke.

they found images on his computer. yeah, two grainy thumbnails. you want convictions on links and two thumbnails?

#12: I know at least a couple people who use other people's open wifi to get free internet at their apartments on a daily basis. I use random people's wifi once in a while. It's very common and a great public service even if people don't know they're doing it.

Um, the article states that it wasn't entrapment because the FBI never forced the guy to do anything, and didn't try to say the images were legal. So in this case it's just a cyber version of cops masquerading as prostitutes to get johns.

And Dan's freak out isn't warranted. The links in question were clearly labeled and were on a forum for trading child porn. If they were banner ads on Slog or pornotube, it'd be a bit different.

Computer security expert Bruce Schneier leaves his own wifi network open.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/01/my_open_wireles.html

Here are the first few paragraphs of his explanation why:

Whenever I talk or write about my own security setup, the one thing that surprises people -- and attracts the most criticism -- is the fact that I run an open wireless network at home. There's no password. There's no encryption. Anyone with wireless capability who can see my network can use it to access the internet.

To me, it's basic politeness. Providing internet access to guests is kind of like providing heat and electricity, or a hot cup of tea. But to some observers, it's both wrong and dangerous.

I'm told that uninvited strangers may sit in their cars in front of my house, and use my network to send spam, eavesdrop on my passwords, and upload and download everything from pirated movies to child pornography. As a result, I risk all sorts of bad things happening to me, from seeing my IP address blacklisted to having the police crash through my door.

While this is technically true, I don't think it's much of a risk. I can count five open wireless networks in coffee shops within a mile of my house, and any potential spammer is far more likely to sit in a warm room with a cup of coffee and a scone than in a cold car outside my house. And yes, if someone did commit a crime using my network the police might visit, but what better defense is there than the fact that I have an open wireless network? If I enabled wireless security on my network and someone hacked it, I would have a far harder time proving my innocence.

that's a pretty weak argument, though. that is akin to say, well, so many other people leave the front doors on their homes unlocked, and they have nicer stuff or bigger houses, so criminals will probably pick them instead, and if i locked my door and somebody would pick it, i'd have a harder time explaining to the police and insurance company that it wasn't an inside job.

that's pretty weak logic.

if you secure your wireless and have a white list of mac addresses, there is virtually zero chance that someone could use your network nefariously. Even if they were able to hack your key their mac address would not be on the whitelist so they're SOL. Facing that versus the unsecure neighbors, you're the harder target, so you'll be left alone.

the whole social etiquette thing is whack, too. it's not rude to lock your door. it's rude to just expect to be able to walk into any building at any time without knocking or asking permission. if a friend comes over, I can give them my wifi key, and then they have it. if i chose to do the whitelist on the mac address, i can add that in two seconds too, and then every time there after they're gold.

Children should be protected from predators and abusers, but I feel this is egregious behavior on the part of the FBI. There are so many "real" children living in abusive environments, that I think the money would be better spent ensuring that "non-virtual" abused children are not sent back to violent families, and seeing to it that families have resources to ensure that children grow up in safe homes. But I've noticed that "real" children don't really seem to matter that much to the government.

poppy - just because it is common doesn't mean it is a good idea. particularly if someone doesn't know that they're doing it.

if i was paying for bandwidth and someone two units down was sapping me a bunch of torrents, i'd be pissed. if the RIAA came knocking, i'd also be pissed. both because i think the RIAA is a group of dicks, but because my "neighbor" has given me a headache that i don't deserve. thanks, neighbor!

if you want to leave your wireless open for some egalitarian reason--like letting all those iphone users escape their shitty EDGE network--more power to you. but you're opening yourself up to a risk and it's something you should be aware of and consciously choose to do.

i don't care what you do with your network, but personally i think it's bunk and dumb. :)

@22 You're so afraid of these risks, do you stay out of the rain for fear of catching colds, too?

Rick rolled by the Feds. Oh what a feeling!

I'm probably gonna get a world of shit for this, but if you use Google's web accelerator, your IP address traces back to Google, not you.

@21,

I wonder how many kids used in child porn are being exploited by relatives or family friends (i.e. haven't been kidnapped by level 1 sex offenders).

i'm not afraid of the risks. i don't have a mac address white list, but i do have my router secured.

my point is that if you ever caught shit for having an unsecured network because someone else did something that lead the authorities to your door, you don't have shit to complain about. secondly, why would you not secure something if it isn't hard to do, and it eliminates or extremely decreases the probability of something bad happening? that just seems like a good idea. i like good ideas. especially when they seem so obvious.

@24 - YES. rick roll ftw.

@26 - Probably a hell of a lot higher percentage than the tone of your question infers.

And Dan's freak out isn't warranted. The links in question were clearly labeled and were on a forum for trading child porn. If they were banner ads on Slog or pornotube, it'd be a bit different.

And that's exactly why Dan's freak out is entirely warranted. Read the article.

There's no evidence the referring site was recorded as well, meaning the FBI couldn't tell if the visitor found the links through Ranchi or another source such as an e-mail message.

The FBI either kept no referred-by information on the incoming traffic, or just didn't feel like sharing that with the courts. So there is exactly no way for anyone to know if the machine at those IP addresses which requested that page were coming there from that online discussion forum, or if they got it in an email that was sent to them, or any place else they could have clicked on it. In point of fact, it could have been a banner ad for all they know, or at any rate, for all their evidence seems to have shown.

That's the problem. That is what should be terrifying people about this case. The FBI and this screwball judge, unless he throws out the conviction completely, has just made it simple to get anyone you have a grudge against thrown in jail for trafficking in child porn. Just email them a link that looks innocuous, but goes to one of these FBI honeypots, and if they click on it they're dead meat.

Neat way to get rid of political troublemakers, that...

I've had those ones that you click once and then like 50 different pages open and you've gotta shut off the puter to stop 'em. Who knows what the hell is coming up when that happens.

That really sounds like a bad idea that needs to be stopped. It's one thing to offer the videos and catch the assholes once they download them in full, it's quite another to nab them for clicking a damn link.

#26 That's my point. How many times have you read of children who were being exploited or abused, where the neighbors shook their heads and said, "I suspected little Amy had problems. She shook all the time and sometimes had bruises. Then you wouldn't see her for days on end and suddenly she showed up looking all malnourished and stuff."? How many times have you read of children who were murdered after a court decided that their family should be given another chance at raising them and where no social worker had bothered checking up on the family's progress? But instead, we have a government more intent on looking at the IP addresses that have tried to access a fictitious website. What next? In some states it's illegal to have sex with an animal. Will we look at IP addresses of people who try to access a site purporting to deal with bestiality? Will we arrest anyone who accesses any website that has the word "illegal" as part of its link? Sorry to ramble; I had a late night.

"The FBI either kept no referred-by information on the incoming traffic, or just didn't feel like sharing that with the courts."

maybe it was because the fbi felt that their case was strong enough that they didn't need to introduce this bit of evidence. just because the fbi collects it doesn't mean it has to be a part of their case. it's the defendant's job to call on this evidence if, in fact, he didn't click on the links from the site.

and let's take a look at what the fbi put on the site:

"here is one of my favs - 4yo hc with dad (toddler, some oral, some anal) - supercute! Havent' seen her on the board before - if anyone has anymore, PLEASE POST."

and here is one of the links the post directed people to click on:

"Preview: ...sytes.net/12/05/4yo_suck.rar.html"

you mean to tell me that there was a doubt as to what this was all about? 4 year old, anal, oral? the guy wasn't some saint sitting at home looking for alternative energy resources - he was on a site that advertised, at least once, sex with a little kid. add to that the two pics of underage minors he had on a drive that he tried to destroy. these don't sound like the actions of an innocent man to me.

@33 - The problem here though is I would imagine that if the FBI found someone who had posted a similar description of something - whether it actually led to anything or not - they would be coming down like a ton of bricks on them as well. Yet they're allowed to do it? Yes, I realize, they're the government, and they can do whatever the hell they want (especially these days), but this is still troublesome, to say the least.