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FBI ran website sharing thousands of child porn images
FBI ran website sharing thousands of child porn images
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WASHINGTON — For nearly two weeks last year, the FBI operated what it described as one of the Internet’s largest child pornography websites, allowing users to download thousands of illicit images and videos from a government site in the Washington suburbs.
The operation — whose details remain largely secret — was at least the third time in recent years that FBI agents took control of a child pornography site but left it online in an attempt to catch users who officials said would otherwise remain hidden behind an encrypted and anonymous computer network. In each case, the FBI infected the sites with software that punctured that security, allowing agents to identify hundreds of users.
The Justice Department acknowledged in court filings that the FBI operated the site, known as Playpen, from Feb. 20 to March 4, 2015. At the time, the site had more than 215,000 registered users and included links to more than 23,000 sexually explicit images and videos of children, including more than 9,000 files that users could download directly from the FBI. Some of the images described in court filings involved children barely old enough for kindergarten.
That approach is a significant departure from the government’s past tactics for battling online child porn, in which agents were instructed that they should not allow images of children being sexually assaulted to become public. The Justice Department has said that children depicted in such images are harmed each time they are viewed, and once those images leave the government’s control, agents have no way to prevent them from being copied and re-copied to other parts of the internet.
Officials acknowledged those risks, but said they had no other way to identify the people accessing the sites.
“We had a window of opportunity to get into one of the darkest places on Earth, and not a lot of other options except to not do it,” said Ron Hosko, a former senior FBI official who was involved in planning one of the agency’s first efforts to take over a child porn site. “There was no other way we could identify as many players.”
Lawyers for child pornography victims expressed surprise that the FBI would agree to such tactics – in part because agents had rejected them in the past – but nonetheless said they approved. “These are places where people know exactly what they’re getting when they arrive,” said James Marsh, who represents some of the children depicted in some of the most widely-circulated images. “It’s not like they’re blasting it out to the world.”
The FBI hacks have drawn repeated – though so far unsuccessful – legal challenges, largely centered on the search warrants agents obtained before agents cracked the computer network.
But they have also prompted a backlash of a different kind. In a court filing, a lawyer for one of the men arrested after the FBI sting charged that “what the government did in this case is comparable to flooding a neighborhood with heroin in the hope of snatching an assortment of low-level drug users.” The defense lawyer, Colin Fieman, asked a federal judge to throw out child pornography charges against his client, former middle school teacher Jay Michaud. A federal judge is scheduled to hear arguments on that request Friday.
Federal agents first noticed Playpen not long after it went online in August, 2014. The site was buried in what is often called the “dark web,” a part of the internet that is accessible to the public only through Tor, network software that bounces users’ internet traffic from one computer to another to make it largely untraceable.
By March of last year, the FBI said, Playpen had grown to become “the largest remaining known child pornography hidden service in the world,” the Justice Department said in a court filing. FBI agents tracked the site to computer servers in North Carolina, and in February seized the site and quietly moved it to its own facility in Newington, Va.
The FBI kept Playpen online for 13 days. During that time, federal prosecutors told defense lawyers that the site included more than 23,000 sexually explicit images and videos of children. Some of those could be downloaded directly from the government’s computers; others were available through links to other hard-to-find locations on the web, Fieman said.
One section of the site was labeled “toddlers,” according to court records. And prosecutors said that some of the images users accessed during the time Playpen was under the government’s control included “prepubescent female” having sexual intercourse with adults.
Fieman said more than 100,000 Playpen registered users visited the site while it was under the FBI’s control. The Justice Department said in court filings that agents had found “true” computer addresses for more than 1,300 of them, and has told defense lawyers that 137 have been charged with a crime, though it has so far declined to publicly identify those cases.
Law enforcement has long complained that online services like Tor create a type of safe haven for criminals because they hide the unique network addresses from which people connect to sites on the internet. Officials said the only way for the government to crack that network was to take over the site and infect it with malware that would trick users’ web browsers into revealing their real internet addresses, which agents could then trace back to the people who were using them.
“The government always considers seizing an illegal child pornography site and removing it from existence immediately and permanently,” Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said. “While doing so would end the trafficking of child pornography taking place on that one website, it would do nothing to prevent those same users from disseminating child pornography through other means.”
Still, he said, “The decision whether to simply shut down a website or to allow it to continue operating for a brief period for a law enforcement purpose is a difficult one.”
Justice officials said they were unable to discuss details of the investigation because much of it remains under seal, at their request.
The Justice Department said in court filings that agents did not post any child pornography to the site themselves. But it did not dispute that the agents allowed images that were already on the site to remain there, and that it did not block the site’s users from uploading new ones while it was under the government’s control. And the FBI has not said it had any ability to prevent users from circulating the material they downloaded onto other sites.
“At some point, the government investigation becomes indistinguishable from the crime, and we should ask whether that’s OK,” said Elizabeth Joh, a University of California Davis law professor who has studied undercover investigations. “What’s crazy about it is who’s making the cost/benefit analysis on this? Who decides that this is the best method of identifying these people?”
The FBI was first known to have operated a child porn site in 2012, when agents seized control of three sites from their operator in Nebraska. FBI Special Agent Jeff Tarpinian testified that the government “relocated two servers to an FBI facility here in Omaha and we continued to let those child pornography run – websites operate for a short period of time."
That case led to federal child pornography charges against at least 25 people. But in an illustration of how difficult the cases can be, at least nine of the people charged in those cases are still identified in court records only as “John Doe,” suggesting the FBI has so far been unable to link specific people to the network addresses it logged.
The next year, the FBI took control of a dark web site known as Freedom Hosting. The man prosecutors have accused of operating that site, Eric Marques, is due to be extradited to the United States; the charges against him remain sealed. The FBI revealed its role in an Irish court hearing covered by local media.
In each case, the FBI injected the site with malware to crack Tor’s anonymity.
Those hacks, developed with the help of outside contractors, were a technical milestone. When the FBI first realized it could break through Tor, Hosko said the agency gathered counterterrorism investigators and intelligence agencies to see if any of them had a more pressing need for the software. “It was this, exponentially,” Hosko said.





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8chan is one of the most notorious chan or image boards. 

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8chan, the site linked to mass-shooting screeds, has returned under a new name.
Oscar Gonzalez is Texas native who covers video games, conspiracy theories, misinformation and cryptocurrency.
A rash of postings that may be related to mass shootings has put a spotlight on loosely moderated forums known as chan boards or image boards. While many people who visit these sites simply share memes or discuss video games, the sites have also become a gathering place for white supremacists and right-wing nationalists who take advantage of the freewheeling and anonymous nature of the boards. 
The anything-goes attitude has led chan boards to become swamps of hateful commentary. One board in particular, 8chan, became a magnet for these posts. After suspected shooters in at least three mass shootings in 2019 posted screeds on 8chan -- including before the El Paso, Texas, massacre in early August -- 8chan was forced offline when internet security company Cloudflare and other providers decided to stop working with the site. 
8chan's owner, Jim Watkins, was subpoenaed and appeared privately before the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security in September and said he'd keep the site offline voluntarily until tools were developed to counter illegal content. 
On Oct. 6, the 8chan Twitter account uploaded a video featuring a new name for the site: 8kun . The new site officially went live Nov. 2. Watkins uploaded a video on the same day saying the site was experiencing heavy traffic. 
"It is a fantastic amount of users who attempted to access at one time," he said in the video. "Although I expect setbacks and attacks, it is almost to the point already where no one man, corporation or government will be able to stifle us. Until that surprising trumpet sounds, it is likely that this movement will become unstoppable."
On Nov. 6, domain registrar Tucows removed the site saying it breached the company's service agreement . 8kun is still offline. It returned under the domain 8kun.top on Nov. 16. 
The focus on 8chan, which allows people to post anything as long as it is legal in the US, according to its FAQ , is understandable. The man accused of killing 22 people at the Walmart in El Paso has been linked to an anti-immigrant screed posted to 8chan. Posts tied to the New Zealand mosque shooting in March and the San Diego-area synagogue shooting in April were also made on 8chan. 
The site isn't alone, though. Hundreds of these boards exist, and they're relatively easy to build for those familiar with creating websites. A user of 4chan, one of the oldest chan boards, posted details of Jeffrey Epstein's jail suicide in August a little more than a half-hour before the news appeared on any mainstream sites. A Norwegian man accused of attempting to shoot a mosque near Oslo in August posted a link to livestream of his act to Endchan , another board. Administrators of the site say the post was removed immediately.
Here's what you need to know about these chan or image boards and the people who use them.
It's hard to know exactly. But if 4chan is our guide, a typical poster is the sort you'd probably expect: young and male. A 4chan advertising page says roughly 70% of its users are males, and most have had some college education. It lists 18- to 34-year olds as its demographic. Almost half of its users are in the US, followed by the UK, Canada and Australia. Many express an interest in anime, video games and technology. 
Those numbers don't capture the entire population of chan board users. A lot of people use chan boards, which let you post anonymously, to discuss issues related to being LGBT or to share amateur artwork. Some are into dressing up as anime, video game or comic book characters and posting photos of their outfits. And, of course, there are the loud, hateful trolls.
Let's get one thing straight: lots of chan boards are nothing more than places for people with intense interests in a subject to swap thoughts. If you've got a passion that's an inch wide and a mile deep, you might find a community of kindred spirits on a chan board. But because chan boards are loosely moderated and provide anonymity, they've also become a breeding ground for hateful ideas and bullying behavior. And they've spawned some illegal activity.
The logo for the hacker group Anonymous. 
Anonymous , the hacker collective, started out on 4chan and takes its name from the anonymity the site offers users. The group's first major hacking operation, Project Chanology, started in 2008 and took on the Church of Scientology. That same year, University of Tennessee student David Kernell posted screenshots showing his hacking of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's email account to 4chan. 
Chan boards don't require users to create accounts, which is a big draw. Each user can create a numbered thread or reply to one. No names are needed. Like other websites, however, users leave digital breadcrumbs, such as IP addresses, that are recorded. 
Some chan boards, like 4chan, store this information so it can be retrieved later. The site has worked with the FBI on multiple occasions, providing needed information in some criminal cases. 8chan owner Watkins also confirmed his site admins worked with law enforcement following the recent mass shootings. In a statement to the House Committee on Homeland Security published Wednesday, he said the site has complied with 56 law enforcement requests in 2019 alone . 
Chan boards started in 1999 by a Japanese student living in Arkansas. 2channel , or 2ch for short, was an anonymous Japanese text board created by Hiroyuki Nishimura, who was a student at the University of Central Arkansas. Its surged in popularity in Japan partly due to its anonymous posting that allowed people to vent their frustrations without the worry of humiliation. 
On Aug. 30, 2001, fans of 2ch created a backup board called 2chan due to concerns of 2ch shutting down. The new board, also known as Futaba Channel, was an image board unlike its predecessor and began thriving on its own. One fan of the new board was a 15-year-old Christopher "Moot" Poole who was inspired to create his own board call 4chan in his New York City Home.
As 4chan grew in popularity, some people began conducting illegal activities such as swapping stolen personal information and posting child pornography. This attracted the attention of law enforcement. Poole cracked down in 2014, driving many users away. Poole sold 4chan to Nishimura in 2015 and has since begun working at Google . 
4chan creator Chris Poole speaks at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in 2010.
One of those former 4chan users, Fredrick "Hotwheels" Brennan , said he envisioned an alternative during a psychedelic mushroom trip in 2013. He called his site Infinitechan, which later came to be known as 8chan because the figure 8 is the symbol for infinity flipped. The board got little attention until 2014, when 4chan started cracking down on posts about GamerGate , a controversy over video game culture's treatment of women that became an online proxy for the culture wars. 
Brennan sniffed an opportunity and banged the drum for users to head to 8chan. They did. The surge in traffic caught the attention of Watkins, who had acquired 2chan from Nishimura in 2014. Watkins and Brennan worked together on 8chan from the Philippines until 2016, when Brennan disassociated himself from the site. He's since called for the site to be shut down . 
Fredrick Brennan created 8chan but now regrets it. 
8chan has been down since just after the El Paso massacre, though Watkins has promised it will go live after his Sept. 5 meeting with the House Committee on Homeland Security . In a statement to the committee published Wednesday, Watkins said he has "no intention of deleting constitutionally protected hate speech."
Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi and chairman of the committee, and Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican from Alabama and ranking member of the committee, released a statement Thursday following Watkins' deposition. 
"We want to thank Mr. Watkins for his cooperation today," the Congressmen said in a press release . "He provided vast and helpful information to the Committee about the structure, operation and policies of 8Chan and his other companies. We look forward to his continued cooperation with the Committee as he indicated his desire to do so during today's deposition."
4chan continues to be the most popular of the image boards, which are sites that require you to post an image to start a discussion thread. It receives more than 27 million unique visitors per month, and it's ranked in the world's top 1,000 websites, according to analytics site Alexa . 8chan's popularity has waned since the initial surge in 2014. And there are many other derivative chan boards, such as Endchan, 7chan and Dreamchan. None match 4chan's popularity, but some have active, if small, communities. 
Visiting a chan site is usually harmless. Still, it's best to proceed with caution. Some users disguise links in their posts that might take you to a site that infects your computer. There's also a possibility of coming across disturbing content. So exercise common sense when browsing through posts.
Originally published Sept. 5 and updated as new developments occur. 





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