FBI using link clicking honeypot to trap paedophiles

18 Years Ago happygeek 0 1K Views

According to recent reports the FBI has been using honey-trap hyperlinks which claim to lead to child pornography in order to entice offenders into clicking them. Last year, it seems, armed raids were carried out on homes in Nevada, New York and Pennsylvania as a direct result of such link clicking, even though the video files downloaded from the undercover government server contained no illegal images.

It seems that the courts are happy to approve the practise, although others are less convinced of the morality if not the legality of the operation, quite apart from the technical hurdles it throws up. Who is to say if the householder is using an unsecured wireless connection at the time, or if it is instead some paedophile sitting in a car outside with his laptop?

Of course, federal law in the US does criminalise the attempted downloading of child porn, and carries as much as 10 years in prison, and nobody is suggesting that people who are interested in such filth do not deserve to pay for their actions. But entrapment is a slippery path to be treading, and the implications are enormous. Is it OK for the FBI to spam millions with email offering drugs and then arresting anyone who clicks the links, for example?

That said, in this particular case, the honeypot links were limited to a discussion forum that the Feds had reason to believe was inhabited by people trading in child porn images. Is this really, then, such an evil tactic or do the ends justify the means? Especially if those ends mean taking people off the streets and into sex offender programs. It is easy to take the knee jerk reaction and agree, but we have to view the broader picture. Already, the judiciary has taken the view that the 'anyone could be using my wireless connection' argument does not invalidate a search warrant when it comes to probable cause in such cases.

But do the courts really understand the technology involved here? What about if you have a browser plug-in to download links when you hover the mouse over them even if you have not clicked them? Tools to speed up the browsing experience by pre-caching links could, effectively, land you in prison it would appear.

Dani AI

Generated 10 Months Ago

Both posts raise the right worries. Courts have allowed the FBI to use undercover “hyperlink” stings as the basis for subpoenas and search warrants in at least some prosecutions, and judges have found the resulting logs and supporting facts sufficient to establish probable cause even when questions about open Wi‑Fi or spoofing are raised. (caselaw.findlaw.com)

Entrapment is not a guaranteed defense. The Supreme Court requires the government to prove a defendant was predisposed to commit the crime before any government inducement; that decision limits abusive stings, but it also sets a high bar for successful entrapment claims and is fact‑specific. In practice, courts often reject entrapment where they find pre‑existing intent or repeated, deliberate attempts to access illicit material. (law.cornell.edu)

Practical technical steps that reduce the chance of an “innocent” network request being logged as a click:

Turn off browser prefetching/prerendering: the web platform supports link prefetching and browsers may fetch resources in the background. Disabling prefetch reduces silent network requests. (w3.org)
On macOS Safari: uncheck “Preload Top Hit in the background” (Safari → Preferences → Search) to stop background loading of top results. (discussions.apple.com)
In Firefox: set network.prefetch-next to false and network.http.speculative-parallel-limit to 0 in about:config to block link prefetch/speculative connects. Trusted privacy guides document these prefs. ()

Also secure any wireless access (WPA2/3, strong passphrase, disable open guest SSIDs) and avoid storing potentially incriminating files. If a search or arrest occurs, obtain counsel before deleting devices — destroying hardware can create obstruction issues, as seen in prosecutions. (caselaw.findlaw.com)

Shackbase 0 Junior Poster in Training

18 Years Ago

Let me be the first one to say this, being the father of 4 kids, two of each kind.

Pedophiles are the lowest form of scum there is, and once convicted should never be allowed outside the walls of a prison ever again.

With that said, I think that the concept of entrapment, in any shape or form by any government agency is just plain wrong and the ends do not, cannot justify the means in this matter.

It is a very slippery path to go down and as the original poster pointed out, there are so many ways that you could be easily be the target of a house welcoming party of feds banging down your door, violating and scaring you and your family half to death, by just having an unsecure WIFI connection, an overzealous caching program or (less likely but still a factor), an innocent click too far.

I could easily make this into a political argument but that would stray far from the original idea behind this post.

The bottom line is, leaving a wallet out in the streets to see if you turn it in or keep the money inside of it does not make people more or less honest. This is an evil trick that does not justify itself in any shape or form.

--Tone

Reply to this topic

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.