‘Anonymous’ Forces 40+ Child Pornography Sites Offline

[Fire Walk With Me]

Cassandra ‏@CassandraRules

“@YourAnonNews: ‘Anonymous’ Forces 40+ Child Pornography Sites Offline
http://techland.time.com/2011/10/24/anonymous-takes-down-40-child-pornography-sites/

…” awesome job guys!
Retweeted by - D -


Anonymous has turned its attentions from corporations to pedophiles with the news that the hacktivist group has taken down multiple child pornography sites, including one of the largest known, with account details of its 1589 users being posted online as evidence.

The incident was just part of something Anonymous is calling “Operation Darknet,” a move by the group to eliminate child pornography on the Tor network. Tor, which was originally developed as a way of protecting government communications by the U.S. Navy, now describes itself as “a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet.” But the privacy and anonymity it offers has been abused by child pornographers, something that Anonymous aims to correct with its new campaign.

In its statement about the takedown, Anonymous says that the group “identified [hosting service] Freedom Hosting as the host of the largest collection of child pornography on the internet,” adding “By taking down Freedom Hosting, we are eliminating 40+ child pornography websites, among these is Lolita City, one of the largest child pornography websites to date containing more than 100GB of child pornography. We will continue to not only crash Freedom Hosting’s server, but any other server we find to contain, promote, or support child pornography.”

The group’s statement ends with the following demands:

“Remove all child pornography content from your servers. Refuse to provide hosting services to any website dealing with child pornography. This statement is not just aimed at Freedom Hosting, but everyone on the internet. It does not matter who you are, if we find you to be hosting, promoting, or supporting child pornography, you will become a target.”

(That is the entire article.)

[Sekhmets Daughter]

1. WOW

I am beginning to really, really like Anonymous.

[libodem]

2. Awesome

Excellent Target!!!

[Benton D Struckcheon]

3. Groovy

[In_The_Wind]

4. Sweet! I would love to buy Anonymous a drink IRL!

[FirstLight]

14. +1000!!

I hope these actions make a dent in childporn sites!

[In_The_Wind]

16. So do I

to the end of child abuse.[img][/img] and pornography involving any one underage.

[Baitball Blogger]

5. Finally! One everyone can agree with.

[siligut]

6. Anonymous!!!!!

Helping the helpless. So glad they are on our side.

[white_wolf]

25. The Angel reference made me smile.

Intentional or not, well done sir/madam.

[ailsagirl]

7. Cyber heroes!!

[WillyT]

8. K & R !!!

[namaste2]

9. While I really appreciate any inteference with taking down such filth serving the lowest human

activity imaginable, but my question is this; they posted specific details, but can law enforcement use that to prosecute those involved or will this prevent any criminal charges?

[Canuckistanian]

13. To be fair

Law enforcement agencies don't have the expertise that Anonymous has.

Besides, Anonymous doesn't want a cozy relationship with authority of any kind. They prefer their own brand of justice.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

17. The offenders are likely to re-offend and now LE can use the lists as seeds for other investigations

[tblue37]

33. Law enforcement cannot collect tainted evidence--

i.e., evidence they gather without dotting "i's" and crossing "t's" of defendants' legal rights without risking having the evidence tossed out if the taint becomes known. But Anonymous is not law enforcement, so evidence they expose is not subject to the same rules.

[eggplant]

40. It's not tainted.

If you break into your neighbor's house, discover something, then tell the cops, they can certainly get a warrant and go search the place themselves. You just can't do it on their behalf (in collusion with them).

[tblue37]

54. That is exactly what I said. The cops cannot collect tainted evidence If they don't follow all legal

procedures (dotting "i's" and crossing "t's&quot , then the evidence will be inadmissable. But Anonymous is not law enforcement. They can collect evidence any way they want, and the evidence is untainted because it was not collected by the cops. Of course, if Anonymous break laws while collecting that evidence, then they themselves could run afoul of the law, but the original evidence would still be admissible.

[eggplant]

55. D'oh!

It helps when I read all the way to the end. My bad.

[Swagman]

10. and what about this...

"with account details of its 1589 users being posted online as evidence. "

I believe that is irresponsible and dangerous.

While taking out child porn sites is positive, how do we know these are genuine 'users' and not people using false names...like yours for instance.

There could be a terrible backlash against an innocent person and it's happened before.

[jerseyjack]

24. I doubt innocent people will be identified.

they source IRL. That is where the bills for the internet service go to. While it is reasonable that many people have the same name, they would not have the same home or business address.

[Swagman]

34. I disagree

could be using stolen credit card details.

I'm all for them taking down the sites but perhaps better to preserve the evidence and err on the side of caution.

[SwissTony]

44. Another situation...

what if it's Dad's credit card being used but it's son accessing the sites.

Some people with Wifi don't know how to protect their access. It could be a neighbour accessing their system.

But evidence...yeah11

[pipoman]

11. Hard to forget about their

disregard for anyone while posting and corrupting other less 'low hanging fruit' like this, to impose their beliefs and morals upon us all..regardless the cost to anyone who may well be innocent..disregard for any sort of due process. They truly are modern day vigilantes..as with vigilantes, they approach recklessly..

Oh, and after some less than favorable sentiment from both sides on some of their activities, it occurred to me this may be a PR campaign.

[roguevalley]

22. these vigilantes can sit by me

[Dustlawyer]

26. Ditto! I have a very common name. In a county of 300,000,

there are 13 other guys registered to vote in the county w/the same 1st and last name. I am on the FAA No Fly list b/c a suspected terrorist from South Yemen (at least that is what the FBI agent assigned to help clear me every time I fly, which was a lot told me. This was 2001, I am still on the damn list! So when vigilantes start targeting people THEY deem guilty, it is, and will be, wide open for abuse!

[moreland01]

38. WHAT??

13 other guys named Dustlawyer!

[Dustlawyer]

58. Yes Dustlawyer! It is a strange community! Lol

[Fire Walk With Me]

32. Damn. I'm a hypocrite.

[Tumbulu]

12. Thank you Anonymous!!!!!!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

15. "Anonymous" relies on whistleblowers for their efforts....

That means SOMEONE in authority had the information and was keeping it private.

[Danascot]

18. I remember reading about this when it came out in 2011

nt

[Fedaykin]

20. Correct...

Last edited Mon Feb 25, 2013, 08:51 PM - Edit history (1)

Because the article is the one from Time Magazine from 2011. A little dated, what have you done for us lately Anonymous??

[usafvet65]

41. Saved the 2012 election from another Ohio steal by Rove and his thugs

if you can believe these reports.

http://www.thomhartmann.com/bigpicture/did-anonymous-save-election-karl-rove

#!

[tpsbmam]

50. Wow, I missed that Hartmann show....

many thanks for sharing that. Thom is a person not at all prone to silly conspiracy theories -- that was well documented & incredibly persuasive. Boy, if true, we truly own Anonymous a massive debt of thanks!

[Fedaykin]

57. Good one!

That was a great find and thanks for sharing!! WoW indeed!

[iamthebandfanman]

43. i know right?

i was wondering why a two year old article that had been posted back then, when it was written, was being reposted 2 years later?

[reACTIONary]

19. Anon vs TOR - Oh the LUZ !!! (nt)

[MADem]

21. I hope they didn't fuck with an ongoing investigation.

FBI did a huge "roll up" not too long ago, and Interpol was involved as well. Hundreds were arrested and charged. Convictions are ongoing.

Doing the name and shame game could be regarded as "fruit of the poisoned tree." I'm no lawyer, but I would be concerned that getting information "posted on the internet" might not have the right imprimatur....

Perhaps a lawyer could weigh in...

[Jack Rabbit]

23. I'll bet Westboro Baptist never had that kind of success

!!

[LadyHawkAZ]

27. GOOOO ANONYMOUS!

[Zorra]

28. The pervs are squirming. nt

[tomm2thumbs]

29. Hey, didn't Free Republic's site just go down?? coincidence?

[druidity33]

36. Freedom Hosting? They'd pay extra for that! nt.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

30. it's interesting that the main hosting site calls itself Freedom Hosting.

Like a dogwhistle for conservatives.

Just making an observation. .....

[get the red out]

47. I wouldn't doubt it

The word "Freedom" gives me the creeps anymore, it's nothing but a dog whistle.

[rhett o rick]

31. Please tell me they found some bad shit on Karl Rove's computer. nm

[99th_Monkey]

35. Funny how Anonymous can do this, but the gov't can't seem to be able to?

or at least that's what this looks like. Maybe I'm wrong.

[thesquanderer]

37. I'd guess that the servers are in foreign countries (n/t)

[irisblue]

39. Good! n/t

[Coyotl]

42. This one sounds like the REAL Anonymous, not some imitation chumps with limited skills

at faking stuff while trying to get donations for their domain.

[TDale313]

45. I can't feel bad about this.

Go, Anonymous!

[get the red out]

46. Good job!!!!

Whoever you are, anonymous, this is wonderful.

[ET Awful]

48. Great work, but old news . . .

This was in October of 2011.

[Skittles]

49. THANK YOU ANONYMOUS

[tpsbmam]

51. It may be old news but it's new to me and clearly others here

so it gets a K&R from me for visibility! Great work, Anonymous!

[GRENADE]

52. I am starting

to really like Anonymous

[deafskeptic]

53. awesome!

Even if this is old news, I think that's awesome!

[leanforward]

56. Ohio and Child Porn

Thank you anonymous for busting Freedom Hosting and keeping the Ohio State tabulators accurate.

Once again, thank you. I would like to buy you a beer sometime and just listen to the adventures of your rangers.