Neither Tor nor end-to-end encrypted messengers will cover the endpoints. It’s likely that they caught him using good old fashioned detective work.
Comment on US: Alaska man busted with 10,000+ child sex abuse images despite his many encrypted apps
shamrockpreacher5@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
Fuck this human
Tldr; Asshole used encrypted everything and Tor to create and spread csam. Government isn’t disclosing how they caught him
mox@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
Vilian@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Tor was created by NSA, half of Tor servers are run by NSA, not that secure
SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 2 weeks ago
Tor was created by the NRL, which is a part of the US Navy and Marine Corps.
psmgx@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Tor was created by the Naval Research Labs, and was released to the public because it is secure.
The problem is that if it’s only the CIA or DIA using it, it’s easy figure out who is using it and where. Make it global and now there is a lot of noise to separate out.
mkwt@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Well it probably wasn’t a Vic Mackey-style rubber hose attack, because it sounds like this chump is getting hauled into court.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Please don’t talk about child predators, and use the term “back door” in the same sentence. It ain’t right…
yoshisaur@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
we’re talking about encryption here, not…that. please get your mind out of the gutter
CrazyLikeGollum@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
He didn’t use encrypted everything. He had a public telegram group chat in which he stored a lot of his material. Which, as many people in the comments on the article pointed out, is not encrypted, but is presented by telegram as if it is. That’s likely how they caught him.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
To be clear, it’s encrypted*.
- If you enable it
Deello@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Recent events have taught me that only individual chats are encrypted*. Group chats don’t have that feature.
Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
In telegram nothing is e2e encrypted unless you specifically ask it to be and when you do, it kills all the functionality that makes it better than others.
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Telegram groups are not E2E.
Chats are encrypted, but the servers hold the encryption keys (I believe).
There are one-to-one chats that are full e2e, but you have to enable it. And it has all sorts of compromises.
Qualifier: this is as dicumented by telegram. Since it’s not open source, we can’t really verify it
uzay@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
There is no point in encrypting a public group chat since anyone can join and decrypt it anyway.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
The secret chats feature isn’t between anyone I believe, it’s between two people. But I don’t actually know for certain because I’ve not looked into it beyond a cursory googling.
That said, you’d be correct in that just like any service out there, the moment you let random people join there’s no level of encryption that can keep your secrets secret.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
It works well in Matrix, and you can restrict who joins on that platform.
datendefekt@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
AFAIK chat contents are stored unencrypted on the server.
Sneptaur@pawb.social 2 weeks ago
They got it by running a honeypot exit node like they always do
brezel@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
my guess is that a large number of tor exit nodes is run by government agencies.
orcrist@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
Certainly some are. How many is an entertaining question.
Wildly_Utilize@infosec.pub 2 weeks ago
.onions: am i a joke to you?
Angry_Autist@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s better they don’t disclose it and catch more people doing the same.
I’m all for transparency but if that means less caught child molesters, I’m ok with a little obfuscation, even from the fucking pigs.
Wilzax@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If you distribute encrypted materials you also need to distribute a means of decryption. I’m willing to bet a honeypot was used to trick him into distributing his csam right to the government hinself.
shamrockpreacher5@reddthat.com 2 weeks ago
True. Or it could have been a backdoor in his phone, or the full running browser in his sim card, or the backdoor into his CPU chips… Maybe they do old fashioned police work for these cases and only use the pegasus spyware for others?
Pretty silly to do anything illegal on a computer when we know how flawed they are, imo