Judges OK Evidence From Hacker Vigilante

from the fine-lines dept

An appeals court has ruled that the government can use evidence in a child porn case that was found by a vigilante hacker. The question was whether or not it was illegal search and seizure, and the appeals court panel ruled it wasn't (overturning a lower court). The court ruled that this wasn't illegal search and seizure because the search was done without prompting from the federal government, and they only found out about it afterwards. Of course, this is a fine line. Since you can now go to jail for life for malicious hacking, can the feds now turn around and charge the hacker? Or maybe he'll just get arrested by local authorities and the FBI hangs him out to dry.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 1 Aug 2003 @ 11:33pm

    Extremely dangerious prescident...

    ...which will cause the case to overturned upon appeal.

    Everybody has something to hide (hence the right to privacy)... and some people don't even know that they have something to hide and/or that it is even illegal.

    If you don't agree with me, feel free to post your SSN, credit card number and your mother's maiden name.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Debater, 4 Aug 2003 @ 11:00am

      Re: Extremely dangerious prescident...

      I disagree. I have nothing to hide. I'm not going to tell you my name, credit card number, Social Security number, or my mothers's maiden name, BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO GOOD, VALID REASON TO KNOW. It's all out there, and a clever (and tenacious!) person can probably put all the data together, but I'm not "hiding" it, I just choose to keep it to myself, and share it only with someone who has a legitimate need to know. There is a tremendous difference between hiding something and keeping something private.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Aug 2003 @ 12:18am

    Damn stupid case - very stupid indeed

    The problem here is that this will lead to people planting evidence in order to send people away. Very bad precedent. illegal search and seizure? Yes, it should be. Unfortunately, our courts don't know enought ot prove how the evidence arrived there or by what means. Who is to say the guy who "found it" did not plant it himself?

    Very bad precedent and should be more carefully followed and examined. These sorts of things are very, very wrong indeed.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      grep, 4 Aug 2003 @ 10:22am

      Re: Damn stupid case - very stupid indeed

      How did the hacker-in-question ostensibly determine that there was illegal material on the machine? Didn't he have to download and view it himself first? So wasn't he, too, in violation of those self-same laws?

      -- Grep

      link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.