March 21, 2008 at 04:25FBI lured maniacs to fake website
FBI agents published fake hyperlinks on child pornography websites on Russian sites. Links led to a specially made site hosted on the FBI server. Detailed logs were kept there and the IP addresses of all visitors who automatically became criminals after that were recorded. Then the houses of these people were subjected to an unexpected search (usually maniacs on the computer can find enough evidence).
Actually, catching criminals "on live bait" is not a very common practice. This is not customary to do, because it is not entirely ethical and can be classified as an inducement of citizens to commit a crime. In this case, there was a real fraud, and the advertised video did not actually contain any pornography. However, under US law, any “attempt” to download child pornography is already a crime, even if this attempt is unsuccessful.
A similar technique is clearly recognized as successful. Published court documents show that the evidence gathered is ample evidence in court.
If this goes on, then in the future the feds may organize spamming with the offer to buy some illegal drugs at all mailing addresses, and arrest everyone who had the misfortune to click on the link.
Actually, catching criminals "on live bait" is not a very common practice. This is not customary to do, because it is not entirely ethical and can be classified as an inducement of citizens to commit a crime. In this case, there was a real fraud, and the advertised video did not actually contain any pornography. However, under US law, any “attempt” to download child pornography is already a crime, even if this attempt is unsuccessful.
A similar technique is clearly recognized as successful. Published court documents show that the evidence gathered is ample evidence in court.
If this goes on, then in the future the feds may organize spamming with the offer to buy some illegal drugs at all mailing addresses, and arrest everyone who had the misfortune to click on the link.