I think it's safe to assume that they were fed honeypots.
And you know something, I don't know if I'm even opposed to that.
The idea that the government must have a ton of CP stashed somewhere for such purposes feels about as disgusting as disgusting gets, but I'm not sure how many of those monsters you can catch without placing bait.
1. Honeypots are controversial and practically invite an entrapment defense. Better to have police infiltrate forums, identify people, and give prosecutors unambiguous evidence.
2. Calling people who view these images "monsters" contributes to a stigma that makes people hesitant to seek help before their urges lead them to abuse children.
2.5. If they are "monsters" and someone you know and love is not a "monster," what do you do when you discover that your loved one is one of those people? We go around asking why people look the other way; the way we reflexively dehumanize pedophiles is one of the reasons. We need to recognize pedophiles as human beings who have serious and potentially dangerous mental health problems, and instead of calling them "monsters" we need to reoriented ourselves to say "let's get this person help before they do something monstrous." Obviously a person who is actively abusing children needs to be arrested, but let's not forget that we are talking about people who actively consume imagery of children being abused, many of whom are not necessarily abusing children (yet).
I have no idea why you’d be opposed to the idea, yet I’m fairly certain they are not honeypots. I’m not even sure if that would be legal. Besides, if these sites had the ability to identify their users, we’d hear about the prosecutions. Or, if they were run by actual criminals, we’d hear of shakedowns of users of these sites?
> Or, if they were run by actual criminals, we’d hear of shakedowns of users of these sites?
Why? If someone is using those sites, they are extremely unlikely to tell anyone they're being shaken down because doing so requires admitting that they have used those sites. I would imagine that that group of people is a lot more likely to stay quiet and pay up than many other people.
That aside, I'm not entirely sure how people using those Tor sites would even be shaken down given Tor's anonymity. Unless, of course, they paid with a CC and not a form of digital currency.
We do hear about prosecutions, and the sites are run by criminals (as operating such sites is a criminal act). The police are better resourced and better able to identify users than almost all the forum operators, and in any case I doubt the majority of forum operators are interested in shaking down their users.
And you know something, I don't know if I'm even opposed to that.
The idea that the government must have a ton of CP stashed somewhere for such purposes feels about as disgusting as disgusting gets, but I'm not sure how many of those monsters you can catch without placing bait.