Flutterby™! : Hyperlink entrapment

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Hyperlink entrapment

2008-03-30 20:28:00.588603+00 by Dan Lyke 10 comments

A bunch of people have been referencing This CNET article about the FBI posting fake "child porn" hyperlinks to get search warrants against the IP addresses that visit them (one source), this seems horribly fraught with danger: If someone gets a hold of one of these URLs, they can then spam all of their enemies, but it seems even worse than that: If the courts are upholding these searches as valid, what's to stop the FBI from sending an email with an embedded image and camping out in front of the appropriate house, waiting for that mail to get read?

Seems like that slippery slope is getting very very steep.

[ related topics: Privacy Sexual Culture Law Current Events Law Enforcement ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2008-03-31 00:46:02.181096+00 by: Chris

sooner or later, the control freaks will turn their eyes upon all of us, regardless of "probable cause" we exist.......therefore, they want to have Total Control over us

#Comment Re: made: 2008-03-31 01:20:37.280928+00 by: JT

Piggy back my neighbor's unsecured connection, hit that IP about 5 times, and wait for the party van to show up at his house.

Sounds like sweet revenge for mowing his lawn at 5:00 am on Sunday.

Of course I'm kidding, but I wonder how many people wouldn't be.

#Comment Re: made: 2008-03-31 10:39:30.297648+00 by: meuon

I used to thing TOR (The Onion Router) was something only "bad" people needed. Now I'm starting to think such things are needed, by me.

#Comment Re: made: 2008-03-31 10:53:33.423246+00 by: Chris

But honestly, anyone who would be enticed by the offer of kiddie porn is a creep of the lowest order anyway

#Comment Re: made: 2008-03-31 12:52:45.461323+00 by: Dan Lyke

Chris, the point is that by all reports there's nothing in the link that denotes it as kiddy porn, nor is there anything preventing me from setting up some system to make it look like you've clicked on the link when you haven't (ie: My previous "embed it in a page" comment).

In fact I could set up a completely innocuous link, like the one on which you're reading this, that created a redirect to one of the "illegal pages".

#Comment Re: made: 2008-03-31 13:03:50.542649+00 by: meuon

Chris, I have more than a little history with "kiddie porn" "Lolita's" and such.. I used to run an ISP and it tested, abused, and redefined my open minded philosophies. I'm no prude, but even when Dan posts a nice link to Playboy, something thwacks in my head as I look at such pictures online, via a PC or TV set. I can't even watch a "high quality" porn movie without thinking about the days and hours I spent tracking truly abusive people and stuff. Here's a quick scorecard from those days using initials:

I was partially responsible for 7 people doing actual jail time. In my opinion, only 3 of them were guilty of anything wrong.

Would you like to have your house, computer and life scrutinized for clicking on a link, especially if someone tricked you into clicking on one you thought was ok to click on: Do not click on this link

#Comment Re: made: 2008-03-31 13:04:22.878046+00 by: meuon

Go ahead, click. :)

#Comment Re: made: 2008-03-31 13:25:22.492409+00 by: JT

I love that link. Sorry, anything that says "don't click this" is like Stimpy and the giant red "history eraser button". It beckons me.

#Comment Re: made: 2008-03-31 15:33:57.062529+00 by: Chris

well, I got your point, think I NOW see the real issue, being that if they want to lay anything at your doorstep, which means framing you because their ultimate agenda is to roast your ass, then this IS a vulnerability that they can exploit to put anyone they set their sights upon behind the eightball. Now, by George, I think I've got it, they got the tools, and we's the fools

#Comment Re: made: 2008-03-31 21:52:16.936779+00 by: meuon

I used to have a Pachinko machine, and had rigged a button on the front that would dump the ball hopper. It was red, said "do not touch"... and invariably, guests would push it, dumping hundreds of little shiny steel balls all over the floor. I miss my Pachinko machine.