Accidental Child Porn Download Leads to Jail Time

For the record, My name is MERENDA. I am also MENDA. The way that this is posting is doing it different ways at different times. Some autmatically post with one name. The next time it will make me confirm it and it'll have my other name. I do not know why. I tried to change it to stay one name. But, it will not allow it. Sorry all. Just remember their similar and both are ME! Thanks

One man's life totally ruined...a few FBI agents probably promoted..this is insane. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness is long gone. Big brother is everywhere- trying to make himself look good at your expense.


Due process ? Definately not here..

If you ever accidentally download images of these kind, throw your computer into an incinerator and NEVER look back. Here's how this works:

File sharing software is the enemy of corporate america. The files are planted there in disguise in hopes that someone stealing intellectual property will download it. While this is happening, the feds scour the net and keep track of who takes the bait. These innocent people (they are innocent because they thought they were dowloading non-childporn photos) are then earmarked for a future bust...when the workload of the local federal agency is low. Has anyone ever asked why so much time is wasted to come after these possessors? Shouldn't they be busted right away and removed from society? It doesn't take more than a day to get a warrant on crimes like these and grand jury's can't wait to rule on these cases.

Its simple. The laws are merciless on these charges. The cops jobs are easy and they dictate how much of an inventory of suspects are out there.

If the law wanted to, they could block 95% of child porn from getting into the hands of Americans. Instead, they rather let the crime occur and justify the jobs of the cops, lawyers and judges.

unfortunately im suffered nearly the same thing, i accidentally downloaded a file. but instead of deleting it like i thought i did, i moved it to another folder with other videos. i thought all was well until police were knocking on my door and searching my computer for child porn, and they found the file and booked me. waiting almost a year until i get an indictment notice and the prosecutor threatened to give me five years in prison if i didnt plead guilty and take his offer of probation, counseling and other things. so for making an honest mistake i too am suffering, tho not at the level as this kid, so my heart truely goes out to him and i hope he makes it out of this okay

Sad that this could net this young man 20 years when I see judges giving actual child rapists probation and light sentences. Idiocracy in America.

My son is in his 3rd year of an almost 10 year sentence for this. We were told that if it was on his computer he downloaded it. Like Matthew he was downloading adult porn off of Limewire. When we asked why they didn't go after the people putting it out there they stated that there was no way to catch them. As far as reporting it as soon as he found it we feel he would have still been tried and convicted for it even then. His life is ruined because the Federal Government didn't want to do what was right and find out the truth. He has to register as a sex offender in our state and was placed on lifetime probation. Before this he was a Paramedic who had never been in any kind of trouble. The judge even stated at his sentencing that he had a pristine record. A lot of good it did him.

He was most likely identified by the Operation Fairplay software. It is touted as highly sophisticated software for detecting CP on P2P networks such as limewire. Essentially the way it works is: every digital file has a semi-unique hash, which is sort of like a fingerprint. A hash looks like a long string of numbers and letters. The most common hash algorithms are probably SHA-1 or MD5. Sometimes two files will have the same hash, this is called a collision. But the chances of two files having the same hash are really really low, usually something around 2 out of 2^128 files will have a matching hash.

Anyways, the police have databases of hundreds of thousands of CP files. Usually they don't keep the actual image, but just the hash of the image. Some newer systems use robust hashing to be better at detecting files (changing a single pixel will change the files hash. Robust hashing will hash multiple parts of a file to make the detection more able to resist people trying to get around it). Anyways, robust hashing wasn't used at the time of this so its irrelevant.

Anyways, when someone uses limewire or other P2P to download content, the content is usually placed in a share folder and accessible to other computers to download the file from the person who just downloaded it from someone else etc. Operation Fairplay uses law enforcement computers, probably hiding behind proxies, to scan P2P networks and download files. The files are then hashed, and if the hash matches the hash of a known CP file, then an alarm is sent off.

Every computer on the internet has a unique IP address that can be used to locate it with ISP cooperation (usually requires a warrant). So if LE detects that your computer has an illegal file on it by its hash mark, they also get your IP because the P2P protocol results in a direct connection between the computer of the uploader and downloader. Then law enforcement will eventually get around to raiding or visiting the house that has the computer modem with the target IP in it.

At this point they will usually do hard drive forensics to try and recover the actual images, although technically they don't even need to find the image to continue with criminal charges, just the IP and the previous observation that the IP had the image on it is enough usually. Finding the image on the computer pretty much seals the deal and honestly this kid was smart to take a plea bargin. If they had not found the image on the computer he might have had a bit of a case but they observed the image on the computer remotely and then found it on the computers hard drive later. Just deleting a file is not adequate to prevent forensics from recovering it, although it is true that the forensics team should be able to determine when the image was deleted and compare this to when it was downloaded. This is trivial to do via several forensic techniques, simple observation of timestamps being the primary way (although they can be forged).

There are a number of defenses that this individual could attempt in court, but unfortunately since they found the image on his computer a lot of the better ones are not going to work. It would be entirely feasible that a skilled hacker downloaded the files to his computer and then from his computer to their own. They would have avoided Operation Fairplay and the generally incompetent forensic investigators at the FBI would not likely have been able to follow the connection back to the hacker, mistakenly thinking that this individual was the end point. But he destroyed his chances of this defense when he admitted to accidentally downloading the files when he was looking for girls gone wild. Kid, NEVER TALK TO FBI with out a lawyer present. You will never get out of a situation by your own wit and will inevitably say something that results in you having less possible defenses in a court situation (and the less likely you are to be able to defend yourself the shittier plea bargains you will get).

He could also have used the open/cracked WiFi defense, but that would not have resulted in the image being present on the hard drive (only the IP address being identified). So that defense will not work.

It really if unfortunate but there isn't really much he can do to help himself anymore and probably should take that plea bargin. I believe he may have accidentally downloaded the files, and I understand computer forensics enough to know that you can't prove shit 100% only probability. There is always going to be an alternative explanation. But unfortunately most juries are not going to be able to understand things at that level, even most federal agents don't. And the feds / prosecutors etc will lie and twist the truth to paint a guilty picture. It is very sad.

In the event you ever accidentally download child pornography, the FBI advises you to immediately notify it. The Bureau admits that there is a chance your computer would be confiscated, but when your other option is facing 20 years in prison, that seems like a small price to pay.

Any update ? This is very scary. I have clicked on a site that was questionable and got off it in a nano second but still afraid the Feds will come knocking.
God help us all. The FBI should ask for our help and we could knock this out but they are scaring us. I believe his story. God help him.