14 DAY TRIAL // The US Department of Justice has decided that it's best to keep its technological means of hacking the Tor network a secret at the cost of letting a man accused of accessing Playpen go. Playpen is a dark website full of child pornography.
According to a court filing cited by ArsTechnica, the government chose between the disclosure of classified information and dismissal of its indictment. "Disclosure is not currently an option. Dismissal without prejudice leaves open the possibility that the government could bring new charges should there come a time within the statute of limitations when and the government be in a position to provide the requested discovery," the file reads.
The case, United States v. Jay Michaud, is one of some 200 cases across the United States that raise questions regarding the proper limitations to be set on the government's ability to hack crime suspects, especially since the TOR network is particularly hard to crack.
The dark side of the web
Regarding the Playpen website, the Department of Justice is currently prosecuting over 135 people who they believe accessed it. The FBI seized and operated the site for nearly two weeks before closing it down in order to get their hands on these individuals, deploying a Tor exploit that allowed them to get the real IP addresses. Tor, through the way it is built, makes it nearly impossible to get the true IP address because it obscures and anonymizes it once an individual enters the network.
It's no wonder the DoJ doesn't want to reveal its technique since it can use it, again and again, to take down websites such as Playpen.
While the DoJ calls its method a "network investigative technique," security experts have a simpler name for it - "malware."
Defense attorneys have made it a point to try to get access to the DoJ method as part of the criminal discovery process. The government was ordered to give the source code in the Michaud case back in May last year, but since then it has chosen to classify the source code itself in order to thwart similar efforts of exposure in over 100 related cases.
Many of those accused of accessing Playpen have pleaded guilty already, and a few have had charges against them dropped completely.