How Victims of Limewire Frostwire and peer to peer software are increasing.
How Federal Agencies and Congress are Incarcerating our innocent family males and just passed a law in June 2017 to be able to start incarcerating our innocent teens to a 15-year minimum sentence in federal prison?
These are shocking but true facts concerning the current laws in place on the distribution of child pornography and sexting by teens that carries a 15-year minimum mandatory sentence for the first offense.
I'm a retired Principle Systems Network Engineer government contractor with 28 years of service. I have been researching Limewire software for 7 years. I have read all three congressional hearing on how dangerous it is and it's peer-to-peer clones. I have read the lawsuits filed by the Federal Trade Commission against Frostwire ( which uses the limewireWin4.16 application on its desktop version), because of deceptive and dangerous practices against its consumers. I have read every government published document written by Thomas Sydnor II concerning the dangers of Limewire to National Security and innocent users. I have read all of the 2012 USSC report sent to Congress about the unfair child pornography sentences.
The Cyber Defense Unit is the only organization that performed credible testing of Limewire via network analyzers in a controlled lab setting. They discovered that names and hash values of files would show up in the user's cache that was not the current user's activity. The Cyber Defense Unit determined the file names and hashes were LimeWire queries by other users on the Gnutella network that got downloaded to their test computer via Limewire.
In the Oversight congressional hearing in 2007, Senator Darrell Issa attended, the CEO of Limewire Mr. Gorton, testified that they didn't test Limewire they just wrote the software and he didn't have any idea it was going to be a security risk or so much child pornography would be on it, etc. Eventually, FTC shut down the Limewire website in 2010, but immediately forks of the software were available online and today you can still download it or one of its clones. It will share a person total hard drive, what they have in their trash bin, etc. This is how so many innocent people are getting hacked or charged with contraband files and how leaks are happening.
Then the Federal courts ruled in one case that because Limewire always gave positive hits for the FBI, that it didn't need to go through the standard Daubert Evidence testing. In the Oversight congressional hearing in 2007, Senator Darrell Issa attended, the CEO of Limewire Mr. Gorton, testified that they didn't test Limewire they just wrote the software and he didn't have any idea it was doing to be a security risk or so much child pornography would be on it, etc. So you have a known unstable, unreliable, dangerous, unpredictable software used by the Government to snare the innocent users and this targets just a certain group of our society the computer savvy men that are not pedophiles, but are the victims of LimeWire or they have a teenage computer savvy person using their computer at home. Thousands of men are being charged every year and incarcerated in federal prison and have the longest average sentencing times.
Congress needs to correct these injustices. The FBI/Congress has found a way to put more innocent men in prison, the problem is they have been framed by the FBI and P2P software. I read a transcript of a Federal hearing where the United States District Attorney said, "Well Judge_____ if installing Limewire is not enough evidence to convict someone of distribution, I have sent a lot of innocent men to prison." In my opinion, a lot of innocent men have gone to prison because of Limewire and Usenet.
I have written to my congressmen, to the department of defense and to the white house, but I haven't gotten any answers. This peer-to-peer networking Gnutella network stuff is too technical for most people to understand. The average person can't understand how contraband can be on a person's computer and that person not know it. All my findings have been verified by Ydecode engineer, Microsoft Outlook Express documentation, www.Pacer.gov Case Transcripts, Congressional sworn testimony, Published Government Documents, Limewire developers, and Gnutella Forum, Administrator.
To make matters worse for the public, the FTC had not warned businesses or the public of the risk of inadvertent file sharing through LimeWire as of February 2008. Whose job is it for the government to protect consumers by warning them and educating them about dangers of loading certain applications on their phones or computers? If it is part of FTC's mission, Why was this comment made by FTC agency in 2005? (“Although it has required warnings with respect to inherently dangerous products, the Commission concluded that it was not aware of any basis under the FTC Act for requiring warnings for P2P file sharing and other neutral consumer technologies.”) (emphasis added). In the oversight hearing on Limewire peer-to-peer sharing software in 2007, it was decided that Limewire and P2P file sharing was not a neutral consumer technology, but a “Bombshell” for anyone installing it. Robert Boback, Chief Exec. officer, Tiversa, Inc. also testified at the hearing about how dangerous Limewire was in sharing personal data and national data. But because FTC and Tiversa were partnered in a company called CID and were making money off of an application to prevent your computer from sharing documents it was not to their benefit to stop Limewire or P2P bad software. See case FTC filed against LABMed for a breach in their clients' medical records. FTC needs to demand that all search engines warn a user when they search for any peer-to-peer software that it is dangerous and unpredictable and can download child pornography which is a federal crime. Just like google now warns a person who puts the words "child pornography" in the search window that it is illegal to view or download child pornography.
It gets worse, in June 2017 House Passes 15 Year Minimum for Teen Sexters - Anyone under 18 years old is considered a minor, so any sexting of anyone under 18 years old is considered a crime of distribution of child pornography and will get you a minimum sentence in Federal Prison of 15years. Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2017/06/house-passes-15-year-minimum-sentence-for-teen-sexters.html#SMByqz8uJUW8buMO.99 The Government should be forced to educate the schools and public about these new amendments to the LAW. The Child Pornography Laws were put in place to protect our children and now they will be endangering those same children. Congress is passing laws that are doing more harm to families than protecting them, when they make these board laws - one size fits all.
Thank you for reading my blog post. I pray you or your organization has more weight and someone might listen to you. I have all the proof, URLs and transcripts to back everything that is in this letter. You can publish this or share it where you think it will do good to help solve this injustice. I think all will agree that the FBI needs to be focused on locating and rescuing the poor children that are being abused sexually by child predators, rather then spending tax payers money seeking out innocent users of convicted deceptive file sharing software.
More reading about a case example and dangers of Usenet:
I have read numerous Federal LimeWire distribution cases and the opinions of the appeal courts concerning a user using Limewire. I set in on a Federal criminal Jury trial where a person was charged with distribution, just because he used Limewire. He configured it not to share, searched for legal adult porn using the word “nylons”, did a select all on the results of many pages of truncated files names that could not be view, he came back 5 hours later and found that Limewire had crashed and left 185 files with names indicative of Child Porn in an “incomplete” folder that Limewire Created. Without opening, sharing, printing, saving, or renaming these unsolicited files, he deleted all and uninstalled Limewire. Bought wiping tools and reloaded his operating system. 6 months later his house was raided by FBI and his computer was seized, because that one time an FBI agent using Limewire got a hit on his IP address, browsed his computer and saw the 185 files. The FBI Agent downloaded 20 files and 13 were child pornography. The FBI agent testified that he couldn't verify if the files were in the user's trash bin or Limewire incomplete folder or where they were located.
The user told the FBI, when they seized his computer, that they would not find any Limewire images of child porn on his computer. The FBI didn’t find any but did find the hash value and name of 4 of those that the FBI agent had downloaded in the user's cache pagefile.sys. The FBI used FTK software that only FBI or Forensic specialist can afford to purchase to find the file names, but the images were not there at all and not viewable by anyone, just the name, and hash value. The Cyber Defense Unit is the only organization that did a test using Limewire. They discovered that names and hash values of files would show up in the user's cache that was not the current user's activity. Even though the images were not found on his computer, the court allowed the images that equaled this hash value to be printed out and given to the jury for deliberation and shown in the courtroom on monitors. The user saw the images for the first time in court and thought they were just as disgusting and horrible as the court and jury did.
Yet he was sentenced anyway and charged by a jury, even though they had no proof he configured LimeWire to share, they had no proof he knew they were child pornography files, they had no proof he knew the files were being shared or even knowledge of the files in the incomplete folder, they had no proof he didn’t search for “Nylons”. He did have a “nylons” folder with 1000s of legal adult erotica images of models in nylons. He passed a polygraph test, showing he had no sexual interest in children girls or boys and never touch or been accused of touching a child inappropriately. His Presentencing report states he is not a danger to children. There are lots of cases out there just like this one. That is the reason so many innocent men plead guilty so they can get a lesser sentence and the defenders know it is hard to convince the jury that they are innocent, because all people think child pornography is terrible. Federal Public Defenders in this user's state had never defended a child pornography case in a federal jury trial before, so they hand these cases off to court-appointed unqualified public defenders in the private sector, so the federal public defender's office doesn't lose a trial case. This is unjust too because the federal public defender's office has more help, expertise, and funding available to them, then a one attorney shop that doesn't have an assistant to help him in court. So you have one unqualified attorney, that hasn't ever taken a child porn case to a federal jury trial, up against 2 U.S. Prosecuting attorneys, 3 FBI agents, and staffers.
Another injustice with the child pornography law is the fact that Congress made a mistake when they said that anything under USSG §2G2.2 chapter 110 is a child molestation crime, a violent crime. Everyone knows that possession or distribution of child pornography without being in the presence of a minor to try to groom or entice them is not a violent crime in itself and is sure, not physical child molestation. Yet in these cases where a defendant is charged with possession or distribution – the law says it is child molestation. This misinterpretation should be corrected to specifically say only the production of child porn or the act of alluring or grooming with child porn under chapter 110 is “child molestation”.
So now the innocent person is charged with distribution, he is a violent criminal a child molester and he has never touched a child or wanted to touch a child sexually. All he is guilty of his loading an unbeknownst to him a bad piece of software.
Now let's imagine that same user above, gets only 3 years in prison because he pleads guilty after the government won his case in appeal. So years later he is freed from prison and eventually allowed on the internet. He has been beaten severely in prison requiring surgery and also suffer a stroke because all men convicted of child molestation are considered scum of the earth by following inmates and guards. This user does not want to go back to prison. He is careful not to install any sharing software, search on google, or access any legal porn sites. But he makes a grave mistake by believing the news that the FBI has raided an ISP because of child porn on Usenet and that all ISPs are blocking contraband on their routers coming from Usenet. So thinking USENET is monitored by FBI and ISPs and have blocked all contraband, so it will be safe for him to use. He already has Microsoft Outlook Express that has a newsgroup option, so he installs Ydecode a decoder interface between Outlook and Usenet necessary to view a message. In order to be able to subscribe to a Usenet group from Microsoft outlook, all 15,000 newsgroups names are instantly downloaded to your computer. This enables the user to search within Outlook for the newsgroup that the user wants to subscribe to and get automatic mail messages of posting on that newsgroup. The user searches for the word “nylons” finds a group call nylons and subscribes. Checks Outlook and he has messages and attachments in this folder. He opens one up and it is child pornography and he deletes the rest. But the Ydecoder interface between Microsoft Outlook express and Usenet shows all the newsgroup names in the list of its software and the FBI agent guesses that this user was a member of a lot of newsgroups that appeared to be child pornography groups. The user deleted all, but he got caught again. Arrested and because his previous distribution of child pornography by congress law was considered child molestation and F.R.E. 404b had been passed that said any similar child molestation crime can be entered as evidence. Federal rule of evidence 404b was meant to only apply to a victim of actual sexual molestation so their word against the child molester would have more creditability. It was not intended to be used in non-contact possession or distribution of child pornography. Prosecutors love to prove that a defendant has a prior criminal record because it effectively negates the presumption of innocence. Empirical studies show that jurors are willing to give an accused the benefit of the presumption of innocence only if this is the accused's first offense. Once he has proved himself to be "a criminal," the jury assumes he is guilty. So the Jury finds the user guilty, because it didn’t matter, if he deleted the email or not – the Jury was given a copy of the defendants last child pornography indictment to take back to deliberation and they notice that he only got 3 years for “trafficking in material involving sexual exploitation of minors” – they have no idea he could get 15 to 60 years for the possession of child pornography since this is his second conviction, which would be a life sentence for this person. Again all he did was load, Microsoft outlook express, Ydecode, and pick several Newgroups, and received emails with unsolicited attachments that were contraband and he deleted them when he opened them and saw the images. This user is found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in federal prison. The rules and laws in place in 2017 in America regarding distribution or possession of child pornography when technologies like Limewire and Usenet are the predictors and non-pedophiles men are the victims and these laws need to be changed immediately by Congress.
Sources:
(FTC Staff Report, Peer-to-Peer File- Sharing Technology: Consumer Protection and Competition Issues, at 20 (June 2005), available www.ftc.gov/reports/p2p05/050623p2prpt.pdf
http://www.dfrws.org/2008/proceedings/p96-lewthwaite_pres.pdf (cyber Defense testing on Limewire)
During the 107th Congress, the Committee first sounded the alarm on some of the dangers of peer-to-peer file sharing software in a Minority Staff, Special Investigations Division report entitled Children's Access to Pornography Through Internet File-Sharing Programs (July 27, 2001). During the 108th Congress, the Committee followed up with a hearing on the issue entitled Stumbling onto Smut: The Alarming Ease of Access to Pornography on Peer-to-Peer Networks (March 13, 2003) where they released another staff report entitled Children's Exposure to Pornography on Peer-to-Peer Networks (March 13, 2003).
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