<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>nikcub</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m interested in knowing how evidence obtained via Anonymous can be submitted in a court of law. When I did evidence collecting work as part of infosec work there are very strict criteria if the evidence is going to be used in a police case[1].&lt;p&gt;We have to sign off on everything and record how we obtained the information and have been told by a number of lawyers that in no way are we allowed to break the law when collecting evidence that could be forwarded to police or prosecutors.&lt;p&gt;Private detectives go through the same thing as well. If they are carrying out a private investigation for a corporate client they can&amp;#x27;t submit evidence that has been obtained illegally to be used at trial. For eg. you can submit evidence from public surveillance, but you can&amp;#x27;t submit anything that you obtain by hacking email accounts or placing a recording device on private property.&lt;p&gt;From what I understand, there are very very strict rules about both gathering evidence and then chain of custody. The person who collects the evidence has to sign off on it and then be prepared to testify in a court to back up what they found. I know for certain that this applies in the USA, UK and Australia.&lt;p&gt;I wonder how the FBI are able to use evidence collected by Anonymous, or if they just use that work as a basis for their own investigations which start from scratch. I can&amp;#x27;t imagine a judge would be impressed when told that key evidence was obtained via an illegal breakin perpetrated by a group of hackers.&lt;p&gt;Re: Sabu. I&amp;#x27;ve read everything there is on that case and don&amp;#x27;t recall a reference to his handlers prompting him on Operation Darknet. The timing also doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to work - Sabu was taken offline last March while this arrest is the culmination of a 12-month investigation, which would suggest it started around 5 months after Sabu&amp;#x27;s work with the FBI was completed.&lt;p&gt;[1] Just a note - I was usually against prosecuting the defacement style hackers or guys who were just poking around for fun. In all my work i&amp;#x27;ve only ever been involved in two cases where evidence I collected (IP addresses, email addresses etc.) ended up being used in an investigation and in both cases it was phishing attacks from Russia.</text><parent_chain><item><author>redthrowaway</author><text>Interesting.  Freedom Hosting had been a target of Anonymous&amp;#x27; Operation Darknet from the beginning--they&amp;#x27;re well-known for refusing to take down exploitative sites.  Operation Darknet is, itself, a pretty interesting phenomenon: Anonymous hacks onion sites, then hands over user information to the FBI for investigation.  Anonymous does what the FBI legally can&amp;#x27;t, and in exchange they&amp;#x27;re not prosecuted for it.  I can&amp;#x27;t find the article now, but I recall reading an interview with an FBI agent in Wired or Ars or some such where he described the anons as &amp;quot;Internet Superheroes&amp;quot;. (sic)&lt;p&gt;That, in and of itself, is kind of curious.  Curiouser?  One of the original Op Darknet principals was Sabu.  You may remember him as the hacker the FBI rolled and got to bust up LulzSec.  Sabu was turned by the FBI on June 7th, 2011.[1]  Operation Darknet began several months later, in October, 2011.[2]&lt;p&gt;The obvious question, then, is this:  Did the FBI use Sabu to entice Anons into attacking child porn networks, thereby evading the laws against them doing it themselves?  Did they use the fact they turned a well-known hacktivist to help them deal with criminals they lacked the legal tools to go after?  Is this arrest the culmination of those efforts?&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabu_(hacktivist)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Sabu_(hacktivist)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.informationweek.com/security/attacks/anonymous-attacks-child-pornography-webs/231901499&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.informationweek.com&amp;#x2F;security&amp;#x2F;attacks&amp;#x2F;anonymous-at...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Founder of Tor Freedom Hosting arrested in Ireland, awaiting extradition to USA</title><url>http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/fbi-bids-to-extradite-largest-childporn-dealer-on-planet-29469402.html</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>jlgreco</author><text>Consider the following:  there is a masked hero who breaks into crackhouses and drug dens, obtains evidence that the authorities were unable to legally acquire, and then promptly hands this evidence over to authorities.  The identity of the masked hero is unauditable.&lt;p&gt;Can we spot the potential for abuse?</text><parent_chain><item><author>redthrowaway</author><text>Interesting.  Freedom Hosting had been a target of Anonymous&amp;#x27; Operation Darknet from the beginning--they&amp;#x27;re well-known for refusing to take down exploitative sites.  Operation Darknet is, itself, a pretty interesting phenomenon: Anonymous hacks onion sites, then hands over user information to the FBI for investigation.  Anonymous does what the FBI legally can&amp;#x27;t, and in exchange they&amp;#x27;re not prosecuted for it.  I can&amp;#x27;t find the article now, but I recall reading an interview with an FBI agent in Wired or Ars or some such where he described the anons as &amp;quot;Internet Superheroes&amp;quot;. (sic)&lt;p&gt;That, in and of itself, is kind of curious.  Curiouser?  One of the original Op Darknet principals was Sabu.  You may remember him as the hacker the FBI rolled and got to bust up LulzSec.  Sabu was turned by the FBI on June 7th, 2011.[1]  Operation Darknet began several months later, in October, 2011.[2]&lt;p&gt;The obvious question, then, is this:  Did the FBI use Sabu to entice Anons into attacking child porn networks, thereby evading the laws against them doing it themselves?  Did they use the fact they turned a well-known hacktivist to help them deal with criminals they lacked the legal tools to go after?  Is this arrest the culmination of those efforts?&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabu_(hacktivist)&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Sabu_(hacktivist)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.informationweek.com/security/attacks/anonymous-attacks-child-pornography-webs/231901499&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.informationweek.com&amp;#x2F;security&amp;#x2F;attacks&amp;#x2F;anonymous-at...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Founder of Tor Freedom Hosting arrested in Ireland, awaiting extradition to USA</title><url>http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/fbi-bids-to-extradite-largest-childporn-dealer-on-planet-29469402.html</url></story>