

“Involuntary porn” site tests the boundaries of legal extortion - iProject
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/involuntary-porn-site-tests-the-boundaries-of-legal-extortion/

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tptacek
This article (innocently, I think) leaves out a pretty key detail regarding
IsAnyoneDown: instead of starting up linked with a "Takedown Hammer" service,
it was originally linked to a takedown _lawyer_ , "David Blade", who
advertised as an independent counsel with a 100% success record getting items
taken down from IsAnyoneDown.

Only after Randazza and White started poking at "David Blade" did the offering
suddenly change to "Takedown Hammer", no lawyers involved.

As I understand it, Randazza and White now have email exchanges between the
"people" operating IsAnyoneDown and the takedown lawyer and some of their
victims; actual money has changed hands over this.

Ken White, who is an attorney and former prosecutor, lays out a pretty
compelling case for wire fraud on Popehat.

~~~
pdeuchler
Wire fraud was my first thought when reading the OP as well.

I can't tell you how many friends have come up to me with some idea for some
great scam on the internet (usually just as a joke) that they think would be
legal.

People readily forget that when you accept monetary transfers over the
internet you still leave yourself open to wire fraud, which rather defeats the
purpose of housing your scam on the internet.

Edit: If I'm not mistaken, they often use wire fraud to go after child
pornographers. Could there be a precedent set there that could effect this
case?

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67726e
Rather similar to those sites that take mugshots and the photographee's
information and posts them online, and sometimes in print editions. In
particular the site <http://mugshots.com/> has a link to "Unpublish Mugshot"
which in turns leads you to a "service" that will get your mugshot removed for
a fee. Seems to me like legal extortion as well. Would be certainly
interesting to see these kind of sites taken to court.

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CaptainZapp
Ken White has a lot of interesting legal comments on the issue on his Popehat
blog:

<http://www.popehat.com/tag/is-anybody-down/>

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pav3l
This reminds me of the mug-shot removal service I read about while ago
<http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/08/mugshots/>

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monkeyfacebag
I don't know anything about these sites other than what's described in the
article, but how can they possibly guarantee that the exploited "subjects" are
not minors? Shouldn't this be a legal problem for them?

~~~
tptacek
If the site operators exert any editorial control at all, including accepting
money in exchange for removing entries, then they are probably exposed to
extortion charges, which is a felony. To extort a victim, you have to
communicate a threat to harm, steal, or disgrace them unless that victim
carries out some act (like paying you) against their will.

If the site offers accept money under color of an "independent" scrubbing
service, or as lawyers when they are not, they are even more exposed to wire
fraud. Fraud is easy: it's a knowingly made false statement of material fact
("I am a lawyer", "this scrubbing service is independent") made with the
intent to deceive a victim who could reasonably rely on that statement (ie,
"oh, you're independent, I'll pay you" as opposed to "oh, the sky is polka dot
orange, I'll pay you") into taking some action against their will.

~~~
larrys
A person doing this in a foreign country out of the _easy_ reach of
authorities in the US (for example) could get away with this though for quite
some time until they (or Chris Hanson the Dateline guy) caught up with them
though. It's not a sustainable business of course but it would be able to make
money for a short time period.

~~~
tptacek
We're reading about this site because it's dramatically evil, not because it's
especially lucrative. If you can find just one more brain cell than the two
these guys collectively rubbed together to produce this site, you can find
better ways to use an offshore web app to make money.

~~~
larrys
"one more brain cell"

People do what they are familiar with and can wrap their hands around.

The typical guy who runs the local pizza shop or small import export business
does not evaluate what is the best way to earn money for their time and energy
after carefully assessing their abilities and advantages in a methodical way.
They do what they can wrap their hands around and get done. Something they
feel comfortable with.

I don't think it's good to confuse intelligence with what someone uses their
time for. Or ends up doing.

~~~
tptacek
Posing as a lawyer to collect money from young women to remove nude pictures
of them published without their consent from a site you run makes you a moron,
full stop.

~~~
debacle
Posing for naked pictures of yourself not thinking about what the consequences
of those pictures will be in the future makes you an idiot, full stop.

In the battle of idiots vs morons, only the lawyers win.

~~~
tptacek
One party made a mistake. The other party posed as a lawyer in an attempt to
illegally profit from the mistake. The two parties are neither equally
culpable nor equally brain damaged.

~~~
debacle
Both parties did something inexorably stupid. Can we at least agree on that?

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drcongo
Genuine question: If the subjects of these photos have no legal recourse, what
is the point of Model Release forms?

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tptacek
A couple issues among many:

* The operators of the site ostensibly don't publish the images (though they may be); the users of the site do.

* The site itself isn't ostensibly "commercial"; you also don't need a model release to post an image of your friends to Facebook.

* The remedies for unauthorized use of a model's likeness are all civil and involve suing and coming up with a number for damages, which is an extremely arduous process.

~~~
illuminate
"* The site itself isn't ostensibly "commercial""

How is that even the case? If the site turns a profit for anyone (or if run as
a non-profit that allows the owner to collect a salary), it should be
considered "commercial".

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rmc
In the European Union this sort of site would almost certainly be illegal. The
EU has "data protection law" which basically say personal information is
protected and one needs the consent of the person to process and do things
with it. You also must store in a legal protected way. You don't even need to
get into complicated "does this or does this not count as extortion" malarky.

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jhales
Wouldn't a more effective strategy be to deluge the site (or make many similar
sites) with nudes and contact details so as to destroy any credibility?

Without credibility humiliation would be very difficult.

Also, where are the anonymous vigilantes who target child porn?

~~~
tptacek
That, or ensuring that they're imprisoned for wire fraud, extortion, and/or
conspiracy.

I think it was especially smart of these business geniuses to antagonize the
former prosecutor who has decided to make a hobby out of destroying their
lives.

~~~
jhales
Sure, I am definitely just armchair quarterbacking to their actual results.

It just seems like another one will pop up and you will be playing wack-a-mole
with a rather long and expensive sounding process no?

~~~
tptacek
The goal here isn't simply to take the site down; it's to get the operators of
the site convicted of felonies. If that happens, I don't think there will be
any great rush to score a couple hundred bucks a month running the next
version of the site.

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grabeh
So if they want to benefit from DMCA safe-harbor and the user-generated
content defence, then they or the host would also have to remove content
expeditiously following a DMCA-request, which rather nullifies the extortion
element of the related site.

~~~
tptacek
The subjects of many nude photos do not own those photos and cannot use the
DMCA to get them taken down.

~~~
grabeh
Good point! Although that would undermine Randazza's proposal in the article
to sue for copyright infringement, on the basis that the owner of the
copyright photos has presumably granted permission to utilise the photos.

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jack-r-abbit
Besides the fact that no one really wants to see me nekid... stuff like this
is why I try really really hard to refrain from taking pictures of my naughty
bits. It has worked for me so far. You won't find me on one of those sites. :)

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tomjen3
Wouldn't it be a simple matter of finding somebody who could be underage and
the call the FBI?

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tptacek
Is that an easy way to get Reddit off the Internet? Nope. Doesn't work here
either.

~~~
learc83
The article alleges that the publishing processes isn't automatic and that
they have some editorial control of the content.

If that's the case, it may work.

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praptak
I have read of scammers messaging people about their "inappropriate" (wording
deliberately vague) pictures allegedly found on the internet. Obviously they
requested some payment before providing the exact details.

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debacle
That guy certainly looks like a douche, and what he's doing is probably wrong,
but I don't know if that makes it illegal.

~~~
mattdeboard
Let's just assume you're right -- you're probably not based on what I've read
at other links in this thread, but let's assume.

Then what? Innocent people get to have their genitals spread across the
internet? And sure, some of them put themselves in a situation where they were
irresponsible. I don't think that should leave them with no legal recourse if
someone is committing de facto extortion against them. If that were the case
people would basically be left to take the law into their own hands.

~~~
debacle
Right about what? I said "I don't know if that makes it illegal."

And I don't. It might be illegal and it might not be. This is one more
incidence where the ubiquity of technology in our world is creating a
situation that is morally clear but potentially legally vague.

~~~
tptacek
How legally vague do you really think this is? Running a fake independent
takedown service to remove humiliating photos from a porn site is fraud and
probably extortion under the plain wording of the statutes.

~~~
debacle
I don't know the particulars of fraud as it relates to the website - I haven't
read anything but the OP - but the extortion claim is difficult because the
images themselves have value to the website. It really depends on the
representation.

~~~
tptacek
That sounds like a really good point. Wire fraud is what Ken White said, after
he and Randazza came to the conclusion that "David Blade", the "independent
takedown lawyer", was just a screen name for the operators of the site.

(Randazza had a back-and-forth with "David Blade", who was as it turns out
almost certainly not a lawyer, which is something a real lawyer can pretty
quickly tell with a couple of questions, like, "why aren't you registered in
the state you claim to practice in" and others).

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komlon
I would happily hunt down the person that is allowing nudes of my girlfriend
to exist online. No one has the right to display her body to the world.

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vigilante
If anyone is feeling particularly vigilante... the site is Wordpress served
via Apache/2.2.22. Likely vulnerable to
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowloris> and other easy attacks.

~~~
tptacek
That is to say, if anyone if feeling like making it harder for Ken White to
arrange to have the operators of this site prosecuted, by all means, go do
something illegal that the operators can then attribute to White and Randazza.
Great plan.

