FBI has a complete copy of a Tor Mail server, is using it to catch hackers

Himanshu Arora

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Back in August, when the FBI was investigating Freedom Hosting, an anonymous web hosting company known for sheltering child porn, it managed to clone an entire server of Tor Mail, a popular anonymous webmail service hosted on the company's network.

According to Wired, court documents filed in relation to a credit card fraud case reveal that the FBI is using Tor Mail's data in completely unrelated investigations. The case in question involves Florida-based Sean Roberson, who, along with three other men, allegedly ran a website called fakeplastic.net, which supplied fake credit cards and hologram stickers.

When the FBI came to know that orders for counterfeit cards were sent to a Tor Mail email account, platplus@tormail.net, the investigation agency obtained a search warrant for it in order to search its own copy of Tor Mail data.

The news is a setback for those who bet big on Tor Mail, especially in the wake of Edward Snowden's revelations regarding the US government's PRISM program to monitor Internet users. Meanwhile Tor Mail, which stopped working on August 4, has posted a message on its homepage that reads: “We have no information to give you or to respond to any subpoenas or court orders”.

In another email case, the FBI last year asked for private SSL keys from Lavabit, a secure email service used by Snowden. According to the investigation agency, they were interested in only one of Lavabit's 400,000 users. But the company didn't comply with the orders. They shut down and appealed the ruling instead.

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Oh the good old days when the web was used by professionals. The spread of the WEB has brought a wealth of information, products, etc. to our screens. Unfortunately, along with the good comes the bad such as pornography, fraud, piracy, etc. With that comes the necessity of finding the bad folks with methods described in this article.
 
You seriously put word "piracy" in same bad group as "child pornography"?
World is more ****ed up that I thought.
 
Stealing a copy of a song or a movie is definitely NOT in the same boat as child porn lmao. A lot of what contributes to piracy in the music world is that there are PLENTY of people that don't want to buy a single song for a few big reasons:

If it's a single song, chances are the person just wants the song and not the album. I don't enter my credit card number online. ever. on any computer. Many people feel the same way. There goes any hopes of buying a song because options become much more limited after that. Go to the store and buy the entire album? nah. You could use a prepay card or something similar, but most people haven't. Hope that song is a single maybe... good luck.

Piracy is (usually) easier than buying the product. You would think the movie and music industry would find a more practical way to buy the song than steal it. It is potentially free advertising... I don't see why these companies don't try and use that to their advantage. OBVIOUSLY, people continue to pirate anyways. Piracy is, arguably, less risky than actually paying for something online if you are a halfway savvy pirate. yaar.

but even if you aren't a savvy pirate: get a virus or get money infos stolen? hmmm




Child porn is exploiting children usually for sexual purposes. I'd rather not even get into more detail than that. Fraud is generally stealing a lot of money from one person (or other individuals). Piracy is usually stealing some money from an entity that tends to have enough to lose. I'd rather take a dollar from an company that has millions or even billions then give them my dollar.... especially when they ask for more.
 
Oh the good old days when the web was used by professionals. The spread of the WEB has brought a wealth of information, products, etc. to our screens. Unfortunately, along with the good comes the bad such as pornography, fraud, piracy, etc. With that comes the necessity of finding the bad folks with methods described in this article.
Right, because there was nothing illegal going on when it was all BBS', IRC, and Usenet! No sirree!
 
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