This includes but not limited to the name of the software used, any and all manuals related to the software, logs kept throughout course of investigation, all training materials, including but not limited to training records, certification records, training standards, and training manuals, all policies and procedures regarding use of this software, names and curriculum vitae of any and all individuals who operated, and any and all records utilized by FBI and MCCU during course of this investigation as it relates to this software and,ĥ. Any and all discovery relating to the FBI and MCCU "ability to identify IP addresse associated with certain users of TorChat and certain hidden services" as referenced on MITRO_00001. In an effort to obtain information to support a Fourth Amendment challenge to the means used to discover his IP address, Mitrovich served these Criminal Rule 16(a)(1)(E) discovery requests on the Government:Ĥ. 53 at 1.Īs noted, Mitrovich was indicted for possessing child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. The Government obtained and executed a search warrant for the physical address-Mitrovich's home-and found child pornography videos and photographs stored on hard drives. The FBI in turn obtained records from Comcast providing the physical address associated with the IP address. 62 at 8, QPS/DIA provided the lead to the FBI, Doc. 48 at 3.īecause the IP address indicated that "cyberguy" was located in the United States, Doc. "Cyberguy" opened the hyperlink and QPS/DIA captured his IP address. If the user played the file, QPS/DIA could capture his IP address even if it otherwise would have been concealed by Tor. According to QPS/DIA, when a TLZ user clicked on that hyperlink, he was advised that he was attempting to open a file from an external website. Ibid.Īs part of its investigation, QPS/DIA uploaded a hyperlink on TLZ that advertised a child pornography video. QPS/DIA arrested a TLZ user, who provided a backup copy of TLZ that included information on user accounts, posts, and messages-including those of a user called "cyberguy"-and QPS/DIA shared that information with the FBI. 62 at 4 n.4.) After the FBI shared that information with Australian authorities, the Queensland Police Service ("QPS") in Australia and the Department of Internal Affairs ("DIA") in New Zealand seized control of TLZ and operated it undercover for several months. (MCCU is the former name of the FBI component now called the Child Exploitation Operations Unit. "In mid-2014, the FBI, MCCU, obtained the ability to identify IP addresses associated with" TLZ, and those addresses "revealed that 'TLZ' was hosted in The Netherlands, with the head administrator residing in Australia." Doc. In 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") began investigating The Love Zone ("TLZ"), a website that allowed users to advertise and distribute child pornography. As can imagine, Tor has spawned-and effectively enables-a cache of unsavory sites for black-market trading, child-pornography file-sharing, and other criminal enterprises." United States v. "Tor has plenty of legitimate uses-think military and law-enforcement officers carrying out investigations, journalists seeking to maintain anonymity, and ordinary citizens researching embarrassing topics. Tor Browser is a version of Firefox that deploys additional protections to conceal a user's IP address and other identifying information. TORCHAT LAW ENFORCEMENT SERIES2018) ("The Tor software makes user information untraceable by relaying it through a series of interconnected computers."). 29, 2020)) Tor FAQ, Tor, (last visited Apr. 56 at 3 & n.1 (citing Tor: Overview, Tor, (last visited Apr. Tor protects user privacy by passing encrypted data through at least three different servers in the Tor network before sending it to its destination. Tor-an acronym for "The Onion Router"-is software that allows a computer user to conceal his IP address and location by relaying his internet traffic through the Tor network. Mitrovich now moves to compel the Government to produce discovery concerning the investigative tools used to identify the true IP address of a visitor to a child pornography website-who, by his own admission, was Mitrovich, Doc. The court denied Mitrovich's motion to dismiss, which focused on the delay between his arrest and indictment. A grand jury charged Deny Mitrovich with knowingly possessing child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C.
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