He's asked me to tell his story and get opinions on his problem.

Long story short, he was busted for child porn. He is being let off easy because he wasn't activly searching for child porn, and he didn't know what it was when he downloaded it. Don't ask how he ended up with it but didn't know what it was, it's a long story.

The porn was shared through limewire, although he didn't realize it was happening. He got authorities knocking on his door yesterday.

They confiscated his hard drive (they had a warrent) and that was that. He is worried though; he has long since deleted the stuff because he didn't want anything to do with it, but he missed a file. They found it and that's how he ended up being busted and having it confisated.

On that hard drive, he has guides on making guns, how to kill people, records of scams, ect... What can they do with this information they find? He also has thoulsands of dollars worth of illigally downloaded software on those, as well as files that ammount to conspiracy to commit crime.

Like I said, what can they do with this if they find it? Do they have the legal right to do anything with it, as they only had a warrant to search for child porn?

He thanks anyone who can help him.

When a search warrant is presented to a judge it specifies what they are looking for and why they believe you have it. All other evidence/information founding during a warranted search, besides that which was specified to the judge, is inadmissible in court. So if they where looking for kiddy porn, and found illegally downloaded songs, they couldn't use the latter against you in search of additional charges. However, if it is apparent through the files on your computer that other illegal activities are going on, they will probably further investigate the matter.

I don't necessarily buy your friends story; it seems far fetched and somewhat surreal. Furthermore I'm not entirely convinced there is a "friend", if you know what I mean. But, if your story holds merit, I would hire an attorney and make sure that the prosecutor doesn't tamper with the hard drive. When you delete files, they aren't gone. Even when you empty your recycling bin the files are still embedded deep within your OS. If in fact your "friend" isn't a scumbag, and there are no other traces of child porn, or child porn queries, in the memory, then there would be a good case that 1) your friend is not a pedo, 2) the child porn was downloaded accidentally, and 3) therefore he is innocent.

He fell upon the filefdue to a mislabled p2p thing from Limewire. Should he hide his other hard drives just in case?

Also, can he get jail time? He is thinking he can get it for: Cospiracy to commit theft, Conspiracy to commit murder, piracy, electronic theft, threats, and other things.

If they launch an investigation for these things, will he get a chance to scrub his hard drive before they take it again? Or will they just keep it?

Cops usually take an image of the hard drive, meaning make a copy of what's on it before giving it back. I'm not sure if that was the rule pre or post PATRIOT ACT but there you go.

Its standard procedure to copy your entire hard drive. Then you can have it back. So its no use to clean it now since they have everything they need already.

Like a previous poster said, the warrant cleared them for searching for kiddies pr0n , not the other stuff. However they'll keep it and if you get into other trouble related to the stuff your friend had on the HDD, they'll dig it up again and use it against him. All the stuff he had on that HDD is now in the system. One luck though, they need a warrant again just to use it. They obtained it under a different warrant so even if they have it right there on their monitor they can't use it for lets say the scamming bit. They'll need a new warrant for that to use it. Aslong as your friend doens't do anything that smells of scam, no judge will grant them a warrant.

That's what he was thinking. I have a feeling that he's going to get off easy; he's only 15 and they'll see he deleted it but missed a file. He's still guilty of possession and distribution though.

I find the situation very ironic. A child be arrested for child porn. Too bad your "friend" didn't take extra security precautions with all that shifty data.

Wait, so how long did it take them to come knocking on his door?

If the file was mislabeled then you probably won't get prosecuted because you don't always have the ability to preview what you're downloading.

He did however leave the file in his shared folder for others to download... which was a mistake and is the illegal part.

He should learn how to clear his memory.

I was also wondering this and maybe someone else can enlighten me:

How much stuff can the authorities take when they get a warrant? Can they take every HDD in the house from every person or just the single HDD in the PC?

Child porn laws are a joke. I remember hearing awhile ago that two underage girls fingered each other, and sent a video of it around the school.

The people they sent it to got arrested for having it, and the girls WHO MADE IT were arrested for distribution.

So apparently it is illegal to willingly make a video of yourself.

Anything found legally while conducting a search warrant can be used against you and you can be charged with crimes for it. They are allowed to use anything found in the scope of the warrant, as well as anything found in the areas they searched that could reasonably have held the content being searched for. For example, if they search your house for illegal guns and find a brick of marijuana under your bed, they can and probably will use it against you. If they are searching for a stolen car, though, like in your garage or barn, they couldn't use a book or things like that found on your shelves, as that is not a reasonable place to search for the content in question. Anything on the hard drive can be used (although illegally downloaded software is rarely prosecuted and they'd have to prove he had no legal right to it). Most likely, the other items are "red flags" which are not illegal, but are indicative of illegal activity, so he can't be prosecuted for it, but it can be used to enhance sentencing, argue that he is more of a risk, and lead to investigations.

i have myself been in a similiar situation!
First i want to ask: is Charter his internet provider?
Well mine was. i started getting some paper from charter telling me i was downloading illegal shit and bla bla but i never cared always threw that shit away, you know fuck it.
2 months later i get 2 guys in suits knocking at my door with a search warrant. they asked where my computer was and searched around my room too( not sure if they were supposed to but they did!) They took my hard drive, my burned CD's and DVD's and my laptop with them telling me they needed to make copy because authorities believed i had illegal material in my computer. Not a word more and they were out. i was suggested to get a lawyer and immediately got the best in town.

It cost me 4500$ to solve this case. What i had in my hard drive was similar to your friends with the only difference that i only had 1 video that had child porn in it. I had material in size of 1334GB of illegal stuff including movies, games, software, text files and shit like that. My text files were the same as him. instructions on how to make bombs, crack locks, concur the world?? ehhh

I must say i was 18 at the time and got charged as a adult. I live in MA so make sure you check the laws in your state and get a lawyer and a good one regardless to his age. I had 7 appearances in court and no jail time just 67 required community service at non-profit organizations! I did get all my shit back and nothing was erased! I still have what i was charged with but now i secure myself even though it sux that i am still using Charter but havnt gotten a letter in 2 years so far. hope i am good, and good luck to your buddy!

OH AND REMEMBER TELL HIM TO NEVER ADMIT ANYTHING. HE NEVER EVER IN A MILLIONS YEARS COULD OF BEEN ABLE TO DO SUCH A THING! HE HAD ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA THAT INFORMATION WAS IN HIS COMPUTER AND NEVER DID ANYTHING INTENTIONALLY. HE ALWAYS TRIES THE BEST TO BE A GOOD CITIZEN AND RESPECTS THE LAWS OF HIS COUNTRY!

Pieces of advice:

Always delete your downloads from the shared folder. Place them somewhere else.
Copy movies/games, etc. to DVD as soon as possible and delete stuff you don't use/watch/need anymore.

After deleting stuff, periodically you should wipe the empty space of your drive with something like R-Wipe&Clean or something. It handles with all the remnant traces that are always left when deleting "normally".

Its best not to upload anything at all, sometimes however you're placed back in the line of waiting peers if you don't upload. With most torrent sites its enough to share as much as you download. So just let it upload along with your downloads and most of the time it evens eachother out.

Download only from the better sites like demonoid. Its not a 100% safety but atleast they check for child porn and virusses. Its still dangerous to download without checking yourself though. If you stay at one site for a while you will start to notice a few well known names. One of wich is RELOADED. He/She uploads a large amount of games and is considered a safe option. Be careful of posers though.

Finaly, ALWAYS check the content of what you are downloading in preview and directly after the download has finished.

It was over 6 months since the incident that they came a-knockin'.

He said that the detectives said that they could find overwritten data. I said bullshit to that, if it's overwritten, doesn't that mean it's NOT THERE, not even in the indexes? I realize that simply deleting something leaves it there, but I always assumed that was until it was over-written.

Also, they took, all 46 of his hard drives. I lol'd knowing that they're going to have to hook them all up, tediously, and check every single god damn drive, especially the scuzzy drives :D

i have myself been in a similiar situation!
First i want to ask: is Charter his internet provider?
Well mine was. i started getting some paper from charter telling me i was downloading illegal shit and bla bla but i never cared always threw that shit away, you know fuck it.
2 months later i get 2 guys in suits knocking at my door with a search warrant. they asked where my computer was and searched around my room too( not sure if they were supposed to but they did!) They took my hard drive, my burned CD's and DVD's and my laptop with them telling me they needed to make copy because authorities believed i had illegal material in my computer. Not a word more and they were out. i was suggested to get a lawyer and immediately got the best in town.

It cost me 4500$ to solve this case. What i had in my hard drive was similar to your friends with the only difference that i only had 1 video that had child porn in it. I had material in size of 1334GB of illegal stuff including movies, games, software, text files and shit like that. My text files were the same as him. instructions on how to make bombs, crack locks, concur the world?? ehhh

I must say i was 18 at the time and got charged as a adult. I live in MA so make sure you check the laws in your state and get a lawyer and a good one regardless to his age. I had 7 appearances in court and no jail time just 67 required community service at non-profit organizations! I did get all my shit back and nothing was erased! I still have what i was charged with but now i secure myself even though it sux that i am still using Charter but havnt gotten a letter in 2 years so far. hope i am good, and good luck to your buddy!


He thanks you for your wish of good luck. Luckily, he's not an adult, he's only 15 years old.

Also, they took, all 46 of his hard drives. I lol'd knowing that they're going to have to hook them all up, tediously, and check every single god damn drive, especially the scuzzy drives :D

.

PWNT!

lol, 46? and some scuzzy drives? Hahahaa...

Hmm...this thread has reminded me to....destroy...some old hard drives I have.

Ah well, the platters will make a nice tesla turbine.