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Comment by GuiA | Hacker News Reader

So if someone does nasty things, but getting access to evidence for these nasty things is impossible without breaking a law, how do you suggest that one should go about proving that the aforementioned nasty things were committed?

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Pedophiles do nasty things on the Internet. Uncovering pedophiles on the Internet is impossible without mass surveillance of the Internet. How do you suggest that one should go about proving that someone is a pedophile?

In both the case of pedophiles and state actors who are breaking the law, the answer is the same. Wait for them to slip up. It's hard to keep something secret forever.

> "Uncovering pedophiles on the Internet is impossible without mass surveillance of the Internet"

Didn't realize the TV show "To Catch a Predator" did mass surveillance of the internet, NBC is taking investigative journalism to an extreme.

That's sort of the point. When someone justifies an action because it's "impossible" to stop bad thing X without doing morally questionable thing Y, be skeptical.

I'm not on top of my criminal law, but it seems to me that the nasty, illegal things pedophiles do, they do in real life and not the internet, no?

We can replace pedophile with "person who consumes and distributes kiddie porn" if that helps the analogy.

If you replace those words, then your analogy falls apart.

http://falkvinge.net/2012/09/07/three-reasons-child-porn-mus...

Not sure. You might have to take one for the team like with other acts of civil disobedience.

That said, in this case, were nasty things uncovered? I can't find anything about that. Also, mixing investigative journalism with theft and use of other people's credit card numbers is probably not the best way to maintain an appearance of innocence.

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