Anew reportfrom Ars Technica on documents unseal by the American Civil Liberties Union show that the FBI may have operate 23 child smut websites on the dark entanglement .

We have intercourse , of course , that the FBI operated one of the biggest child pornography sites on the dark web , Playpen , for 13 Clarence Day . The FBI even went as far as toimprove the performanceof the web site , making it escape faster . This was all in an endeavor to deploy what the FBI calls a connection Investigative Technique ( another term for this is malware ) to learn the identity of people get to the kid porn site . To get at these site you have to do it through the Tor web , which anonymizes and obfuscates your identity . The FBI ’s NIT was able-bodied to de - anonymize people accessing these sites , allowing the FBI to discover their IP address and other information , lead to their arrest .

Here is the key paragraph from theunsealed documents , which seems to show the FBI saying it operated 23 different baby porn website :

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

In the normal class of the operation of a web situation , a user sends “ asking data point ” to the web site so as to access that site . While website 1 - 23 operate at a government adeptness , such request data associated with a user ’s military action on Websites 1 - 23 will be collected . That data collection is not a function of the NIT . Such postulation data can be pair off with data point collect by the NIT , however , in guild to attempt to identify a exceptional user and to define that special user ’s actions on Websites 1 - 23 .

An FBI spokesman seems to abnegate this in a statement to Ars , but does n’t excuse the written document that discuss “ Websites 1 - 23 . ”

“ I would refer you to public documents on the Playpen investigation , in which we seized and manoeuvre a darkweb fry porno situation for a stop of less than two weeks , ” FBI spokesman Christopher Allentold Ars Techicna . “ That was an extraordinary investigation , and to my noesis may be the only sentence that has occurred . So to propose this is a common thing is patently not straight . ”

William Duplessie

This child smut probe is part of a broader crusade by natural law enforcement to exert expanded powers in purchase order to cut hoi polloi . In the lawsuit of Playpen , some cases are being thrown out entirely because the FBI survive to one jurist to have authorization to hack on computers outside of that justice ’s jurisdiction . However , before this twelvemonth , the Supreme Court approve change to a part of the Federal Criminal Procedure , Rule 41 , which allows one judge to authorize the hacking of million of computers around the world . lawmaker areworking to stopthe changes to Rule 41 before it go into essence in December .

We ’ve reached out to the FBI and will update this stake if we hear back .

[ Ars Techicna ]

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