>>myself+p5
Maybe they were hoping to get enough information to do browser finger printing?

https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

>>arp242+8n
Still even if they had such a screen shot I don't get how reading a news article about a sex offender would be incrimnating even if you were a sex offender yourself.

That said...https://www.cbsnews.com/news/luka-magnotta-wanted-for-canada...

>>morphe+yn
> Still even if they had such a screen shot I don't get how reading a news article about a sex offender would be incrimnating even if you were a sex offender yourself.

What? Absolutely no one said or even implied any such thing.

Photos of in child sex abuse cases are routinely scrutinized in great detail to reveal clues about the location, time, and anything else that might lead to the individuals in the case.

Interpol has an entire website dedicated to help identify objects in pictures[1], asking members of the public to help identify everyday things like T-shirts. Actually, one of the top results pictures right now is "do you recognise this newspaper?"

No one is suggesting that "wearing this t-shirt" or "having this newspaper" is incriminating in and of itself. Finding these people from vague online pictures where they intend to remain anonymous is tricky business, and sometimes with a bunch of these clues combined with some other information they can identify offenders and/or victims.

Of course there are trade-offs involved in all of this, and it's important we have robust public conversations discussing those; as I mentioned in my previous comment, the lack of trust here is a big issue. But much of this entire thread is ... disappointing. I wish people would keep cooler heads (as well as, you know, actually read the article before commenting).

[1]: https://www.europol.europa.eu/stopchildabuse

>>xvecto+Fa
1 second on a CPU can easily be 100x faster on a GPU, then distributed over 1000's of GPUs. For reference argon2 was supposed to be an ASIC-resistant, GPU-resistant memory-hard hashing algorithm, but a K20X from 2013 is 5x faster than a CPU [1] and GPUs have only gotten faster since then compared to CPUs.

[1]: https://github.com/WebDollar/argon2-gpu

>>dredmo+Lh
The "other methods" is the curious facet of this story to me. With stuff like this [1] [2] I wonder if the FBI really "needs" USA Today to comply to get this information or rather, this is part of a long-term strategy to get legal precedent on their side. The same dynamics were in play with the San Bernardino shooting, where they made a big deal out of getting data they didn't seem to actually need.

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Data_Center

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A

>>dredmo+hI
Parallel construction.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction

>>user39+DH
I this case, I think it's a genuine mea culpa from the FBI, without explicitly admitting they were wrong.

The subpoena, and USA Today's response [1] paints a picture of an incompetent and/or inexperienced FBI agent, who is unaware of existing Justice department guidelines specifically prohibiting her from serving such a subpoena.

Reading between the lines, citing "other methods" is the FBI's way of quietly withdrawing a subpoena that should never have been served.

[1] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.231...

>>a3n+2c
How does HN play into this at all?

The FBI served USA Today with a subpoena. USA Today's lawyers replied to the FBI, stating that the subpoena is "not authorized under federal regulations, and object to its service" [1]

[1] (page 15) https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.231...

>>nexuis+1G
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Sabotage