back to article Bad Belgian busted by kinky iTunes openness

A Belgian man who pleaded guilty to possessing indecent images of children while on a visit to Manchester in January was last week sentenced to four months in prison. According to a spokeswoman for Manchester Crown Court, where the miscreant appeared for sentencing on 3 March, Tim Verrydt, 23, of Kappellestraat, Mol, Belgium, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Facepalm, big time

    No bleating this time about any unfairness. Looks like a fair cop.

    One thing though. The people who went to look into his shared folder. No charges for hacking or any of the other computer related acts. Cause you know if there had not been anything bad on the machine and the user who had shared the folder detected the intrusion those people would have been in a lot of trouble.

    Also the oh let's look in this folder. No, no close it, I need bleach to clean my eyes. I don't have a lot of sympathy. Well what do you expect if you go looking in strange folders.....

    Also if there were over 500 CP pictures why only 16 counts of this?

    Also was this just a misconfigured shared folder called itunes or is it a peculiarity of the Itunes app that it allows anyone on the same WIFI as you access to your computer?

    And last this as I cannot resist a swing against the extreme pr0n part. Why even bother with those charges? Can you be a paedophille and zoophille at the same time. If so it is good they got him to save all those lambs and foals and baby animals that were at risk...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      iTunes sharing

      You can turn on sharing of your iTunes library, it then appears automatically in all computers on the same network and they can can stream (not download) your contents. No mad hacking skills involved.

      I also look into other's shared libraries all the time in hotels and all the time at work. It's often a source of interesting music. Especially fun at conferences, often I know people by their shares before meeting them in person. Never found anything weird at all.

      Doesn't work for pictures though, I guess they found those later.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Did not know that

        As you can tell from me first post, as I avoid Itunes, I did not know that, so thanks for pointing it out.

      2. bobbles31

        Technically.....

        You are running foul of the Computer Misuse Act. It is against the law to access a resource that you are unauthorised to access. Even if you have a valid username/password or the resource is unprotected you are still in breach of the law.

        If you were unlucky enough to accidentally stumble across sensitive information and the owner discovered your intrusion you would be liable.

        I guess in these cases the law picks who it wants to prosecute the most.

  2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    And the other guest

    Served 6months for hacking and was banned from using a computer for 7 years.

    1. Elmer Phud

      Hacking?

      If you are dumb enough to share everything with all and sundry then there was no hacking involved.

      If you are also so dumb to leave loads of kiddiepix in a shared space when not sharing with your fellow pervs and then open the shared space up to anyone else around you deserve to go to jail.

      If you are so dumb to leave iTunes to manage your file you need to be shot.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    "being fully cooperative"

    Probably the best option if you want to try to get a slight reduction in your sentence and maybe some psychological treatment thrown in at tax payers expense.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Belgium

    nuff said

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They need help indeed

    "showing police where to find material"

    - You see, you can type Ctrl+F and then do a search by file type.

    - Wow, will technology ever stop?

    "as well as helping them to extract it from his computer"

    - So you plug in a pen drive, and it's automatically detected!

    - Whoa!

    - And now If I right click on a file, the new drive is in the "send to" menu!

    - AMAZING! God, these con putters blows my mind! And what is that?

    - It's called a mouse. It moves this little arrow on the screen!

    - No way!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Surprised that..

    the relevant Ass's of America haven't hauled the software company responsible up before the beak for facilitating distribution of copyright material.. you know the same charge that pirate bay are up for...

  7. lotus49

    How is that hacking?

    If someone shares their stuff, whether deliberately or not, it could hardly be described as hacking to view what was shared.

    1. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

      Because we have stupid laws thanks to a decade of puritanical Bliarism and Wacky-Jaquiness

      >> If someone shares their stuff, whether deliberately or not, it could hardly be described as hacking to view what was shared.

      Change that to "If someone shares their WiFi, whether deliberately or not, it could hardly be described as hacking to use that internet connection." and you'll find that people using the WiFi **HAVE** been convicted for it.

      1. There's a bee in my bot net

        Computer Misuse Act 1990

        Yup - see this http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18/section/1

  8. Jane Fae

    Fruit of the poison tree

    As someone with a fascination for all things legal, this story intrigues me in two ways. First, is the exact nature of the technology that allowed this to happen. Although i have asked the questions, i am not gettin 100% clear answers - and may never do.

    Second is a clear difference between UK and US legislatures in this area.

    In the US, many cases founder on the doctrine known as "fruit of the poison tree". That is, where a search of an individual, their premises or their property was carried out without sufficient legal justification, any evidence turned up by such a search may be thrown out wholesale by the courts.

    Not always: where someone is clearly a rapist, murderer, etc. US judges will look for ways to bring evidence in. But the principle - and the danger - is well known and makes US police that much tighter in their search and chain of evidence procedures.

    In the UK, the informal understanding is that where evidence is relevant, courts will seek to find ways to bring it into play. So you have far less protection against improper search in the UK than you do in the US.

    Strangely, this approach seems recently to have been reversed in respect of documents turned up in the financial leg of divorce proceedings. Hitherto, courts had been very happy to look at documents turned up by, say, an unlawful search of a partner's computer if they revealed evidence of financial impropriety.

    Now their admissibility is rather more limited.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Inevitable discovery

      is the main way around FOTPT in the US. Prosecutors have to go back and demonstrate they would have discovered the evidence *anyway*.

      Also objects in "plain sight" are considered exempt from the strictures. If you answer the door to a policeman, and he sees a joint on the ashtray in the lounge - you're done.

      In the UK, AFAIAA courts are more than happy to accept illegally obtained evidence. So mysteriously, the police keep on getting it that way.

    2. Darryl

      "Fruit of the poison tree"

      I thought that was the Apple (iTunes) reference

      Sorry

  9. TRT Silver badge

    Blimey...

    No wireless security on a commercial network? I'm staggered.

  10. Amazon Wageslave
    Joke

    Belgium

    "What's Belgium famous for? Chocolates and child abuse, and they only invented the chocolates to get to the kids."

    From In Bruges

  11. lglethal Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    Sorry El reg

    Whilst its slightly off topic, was there really any need at all to gives the guys address in Belgium? And is that even legal?

    I mean if you posted the address of someone on trial for murder, then i would imagine you'd be facing some pretty strong questions from the Police/CPS.

    So you gave us the country (Belgium) and the town (Mol), we really dont need his street's name... sheesh!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sorry El Reg

      Indeed giving out his address is clearly violation of privacy. Not matter if this man is an offender or not. A little bit of discretion, please. Besides why does such stupid articles regularly creep up in here. This is stuff for local newspapers not El Reg.

      Soon the only intersting thing in here will be BOFH.

      To the ppl who like to belittle Belgium: You forgot that they also have the best beer in the world. And the best medical research. As fot the chocolates... these are sold of to the swiss.

    2. Tom 38
      Thumb Down

      @Iglethal

      Actually, its one of the things that is always reportable after someone is convicted of a criminal offence in the UK: who they are, and where they have been living. It's very common,

  12. Nick Pettefar

    Belgium

    Beer, you twats!

    Sigh.

  13. Frank Bitterlich
    Paris Hilton

    "helping them to extract it from his computer..."

    ... so he showed them how to use a Mac, supposedly?

    "Look, officer, all you need to copy these files is to drag them to the trash, and then select "secure empty trash"...."

    Paris, I'm sure, knows about sharing safely.

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