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# John Goes to Court
- URL: https://johnwlittle.com/john-goes-to-court/
- Published: 2016-06-23T07:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-03-03T04:14:10.000Z
- Description: In a surprising turn of events, my blog has made its way into federal jurisprudence. A judge recently cited my writing while ruling that the FBI can legally access suspects' computers without warrants - certainly not an application I ever anticipated when publishing the post.
- Author: John Little
- Tags: Security

I've found mentions of my work in the strangest places, but this has to be one of the strangest. A federal judge has ruled that the FBI can gain access to a suspect's computer without a warrant and he has [cited one of my blog posts](https://www.eff.org/files/2016/06/23/matish%5Fsuppression%5Fedva.pdf?ref=blogsofwar.com) in support: 

> Tor users likewise cannot reasonably expect to be safe from hackers. Even if Tor users hope that the Tor network will keep certain information private -just as terrorists seem to expect Apple to keep their data private – it is unreasonable not to expect that someone will be able to gain access. See John W. Little, Tor and the Illusion of Anonymity, BLOGS OF War (August 6,  
> 2013), [http://blogsofwar.com/tor-and-the-illusion-of-anonymity/](https://johnwlittle.com/tor-and-the-illusion-of-anonymity/) (describing that the Federal Government discovered a way “to identify the true IP addresses \[of\] an unknown number to Tor users” and noting that this development “should serve as a huge wake-up call” to people who believe that using Tor endows them with unassailable privacy protections). Notwithstanding the identification difficulties posed by or and the machinations one must undergo to access a Tor hidden service, advances in technology continue to thwart Tor’s measures.”

> “Thus, hacking resembles the broken blinds in Carter. 525 U.S. at 85\. Just as Justice Breyer wrote in concurrence that a police officer who peers through broken blinds does not violate anyone’s Fourth Amendment rights, jd. at 103 (Breyer, J., concurring), FBI agents who exploit a vulnerability in an online network do not violate the Fourth Amendment.”

Now I thought the post was decent, it was pretty widely circulated in security circles, but I didn't think much about it to be honest. I certainly didn't expect it to find its way into a significant federal case.