Category Archives: Twitter

Is Kiwifarmer ‘Erasmus of Rotterdam’ Really Caroline Farrow?

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Yesterday, MHN posted a damning exposé about Caroline Farrow. She was quite a bit upset with my media inquiry letter which was sent beforehand to give her a chance to point out any factual errors. Caroline went so far as posting on Twitter that my media inquiry made her, “throw up in fear” (archive). Today, a user called ‘Erasmus of Rotterdam’, posted bizarre allegations on Kiwifarms, claimed to have hacked MHN and the editor’s PC, but was especially upset about questions 10 and 11 in the letter. Those questions were never published. There are grounds for investigation as to whether the poster was in fact Caroline Farrow, sock-puppetting.

Kiwifarms user 'Erasmus of Rotterdam' posts allegations so fake even Dynastia calls them out. But this person has seen a private letter I shared only with three people.

Kiwifarms user ‘Erasmus of Rotterdam’ posts allegations so fake even Dynastia calls them out. But this person has seen a private letter I shared only with three people. Click for full size.

So, who could it be? Firstly, I do not have a copy of anything uploaded to Kiwi Farms so if a copy of the letter was actually uploaded, I have not verified it is the real letter. However, the poster must have at least seen the real letter to know about the questions. So, there is a limited pool of suspects.

Full disclosure. I do not normally correspond with Stephanie Hayden but as they were a subject of the story, I sent them a copy of my letter. Another went to Simon Just. Finally of course, a copy was sent to Farrow via her solicitors. Not long after, Louise Moody claimed to have read the letter. From time to time, Caroline Farrow has been advised by Adrian Yalland, so I considered he might have had a copy. All of these people have at times been accused of sock-puppetting, save that I discount Farrow’s solicitors as likely culprits having no reason to suspect them of socking nor breach of confidence.

The ‘Erasmus of Rotterdam’ account was created on 1 September 2022. It is an account mostly notable for a virulent hatred of transgender persons, variously describing them as fat, eunuch, paedophiles (note the British spelling of ‘paedophile’ as opposed to the American, ‘pedophile’). The account was created before my beef with Farrow and comments mostly on a debate my supporters and I have little involvement in. Beyond a suspicion they are British, who could it be.

But … we have such a short suspects list. Who would be really, really upset about my article about Caroline Farrow? Who would claim to have hacked my hard drive, when they only actually have access to one document – clumsily trying to be, “down with the kids”, if you can call the members of a stalking site, “kids”. I could just imagine Erasmus beginning a post with, “Hello fellow Kiwi Farmers”. Indeed, I had been talking about this with Hayden and Just all day, also separately with the hacktivist Echo. Echo is a younger woman in her twenties and by eerie coincidence had made the very same point about Farrow being a cringe user of Kiwi Farms.

So, I decided to make use of a tool we have had for some time. An AI neural text analyser. Continue reading →

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Caroline Farrow, Paedophile Sadism, Terrorism, Child Protection and the Catholic Church

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As a Conservative, Christian, law blogger I have much sympathy with the gender critical movement. I am the author of multiple articles on that side of the debate, for example, “Trump Boosted as American College of Paediatricians Describes Transgender Ideology as Child Abuse”, “High Court Judge Saves 7-Year Old Boy from Being Forced to be Transgender by Abusive Mother” and “Why Straight Men Should Support Lesbians and Feminists Over ‘Drop the T’”. So I was surprised to hear that Joshua Moon was claiming I was assisting a person suing Caroline Farrow as McKenzie Friend (and should, “die”) … because I am not. No offence to either side – but I have nothing to do with Farrow related litigation. The incident has however reluctantly forced me to scrutinise Farrow’s online activities – which I fear may reveal a serious safeguarding failure by the Roman Catholic Church. In my opinion, based on the materials below, Farrow and those closely associated with her have no place in a Christian ministry or anywhere near vulnerable people.

Caroline Farrow Respects Joshua Conner Moon

Caroline Farrow Respects Joshua Conner Moon. So, what is Moon known for? This article explores the man she rates so highly.

Caroline Farrow is a member of the website Kiwi Farms, a site she describes as, “doing the Lord’s work” and, “the basest site in the world”. This is an unusual and concerning way to describe a site that has promoted and facilitated paedophilia, stalking (including child stalking) and terrorism.

Farrow uses Kiwi Farms to, "decompress" and for, "laughter".

Farrow uses Kiwi Farms to, “decompress” and for, “laughter”.

According to her profile (archive), Caroline joined the site on 13 March 2020, she has over two and a half years of posting and 181 posts. The profile also describes her as a, “bulwark” of the Catholic Church. So, her Catholicism is very much associated with the site. So, what is it, exactly? What is this site that Caroline has chosen to endorse in such an enthusiastic (and therefore, it is to be inferred, informed) way?

KiwiFarmsTwitter

Kiwi Farms is run by paedophile sadist Joshua Conner Moon and exists, in its own words for “exploitation of the mentally handicapped for amusement purposes”. Based on her enthusiastic endorsements, Caroline apparently believes this is God’s will.

Kiwi Farms was set up, in the owner’s own words on the site’s now banned official Twitter account for the purposes set out left.

“Gossip and exploitation of the mentally handicapped for amusement purposes.”

A good example of the, “exploitation” is the site’s treatment of an autistic person called Christine Weston Chandler. Chandler used to live in Ruckersville, Virginia and has been the focus of Kiwi Farms’ interest to the extent they used Chandler’s postal address on their accounts at times – hence the Ruckersville location in the image to the left.

Chandler was stalked on an industrial scale. Female members of Kiwi Farms and its precursor CWCKi would pretend romantic interest and record phone calls or even meetings with them. This included phone sex. The recordings would be shared online for pleasure. This behaviour was well exposed by Margaret Pless in New York Magazine, “Kiwi Farms, the Web’s Biggest Community of Stalkers” (archive).

Vulnerable Chandler suffered as a result of the stalking that continued throughout the latter part of their minority and into adult life. Eventually Chandler was arrested after a female member of Kiwi Farms persuaded him to have sex (or claim to have had sex) with his very elderly mother (archive).

Given the stated purpose of Kiwi Farms, which is also extremely well covered in the media, I asked Caroline Farrow, via her solicitors AI Law – Question 1 – Is stalking the disabled and encouraging sexually activity for the purposes of mockery, “the Lord’s work”?

No reply (and no denial) was received. Continue reading →

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Update on Sinister Internet Troll Georgina Middleton / Dylan Charlie

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This is an update on the appalling internet troll Georgina Middleton / Dylan Charlie from my last article. I had been in touch with a PC at Cambridgeshire Police about Georgina based on an old address. Since then, however, the tracing agency I instructed has come back with a current address, in Coventry in the West Midlands. I have been in touch with West Midlands Police and now have a West Midlands Police incident number too. Middleton has been making false allegations of rape and paedophilia about multiple individuals online, including one she had actual knowledge was false, based on her emails. Although she has tried to claim Georgina is her deadname, in fact Middleton not only used the name, “Georgina” in her emails but on currently active social media such as her Twitter account @GeeWrites_ (archive). As of today, the account asserts the name, “Georgina”. Obviously, now we have an address for service both myself and another victim are in a position to serve letter(s) of claim or sealed process. Currently we are waiting on discussions the other victim is having with a solicitors firm about a possible Conditional Fee Arrangement (no-win, no-fee). For other victims, the West Midlands police reference is 3109-151122.

Dylan Charlie Crimed

Georgina Middleton / Dylan Charlie’s posts will very shortly lead to substantial civil action against her, and her online posts are under police investigation. Click for full size.

As I said in my previous article here, I consider there is a compelling public interest in naming Dylan / Georgina and giving information about my police reports. This person has been making allegations of the most serious nature online about people ill-equipped to identify her for some time. She has referred to allegations against me she knows to be false, based on her emails. She appears to have incited or encouraged others. Naming her is in the public interest and will assist her victims. Publishing the crime reference number allocated by Cambridgeshire Police and the number from West Midlands Police will make it easy for other victims to explain to police she has a history. There is also a public interest in my responding to false allegations about me communicated to the public, and making it clear how the authorities view them. Finally, there is a public interest in deterring anonymous trolling in the belief it is consequence free. There is a public interest in deterring the group of posters around Georgina making dangerous allegations.

There is also an ongoing concern the allegations may incite violence, which is not helped by members of a group calling themselves, “Knives” getting involved. Taken together, the events have caused fear, alarm and distress to victims and put them in fear of violence by vigilantes.

Cambridge Police have previously had to apologise to me about a similar case when I was in law school but have been very helpful this time. In the previous incident, I had named an internet troll and threatened them with litigation. It did not end well for the troll – or the police officer. The police have been helpful and seem keen not to repeat the same mistakes. Management action was taken against an officer previously – there is still a note in the previous crime report. Private individuals are allowed to represent themselves to contact potential defendants to civil crimes for the purposes of litigation, such as a letter of claim, and it is not harassment no matter how much the defendants say torts trigger them.

Fortunately, because I have previously taken High Court action, successfully representing myself, police now have a better idea of the seriousness of the situation. As a reminder, here is a restraining order I obtained against Dr Jacqui Dillon, and here is a restraining order I obtained against Esther Baker – who is still paying off my costs by High Court Enforcement Officers (High Court bailiffs). Baker has years – perhaps more than a decade – of debt and poverty in front of her.

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Orly Georgina? Exposing Georgina Middleton / Dylan Charlie – Very ex-Assisted Content Producer and Internet Troll

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One of the most common features of internet trolls is their cowardice and anonymity. My face and real name is at the bottom of this blog, because I am a legitimate commentator. Others are not so honest. This article exposes Georgina C Middleton, a vile internet troll who uses the online pseudonym Dylan Charlie. Whilst she claims to have transitioned, and that ‘Georgina’ is her deadname, I might find that more convincing if the name ‘Georgina’ was not on all the emails she was spamming me, and she was not asserting ‘she’ pronouns on Twitter. Last night, after she posted material about me from a terrorist group, Cambridgeshire Police crimed the reported behaviour as Malicious Communications – meaning that their initial opinion is that there are grounds for investigation. Georgina is finding out online posts have real world consequences. I am likely to take civil action as are others she has defamed.

Georgina Middleton / Dylan Charlie has been repeating false allegations of rape online (not claiming to be the victim) including one false allegation of paedophilia she appears to know is false and came from a terrorist group. Her posts will very shortly lead to substantial civil action against her, and are under police investigation. To the extent that the police investigation is private information there is a public interest in revealing it as set out below. Click for full size.

So last week I ran my piece on false allegations, given currency by the band Snayx and others, against a musician who was to perform at the 2000 Trees Festival. I had agreed to help the accused person find a lawyer or assist them myself in litigation as McKenzie Friend. A day or so later I received a comment from a person with a Cambridgeshire based internet point of presence (92.17.181.69). The conversation was odd because the person appeared to be unstable or intellectually challenged, but I was polite and kind. At times they appeared to be trying to conceal their real IP. The emails were from a person named Georgina, but ended Dylan or D.C.M. They acknowledged – of importance, that I was a victim of crime.

Whilst identifying posters who had been making false rape allegations about the victim for the purposes of litigation, it became apparent that Georgina is one of the posters, under the name, “Dylan Charlie”. I was going to ignore them until it got to time for the victim to do their letter of claim. Unfortunately, Georgina, knowing me to be a victim of sex crime, decided to repeat material from a terrorist group. That has now been taken down, but police have still allocated a crime reference number. It does not matter she tried to frame it as a mention – it has been proven untrue in court and there is no excuse for gratuitously raising it.

Obviously, aside from the fact that she may now be sued by at least two people and go to prison, Dylan / Georgina’s malicious posts have not achieved very much. As a cautionary tale, it is worth mentioning just how much information was readily obtainable about this troll. Just to be clear, where family members are mentioned, I name them but do not give surnames or addresses nor link to social media profiles. This is a public interest article to highlight the risks of online trolling, but I am not going to dox nor put these people in the line of fire.

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Sinister Silencing Attempt by Snayx and Rebecca Redwood of Republic of Music Fails

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After my previous article, Rebecca Redwood of Republic of Music, PR to the Z-list band, ‘Snayx’, reported me to police and had her solicitors send me a letter. I have had a short discussion with the very helpful investigating officer today. They have informed me that the matters complained of do not amount to harassment and the case will be closed. My article will remain up and the boycott campaign will continue. This outcome heaps further pressure on Zero 9:36, Kid Kapichi, Republic of Music and the 2000 Trees Festival to terminate their business relationships with the band.

Shamefully, the band ZERO 9:36 is allowing vile abusers Snayx to tour with them.

Shamefully, the band ZERO 9:36 is allowing vile abusers Snayx to tour with them.

Brighton police have been very thorough and swift, but this attempt by Redwood to silence myself as a proven victim of sex crime for making legitimate criticisms of both she and her band are deeply concerning. It has failed. This matter is not over. My article, “Naming the Abusers: Ollie Horner, Charlie Herridge and Rebecca Redwood of Snayx UK” is not harassment and it will remain up. Supporting trial of sex crimes by Facebook post is abuse and those who do it can legitimately be called abusers of the accused and of their privileged platforms. Such behaviour undermines the cause of genuine victims of sex crime.

The preparations for civil action against Redwood by her victim – the unjustly accused frontman of another band – are still underway. The first step in a claim for defamation is a letter before action. After that, if there is no reply or it is unconvincing, a claim can be issued easily in the King’s Bench on CE-File and served promptly. Where a victim has a low income they are exempt from court fees. Things are likely to become expensive soon for someone.

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Naming the Abusers: Ollie Horner, Charlie Herridge and Rebecca Redwood of Snayx UK

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Ollie Horner and Charlie Herridge, as well as their PR Rebecca Redwood, have been condemned by real victims of sex crime after vile opportunistic band-wagon jumping on unproven and untrue sexual abuse allegations. Now they face accountability in the form of a campaign to have them excluded from the music industry and to name and shame those who work with them.

Shamefully, the band ZERO 9:36 is allowing vile abusers Snayx to tour with them.

Shamefully, the band ZERO 9:36 is allowing vile abusers Snayx to tour with them.

Your author is a proven victim of sex crime, in an actual court not a Tumblr post. In 2016 I was stalked by members of a vile terrorist forum who created revenge pornography of me, leading to my well known lawsuit against the vile paedophile Kiwidynastia – a member of the infamous child stalking forum Kiwifarms. There is still a bounty to this day for his real identity. Dynastia, known to encourage the collection of pictures and other information about minors as young as five, had fabricated sexual images of me and accused me of sharing his own vile predilictions, as well as those of his perverted friend Joshua Conner Moon.

People who commit such crimes deserve to be punished. Equally however, there is little more vile than a false allegator or someone who wastes law enforcement time. Aside from causing huge distress to the falsely accused (who have rights too, of course) it draws resources from real victims. If a person in one place wastes the time of specially trained officers, somewhere a woman or a child may be raped with no redress. Such people deserve the harshest condemnation. The foreseeable consequence of squandering police resources is the image of a vile rapist or paedophile thrusting into a screaming victim. Even those who do not contact police but spread gossip discredit real victims and contributed to a growing toxicity in society around sex crime and sex abuse.

Such behaviour runs the gamut from making up vile sexual allegations, to simply encouraging such behaviour by jumping on bandwagons in ignorance of the truth. In my opinion and that of many others, such persons are abusers themselves, and it is in this context that I am naming as abusers Ollie Horner and Charlie Herridge of the inconsequential, ‘band’ Snayx and their PR Rebecca Redwood of Republic of Music.

On 2 November 2022 I ran a story about shocking abuse perpetrated by the organiser of the 2000 Trees festival, James Scarlett. In a statement written by James with the apparent assistance of Brendan Herbert, a partner at music law firm Laceys, Mr Scarlett did not deny the essentials of that story. A band scheduled to appear at the festival had been subject to sexual allegations. To police? Nope. On Facebook. James did not bother to hold an investigation, he just terminated the band’s appearance and opened a thread for discussion leading to wilder and ever more hysterical allegations.

Until I offered to consider providing pro-bono legal assistance to the accused band member. Within hours of my making contact, despicable James was in retreat. The post has been taken down. As far as I can tell, the allegations are wholly false. In contrast, the allegations in this article – and my last one – were put to the affected parties and have not been denied.

Continue reading →

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2000 Trees and James Scarlett to be Sued, Bankrupted?

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Will this post ruin James Scarlet's Career?

This post by the 2000 Trees Festival could ruin James Scarlet’s career forever, and leave him personally bankrupt.

I have just been asked to look at a case of what may be appalling abuse and misconduct by a music festival operator, James Scarlett. James is the organiser of the 2000 Trees music festival, which is operated by the Real Festival Company Limited. It appears that online allegations were made about abuse by a band member. The band member denies the allegations, and as far as I can determine so far has never been convicted or even invited for questioning by police. The festival, having seen the allegations, dropped him with a statement that appears to contain the false imputation that there was a meaningful investigation with an adverse outcome finding the allegations upheld. The festival then invited further comment from random members of the public. In effect, inviting gossip and speculation on the official 2000 Trees Facebook, whilst apparently deleting exculpatory posts. MHN is considering extending pro-bono support to the band. If the firm running the festival, the Real Festival Company Limited, is bankrupted that could affect its ability to pay acts – and the reputations of those associated with the firm or James. Other acts may need to consider whether they will stay on the line-up for the at-risk festival.

For those of you who do not know me, perhaps coming from 2000 Trees fansite or wherever, I am a law blogger. I have passed a Master’s Degree in Law (Legal Practice) with the solicitor’s exams (LL.M LPC) but not sought to practice as a solicitor. I do help people in court as a McKenzie Friend at the highest level – only ever for charity. For example, I was praised in Parliament helped a vulnerable woman accused of lacking mental capacity obtain a court declaration she had capacity and therefore retain her autonomy and her children (link to Parliament).

Continue reading →

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Caroline Farrow Claims Arrest Over Alleged Kiwifarms Posts

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Prominent, controversial, feminist activist Caroline Farrow has announced on Twitter (archive) that she has been arrested, her electronic devices seized and she has been questioned over posts on Kiwifarms. She denies guilt and so far has not been charged. This follows on from my article a couple of weeks ago in which MHN drew an inference that the British National Crime Agency was behind the hack of Kiwifarms and multiple suspects would be interviewed from a list based on the database. Given police have not denied it and multiple people are complaining on Twitter about being arrested and / or questioned, I am pretty confident in the story. Now might be a good time for MHN to remind readers about the UK British concept of joint enterprise. 

Caroline Farrow credibly claims to have been arrested over alleged Kiwifarms posts.

Caroline Farrow credibly claims to have been arrested over alleged Kiwifarms posts. Whilst denying posting is a defence, responding to police questions about malicious online communicationa with, “women don’t have a penis” may not be the wisest response.

Your author is not going to belabour the, “MHN told you so”, point. Instead, it is worth directing readers to British law on joint enterprise. Joint enterprise is a UK law where people engaging in a common enterprise are liable in criminal law for all actions of the entire group. The doctrine originated from the English case of R v Swindall and Osborne (1846) in which two cart drivers had a race. A bystander was killed and both blamed the other. The court held it did not matter who killed the bystander, they were both criminally liable for deciding on the joint enterprise of a cart race.

In the case of Gnango, R. v [2011] UKSC 59 a young gang member named Armel Gnango became involved in a shootout. His opponent accidentally shot and killed a woman called, Magda Pniewska. Gnango was convicted of the murder even though he did not fire the shot. When the appeals over this reached the UK Supreme Court, the court asked the following question –

“1. Permission to appeal was granted in this case in order to enable this Court to consider the following point of law, certified by the Court of Appeal as being of general public importance: “If (1) D1 and D2 voluntarily engage in fighting each other, each intending to kill or cause grievous bodily harm to the other and each foreseeing that the other has the reciprocal intention, and if (2) D1 mistakenly kills V in the course of the fight, in what circumstances, if any, is D2 guilty of the offence of murdering V?”

The court had an answer:

“65. For these reasons we would answer the certified question in the affirmative, allow this appeal and restore the respondent’s conviction for murder.”

In Britain, you can commit murder by being shot at by someone intending to kill you. Some people argue that the law is harsh and a number of NGOs and charities have sought reform. For example, Justice Gap Magazine said this in an article, “Half of women convicted under joint enterprise not even present a scene” (archive).

It is important to remember that Caroline Farrow has not been convicted and denies the posts she is accused of. She is innocent until proven guilty and has not yet been convicted with any crime.

Even so, the reason this should terrify any contributor to Kiwifarms is that, well, Continue reading →

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Police Respond on Kiwi Farms Hack Data, Citing Privacy Laws (that is, basically ‘yes’?)

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West Yorkshire Police refuse to comment on named individuals. Click for full size.

West Yorkshire Police refuse to comment on named individuals. Click for full size.

Two days ago I posted an article about suspicions that Kiwi Farms, the despicable paedophilia, terrorism and hate site run by Joshua Conner Moon, has been hacked by law enforcement. Moon (who has legally changed his name to James Gabriel Potter), was forced to take the site down and notify users of the hack. Subsequently, at least one user complained of being invited to interview by British police. So, I asked the police force concerned. I expected if it is a hoax they would say so. On the other hand, if there is an investigation and they do have the data they would give a vague answer citing privacy and data protection laws. So, MHN received a response and it is door number 2.

The police response bears some parsing. I sent them a letter found on Twitter, with the West Yorkshire Police force logo purportedly inviting a Kiwifarms poster to a formal interview, but which had the suspect’s name blanked out. I asked the following questions –

“(1) Is there any form of investigation into posts on Kiwifarms ongoing, by or in conjunction with, West Yorkshire Police?

(2) What would police say in general to persons proposing to join and / or post on illegal websites?

(3) Is the letter genuine (copy attached)?

(4) Have UK law enforcement come into possession of the user and IP data from the recent hack of Kiwifarms?

(5) Did the National Crime Agency hack Kiwifarms?”

A Kiwifarmer purportedly invited to da cop shop! The police response means it is likely real. Click for full size.

A Kiwifarmer purportedly invited to da cop shop! The police response means it is likely real. Click for full size.

I received in response, “We are unable to comment on named individuals”. However, fairly obviously no individual is named in the letter I sent them. Also, none of my questions refer to a named individual. If the letter was forged, data protection and privacy laws would not be engaged. The police would have no reason not to just say it was a forgery. However, these officers in West Yorkshire are not acting like a police force that has been forged, nor a police force that is triumphantly announcing a win. This comes across as a force that is working with partner agencies on a list of offenders and is likely to be concerned about undermining an ongoing, wider investigation. It is similar to how police act when they have obtained the members list from a drugs market darknet site, for example.

What does it mean for Kiwifarmers? Well, it basically means they are in trouble. Joshua Conner Moon / James Gabriel Potter advises users to user TOR or a no-log VPN when accessing his site (whilst simultaneously insisting it is totally legal). The problem is, that is not enough when dealing with the FBI or worse, the British equivalent being the Continue reading →

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Did the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) Hack Kiwi Farms? (Thumbs up if they did)

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A Kiwifarmer purportedly invited to da cop shop!

A Kiwifarmer purportedly invited to da cop shop! Click for full size.

Not so long ago I saw a very odd post on Twitter about the currently down, terrorism, paedophilia and stalking site Kiwifarms. An image had been shared in a Kiwi Farms Telegram chatroom, and then re-posted to Twitter where I saw it. It was a purportedly a letter from West Yorkshire Police to a suspect inviting them to a PACE interview (a police interview under caution) about posts on Kiwi Farms. The letter appeared real. The difficulty is, how could a police force obtain the IP address of a poster? After some thought, I realised that all but one of the mechanisms I could think of involved hacking or at least joining Kiwi Farms. Under recent laws, British police can hack websites – which got me thinking about the timing of the recent hack in which the site’s data was deleted.

If the letter inset is real, police must not only know that the user visited Kiwifarms, but have specific evidence that they posted there. After considering the ways to do it, I thought of three mechanisms police could obtain this. Each of these has variations. Firstly, they could intercept traffic from a suspect’s address with a warrant. However, the site is protected by SSL so a simple network interception could only show that the user viewed Kiwifarms, not which part of the site and not what (if anything) they posted. It could not tell if they were logged on nor to which user.

To intercept the content of SSL traffic without detection would require a man-in-the-middle attack performed with a certificate generated with a root key trusted by Windows / Linux / MacOS / Android. It is well known that products exist for the security services for precisely that purpose (archive), so this is possible. With the right key, the security services could just run off their own trusted certificates on the fly. However, that would imply an ongoing warrant.

An alternative way to do it would be to sign up on Kiwifarms then DM a user suspected to be a British person a link which trapped their IP address. This might require authorisation under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA).

Finally, it occurred to me that the police could simply hack Kiwifarms. Under UK law, this could be legal. Last year, the UK passed the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act 2021. This amended RIPA to literally let the police and security services commit crimes, with no limitations on the type of crime whatsoever, including murder, torture and rape. Hacking is small beer – theoretically the police could blow up the data centre. However, the crimes must be authorised under s29B and must be proportionate. The Human Rights Act 1998 also still applies. Therefore, it is doubtful a murder could be authorised unless, for example, many other lives would be saved.

Hacking Kiwifarms, intercepting all their traffic, stealing all the users’ IP addresses and installing Remote Administration Tools (RATs) on their devices as well as Network Investigation Tools (NITs) then deleting all the content would be a far easier sell. Kiwifarms has organised terrorist activity with near impunity for years. Multiple hosts have banned it for hosting child pornography. Its owner is in a foreign state and the main country involved, the United States, is not helpful. Kiwifarms generates lots of crimes in the jurisdiction, including harassment and terrorism. The criminality was escalating at the time the hack began.

If I was a judge, or senior police officer, I simply cannot see much in the way of objection to granting a Criminal Conduct Authorisation to take it down. It is a stalking and terrorism site, clearly organised crime, it has negligible legitimate purposes. Hacking it and deleting all the data, combined with psyops, would create negligible collateral damage to non-perpetrators. I would see an authorisation for hacking as superior to an authorisation for a DDOS attack for that reason.

Which raises questions about the nature of the Twitter account claiming responsibility, @OpSyndicate42, as well as its mockery of the FBI – good natured ribbing from their rivals and partners from across the pond? If the NCA was sharing Kiwifarms user IP addresses with local UK police forces, it would explain their comments about the site users, “dropping like flies”. MHN has put in an inquiry to West Yorkshire Police about the issue to try to verify if the letter is genuine. This article will be updated if a reply is received.

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