Sorry for bumping this old thread, but what I have to say is relevant.
I was searching for movies in another language on Fopnu and I accidentally found some illegal files. I didn't download anything. I entered their IP in a WHOIS service and emailed them to let them know that one of their customers was distributing CP. Sometimes I report directly to the ISP and other times I report to the cybertip site if it is an IP from the United States. At first, I thought they were an ISP when I sent that email, but they weren't. I have verifiable proof that at least one law enforcement agency is monitoring Fopnu users that attempt to download CP. The law enforcement agency is called Kripos and they are in Norway. They run multiple instances of Fopnu (or their own custom implementation) on port 6960. I welcome you to verify this for yourself but don't download anything.
I don't know if the files are real but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they were because I saw multiple users sharing the same file. This isn't the first time, a law enforcement agency has done something like this. Remember the time when the FBI continued to operate an illegal deepweb site after the original operators were arrested? They used a JavaScript vulnerability in an old version of Tor Browser and did this just so they could arrest visitors. Anyways, the point I'm making with this is they continued to distribute it even when they could've stopped it and shutdown the site. I think the law enforcement agencies that do this are just as bad as the predators themselves. Instead of distributing it themselves they should just track down the IPs of people who already upload it. (I'm not saying they don't already do this.) Even if this causes some of them to be arrested, I don't think an LEA distributing it themselves makes it right or justifiable. This is why I am calling out Kripos and letting people know about this.
A few questions/ideas for the Fopnu developers.
1) Will you add the ability to hide search results from blocked users? If I block a user, I shouldn't be seeing any of the files they're sharing. One more idea I have is to let people create a file name filter list using regex. I understand that how people use Fopnu is not your responsibility but at least please consider this idea because it's disgusting and I don't want to see it. I'm not explicitly searching for it but sometimes it still manages to shows up.
2) Have you ever been asked by LEA to provide details on the Fopnu protocol? If so, did you?
For transparency, here is a copy of one of the first email I sent.
Hello.
Your customer is using P2P software to distribute child pornography. Here is their information and a screenshot with a list of file names. The screenshot does not contain any thumbnails or preview.
IP: 45.88.117.210
Port: 6960
Time: 5:13 (UTC)
Thank you.
For transparency, here is a copy of the last email I sent. I haven't heard back from them and I don't expect to.
Hello.
Please disregard my previous emails. I didn't realize that you(Kripos) are a law enforcement agency in Norway. I thought I was sending my abuse report about CP to an ISP. The IP WHOIS service I used made me think you were an ISP. I am sorry for any inconvenience I may have caused. It was my fault for not double checking this first.
I have a few questions I would like to ask, if you don't mind, and if you are able to answer.
1) Are you using an in-house/custom implementation of Fopnu? My reason for suspecting this is because I thought it was odd that the port number(6960) was the same on all of those IPs.
2) If you are using an unofficial client, how much of the Fopnu protocol did you implement? Did the Fopnu developers provide you documentation about the protocol or did your team have to reverse engineer it yourself?
I'm asking these questions because I attempted to reverse engineer the protocol myself but the encryption made it too difficult for me and I gave up. If it wasn't encrypted, I probably would've been able to.
I would appreciate hearing back from someone, but I understand if you cannot talk about this.
Thank you.