Can evidence obtained from a stolen/hacked website database be used in court?

[xpdc]

Right now I am currently worried whether the following has any chance of getting me into legal troubles. To summarize the situation there were a few internet forums myself and plenty of other people posted on, mostly related to illegal activities and piracy. Now these forums got hacked and illegally broken into, the databases of the sites that contained the emails, ip addresses ,private messages , and other information were stolen from the site. They contained plenty of evidence that could easily prove who the massive copyright infringers were.

My question is, if this evidence and information was to be leaked to antipiracy companies, copyright holders, and/or law enforcement, would the evidence from these hacked and stolen website databases be able to be used against us, or would the evidence be considered to be illegally obtained and null? The servers of one of these sites was located in the USA, and the others were in various foreign offshore countries. I tried to research this topic myself but couldn't find any situation that was very similar to this except a few that were unclear but stated the evidence was invalid. I thought the best place to get a decent accurate answer was to post here.

 

[Proserpina]

All I have, is "Oh, the irony!"

 

[cbg]

That's all I've got, too.

 

[mightymoose]

I wouldn't worry about it. Regardless of what you claimed to have done on the forums it would still have to be proven that you actually did it. Evidence is likely lacking.

 

[shrinkmaster]

Your concerned about forum posts yet here you are posting about the issue on another forum?

 

[army judge]

Some people don't learn, or some people love attention.


Sent from my iPad3 using Tapatalk HD

 

[disagreeable]

Generally speaking. it depends on who hacked them. I know of several professional government hackers. Their jobs vary. One does it as a regular job. The other is a freelance professional, who hacks globally on a contract basis. The info they obtain is turned over to the related gov't agency who uses it to achieve whatever objective they were pursuing.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

My question is, if this evidence and information was to be leaked to antipiracy companies, copyright holders, and/or law enforcement, would the evidence from these hacked and stolen website databases be able to be used against us, or would the evidence be considered to be illegally obtained and null? The servers of one of these sites was located in the USA, and the others were in various foreign offshore countries. I tried to research this topic myself but couldn't find any situation that was very similar to this except a few that were unclear but stated the evidence was invalid. I thought the best place to get a decent accurate answer was to post here.

I think that the reliability of the evidence would be suspect, at best, if even admitted (and that is another hurdle to jump as a prerequisite). This evidence was obtained not even by law enforcement pursuant to a warrant and trained in the art of preserving evidence but by admitted hackers. So used in court, probably not. Used by companies to compile evidence of wrongdoing after the fact - maybe. What that means is that you should be put on notice that somebody might now be watching and scrutinizing your actions and those on the list.

 

[shrinkmaster]

I have during the course of my work gathered info for retailers using message boards (which is why I often warn users about posting too much info). The evidence I gather is often very important to a successful prosecution or HR action by the retailer. However it is gathered in a legal manner. This info has not been and I suspect would not be admissible in court due to means in which it was collected. However this might not apply to a termination or HR action

 

[army judge]

We can't predict what anyone, especially the AUTHORITIES, will do.

That said, always ERR on the side of caution.