Rutgers Student Guilty on Child Porn

19 year old Rutgers University student Wang Hongyu was arrested in January 2012, and was charged with endangering welfare of a child and obstruction.

Police tracked the source of a child pornography image they downloaded. The IP belongs to a computer on campus at Rutgers University, later identified to be Wang's computer.

Police found numerous child porn pictures on Wang's computer.

Wang pled guilty last week. He is facing 3-5 years of jail time, to be sentenced in January.

New Jersey Police did a good job to catch a sex offender. However, based on the description of media coverage, the handling of the case left many unanswered questions. Wang's name sounds coming from a lower level family in China, and the fact that he lives with his parents in an apartment near campus suggests the family might not have afforded a good lawyer.

• Experts had demonstrated using IP to identify a computer was unreliable and often error-prone. However, it appeared that the IT Department of the Rutgers University did not provide an opportunity for Wang to review or squat the subpoena or police request for this information.
• When detective found Wang on campus, he agreed to ride with the detective to his parents' home to inspect the computer in question. Obviously, the detective did not have a search warrant, nor an arrest warrant. Wang did not have to go with the detective. Further, he did not have to reveal the whereabouts of the computer.

  In China, people are brainwashed to unconditionally cooperate with the authorities. Wang came to the US in a late age. It is highly possible that he believed he must help the police to criminalize himself, as the Chinese rule mandates.

• In the charging document, police said Wang had two strong magnets in both of his shoes, and attempted to use them to wipe out the hard drives in his computer after he led the detective to his parents's apartment.

  This accusation sounds very fishy to any IT professional working in the field. The Seagull consulted a magnetic disk drive expert, who confirmed that the scheme as described would not work.

If a Kennedy can walk away from murdering a 15 year old girl on an excuse of having bad lawyers, Wang might also have his day in a court with common sense.