Law enforcement tracks child pornography distributor to hotel WiFi networks across the country using his GUID

Using public WiFi networks such as those in hotels can make it much more difficult to catch criminals in the act such as those downloading child pornography. As one defendant recently learned, however, police are capable of using old-fashioned investigative work when it comes to cyber cases.

In United States v. Pirosko, No. 5:12CR327 (N.D. Ohio 2013), an investigator tracked the sharing of child pornography to a hotel in Nebraska. The same computer (as determined by the GUID) connected to the Internet using the hotel's IP address five nights in a row. The defendant was the only person staying at the hotel for all five of those nights.

Over the next three months, the same GUID was found to be sharing or downloading child pornography in five other hotels around the country. After connecting the defendant's travel patterns to the GUID connections, a search warrant was obtained, and the defendant's computer was seized.

Prior to trial, the defendant argued that probable cause did not exist to obtain the search warrant, but the court held otherwise.

As pointed out by the Government, the affidavit established that Defendant, a registered sex offender from Mississippi, was a guest at hotels in Nebraska, Missouri, New Jersey, Utah and Ohio over a three-month period. During his stays, Defendant connected to the same peer-topeer network, used the same software, and downloaded images of child pornography from a computer at each of these hotels.

Further, even if probable cause did not exist, the court found that law enforcement had executed the warrant in good faith.