From there, a subpoena to Comcast yielded his real name and address. Pewter was unmasked last year as Jay Michaud, a 62-year-old public schools administrator in Vancouver, Wash.
With a second warrant, agents searched the suspect’s home and found a thumb drive that allegedly contained multiple images of children engaged in sex acts. Last July, Michaud was arrested and charged with possession of child pornography. Michaud’s is the lead case in a sweeping national investigation into child porn on what is known as the dark Web, a universe of sites that are off Google’s radar where users can operate with anonymity.Īs criminals become more savvy about using technology such as Tor to hide their tracks, investigators are turning to hacking tools to thwart them.
