Trump DOJ inadvertently opens up floodgates to online piracy with Epstein dump
It appears President Donald Trump's Department of Justice didn't do the "bare minimum" to protect the sensitive data of Jeffrey Epstein's victims in its latest document dump, according to one analyst.
Last week, the Trump administration released more than 3 million new files related to the FBI's investigation of the convicted sex criminal. Some of the files raised significant questions about Trump's ties to Epstein, as well as Epstein's relationships with some of the world's wealthiest and most powerful people.
That release also appeared to be a source for a slew of digital piracy, according to a new article by Tony Ho Tran, a senior writer for Slate.
"Yes, using the DOJ’s website, users are pilfering software and documents from the Epstein files," Tran wrote. "Among other things, they’re able to activate software, download e-books, and pirate copyright reference manuals directly from what was dropped last week. While absurd, it’s a revealing illustration of how the department mishandled this release—and resulted in far more serious harm to Epstein’s victims along the way."
"It’s silly and a bit absurd, but anyone who understood the scope of what was being released ought to have seen this coming," he continued. "Remember: These are millions of documents spanning roughly 30 years. The scale of the latest release, which also happens to be the biggest, is immense. It is piling a mountain on top of another mountain."
"Indeed, this DOJ didn’t even do the bare minimum of scanning for material in the trove that should not have been made public," he added.