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Last Modified on Sep 10, 2025
Law enforcement agencies in New Jersey including those in Flemington in Hunterdon County and Somerville in Somerset County are using an investigative software developed by the University of Massachusetts Amherst to locate individuals using peer-to-peer network (P2P) to download child porn or child sexual abuse material.
Police use the Amherst software to locate peer-to-peer networks that are uploading child porn. They search the local peer-to-peer networks looking for files that match known child pornography signature files. Police in New Jersey have used at least three versions: Round Up eMule 1.13, Round Up Torrential Downpour Receptor 1.62 and Round Up Torrential Downpour 1.47. Prosecutors will not provide a copy of the software itself. They claim it is licensed/copyrighted by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and they are not authorized to release the program.
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A peer-to-peer network works as follows. If the user wants to download a file through the peer-to-peer network, then the download will be handled in this way:
- If the peer-to-peer software is not already installed, then the user first has to install the peer-to-peer software on his computer.
- This creates a virtual network of peer-to-peer application users.
- The user then downloads the file, which is received in bits that come from multiple computers in the network that already have that file.
- The data is also sent from the user’s computer to other computers in the network that ask for the data that exist on the user’s computer. This is uploading and the law of New Jersey considers it as distribution.
Moreover, under New Jersey criminal law, if a person installs a peer-to-peer program and does not select the option that prevents his computer from uploading child pornography, he is guilty of distribution even if he didn’t know the computer was uploading child pornography.
See New Jersey Statutes annotated N.J.S.A. 2C:24-4a.
Simply stated, anyone using the network to download child pornography is also uploading the child pornography they have on their computer. Law enforcement uses their technology to locate individuals uploading (or distributing) child porn. Ultimately, they will obtain a search warrant and seize all that person’s electronic devices, i.e. cell phone, laptop, iPad etc.
Individuals are charged both criminally for uploading the child porn that was made available to law enforcement and for possessing the child pornography located on their electronic devices. To properly defend yourself you need the service of an experienced child pornography attorney such as James Wronko.
Mr. Wronko has experience in litigating motions to obtain the program software by Court Order. Prosecuting agencies will not release the material and a case may be dismissed if the court orders its production.
As explained in the attached article, cases nationwide have been dismissed for this and other reasons related to the content of items seized from a computer.
Source: ProPublica
https://share.google/TUwFvmmlpG2D3yB2z
In New Jersey, there is no reported case opinion discussing when a prosecutor must make the underlying software available to a criminal defense attorney.
In other State and Federal Courts, discovery motions to obtain the underlying software have occasionally been successful although most of the time they are denied. An example of a successful motion is United States v. Budziak, 697 F. 3d 1105 (9th Cir. 2012). Also, United States v. Owens, 18F. 4th 928 (7th Cir. 2021) and United States v. Clark, 979 F. 3d 82 (2d Cir. 2020) explain how Courts decide if the software should be released to a defense attorney.
In order to be successful, a defendant must hire an experienced expert and attorney to make the proper legal argument.
New Jersey Courts have yet to decide whether the University of Massachusetts Amherst software is reliable and can be admitted in a Court proceeding. This issue is very complicated and in order to successfully oppose the software’s admission, several technical experts and an expert attorney are needed. New Mexico has held the software is reliable and in State v. Morrill, No. A-1-CA-36490 (Court of Appeals for the State of New Mexico, 2019) the legal process involved is discussed.
