Getting raided and v& On 31 May 2017, the Belgian regional police conducted a search and seizure at my dorm. Four police officers stormed into my room, cuffed me, and started opening my drawers and closets. I was told a similar search was being conducted at my parents' home at the same time. They assumed I knew why this was going on, and when I said I did not, I was served a search warrant. An investigating judge had ordered an investigation and search under the suspicion of possession and distribution of "child pornography". After being confused for a second, I realised someone must have abused one of my Pomf clones (file hosting services) by uploading and distributing child abuse material. They confiscated nearly all my electronics (including desktop computers, laptops, phones, tablet, old hard drives, etc.), and also my onaholes (including packaging) and butt plug (no homo). I was brought to the police station and questioned, and they told me that, indeed, child abuse material had been found on one of my Pomf clones (https://cocaine.ninja), and had been reported to them by INTERPOL (wew). I was told that my onaholes (fleshlight-like sex toys I had in my dorm room) and hentai might be illegal under a new Belgian law (which took effect in 2016, I believe).

Receiving a summons and getting a court date Nothing much happened until 4 December 2017, when I was summoned for a 'risk assessment' by a psychologist, to determine how likely it would be that I would become a repeat offender (wtf, I hadn't even been *charged* with anything at that point). Because, well, I'm not a pedophile, the risk for me to 'possess and/or distribute child pornography' in the future was deemed low. Some time in January, after asking and being ignored repeatedly, the police finally agreed to return my phone and some small items (including my butt plug, lmao) to me, which they did. They did not give me my onaholes or any of my other electronics back. In early April, I was served a summons (original) and was formally charged with the following: Distribution of child pornography, of three child pornographic videos [real child pornography uploaded by an anonymous user], Possession of child pornography, for child pornographic drawings [hentai], Possession of child pornography, for sex toys in the shape of childlike genitalia [onaholes, fleshlight-like sex toys].

I was following the law I've been running cocaine.ninja, a file hosting site similar to Dropbox, Google Drive, or Imgur, since 2016. Similar to these sites, due to the sheer amount of user uploads and due to privacy concerns, it's impossible to manually check all uploaded files for malicious or illegal content. While malware or phishing pages can often be defeated with automated scanning, child abuse material is a harder issue to tackle. These services, including mine, largely rely on users and third-party organisations like the IWF (Internet Watch Foundation) to find and report this abuse to the service provider so they can remove it in a timely manner. I have contacted the IWF in the past to see if they can perhaps work something out so smaller service providers like me can make use of their services (e.g. hash lists of child sexual abuse material to detect and remove abusive content earlier), which was discussed by their Directors and might hopefully become a reality at some point in the future. Not unlike other service providers, I make detailed reports of received abuse reports and my actions to resolve them available publicly on my transparency page. Also, what. Aside from the distribution charge, they also charged me with possession of child pornography for having 2d porn and onaholes (example, censored because I don't need another distribution charge). I was given a court date, 10 April 2018, that didn't give me much time to prepare, especially because I didn't have a lawyer yet at that point. I quickly found a lawyer, I told her my story, and she asked the court for a continuance. She told me that she would ask for a short continuance (less than two months), but the court decided to postpone my case to early February 2019.

And now I could use some help... My lawyer estimates the case will cost me at least €2500, and asked for a €650 retainer (due in a little over two weeks). This is a lot of money for me, I'm a full-time university student and while I do sometimes do a little work for some extra money, I don't have an actual job. I already cut down on hosting costs, but I've put a lot of time and money (for me) into providing services for the community, e.g. file hosting and an IRC server, all with a focus on freedom of speech, privacy, and being fun. If you have used my services personally, or if you simply care about free speech and want to support a small service provider not go to jail, I would be very grateful for any financial support you could give me. You can help me out by donating any amount: via my PayPal pool,

via Bitcoin (1FBME9hmQ4T1JcqosD5c3eQ3JCAv9YyqZh), or

via GoFundMe.