They have updated the article. Looks like the FBI only operated the sites for a day or two before shutting them down: ... Joseph Cox, a journalist, pointed out in a Medium post on Saturday that the “network investigative technique” (NIT) data was collected between August 3 and August 5, 2013 against the users of the child porn sites. As of August 4, all of the sites on Freedom Hosting began showing a fake error message to their users, but were actually deploying this NIT as a way to unmask users.UPDATE Sunday 12:41pm ET: We have clarified our original story and headline to more clearly and accurately reflect the fact that while the FBI did take over the 23 child porn sites in question, unlike the Playpen case, the agency does not appear to have actually operated them, or allowed them to continue to operate.