Josh Duggar's internet network was so insecure someone could have hijacked his computer to remotely watch child porn in a so-called 'hit and run attack', a court heard.
Michele Bush, a computer forensics expert giving evidence for the defense, told jurors today that the internet at Wholesale Motorcars was on a low security setting called 'universal plug and play'.
The setup allowed multiple devices to seamlessly establish internet connections but it also left it 'extremely vulnerable' to what she described as a 'hit and run' attack.
She described a scenario whereby a remote user, or hacker, could potentially log on, do something nefarious, then quickly log off again without the account holder ever knowing.
Likening Duggar's network to a house, she said: 'All of its doors are unlocked. Anyone can come in and they can do what they want.'
Josh Duggar, 33, and wife Anna arrive at court Tuesday for day five of proceedings in his child porn trial in Fayetteville, Arkansas
Computer forensics expert and defense witness Michele Bush testified that the internet at Josh Duggar's car dealership was on a low security setting which made it vulnerable to hackers
Duggar family patriarch Jim Bob Duggar was seen arriving at his son's trial on Tuesday morning
Investigators traced child porn images to the IP address to Duggar's now-defunct used car dealership, Wholesale Motorcars, in Springdale, and seized his office HP desktop and iPhone in April
Bush disagreed with the government's case that a desktop could not be rebooted remotely.
She also told jurors she felt it was a 'very viable possibility' that someone had accessed the Linux side of the computer remotely to download porn because it had been watched in streaming mode then quickly deleted.
However, without having the internet router – which the trial has heard the FBI never seized – and a definite list of machines that linked to it, she said it was impossible to say for certain who streamed the vile material and where they did so.
'If you had had the router would it answer those questions,' she was asked by defense attorney Justin Gelfand.
Bush replied: 'It would certainly give me a lot more clarity.
Jim Bob Duggar attended proceedings Tuesday, the first time he has been present at the John Paul Hammerschmidt courthouse since his eldest son’s trial began a week ago.
Jim Bob was subpoenaed to give evidence at a pre-trial hearing but was ditched as a possible witness after insisting on the stand that he could barely remember anything about the molestation scandal that led to his family’s reality show, 19 Kids and Counting, being canceled in 2015.
The Duggar patriarch kept a low profile Tuesday, ducking behind a concrete pillar when a photographer tried to take his photo outside the federal court building in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
He quietly slipped into the trial room and sat in the public gallery, several rows behind the rest of his family and Josh’s wife Anna, nodding but not responding when asked by reporters how he was doing.
With Jim Bob looking on, Bush told jurors she disagreed with the FBI’s insistence that they were able to ‘successfully download’ a complete zip folder of child pornography from Josh Duggar’s work computer, insisting that only 13 of 66 ‘pieces’ had been procured by law enforcement.
She also disputed whether the HP’s user had watched or even downloaded much of the vile material reeled off by prosecutors, pointing out that while she found torrent files for videos including Daisy’s Destruction and Play Tot Sweetie, those did not contain porn.
Likening torrent files to a ‘library index card’, Bush said they merely contained the relevant data to potentially help a program like uTorrent fetch the actual material over the dark web.
Pushed to explain what evidence she had to back up her remote hacker theory, Bush said it was impossible to prove either way without the router or basic system logs that had been overwritten long before the government provided her with a forensic copy of the HP desktop.
‘The information to make that conclusion was not available to me. It does not exist,’ she told the court. But she added: ‘It seems very probable because of the combination of everything.’
Bush was further asked about an photo retrieved from a back-up copy of Duggar’s old iPhone 8 that appeared to be taken by someone sat at the HP computer on May 14, 2019 the day cops remotely detected child porn on it.
The camera was aimed at the screen as it played a YouTube video about repairing a camshaft. Prosecutors allege that a faint reflection of a baseball cap saying ‘Wholesale Motors’ can be seen in the monitor.
That same day they retrieved another image of Duggar taking a selfie while shopping with his wife and wearing a similar Wholesale Motorcars hat.
Asked if that placed Duggar behind the HP computer when the child porn was harvested rather than some shadowy Russian hacker, Bush replied: ‘It’s a company hat. I can’t say if it’s Mr Duggar.’
Earlier in Monday's proceedings, a lifelong 'best friend' of the Duggar family broke down in court as she described how Josh Duggar confessed in his teens to molesting four of his sisters during bible time and while they slept.
Bobye Holt told the disgraced reality star's child pornography trial how Jim Bob Duggar asked her and her husband Jim Holt, a former Arkansas state senator, to urgently come over to their house on March 30, 2003.
Holt, a mother-of-11, said Jim and Jimbob had been best friends since school and the two families were 'very best friends' who would spend every day together.
When they convened for their 'emergency' meeting, Holt's eldest daughter was going on chaperoned dates with Josh Duggar and the two families hoped they would eventually marry.
Duggar family friend Bobye Holt (right) and her husband Jim Holt, a former Arkansas state senator, recalled being called over to the Duggar household for an 'emergency meeting' about Josh on March 30, 2003, in emotional testimony Monday
Bobye (left), a mother-of-11, said her husband Jim (left) and Duggar's father Jim Bob (right) had been best friends since school and that the two families were very close
'They took us to their bedroom and Josh was sitting on the floor,' she told a federal courthouse in Fayetteville, Arkansas, her voice trembling.
Duggar, who was 15 at the time, proceeded to tell the stunned Holts that he had sexually assaulted one of his sisters, referred to only as Jane Doe 4, earlier that day.
Bobye Holt broke down Monday as she took the witness stand and described how Duggar confessed to molesting his sisters in 2003
'He had Jane Doe 4 on his lap during bible time and he touched her private area, her breast area and her bottom area,' said Holt, adding that the sister in question was five when the abuse happened.
'He ended up confessing that, on and off, since he was 12 years old, he would touch Jane Doe 1, Jane Doe 2 and Jane Doe 3.
'He said he touched their breast area, their private area, on top of their clothes, sometimes under, when they were sleeping.'
Holt told jurors that her daughter's courtship with Josh Duggar was immediately 'called off' and Josh was taken by her husband and Jim Bob
