Community archive

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Child pornography.

0 helpful
15 replies

by jardinier

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

Recently in Australia the police have busted a huge ring of people who are accessing or
have in their possession child pornography. One person had 350,000 images, and some thousands of videos.
Several hundred people have been charged, including policemen, school teachers and clergyman.
Already six of these accused persons have committed suicide.

My question is, to all you IT pros, just how easy/difficult is it to access this kind of material?

An experimental search gave the following results, using the key words listed:

kiddy porn: 38,600 websites
nude children: 1,740,000 websites
child sex: 4,000,000 websites
children f**k: 366,000 websites

The first twenty entries on each of these searches were predominantly discussing the undesirable nature of the subject.

But, using the key words "children f**k," although 366,000 websites were indicated, after the first 20, the search engine (Google) gave the message: "There are no matches for your search criteria."

Well this would indicate to me that censorship of this type of material is built into the search engines, or perhaps comes from the ISP.

As I propose to compile an article on this subject, I would appreciate any information anyone can give as to how this type of material is accessed.

From the censorship of one search, it would suggest that these websites are only learnt by word of mouth, to some inner circle of paedophiles.

15 replies

by hal 9000

I do understand from a few court cases that I've seen reported that most of this material is circulated within a group to each member from other members who gather a lot of this type of material themselves.

With the advent of digital cameras and the ability of the new crop of Digital phones capable of taking pictures a lot of this type of stuff is easily obtainable by those involved. Well the still pictures at least.

Recently here in Qld there was a Policeman charged with having some of this stuff and in his defense he claimed that he was researching the topic as part of his job was to give talks to school kids on this subject. Maybe it was all innocently gathered but that tends to point to the fact that some of this is easily available off the net at some places.

However here in AU the ISP's are required to report any of this type of material being downloaded to the Federal Police who then have to investigate. As this is enshrined in Legislation there are a few loop holes while the ISP's have to report this activity they have no privilege and can be sued by the offender for breaching the Privacy Laws here.

But as my only real knowledge comes from reported court cases I really wouldn't know all that much. There was only one case that I have first hand knowledge of where a PHD Student who was writing a thesis on Government accidental logged onto a Kiddy Porn site and then immediately logged off he thought that he had made a typo so retried to log onto what he thought was a foreign Government site and got the same site again. He had the Feds there within 2 weeks and they seized all of his computer equipment and effectively stole all of his research for what amounted to less than a 1 minute mistake. Unfortunately while fast to act initially they are slow to investigate and eventually after a period of about 30 months this person was eventually cleared of any wrong doing but by then he had dropped out of Uni, had his Supervising Professor withdraw his services and generally put him into a position where he could do nothing but walk away from his studies, to which he has not returned.

I have heard of some Kiddy porn computer games but never actually seen any description of them again from reported court cases. As to where these things are obtained I have no idea but I seem to remember Pet Townsend of the "WHO" being charged with similar offense and at the time it was common knowledge that he was attempting to write a book for children to protect them from the sexual predators that frequent the Web.

Actually a long time ago I was called into a business that was being hit with a lot of "SPAM" supposedly about Kiddy Porn and while I'm supposed to report cases like this to the Police I didn't see the need as when I arrived there I found the Police there taking copies of all the offending e-mails. I never actually saw any of the content and I certainly was not interested in actually opening any of the e-mails all I ended up doing was putting in place a Spam Filter and blocked these from being accepted as well as adding all of the ones that they currently had to the "Blocked Senders List" on the mail server. I also had the rejected ones redirected to the Police Office who deals with these offenses but that was a very long time ago now and I have not seen anything like that for a very long time.

Col

by sleepin'dawg

There is something sadly wrong with society when this sort of thing becomes so prevalent. The worst cases have been reported in Belgium where children have been murdered. You have to wonder what is motivating these people. I do not like the idea of censorship but how is this to be stopped or at least controlled??? Perhaps stiffer sentences and fines from the courts would be a start???? :( Anything involving the exploitation and abuse of children should receive the harshest of punishments. I think sentences in the minimal 10 year range without parol would be a good starting point as well as the stripping of at least half their assets by way of fines. When appeals to morality fail; then perhaps financial penalties might penetrate their sick and twisted minds. There will be those who say that the families of the perpetrators would be punished by this but perhaps they might keep an eye out for their errant family members and put a stop to the problem before it starts. I don't know what the answers are or if there are any but these are just a few of my thoughts on the matter.

by hal 9000

I only wish I actually knew a bit more about the subject but without needing to go into details of the actual content.

At this point in time I believe that the only way to gather data on things like this is to actually look for it. Well that just doesn't appeal to me in the slightest, personally I would prefer to be hung by my thumbs for days at a time rather than look for this type of thing.

While over here we have to report any Kiddy porn that we run across on computers that we are repairing I just do not get the time to look all that far into what is on a HDD. Then where exactly do you draw the line? I remember a case where a pharmacist was prosecuted for having a photo of his child naked on the wall of his shop. Apparently a Social Worker walked in and objected to the exploitation of the little girl who was just at the stage of sitting up. The whole thing feel to bits when it was revealed that the child in question was a boy not a girl and it was nothing more than a proud fathers attempt to show off his child. Admittedly the child was naked but the photo was taken in such a way that it was impossible to tell the sex of the child.

I'm currently a lot closer to 50 that I care to think about and there are numerous photos of me as a infant naked as well as all my brothers and sister but again you can not tell the sex of the child from the photo it is only because you know who the photo is of that you can tell the sex. Now to me this isn't child pornography of any kind but maybe I'm so out of touch that I really do not know.

But with the advent of digital cameras I'm willing to bet that there are far more of these type of photos around than there where previously. Currently the law here is that if a normal person was to find it offensive you have to report it. Well to me that is more than a bit vague as I really do not know what the average person would find offensive now. Granted anything that was putting the child in a comprising position I would not hesitate to report but naked baby shots of the children in a bath or on a rug I wouldn't worry about.

While I do not know if I'm right any more (I do at least know that it was acceptable when I was a baby and when my children where babies. But since then I have attended lectures at my children's schools on this subject and found them unreasonable. For instance a very young female Social Worker insisted that if I changed my infant daughters dirty diaper "I think that is what nappies are called in the US" I would be sexually molesting her but if I didn't change it I would be neglecting her. The whole thing seems a lot more than silly to me and my response was that if that female Social Worker got her jollies from changing dirty nappies she needed help and quickly! While it was never high on my list of priories and I did avoid it at every chance possible I am willing to admit that on there are occasion I did change my daughters dirty nappy but only under protest.

However on the other side of the coin when I asked what about females changing infant male dirty nappies I was told that women never do that type of thing. I couldn't resist myself and I just had to bring up a recent case where a woman of a 13 year old child allowed his friends to view porno videos and then have sex with her. She got 12 months jail and treatment, but if it had of been a male his feet would never have touched the ground and the key would have been thrown away. Quite rightly too I might add but I do not understand the differences between men and women in cases like this I think that it is Hypocritical and everyone who indulges in this type of thing should be treated equally.

Col

by rands69

integrity of those whose job it is to police those things. Do you take a person's life away who has two or three thumbs.db files buried in their hard drive ?? but who has never abused anyone in their whole life, is not selling anything ...has not bought anything and didn't even know they were there even if he could make out what was on the thumb? No ...you don't unfortunately those people are being treated as harshly as the guy filming marketing and producing this stuff ... 90% of the CP on the net is law enforcement... a better way to solve the problem may be to just instruct law enforcement to take all of theirs off the net and to stop trying to create the next era's wave of criminals out of non criminals. They claim to want to dry up the supply by taking the money out of it for the supplier and the laws are written focusing on the abuse that would be inherent in producing this material (hence the names of the laws in Oregon all starting with the term "encouraging" child sex abuse) the theory being that the demand creates the supply ...if that were true then they wouldn't have to bait people into these websites ...unfortunately all of the data would seem to say that the supply has created the demand (or curiosity I think is a better term to describe alot of that fleeting interest that would see a person clicking on one of those links) I would be interested to see if their was still a "problem" if all of the Law enforcement people took all of their content down and stopped baiting non criminals into even thinking about committing that crime.

by delbertpgh

Kiddie porn enthusiasts are more hated than crack dealers. The police are happy to pounce on anyone they find who may be associated with this stuff, and the newspapers love to print anything they hear.

I'm pretty much in complete agreement with this, because I think that involving kids in sex is the biggest betrayal an adult can commit, against anybody. However, in an environment where kiddy porn is the ultimate feels-so-good-to-hate target, it's dangerous to try to do any first-hand investigation. Some of the people you read about being hauled to justice, their reputations and family life smashed, are caught by sting operations. Try to do "research", you might get stung, too. I don't really have a big urge to find out how sick people are, and with the risks, I don't want to get within a mile of it.

If you have a compelling need to find out about this, then work up a book proposal, and notify the FBI or the RCMP or whoever about what you're up to before you start, and share everything you discover as you go along. You're likely to find out a lot about police procedure, whether as an information resource or as a suspect. Or both.

by hal 9000

But the main reason I would like to know a little more is the laws that we work under here. I really not the slightest bit interested in the subject matter but as an IT guy I'm supposed to report things that I may run across in my trade. What gets me is just how very vague the guide lines actually are. Actually the whole thing seems to be madness to me as if I was to find any real Kiddy Porn I wouldn't for a single second consider what I should do.

But when I have contact with the Social Workers who are supposed to guide us as to what exactly constitutes Kiddy Porn they all seem to tell different stories. A 2 week old baby pictured in a bath is considered by some to be porn and others say it's perfectly OK! The whole thing just leaves me cold honestly!

But to be fair on the one occasion where I have been involved in anything remotely related to this topic I did work with the police and did everything that they asked and also suggested a few more things for them to try and I really do not even know what the actual content was only the headings on the spam mail which seemed pretty graphic but then again I never really trust them either too much. I can remember one spam mail heading that was something like "Tough Blond Chicks" and when you opened the hyperlink there was a photo of 2 chickens dressed in leather outfits all of which was naturally CGI.

While I would never consider that anyone who actually practices in this area deserves a single bit of "Well I don't know what this is about so I'll just turn a blind eye this time!" I've also seen the other side where unsolicited spam just arrives and I really find it hard to believe that all the people in a company who was receiving this trash where involved in any of this at all particularly when I found the Police there when I arrived. Seems that the company involved where far more upset than anyone else about what they where receiving.

But it is the thing with Baby photo's where I find problems particularly with the Law that I have to work under which just states "If a Normal Person Would Find an Article Offensive I Have To Report It!" Now if only they could be a lot more specific it would make life easier.

A good example is over here if you where to say "Fuck" in public one Police Officer could arrest you for being offensive but at the same time the courts have ruled that it is an acceptable word so you are sought of between a rock and a hard place before you even start. I sometimes wonder just why I ever got involved in this industry some times!

Col

by ippirate

Jul, if I may offer a few things learned from an investigatory side of things.
Generally, pedophiles do not register with or advertise on search engines. It just isn't good for business or, for that matter, ensuring the continued procurement/transferal of content. The most common approach to securing/conveying content is through electronic communications, i.e. boards, chat, IM, etc. Most times these persons will initiate dialogue in the broadest of terms and then begin to fish. Subtley "fishing" for like minded philosophies, etc. Once solidly in contact with an active member of the fringe, ties can generally be developed with other members of the ring with limited difficulty and surprising speed (compounding trust mentality). This is why you will hear in these cases that a ring has been uncovered and charged rather than just a single person.
Hope this answers your question to some degree.

by tony hopkinson

P2P is also a growing area for this given some of the file descriptions. But basically nonces stay off www and those who do feature words such as underage etc are unscrupulous b*****ds trying to get a hit on things like porn web rings and xxx password sites. I have seen some of these come up with pictures but they're heavily censored or not pornographic as such kids playing. Don't see that there's a lot we can do about it unfortunately, attempts to censor the web are doomed to failure.
Particularly when people who come up with search engines and enhance them with their own political bias. Not so long back a popular search engine, along with not returning porn hits also got selective with search strings to promote it's pro-life, religous and republican leanings. The only thing you can do is report the weirdos if you come across them, and not support those use them for financial gain.
Generally in the past the only person who a pedo wanted to know of their inhuman activity was their victim and they weren't allowed to talk about it. The contact the web has enabled has made them more vulnerable not less simply because the more who know a secret the less secret it is. As for the argument that this material might lead people to become pedos, well chuffing nonsense as they nearly say where I come from. If you were going to be one, you were simply waiting for an opportunity to do so, of which there are unfortunately far too many. Personally I'd turn the lot of them into dog food as soon as their guilt was established ,maybe we can cull it out of the gene pool.

by oz_media

I told you to delete those man!!

Now look at what you got yourself into! :p

I have a couple of other things to tell you so I'll email you later if I get time, (heading to mainland for races).

by thechas

Julian,

This kind of story shows up in the news here more often than I like.

The big search engines don't want to be associated with illegal activities.

They self limit some searches.

If you "google" adult search, you get a list of Adult theme search engines.
The search data stated over 3 million results.

Those looking for "specialized" web sites will use these lesser known search engines that limit the search to the type of page desired.

The next source of information would be chat rooms. Again, these would be off of the main-stream chat rooms.

Chas

by jardinier

I really appreciate all the information given to me in this discussion. The topic has been covered thoroughly and from various angles.

The idea to post this question was inspired by a friend who pointed out that the media coverage of this situation did not in any way explain how these websites were accessed in the first place, and that people might be curious about this aspect.

Her curiosity quite likely is related to the fact that her father was a policeman, she married a policeman, and one of her sons is a cop turned PI.

by oz_media

Julian, there are more passowrd crack and hack sites than one could possibly TRY to visit in a lifetime.

LITERALLY hundreds of thousands of them. Mainly into Eurpoean sites with less user security than North American sites where every user means money and no amount of money spent to secure thier money is too much.

Kids knwo these passord and index hacks more than most adults, it is somethig learned in school. I watched my nephew, just turning 10, hack a paysite on Thanksgiving day, just to show what a friend at school had shown him. It wasn't porn (an online kids site with members only content)thankfully but it took him a whole 10 minutes to get in with a newly aquired password.

People don't give kids any crdit, they continu to think they are little children long after they cease to be innocent.

When I was a kid, I was having sex and partyig LOOOONG before my parents even considered it an issue worth mentioning.

Today it is even moreso, kids at 12 hae generally experienced it all, yet many parents shake thier head while saying 'not MY kid'. YES YOU'RE KID!! Unless he/she is kept in a cardboard box and only let out for daily tutoring by his parents and not allowed to socialize.

Just because some kids don't ACT the way others do in school, doesn't mean that they can't or don't know how.

by gnatech

I am a Marine, and I have bombed elementary schools in Iraq and Afghanistan. My father bombed little kids in Vietnam. His father's father kept little kids as slaves. And so my question- After a raid in Baghad we blew the hell out of this orphanage and took pictures. Turns out that in the background was a girls body without a shirt (or legs). Is this kiddy porn?

by gnatech

As an historian, I am well informed of the atrocities my country commits. Then, I read in the paper about some 'monster' who abuses children... And it turns out he has some European pictures of 16 year old topless girls. But here in America 18 girls have sex with farm animals for money, and thats ok because they are 18? Iraqi refugees end up in Saudi Arabian sex slave camps, and some get their picture taken, and we pretend that the viewer is the monster while the perpetrator gets decorated for serving their country. Maybe if the world were not such a horrific place, and fathers were not killed by bombs, and kids didn't end up in camps, maybe then child abuse would end. Abuse is a crime. Pictures of crimes are disturbing, but hardly crimes themselves.

My sister was in the World Trade Center. Maybe if the FBI were not peeking into people's windows to see who they sleep with, what they smoke, and what they surf on the web, there might have been a few spare agents who noticed that terrorists on State Department watch lists were in our country planning the 911 attacks.

by rands69

They posted it in Newsgroups and in Google Groups and from what I have read most of the materials are being passed around on P2P networks ...limewire, winmx, bit torrent places like that ...The feds put a provocative headline in some news group postings ...if you opened up the posting to read the rest it was more provocative and included a link and as soon as anyone clicked on that ...click click click ...no not your mouse ...the handcuffs

This discussion is closed to new replies.