Child Predation and IINI

Tools are passive, and morality free. A hammer can be used to build and create, yet the hammer is one of the most common weapons of assault and manslaughter in the US. Guns can defend lives or create them. The Internet is just a tool, and can be a powerful force for good, or for evil.

Along with the good that has come from the prevalence and ubiquity of the Internet, child predation and child pornography, aided by the Internet, have grown dramatically, and changed police work as a result.  In the decade ending 2009, child pornography in the United States has grown 330%.  According to the US Department of Justice, more than 9 million PCs in the United States had shared an image of child pornography in the year ending 10/2009, a figure that is alarming and revolting.  The FBI now handles more than 2500 new cases of child pornography and child sexual exploitation (CP/CSE) each year.  

"Before the Internet," reports U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride, "child pornography had been almost eradicated." (Oberst, 2011)  As of April 2012, the FBI has over 5600 CP/CSE cases pending, as the trend continues to increase.  Electronic communications and telecommunications (SMS/ "Sexting", social media, chat rooms, etc.) have now grown to be the primary conduit both of illicit images of children, and also as the primary means to lure children as victims.  Telecommunications has also served to connect a sub-culture of deviants with a predilection for child predation, serving to identify and validate that deviancy.  (FBI, 2013)

To combat child pornography and child predation, the FBI has created task forces and specialized training, and has installed a special prosecutor focusing on child exploitation in each federal district, as a part of "Project Safe Childhood".  The FBI has also created the national Innocent Images National Initiative (IINI) to provide centralized evidence collection and analysis. (Oberst, 2011)  As well, the FBI has IINI representatives in all 56 field offices, and collaborate with other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in both undercover operations, enforcement and investigations focusing on combating CP/CSE.

The FBI now monitors:

• Peer-to-Peer (P2P) File sharing
• Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels
• Websites hosting images of child pornography
• Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and other online forums
• Internet news groups
• Online groups and organizations (e.g. Yahoo Groups)
• Social networking sites   (FBI,2013)

Since the inception of the IINI in 2001, it has lead to 11,000 arrests and 11,400 convictions. (Ibid)

The FBI has also been coordinating with the NSA (National Security Agency) and NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) to provide for image processing of the Internet (The NRA & NRO capture a snapshot of the entire Internet each day) in order to provide for correlation of images.  Like photocopiers that will put a tiny dot in the same location of all pages photocopied, digital cameras have irregularities in manufacture that provide for traces in images for pixels that are slightly off in the precisely same location in each image.  These are caused by currents in the acid bath, breezes in the clean room in which they are manufactured, adhesion issues with the silicon medium, etc.  Although these traces cannot be observed with the naked eye, they are readily apparent with forensic analysis, and are able to provide evidence of the make and model of the camera, as well as a digital "fingerprint" of the camera ("Bob", 2005).  

By comparing (attributed) vacation photos from Flickr and Facebook to (anonymous) images captured from child pornography & predation sites, law enforcement has new tools to be able to correlate the actual production of child pornography, cutting to the supply rather than the distribution. (Ibid)  This is just one way in which law enforcement is changing their use of technology to meet emergent needs for different policing to adapt to new aspects of criminality.

Why the boom in child pornography?  I would conjecture that it's a combination of:

1. the feeling of anonymity (even though rarely true on the Internet)
2. easy access without perception of personal risk (don't have to physically enter a seedy dive of blackmarket porn), just as VHS caused an explosive in mainstream porn, as it could be viewed at home rather than driving to an adult theater, 
3. validation and normative bias of a sub-culture enabled through extensive and direct interaction within chat rooms, forums, etc.
4. electronic copies can be created without exposing the distributors to physical constraints of duplication - just as .MP3 files caused an explosion in music distribution that was not possible with cassette tapes, records and CDs.

I think there may be a (very) small fraction which is accidental.  There was an infamous case of a child who worked in the adult industry while a minor, but was undetected until years later... can't remember the name.  I'm not excusing the crime, just noting that the age of consent is 16 in almost all states and countries, but child pornography is under 18, which leaves a 2-year gap where someone could be perceived as adult and with mature secondary sexual characteristics, and permitted by law to have sex with adults, but is still a minor.

Regrettably, I once had to investigate a child pornography case, and this deviant had thousands of movies on his (work) computer, and there was nothing accidental about it.  Some involved children under 3.  Horrible horrible horrible horrible.  I had trouble sleeping for 2 years and had to get counseling.  I'm haunted by the fact that my employer at the time would not go to the police, destroyed the evidence and fired the guy, setting a monster loose on the world.  (this was before the law changed, compelling disclosure)

__

FBI (2013). Overview and History: Online Child Pornography/Child Sexual Exploitation Investigations, The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Innocent Images. Retrieved 15-Feb-2013 from http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/innocent-images-1

Oberst, Lindsay. (2011). US Child Pornography Cases Rise Dramatically. Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, 12-Aug-2011. Retrieved 15-Feb-2013 from http://jjie.org/child-pornography-cases-rise-dramatically/20037

"Bob" (2009). As told to the author in the presentation of a peer-reviewed research paper by distinguished researchers, at the COSAC Information Security Conference 2005, Naas, Ireland.  Under Chatham House rule, I may not divulge who was present, while I may quote them anonymously.