LK. Posted August 17, 2005 Share Posted August 17, 2005 from the August 18, 2005 edition Internet exploitation of children is prompting action in US and abroad. By Ron Scherer | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor NEW YORK ? Despite highly publicized arrests, law-enforcement officials say that the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet is growing dramatically. Over the past four years, the number of reports of child pornography sites to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) has grown by almost 400 percent. Law-enforcement officials are particularly disturbed by the increased number of commercial sites that offer photos of exploited children in return for a credit-card number. Those fighting child porn say it has become a global multibillion-dollar industry. "We are encountering staggering proportions of violators or offenders we would have never imagined years ago," says Ray Smith, who oversees child exploitation investigations by the United States Postal Inspection Service. "It is an exploding problem worldwide, and particularly in the US," adds Ernie Allen, president of NCMEC. Efforts to stem the upsurge are taking place on multiple fronts. At the G-8 summit in Scotland last month, officials said that Interpol, an international police organization, is putting together a global database of offenders and victims. And this week, 3,000 law-enforcement officials from around the US are meeting in Dallas to discuss ways to attack Internet crimes against children. On the state level, New Jersey and Florida are among those enacting requirements for sexual predators to wear GPS devices that keep track of their whereabouts. One of the biggest pushes against the purveyors is aimed at shutting down the use of credit cards. NCMEC is currently talking to MasterCard about making it even harder to subscribe to the commercial sites. "We're trying to mobilize the financial industry to choke off the money," says Mr. Allen. At MasterCard, spokeswoman Sharon Gamsin says her organization is "appalled people are using our systems for illegal transactions involving child pornography, and finding a way to stop this is a priority." Two years ago, Visa International began a program to try to identify child porn sites allowing transactions with its credit cards. It hired a firm that used retired federal agents to go through the Internet searching for sites, and it says it's still searching the Web for illicit sites today. Good marks for effortb> Officials generally give the credit-card companies good marks for their efforts. "The financial industry is made up of real people with children, and they want this thing ended for society, too," says Mr. Smith, who has been fighting the illegal merchandise since 1982. To try to help credit-card companies and law-enforcement officials identify websites, NCMEC has hired a consultant to search online for illicit sites. "We provide the information first to law enforcement and then do reviews to see if they follow up," he says. "Otherwise, we send a cease-and-desist order to the method-of-payment services [such as a credit-card company] and try to engage banks and regulators." Allen notes that he recently met with Asian bankers to seek cooperation. Shutting off the money flow could help, agree officials. Jim Plitt, director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Cyber Crime Center, believes that the growth of the child porn industry is part of what he terms the "illegal business cycle" - where groups watching the huge profits decide to join in. "The emphasis is on the money. That's where you focus," says Mr. Plitt, who adds, "more cases are coming." When law-enforcement officials have cracked the organizations, they often find that the organizations have many illegal websites that are collecting money. That was the case with Regpay, a company in Minsk, Belarus, which provided credit-card billing services for 50 child porn websites worldwide. Indeed, the groups are often international in scope. The Regpay investigation resulted in the initial arrests of 35 people in the United States, France, and Spain. "The actual businesses themselves are not necessarily large, but they have a large membership pool," says Plitt. When Regpay was broken up two years ago, it had 270,000 subscribers - 4,000 in New Jersey alone. Recently, in fact, 11 more individual subscribers were arrested in New Jersey, and more arrests are on the way, say officials. Because the membership pool was so large, law-enforcement officials have broken the prosecutions down into two phases. The first phase was to dismantle the financial apparatus, including businesses in Florida and California that processed US credit-card transactions. The second phase, which is ongoing, is to arrest individuals who subscribed to the sites. 'Prioritized' arrestsb> "They are prioritized, so we are targeting individuals with access to children, people of trust in the community, and the most egregious subscribers who had lots of transactions," says Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for ICE. "What you'll see in the cases made are schoolteachers, pediatricians, a campus minister, a Boy Scout leader, and other individuals in those types of positions." ICE is now arresting individuals who subscribed to the sites multiple times. Although the arrests themselves get the word out to the pedophile community, some law-enforcement officials are optimistic that technology may ultimately help them stem the tide. "I think there will come a time in the not-too-distant future where, working with the [internet service provider] community and the financial community, they will be able to package information and put it into computers that will not allow people to subscribe to these sites," says Smith. However, he adds, "We have First Amendment issues so we can't completely shut down all pornographic sites." http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0818/p01s01-stct.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deathray Posted August 17, 2005 Share Posted August 17, 2005 That is absolutely sick and disturbing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob2687 Posted August 17, 2005 Share Posted August 17, 2005 They need to format the interweb and start over again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
turkishdelight Posted August 17, 2005 Share Posted August 17, 2005 :x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
y0sh Posted August 17, 2005 Share Posted August 17, 2005 This is stupid. They have people surfing around for these illicit websites? What stops a pedophile from getting this job? Then he has an excuse to why these sites are on his hard drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thagame Posted August 17, 2005 Share Posted August 17, 2005 they should take all these child porn viewers and cartoon sex (anime porn) viewers and hang em all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fedorpheux Posted August 17, 2005 Share Posted August 17, 2005 They need to format the interweb and start over again. 586392653[/snapback] i agree....it would also get rid of all those blogs of 12 year old girls that decide they like Timmy instead of Bobby because now Timmy has armpit hair This is stupid. They have people surfing around for these illicit websites?What stops a pedophile from getting this job? Then he has an excuse to why these sites are on his hard drive. 586392717[/snapback] good point Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boffa Jones Veteran Posted August 17, 2005 Veteran Share Posted August 17, 2005 they should take all these child porn viewers and cartoon sex (anime porn) viewers and hang em all. 586392729[/snapback] Yeah, because all of those anime porn watchers are SICK..... No, what is the problem with people who watch anime porn? Is it illegal? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madnuke Posted August 17, 2005 Share Posted August 17, 2005 Sick people, a few years ago we could have hung them what anoys me is the credit card companys who must know about these sites And its all moving to the developing world, Asia and South America there was a thing on the BBC about Cambodia and how westerners are going there for sex. This is one of the reasons why the internet should be started again, hell I dont know why the government is more concerned over file shareing a few cds and dvds while child porn sites are on the rise, they need to get their priorites right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azusa Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 please hentai or anime pr0n as you call it is 100%leagle ask wiki oh and thagame thanks for putting me in the same god dammed cat as thses tards hentai is far better than teh real IMO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marduk Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 ...hell I dont know why the government is more concerned over file shareing a few cds and dvds while child porn sites are on the rise, they need to get their priorites right. 586392779[/snapback] :yes: But of course the answer to that is because the child advocate groups don't have as much money as the RIAA or struggle for some other reason, either way money=justice in USA, so thats why this isn't being resolved faster. Well that and the fact that I guess its harder to trace these jpegs or gifs or w/e format these b**tards use these days, especially when its zipped, and well its very simple to "mislabel" a file name of course. Lets just hope this doesn't start making simple day-to-day tasks difficult like naming a file what you want. Its very tricky, how can they stop it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tiagosilva29 Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 I really think it's sad when the PJ (our feds) says that they cracked down 4 networks of childpron, and when I randomly typed pedo or pedofilia at the local eMule servers it appears that there are thousands of those files listed there. Sigh Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbarcus81 Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 Sadly, is it going to ever go away? I don't think it is. It's thriving because of technology, and they say tech will help them. Just the same with Piracy, shut one down 3 more start. And they say in the near future there will be changes? How drastic are these changes going to be?? A lot of the busts are still from people turning someone in, unless I'm wrong. I just feel that it's here to stay and not going anywhere, it does need to stop. It's wrong and just plain sick.. How twisted do you have to be to get turned on by a child?? :x I just don't understand.. I guess that's why they call it a sickness, yet it can't be cured. Burn in Hell Pedo's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zirus Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 it will be an ongoing war... it will never end. There will always be someone out there who likes kiddie porn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norma Jean Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 Atleast its actuall people, what is up with ANIME PORN? I mean...Who would watch that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Azusa Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 iv allways herd the thing seid "who gets ternd on by a child?" well 1st off its taboo and seen as wrong so there bout 25% of why but then we have out human nature allways wanting something newer better i mean that would explane the abundence of Teen based sites but they are 18+ lets not forget that so they aprently have a two years use but this proves we want something younger there the other 25% of why the other 50% is debateable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andareed Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 Many "legal" sites encourage this behaviour by having "barely legal" and "just turned 18" style slogans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
illicit Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 That is absolutely sick and disturbing. 586392648[/snapback] Yes it is. :x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WesleyT Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 if they could just find a desease that only affects the sick ppl :pinch: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HimalayaJoe Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 We'll just use arsenic :) It'll take time, but I'm sure if everyone pitches in we'll manage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plastique Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 how are they defining tchild porn? By US law (title/chapter 17 I think) you can have picutres of nude minors as long as they arn't explicit (as defined in the chapter). The reason I ask is because many people could be reporting this sites (which are 100% legal in the US) as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soham Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 how are they defining tchild porn? By US law (title/chapter 17 I think) you can have picutres of nude minors as long as they arn't explicit (as defined in the chapter). The reason I ask is because many people could be reporting this sites (which are 100% legal in the US) as well. 586395681[/snapback] same as french one :huh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commodore Max Posted August 19, 2005 Share Posted August 19, 2005 This is a sad world. We must put an end to this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
704 Posted August 19, 2005 Share Posted August 19, 2005 how are they defining tchild porn? By US law (title/chapter 17 I think) you can have picutres of nude minors as long as they arn't explicit (as defined in the chapter). The reason I ask is because many people could be reporting this sites (which are 100% legal in the US) as well. 586395681[/snapback] Pfft, I'm pretty sure sites with even non-explicit photos of nude children are gateway sites to child porn. Maybe not on the FRONT... I remember stumbling on this one site that had a bunch of pictures of 3-5 year old girls just posing in bathing suits. That's all the website had, was the pictures. No text, no nothing explaining what the point of the site was. Yes the site was "100% legal", but you know deep down there's something wrong there, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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