Producers of child sex abuse material becoming more 'entrepreneurial'

TECHNOLOGY 16 OCTOBER 13  by OLIVIA SOLON

Organised criminal networks operating in Asia are offering to rape children 'on demand' for people who are willing to pay to watch such child abuse, according to a report by the European Cybercrime Centre at Europol.

While the vast majority of child abuse material is distributed for free through hidden services like Tor, the report has identified a "disturbing money-making trend" in online sex abuse. Investigators estimate that between 7.5 and 10 percent of child abuse material online is commercial, i.e. paid-for. They have identified a number of cases where individuals in the European Union have been found to be directing child sexual abuse via live web streaming.

In one recent case, a perpetrator in an EU Member state ordered child sexual abuse online in a South-Eastern Asian country using chat services and webcam to instruct women on the particular type of abuse he wanted to watch. He paid around $30 for each 30 minute session of abuse of young girls. He also paid an annual sum of $5,500 (£3,430) for camera shots using credit card transfers.

Live web streaming poses an intriguing legislative challenge since access to streamed content does not constitute an offence of possession or making if no copy of the material is stored. A number of countries have introduced the offence of "knowingly obtaining access, through information and communication technologies, to child pornography", prosecutions are ware.

The report also identified that new material is more likely to be exchanged in non-commercial environments and that paying by credit card to download from websites -- which used to be popular -- is now seen as an option for the inexperienced perpetrator, since it puts their credit card details into the hands of organised crime groups.

When it comes to non-commercial distribution, much of the material is shared in private P2P networks. The greatest volume of offending is identified in public P2P networks such as Gnutella, eDonkey and Emule, but this is more because of the open nature of the services rather than their misuse. Mid-level offenders are more likely to use private P2P networks, establishing closed groups of like-minded individuals for encrypted transfers. The report also identified distribution -- or at least promotion -- of material in closed groups on social media, bulletin boards, newsgroups and IRC.

New material has also become a currency in itself, with value ascribed to the novelty of the images. So individual video clips might cost as little as $10 (£6.20) each, with subscriptions for $50 (£30) for three months. Although one video file of new material on demand can cost as much as $1,200 (£748). Money transfer services and digital currencies might be used in these cases, with the report saying that the relative anonymity of Bitcoin is something that might prove attractive to distributors and buyers of this material

The report talks of a "marked increase" in the use of hidden services such as Tor and Freenet, with Tor being associated with the more sophisticated offender. "A higher proportion of new, home-made material has been observed on Tor, the rationale being that the newer material, the higher the risk and the greater security required." (New material generally suggests new abuse and is deemed a higher priority than circulating images that have been in existence for years). The report has also identified distributors on Tor charging fees to access new material, which points to "the emergence of new models of commercial distribution."

"This model challenges the traditional distinction between commercial and noncommercial distribution, which cast the former as largely profit driven and conducted by those with limited sexual interest in children. Rather, there is evidence to suggest that individuals with a sexual interest in children who produce and distribute CAM are becoming more entrepreneurial," reads the report.

The data was gathered by the European Financial Coalition against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Online (EFC), which brings together key law enforcement agencies, the private sector and civil society in Europe. The assessment sought to identify the current trends in production, distribution and access to commercial child abuse material, based on the insight from the EFC members.

In addition to live streaming and activity on hidden networks, the report identified that by analysing web searches there was an increased interest in child abuse material in emerging markets such as Latin America. Meanwhile, the countries with the highest number of servers hosting commercially distributed child sexual abuse material include the United States, Russia, Kazakhstan, Japan, Netherlands, Ukraine, Germany, Czech Republic and Hungary.

Analysis by the Internet Watch Foundation found that just eight Top Level Distributors were responsible for 513 commercial child abuse distribution brands in 2012, with the 10 most prolific brands all being associated with the single Top Level Domain distributor.

Christian Berg, CEO and founder of NetClean, said: "That such a small number of highly prolific distributors are responsible for huge volumes of abuse images, across vast quantities of URLS, simply demonstrates that URL blocking does not help slow the production of this content, nor find those responsible. Technology that tracks the abuse-content itself, rather than the thousands of URLs where it is hosted, is vital if we are to find and stop these high-level distributors. Once you begin to track the images and provide police agents with the support to analyse the evidence these images contain, you can find victims and their abusers."

The report outlines a number of recommendations, including prioritising investigations into live web streaming of sexual abuse, engaging with the most popular video chat and VoIP providers, including mobile applications to see what they can do to mitigate the problem. It also suggests that law enforcement agencies engage with legitimate cyberlocker providers, domain name registrars and entering into discussions with the top non-EU hosting countries.

"We need to keep pace with these sophisticated criminal networks that distribute child sexual abuse material via cyberspace to child molesters all over the world, including the EU. It always surprises me how the disgusting abuse of children for sex crimes continues to develop, and that creative cyber savvy criminals now offer secure means to distribute -- even live -- this awful material for money to a significant global customer base," said Troels Oerting, Head of the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) and present Chair of the EFC.

You can read the full report, entitled Strategic Assessment of Commercial Child Exploitation Online, here.