Raphael Cohen-Almagor

Lecture Plan Five sections: Katies story Definitions Child-pornography and online sex offenders Possible remedies

Katies story Social Responsibility Moral panic

Definitions Child pornography depicts children in sexual context. By definition, children cannot consent to sex. It is abusive and coercive. Every depiction of sexual intercourse with real children is considered to be molestation, a criminal act

Definitions Online child sex offenders are people who watch, download, produce, store and transmit images of children in a sexual context. Online child sex offenders utilise the Internet for this purpose. The term paedophilia is a clinical term and is used to refer to a psychosexual disorder involving a sexual preference for children

Online Behavior: Where Parents and Teens Agree 81% of parents and 79% of teens agree that kids are not as careful as they should be about the information they give out online 62% of parents and 62% of teens agree that kids do things online that they wouldnt want their parents to know about Overall, most parents believe that the internet is a good thing for their children

Child Pornography Pornographers are always among the first to recognize and exploit the potential of each new wave of communication technology, from the printing press and early photography to film and video, and now the Internet Most states prohibit by their criminal law the production, promotion, sale, exhibition, or distribution of photographs or videos of children engaged in any sexual activity

Child Pornography The Internet features of accessibility, privacy and low cost serve to encourage some offences. Child pornography is often used by offenders to groom children by normalizing sexual activity with children and breaking down inhibitions, or to blackmail a child into desired behaviour by threatening to expose their use of pornography. The saturation of the internet with such material may serve to normalize this behaviour and probably makes it easier to objectify children as sexual artifacts. Pornography is also thought to reinforce a persons sexual attraction to children

Child Pornography Social-networking sites have been shown to attract sexual predators looking to take advantage of naïve young people. Launched in 2004, MySpace has swiftly become one of the biggest hits in the history of the Internet. Crimes as serious as murder and rape have been linked to teens using the site. There is a strong link between those who collect images and those who molest children. The following chart shows who are the offenders:

10

The Offenders 77% of the offenders were known to the child. These were his/her parents, their partners, relatives, babysitters and neighbours. 12% were offenders who enticed children via the Internet. 5% (others) were unknown to the children. 6% invited/initiated/self-inflicted the offence

Identity Child pornographers conceal their true identity by means of proxies, false flag addresses, the use of which means that the host site will not be able to identify a visitors true IP. They (the careful ones) will never use their own credit card to pay for photos or videos. Some users succeed in hacking into a pay server, stealing another persons credit card, but this route is only for the truly ingenious

How Child Pornographers Work? A person has a collection of several thousand child porn images He likes to share them First, he obtains a proxy that conceals his name and location and acquires a new account under a false name from an anonymous provider, likely in a third world nation: both are easy to do. With these bogus credentials, he opens an account that permits him to set up a home page on an innocent and aboveboard public server such as angelfire.com

How Child Pornographers Work? Unknown to the provider, the person loads how many photos he wants The site is of no use to anyone as yet, in that nobody is likely to stumble across it by accident Our generous child-pornographer used to announce the posting of the series on the Maestro board or one of its counterparts, where the message is read and acknowledged gratefully by other loli fans Duly alerted, consumers then flock to the site advertised, which may be based in any of twenty countries, and then download the pictures. The images will exist at that site only for a few hours before they are removed and the site ceases to exist

How Child Pornographers Work? In the past, the best way to discover child- pornographers activity was by discerning a site that suddenly attracted thousands of hits within a few hours Sometimes money changes hands and videos are sold, but many sites that demand payment for access are bogus, and anyone gullible enough to pay will, if he is lucky, just lose the price of admission; if he is less fortunate, he will have earned a visit from the police

How Child Pornographers Work? In 2009, Swiss police uncovered an Internet child pornography network spanning 78 countries and involving at least 2,000 IP internet addresses. An inquiry was launched after a tip-off from Interpol about a Swiss website being used as a forum for illegal child pornography films. The site was officially devoted to hip hop music but was used to access videos of child pornography via secret codes

How Child Pornographers Work? The authorities had been monitoring the website for some time. Dozens of arrests and several convictions have been made as a result of the investigation, which began in May The site's designer was apparently not aware what it was being used for and was cleared of any involvement in the ring

Collections The vast majority of people who post or distribute pictures do so out of non-economic motives The sense for completion or perfection is particularly marked in child porn collecting. Hobbyists seek unbroken series of the various photo shoots such as KG or Tiny Americans, and they pride themselves on their achievement in seeking out and amassing items

Rings Sex offenders operate in clandestine methods to hide their illegal activities. They operate via closed chatrooms and hidden websites, sometimes hijacked for their purposes, sometimes established for a brief period of time. They operate in rings that cross continents. Always under fear that the ring might be compromised

Encryption The careful child-pornographers use encryption when they exchange images Without the key, it is very difficult to decode the image Encryption is the best friend of all people involved in illegal activities: Child-pornographers, terrorists and criminals

Remedies Education Parental Supervision Physical-Geographical Control (at home, in libraries) Filters Denying Legitimacy ISPs Liability

Remedies Need for more youth education International cooperation between governments as well as between governments and Internet Service Providers

Remedies Business Ban International Cooperation: Working Group on Internet Governance Legislation and Precedents Monitoring Websites Removing Criminal Websites CleaNet

Remedies Introducing a different rationale: Instead of free highway, social responsibility

The Threats of the Internet Global solution for global problem Filters Business ban Individual/ ISPs State Whos Responsible?

Thank you