Raphael Cohen-Almagor

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Lecture PlanFive sections:Katie’s storyDefinitionsChild-pornography and online sex offendersPossible remedies

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Katie’s storySocial ResponsibilityMoral panic

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DefinitionsChild 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.

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DefinitionsOnline 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.

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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 wouldn’t want their parents to know about

Overall, most parents believe that the internet is a good thing for their children

Child PornographyPornographers 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

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Child PornographyThe 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 person’s sexual attraction to children

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Child PornographySocial-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:09:59:07 PM 9

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32%

11%25%

5%

4%

12%

5%

6%

Parent

Other Relative

Neighbor/Family Friend

Babysitter/Coach

Guardian's Partner

Online Enticement

Unknown to Child

Self-produced

The Offenders77% 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.

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IdentityChild 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 visitor’s 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 person’s credit card, but this route is only for the truly ingenious

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How Child Pornographers Work?A person has a collection of several thousand

child porn imagesHe likes to share themFirst, he obtains a proxy that conceals his name

and location and acquires a new e-mail 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

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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 accidentOur 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

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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.

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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.

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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 2008.

The site's designer was apparently not aware what it was being used for and was cleared of any involvement in the ring.

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CollectionsThe 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.

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RingsSex 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.

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EncryptionThe 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.

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RemediesEducationParental SupervisionPhysical-Geographical Control (at home, in libraries)

FiltersDenying LegitimacyISPs Liability

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RemediesNeed for more youth educationInternational cooperation between governments as well as between governments and Internet Service Providers.

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RemediesBusiness BanInternational Cooperation: Working Group on Internet Governance

Legislation and PrecedentsMonitoring WebsitesRemoving Criminal WebsitesCleaNet

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RemediesIntroducing a different rationale:

Instead of free highway, social responsibility

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The Threats of the Internet

Global solution for

global problem

Filters

Business ban

Individual/ISPsState

Who’s

Responsible

?

Thank you

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