Infotech

Internet watchdog reports big jump in porn, racist websites
Agence France-PresseLast updated 07:01am (Mla time) 09/20/2007
DUBLIN -- Substantial increases in racist and pornographic websites were reported on Wednesday by an international watchdog in its first detailed analysis of illegal activity on the Internet.
INHOPE, the International Association of Internet Hotlines, said monthly trends of processed reports over a 28-month period to December 2006 showed racism and xenophobia grew by 33 percent, adult pornography by 24 percent and child pornography by 15 percent.
It said a "staggering 9,600" confirmed reports of child pornography were processed per month.
INHOPE says the report is the first step towards "a global action plan to eradicate illegal activity from the Internet.
"It is a landmark publication for policy makers, governments and industry."
Nikos Frydas, co-author of the report, said INHOPE hotlines collect reports about illegal and harmful content in over 25 countries around the world including members from Europe, Asia, North America and Australia.
"INHOPE is now in the unique position to accurately describe the illegal and harmful sectors of the Internet."
The report says that in the 28 months the INHOPE network received 900,000 reports from the general public.
There were 160,000 reports forwarded to law enforcement agencies for action, an average of 5,800 per month.
The report said 20,000 reports processed a month, or 21 percent, were about illegal or harmful content.
Half of these contained child pornography, 19 percent contained other child-related content and 28 percent contained adult pornography.
The INHOPE Association of Internet Hotlines, coordinated from Ireland, was founded in 1999.
It receives funding from the EU Safer Internet Plus Programme.

DNA dt.30th Oct, 2007
US agents use Internet to wage undercover war on child porn
US criminal investigator Flint Waters surfs the Internet, and is an undercover agent who investigates online sex crimes against children. Waters goes for stress counselling ever so often to get some of the images he's seen in a day's work out of his head, because the reality of his line of work is in sharpo contrast to the job description.
Pros :
The Internet has made it easier for law enforcement officials to track and arrest would-be-child predators, but a lack of manpower means that only two percent of known offenders are investigated and brought to justice
Cons :
But the Internet has also made it easier for predators to find their victims and to learn 'how to do their crimes better and be harder to catch.' Now, the predators know what they can get on the net, find people with the same interest and 'normalise' their view.