As the Teichtmeister case has shown, images of child abuse are mainly offered and traded on the dark web. A Viennese researcher has now developed a model with which providers, operators and buyers of relevant platforms can be traced.
The starting point is a search engine developed in the Netherlands that searches the dark web and looks at questionable content. Currently, approximately 258,000 domains out of a total of approximately three million contain material depicting sexual abuse. This can be exchanged or bought. Billing is usually done using the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. “It is therefore essential to find the Bitcoin address of the domains through which the transactions are processed as quickly as possible,” says data researcher and crypto expert Bernhard Haslhofer.
Huge flow of data, linked financial flows
With Haslhofer’s method, the enormous flow of data and the financial flows surrounding abuse images can be automatically detected and deciphered. The money flows between the publicly visible crypto accounts of consumers are linked to the addresses of the providers. If an associated address is tracked down, law enforcement can clarify the origin of the funds with data requests. The servers are with major providers in the US and Europe.
Haslhofer already cooperates with the Bavarian Central Bureau for Cybercrime (ZBC). This led to more than 5,000 procedures last year, five times as many as two years ago. “In most cases, the currency used to pay is not money, but other child pornography material,” said ZBC deputy director Thomas Goger. Nevertheless, the income from the trade in images of abuse is considerable at around 100 million euros.
1921 Criminal prosecution in Austria
In 2021, the Federal Criminal Investigation Service recorded 1921 criminal charges for consuming, producing or possessing abuse photos and videos. In addition, 381 criminal offenses were reported for serious sexual abuse of minors and 70 for sexual abuse of young people. Final figures from last year are not yet available.
Source: Krone
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