Google Invests $7 Mill to Stop Child Porn Access

Jacquelline Fuller, the director of Google Giving, recently announced that the company's investing $5 million to support efforts by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and international organizations to rid the web of child exploitation. Google's also ponying up $2 million to encourage more effective tool development to combat Internet child sexual abuse.

To underscore the urgency of its effort, Google reports that the NCMEC’s CyberTipline reviewed 17.3 million suspected child sexual abuse images in 2011 – quadruple the amount seen in 2007 by its Exploited Children's Division.

Fuller says the search engine has used hashing technology to tag offending child sexual images with unique computer-recognized ID's since 2008.  What's new, the announcement declared, is that Google's beginning to "incorporate encrypted 'fingerprints' of child sexual abuse images into a cross-industry database [that other tech] companies, law enforcement and charities [will share] to better collaborate on detecting and removing these images, and to take action against the criminals."
 
However, some critics say these measures do not go far enough, since they narrowly focus on the searchable web. It's said that this web-based focus may neglect the shadow Internet and peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, which allow child predators to directly share pornographic images with one another without going through a central server or search engine. As an alternative, NetClean CEO Christian Berg claims to provide technology that can scan servers, laptops and desktops for known child abuse images, rather than URL-based tools that Google is using: "We’re not talking about URLs, but actual files, which means we can find things on USB sticks too," says Berg. He adds that the next step is "to do an investigation and notify the police."

Google's multi-million dollar cooperative investment, when added to existing and emerging technology, appears to be a strong step in the right direction to put criminal child sexual abuse images in the hands of law enforcement and out of the public domain. Philly.com says "Law enforcement agencies are already using PhotoDNA to track and identify offending images. ... It’s possible law enforcement agencies could now use both the 'fingerprints' and 'DNA' of images and videos as a means of tackling tens of millions of images."

What can you do? Start a conversation with your children (or keep one going) so they feel comfortable discussing online problems they encounter, and cyber risks, including:

• consequences of revealing personal information (name, age, address, telephone, pictures)
• "private chats" with a stranger
• meeting alone with anyone they met online 
• predators seeking child victims and lying about their age, sex, and identity
• responding to suggestive, obscene, belligerent, or harassing messages – instead, report these messages to CyberTipline or the police

Tweens and teens also need to know that sexting (sending a nude or semi-nude image in a text to someone) is a form of child pornography, even if the minor created the image. Besides ruining a child's reputation among their peers when these images are shared, they can end up in the hands of child predators or sextortionists.

If your teenager needs to talk to someone but may feel more comfortable talking to another teen, they can call Teen Line for confidential help and support at 800-852-8336 every evening 6 to 10 p.m. Or they can text "TEEN" to 839863.

Suspicious Minds

What do the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, and Penn State University have in common with the Horace Mann School in New York City and Miramonte Elementary School in Los Angeles?  They all had trusted members of their organizations who were involved in child sex abuse scandals.

Now, "The BBC's reputation is on the line," says Chris Patten, the chairman of the BBC Trust.  Police are describing disc jockey and BBC television host Jimmy Savile (who died last year at age 84) as "one of the worst sex offenders in recent history." Given recent history, that's a pretty big claim.

This latest BBC scandal began when a television documentary aired in October in which several women claimed that they were sexually abused by Savile when they were in their early teens. Hundreds of potential victims have since come forward with similar claims.

In connection with the Savile investigation, police arrested musician and convicted sex offender Gary Glitter (known for his shiny jumpsuits and whose real name is Paul Gadd).  Glitter served a U.K. prison term in 1999 for possession of child pornography. After moving to Vietnam, he was convicted of child abuse in 2006 and deported back to Britain in 2008. Glitter is best known for the crowd-pleasing hit "Rock & Roll (Part 2)" which, in 2006, the National Football League advised teams not to use at games.

Questions are now being raised about whether the BBC was involved in a cover-up, and whether Savile was at the center of a broader pedophile ring. All of this leaves some of us wondering, who can you trust?

"As a society, we've just got to somehow get over this notion that some men, some women, some institutions, are 100 percent pristine and trustworthy," said David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "We've got to look at actual behavior, not reputation."

Flirting With Disaster

Skout is an app designed for flirting between adults. Users exchange photos, messages, and virtual gifts. It has GPS that allows people to connect with strangers that are nearby, and its popularity is growing with millions of new users each month.

Its growth also attracted $22 million in financing from one of Silicon Valley's leading venture capital firms which cited Skout's safety and security protocols as a major reason for the investment. For example, the GPS location feature is an opt-in and approximates a user's location within half a mile. Skout also monitors the app for illicit and violent behavior, nude photos, inappropriate sexual messages, profanity, spamming, and copyright infringement.

After learning that children were using its adult app, the company started a separate service with parental controls for 13- to 17-year-olds. 

However, the minors’ app and "creepinator" technology were not enough to keep out child predators who have been accused of sex crimes against children they met using Skout:  a 15-year-old Ohio girl, a 12-year-old California girl, and a 13-year-old Wisconsin boy were sexually assaulted by adult men posing as teenagers on Skout.

Skout's founder calls these cases "a five-alarm fire" and says, "The entire company is re-evaluating everything it's doing."