Windows 10 wipes your child safety settings if you upgrade from 7 or 8:

Are you a Windows 10 converts responsible for young computer users? Be on your guard. Child-friendly Family Features from Windows 7 and 8 won’t be recognized or accepted in the new operating system.

Rather, children using Windows 10 PCs are seen as standard users; no dedicated child-user account exists.

That means any existing age-related website controls, app and game restrictions, PC time limits, plus your ability to view recent activity, won’t work on Windows 10.

Adults must now create a completely new set of family settings through a long-winded procedure in Windows 10 that requires the child’s participation.

Microsoft had explained the new controls, here, but the details will be lost on many millions following Microsoft’s advice to run Windows 10 on existing PCs.

Even those getting early builds of Windows 10 got caught out. Those unaware their old settings won’t work now risk exposing children on Windows 10 to porn, violence and other online dangers once they’ve upgraded.

A Microsoft spokesperson pointed out you should receive – when you upgrade – a Check Family Safety tip with a link to how to create fresh settings.

But Reg reader Paul Dove, who conducted an experimental upgrade, has blasted Microsoft for putting children at risk with Windows 10. Dove also criticised Microsoft’s process for creating a new child’s account in the OS.

That process involves sending the child or children in your family in invitation via email that they must then accept. Dove, however, reckoned the savvy young user is able to turn off the new security settings in Windows 10.

He was able to change the new child account to a local account and effectively remove protections simply by clicking on the Windows 10 start button, then on the name at the top, and then on Change Account Settings.

“Microsoft should be ashamed of itself,” Dove told The Reg. “Not making sure that this was fixed before releasing Windows 10 it has put many children at risk."

"I might not have realized that after upgrading Windows 7 to Windows 10 the Family Safety needs to be re-done," he added.

Dove recommended three steps Microsoft should now take to help Windows 10 converts.

These are: checking for previous use of Windows Live Family Safety and to automatically disable children's accounts until the Windows 10 machine has been properly set up; scrapping the whole invitations process for set-up via a PC administrator; and offering a wizard that guides people through the set-up.

Defending Windows 10 and Microsoft, a spokesperson told us: “We will continue to roll out new Windows 10 Family features over time. We designed Windows 10 as a service, and we’ll keep listening to our customers. If there are ways to make improvements, we will do so.”

By Gavin Clarke 

Trinity Mount Ministries Website

DOJ - New Hampshire Man Charged in “Sextortion” Scheme Targeting Minors:

Department of Justice: Office of Public Affairs - JUSTICE NEWS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Thursday, July 16, 2015

New Hampshire Man Charged with Computer Hacking and Cyberstalking in “Sextortion” Scheme Targeting Minors:

A New Hampshire man was charged with remotely hacking into the social media, email and online shopping accounts of almost a dozen minor females and threatening that he would delete, deface, and make purchases from the accounts unless the victims sent him sexually explicit photographs of themselves.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Acting U.S. Attorney Donald Feith of the District of New Hampshire and Special Agent in Charge Lisa A. Quinn of the U.S. Secret Service’s Boston Field Office made the announcement.

“Predators troll the Internet in search of vulnerable children to extort for their own sexual gratification,” said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell. “The Criminal Division and our law enforcement partners are committed to protecting our youth from sextortion and to finding and prosecuting wrongdoers lurking in the shadows of the Internet.”

“Individuals who would take advantage of today’s modern technologies to entice and then threaten minors deserve special investigative and prosecutorial attention,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Feith. “We will continue to work with law enforcement, technology specialists and education professionals to teach minors about the dangers of placing personal information in social media and the need to report threats of this nature so that we may bring these predators to justice.”

“Child sexual exploitation is an alarming problem in our society,” said Special Agent in Charge Quinn. “The Secret Service is committed to work closely with our law enforcement partners to identify and prosecute these predators.”

Ryan J. Vallee, 21, of Franklin, New Hampshire, was charged by indictment with 10 counts of making interstate threats, two counts of computer hacking to steal information, seven counts of computer hacking to extort and seven counts of aggravated identity theft. Vallee is scheduled to make his initial appearance today at 4:30 p.m. EDT in the District of New Hampshire.

According to the indictment, from 2012 through November 2013, Vallee, using various aliases that included “Seth Williams” and “James McRow,” engaged in a computer hacking and “sextortion” campaign designed to coerce numerous minor females to provide him with sexually explicit photographs of themselves. He allegedly hacked into and took control of the girls’ online accounts – including their e-mail, Facebook and Instagram accounts – and threatened to delete the accounts, and defaced the contents of some of the accounts. Vallee also allegedly hacked into the girls’ Amazon.com accounts and, using their stored payment card information and shipping addresses, ordered items of a sexual nature and had them shipped to the girls’ homes. Vallee also allegedly obtained sexually explicit photographs of the girls and their friends and distributed them to others.

The indictment alleges that, in conjunction with his harassment campaign, Vallee sent communications to his victims, usually using a text message spoofing or anonymizing service, threatening to continue his attacks unless the victims provided sexually explicit photographs of themselves. The indictment alleges that, when victims refused to comply with Vallee’s demands and begged him to leave them alone, Vallee responded with threats to inflict additional harm.

The charges and allegations contained in an indictment are merely accusations. A defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.

The case is being investigated by the U.S. Secret Service, with substantial assistance from the Belmont, New Hampshire, Police Department. The case is being prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorney Mona Sedky and Trial Attorney Sumon Dantiki of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Arnold H. Huftalen of the District of New Hampshire.

Source:  http://tiny.cc/9ieq0x

Trinity Mount Ministries Website

Senior Jharkhand IPS officer recovered a missing girl in an hour using WhatsApp

Police forces in India are often in the line of fire for lethargic action and slow response time while following any case. But probably things are changing, and changing for good.

Thanks to new technologies and officers like Indrajeet Mahatha, a senior Indian Police Service officer of Jharkhand cadre, people have a ray of hope to look up to the otherwise abused lot. Mahatha recently tracked down a girl, who went missing from Saraikela in Jharkhand, using app-based messenger service WhatsApp.

Saraikela Superintendent of Police Indrajeet Mahatha got the information at around 8 pm on March 31, 2015, that a girl had gone missing from the area. Acting swiftly in the case, Mahatha immediately put officials on duty to track the whereabouts of the girl.

According to the IPS officer, the last tracked mobile location of girl was found to be the area's railway station. And then came into play the role of a WhatsApp group formed by Mahatha himself around six months back.

Speaking to IBNLive, the Saraikela SP said that he immediately circulated the photograph of the girl on his WhatsApp group comprising senior police officials from across Bihar and Jharkhand.

Search operations were conducted at different railway stations on all the trains that had left the area. A team of GRP officials recovered the girl within an hour from Subarnarekha Express train at Dhanbad railway station in Jharkhand.

The police officer further informed IBNLive that as many as seven to eight children have been recovered by the police using WhatsApp in the last four-five months.

He said that almost all the districts across Jharkhand and Bihar were connected through the WhatsApp group formed by Mahatha. The group comprises senior police officials as well as SHOs from different police stations.

"The group helps us in swift transfer of information in any such eventuality. For example, photograph of a missing child can be circulated in this manner immediately across all districts, ensuring quick recovery in most cases," said Mahatha.

Apart from this group, the tech-savvy IPS officer has created two other WhatsApp groups – one comprising around 110 IPS officers from his 1999 batch and the other having mediapersons in the region as members.

Though creating a WhatsApp group is no big deal, such effective use of one certainly sets an example for others who are at similar position. As India ventures into an ambitious 'Digital India' programme, such simple but productive use of a chat messenger is the least we can resort to.

Source: India - Missing Girl Recovered

Trinity Mount Ministries Website

The Dark Web: A haven for pedophiles beyond the Internet

by Jerome Elam

WASHINGTON, June 6, 2015 – It was November of 2014 in the quiet suburban neighborhood as the light of an early Saturday morning began to peek through the clouds and the day found its beginning. The quaint three-bedroom home on the corner blended in with the rest of the neighborhood, as the freshly painted beige exterior glistened in the early morning sun. The neatly trimmed yard was littered with the toys of young children, and a brown mini van missing a hubcap was parked in the driveway.

Suddenly the screech of tires broke the landscape of silence as three black Chevy Suburbans with blacked windows came to an abrupt halt in front of the house. A group of men wearing black body armor and matching helmets formed a line behind two others holding a large black battering ram as they the disengaged the safety of their automatic weapons. As the group advanced on the front door, a loud crash echoed as the force of the battering ram met the front door and splinters of wood rained down on the group.

Inside the house a middle-aged man sat at a computer in the darkness as images of young children flashed across the screen and the video streamed across the secret network that made him invisible to the rest of the world. Seconds later, he was lying on the floor handcuffed, and law enforcement agents carefully began to collect the evidence they needed to bring down a global ring of pedophiles.

The investigation had taken over a year and had led agents into the darkest depths of a world few know about, a world where terrorists, drug dealers and pedophiles roam freely. Known as “the Dark Web,” it is a series on non-indexed sites around the world that create an abyss 500 times larger than the Internet you and I surf every day.

Tor is free software that allows a user to browse, send e-mail and chat anonymously. It also allows users access to the “Dark Web.” A 2014 study by University of Portsmouth computer science researcher Gareth Owen discovered a startling 80 percent of the traffic to sites on the Dark Web were associated with child pornography.

In an interview with CBS News, Greg Virgin, who formerly worked with the National Security Agency and is now a cyber security consultant to children’s rights groups commented, “It was just an awful realization, discovering there were tens of thousands of people who are not only trading child pornography, but planning to exploit children.”

On the Dark Web, pedophile “shopping” sites advertise children for sale as well as take “orders” for specific age groups. Virgin said, “We found one site where users openly advertised the ages of the children they were interested in. The average youngest age they were seeking for girls was zero years old. And the average age for boys was one.”

A 2014 Business Insider article by James Cook that documents a pedophile fundraising site for child exploitation videos further emphasizes the growth of child exploitation on the Dark Web. Pedophiles created a twisted form of the popular fundraising tool “Kickstarter,” which collected funds to exploit children and then share the videos on the Dark Web for free.

The FBI is rumored to have taken down several of the servers used by pedophiles on the Dark Web in 2013. But, according to Virgin, “”The demand is picked up very quickly by other sites, and the sites are replaced very quickly, usually by a stronger, better site.”

The Dark Web is a Rubik’s cube of depravity. For those who know how to unlock its many hidden doors, there is no limit to the horrific nightmares children are forced to live. Internet browsers such as Internet Explorer and Google Chrome scan roughly 5 percent of the space that is reached by Tor, which plunges deeply into the hidden world. Internet privacy enthusiasts attempt to deflect criticism of the use of Tor and the presence of child exploitation on the Dark Web by saying the numbers are inflated.

A computer hacker who spoke under the condition of anonymity noted, “There are doors within the Dark Web hidden so well that only a handful of experts could find them, and even then it would take some time to uncover the warren of passageways deep beneath the surface.”

Tor began with a much nobler purpose that still finds its place in the expanding landscape of illicit users on the Dark Web. It was envisioned as a way to allow journalists and those living under oppressive governments a means of communication that would protect their identities and their lives.

Created by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Tor began in the 1990s as a way for the U.S. Intelligence Community to communicate securely. In 1997, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) further developed Tor and in 2004, the Naval Research Laboratory released the code for Tor under a free license. In 2006 a non-profit called “The Tor Project” was created by a group of computer scientists in Massachusetts that maintains Tor in association with several other organizations.

Law enforcement has been fighting back against those who exploit Tor for darker purposes. In 2013, Irish authorities arrested 28-year-old Eric Eoin Marques, who is thought responsible for Freedom Hosting, an anonymous hosting company rife with child exploitation.

After Marques’ arrest, a panic rushed through the pedophile community, when the U.S. National Security Agency released a virus onto the Freedom Hosting website to track and uncover the pedophiles lurking on the Dark Web. Numerous child exploitation forums were deleted in response to law enforcement’s infiltration of their twisted domain, and warnings temporarily drove pedophiles further underground.

The Dark Web interests law enforcement not only because of its large community of pedophiles but also because organized crime, terrorists, money laundering and the illegal drug trade have proliferated in its dark abyss.

For example, the infamous “Silk Road” site provided a marketplace of illicit drugs for sale on the Dark Web. Run by an administrator known only as the “Dread Pirate Roberts” (named after the character in the William Goldman novel and later movie “The Princess Bride”), the site drew the public ire of New York Sen. Chuck Schumer. The FBI arrested Ross William Ulbricht after an elaborate sting operation caught him logged on to the Silk Road site as the Dread Pirate Roberts himself.

The Dark Web has become an arena where the cat and mouse game between authorities and those who exploit a child’s innocence continues. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reports that as of January 2015, its CyberTipline received more than 3.3 million reports of suspected child sexual exploitation since it was launched in 1998. Memex, a powerful new search engine developed by DARPA has given U.S. law enforcement the ability to root out the elusive miscreants who trade in the most depraved corners of the Dark Web.

We face a desperate struggle as child exploitation continues to grow at an unprecedented rate. Law enforcement needs everyone to learn how those who exploit our children operate. It is only when we have all joined together in the fight to save our children that we will finally eradicate these parasites of the innocent.

As a survivor of child sex trafficking, childhood sexual abuse and childhood sexual exploitation, I understand the continuous cycle of abuse each victim suffers. As a child I was abandoned by irresponsible and abusive parents, left to fend for myself, stripped of the tools that every child needs to function in the world and saved from a darker ending only by the unconditional love of my great-aunt.

I have struggled my entire life with the effects of my early loss of innocence. Overcoming it has been my greatest triumph, but it only became possible through the love and caring of those who held human compassion in the highest regard and dedicated themselves to the rescue of those standing at the edge of the abyss.

My sincerest hope is that I can save one child from suffering the hell I endured. Then I can leave this life with a sense of accomplishment. I hope you will all join me in the fight to protect our children from sexual predators before the next child is stripped of innocence.

To learn more about how you can help stop those who exploit a child’s innocence and report suspected child sexual exploitation, visit the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children website http://www.missingkids.com/cybertipline/ or call the CyberTipline at 1-800-843-5678. Working together we can save the next child from a lifetime of ravaged innocence and stolen hopes and dreams.

Source: The Dark Web

Missing child alerts to become part of all Dutch Facebook timelines:

Amber Alerts for missing children will be automatically placed on all Facebook pages in the Netherlands, thanks to a new agreement between the social media platform, police and the hotline organisation, the Telegraaf reports on Friday.

Amber Alerts are currently shown in the timelines of people who have ‘liked’ the warning system, but that is now set to change, the paper says. 

The Amber Alert will be placed at the top of every Facebook user’s timeline for 12 hours when they log in for the first time. The aim, the paper says, is to ensure missing children are found more quickly. 

Facebook has been working with the Amber Alert operations in the US since the beginning of this year. This is the first European agreement. 

Amber Alerts are issued three to four times a year in the Netherlands and are also spread via mobile phone apps, text messages, emails and motorway information boards. 

They are only used for the most urgent cases, the organisation says.

Source: Missing child alerts on Dutch Facebook timelines

Trinity Mount Ministries Website

Children's Internet Safety

The Internet can be a wonderful resource for kids. They can use it to research school reports, communicate with teachers and other kids, and play interactive games. Kids who are old enough to punch in a few letters on the keyboard can have access to the world.

But that access can also pose hazards. For example, an 8-year-old might do an online search for "Lego." But with just one missed keystroke, the word "Legs" is entered instead, and the child may be directed to a slew of websites with a focus on legs — some of which may contain pornographic material.

That's why it's important to be aware of what your kids see and hear on the Internet, who they meet, and what they share about themselves online.

As with any safety issue, it's wise to talk with your kids about your concerns, take advantage of resources to protect them, and keep a close eye on their activities.

Internet Safety Laws:

A federal law, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), was created to help protect kids online. It's designed to keep anyone from getting a child's personal information without a parent knowing about it and agreeing to it first.

COPPA requires websites to explain their privacy policies on the site and get parental consent before collecting or using a child's personal information, such as a name, address, phone number, or Social Security number. The law also prohibits a site from requiring a child to provide more personal information than necessary to play a game or participate in a contest.

But even with this law, your kids' best online protection is you. By talking to them about potential online dangers and monitoring their computer use, you'll help them surf the Internet safely.

Online Protection Tools:

Online tools are available that will let you control your kids' access to adult material and help protect them from Internet predators. No option is going to guarantee that they'll be kept away from 100% of the risks on the Internet. So it's important to be aware of your kids' computer activities and educate them about online risks.

Many Internet service providers:

(ISPs) provide parent-control options to block certain material from coming into a computer. You can also get software that helps block access to certain sites based on a "bad site" list that your ISP creates. Filtering programs can block sites from coming in and restrict personal information from being sent online. Other programs can monitor and track online activity. Also, make sure your kids create a screen name to protect their real identity.

Getting Involved in Kids' Online Activities:

Aside from these tools, it's wise to take an active role in protecting your kids from Internet predators and sexually explicit materials online. To do that:

Become computer literate and learn how to block objectionable material.
Keep the computer in a common area, not in individual bedrooms, where you can watch and monitor its use.

Share an email account with your child so you can monitor messages.

Bookmark kids' favorite sites for easy access.

Spend time online together to teach your kids appropriate online behavior.

Forbid your child from entering private chat rooms; block them with safety features provided by your Internet service provider or with special filtering software. Be aware that posting messages to chat rooms reveals a user's email address to others.

Monitor your credit card and phone bills for unfamiliar account charges.

Find out what, if any, online protection is offered by your child's school, after-school center, friends' homes, or anyplace where kids could use a computer without your supervision.

Take your child seriously if he or she reports an uncomfortable online exchange.

Forward copies of obscene or threatening messages you or your kids get to your Internet service provider.

Call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at (800) 843-5678 if you're aware of the transmission, use, or viewing of child pornography online. Contact your local law enforcement agency or the FBI if your child has received child pornography via the Internet.

Many sites use "cookies," devices that track specific information about the user, such as name, email address, and shopping preferences. Cookies can be disabled. Ask your Internet service provider for more information.

Basic Rules:

Set up some guidelines for your kids to use while they're online, such as:

Follow the rules you set, as well as those set by your Internet service provider.

Never trade personal photographs in the mail or scanned photographs over the Internet.

Never reveal personal information, such as address, phone number, or school name or location. Use only a screen name. Never agree to meet anyone from a chat room in person.
Never respond to a threatening email or message.

Always tell a parent about any communication or conversation that was scary.

If your child has a new "friend," insist on being "introduced" online to that friend.

Chat Room Caution:

Chat rooms are virtual online rooms where chat sessions take place. They're set up according to interest or subject, such as a favorite sport or TV show. Because people can communicate with each other alone or in a group, chat rooms are among the most popular online destinations — especially for kids and teens.

But chat rooms can pose hazards for kids. Some kids have met "friends" in chat rooms who were interested in exploiting them. No one knows how common chat-room predators are, but pedophiles (adults who are sexually interested in children) are known to frequent chat rooms.

These predators sometimes prod their online acquaintances to exchange personal information, such as addresses and phone numbers, thus putting the kids they are chatting with — and their families — at risk.

Pedophiles often pose as teenagers in chat rooms. Because many kids have been told by parents not to give out their phone numbers, pedophiles may encourage kids to call them — and if they do, caller ID will instantly give the offenders the kids' phone numbers.

Warning Signs:

Warning signs of a child being targeted by an online predator include spending long hours online, especially at night, phone calls from people you don't know, or unsolicited gifts arriving in the mail. If your child suddenly turns off the computer when you walk into the room, ask why and monitor computer time more closely. Withdrawal from family life and reluctance to discuss online activities are other signs to watch for.

Contact your local law enforcement agency or the FBI if your child has received pornography via the Internet or has been the target of an online sex offender.

Taking an active role in your kids' Internet activities will help ensure that they benefit from the wealth of valuable information it offers without being exposed to any potential dangers.

Reviewed by: Steven Dowshen, MD

Source: http://m.kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/net_safety.html

Geeks Get Clever to Help Find Missing Children with Custom 404 Pages:

Geeks Get Clever to Help Find Missing Children with Custom 404 Pages

By Jeff Balke Mon., Oct. 29 2012 at 7:00 AM

If you've ever visited a website but went to a page that doesn't exist, you have probably found yourself stuck on a page that says something like "You the page you are looking for doesn't exist" if the site didn't automatically redirect you to the main page. Visiting a page that doesn't exist on a website leads to errors, the most common of which is a "404 Page Not found" response.

Over the years, enterprising programmers have taken advantage of 404 pages by automatically redirecting visitors to useful and sometimes wildly creative pages. Not surprisingly, a lot of people visit incorrect pages on websites leaving that error page ripe for creativity. Now, a group has decided to put these error pages to use locating missing children.

NotFound.org, a initiative of missing and abused children non-profit organizations, has tasked website owners with using 404 pages as a place for information about missing children. The virtual milk cartons show a photo of the child and information about him or her along with the headline, "Page not found. Neither is..." and the name of the child.

It's a pretty inventive way to distribute information about missing kids and something a lot of people will see. Several companies have already agreed to begin providing the custom error pages for their websites.

Frankly, this is the kind of thing sites like Facebook, Twitter and the like should adopt. It provides and invaluable service and the amount of traffic they get daily potentially leads to thousands of visitors every day seeing missing children they might never have known existed. It's a good use of otherwise unused space on a website.

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Digital Strategy at the Department of Justice:

Digital Strategy at the Department of Justice

August 21st, 2012 Posted by Tracy Russo

 

On May 23, 2012, the White House released the Federal Digital Strategy that outlined the use of “modern tools and technologies to seize the digital opportunity and fundamentally change how the Federal Government serves both its internal and external customers–building a 21st century platform to better serve the American People.” That means making sure information and services are easily accessible on the internet anytime, anywhere, and on any device. It means you will be able to find and share information that is important to you, your family and your community.
In the past few years, the Department of Justice has taken many steps to make the department’s information more available and accessible. We’ve added hundreds of data sets to data.gov, have begun using social media to bring information directly to you, and added more information to our website than ever before. But we know we can do more. As we begin to formulate our digital strategy, we want your input on which information and services you’d like us to prioritize and make more tech and mobile-friendly. There are two areas where we’d like your input:

• What Justice Department information would you like to be able to access on mobile devices?
• What Justice Department information, data, or applications would you like to us make available via APIs (Applied Programming Interface)?

Send us your thoughts on digital strategy at opengov@usdoj.gov.
We’ve come up with a few possibilities for each area. You can see the list on our Digital Strategy web page, justice.gov/digitalstrategy.
We welcome your feedback on the possible candidates for improvement, or other opportunities we may have overlooked. Your feedback, combined with other internal and external conversations, will guide our digital plan in the coming months and years.
Read more about how we are participating in the Digital Government Strategy and Open Government at our website.

Trinity Mount Ministries

FBI - Protecting our Children with Technology:

Protecting our Children
Technology, Partnerships Work Hand in Hand

10/03/11
Investigators dedicated to rescuing child victims of sexual abuse and arresting those who traffic in child pornography are often faced with the difficult and time-consuming task of analyzing hundreds of thousands of illicit images traded online.

For the eighth year in a row, October has been designated National Cyber Security Awareness Month. The goal: to reinforce the importance of protecting the cyber networks that are so much a part of our daily lives. The theme of the observance, which is sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security, is “Our Shared Responsibility." Over the course of the month we will be posting additional stories and information about cyber crimes and security. Read more

That painstaking work is critical to identifying victims and their abusers, however, and members of our Digital Analysis and Research Center (DARC)—part of the FBI’s Innocent Images National Initiative—use a mix of sophisticated computer tools and domestic and international partnerships to get the job done.
DARC personnel, who analyze digital evidence in the most significant online child exploitation cases, are currently testing a software tool called the Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS). The CETS program—already in use in several locations around the world—is designed to streamline investigations and integrate with other CETS operations so that law enforcement agencies can enhance their cooperation and efficiently move their cases forward.
“CETS has tremendous potential for the FBI,” said Special Agent Barbara Cordero, a veteran cyber investigator who manages research, development, and training for the Innocent Images National Initiative. “Eventually, when everyone is plugged into CETS, it will allow law enforcement everywhere to share key information.”
“If I’m in a small police department in Iowa, I might not know that another department in Maryland is investigating the same subject I am investigating,” Cordero explained. “CETS will tell me that, along with other important information.”

The FBI established the Innocent Images National Initiative in 1995 to address the proliferation of child pornography and child exploitation facilitated by the Internet. A component of the Bureau’s cyber crimes program, the Innocent Images initiative takes a proactive, multi-agency, investigative approach that relies on strong domestic and international law enforcement partnerships.  The initiative prioritizes several investigative areas, including: - Online organizations and enterprises that exploit children for profit or personal gain; - Major distributors and producers of child pornography; - Individuals who travel—or are willing to travel—for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity with a minor; and - Possessors of child pornography. Learn more

Essentially, CETS is a repository that can be filled with records pertaining to child pornography and child exploitation cases. The system can contain images, case information, identities of known offenders along with information about their Internet addresses, and other related material. The program can analyze millions of pornographic images, helping law enforcement personnel avoid duplication of effort. The program can also perform in-depth analyses, establishing links in cases that investigators might not have seen by themselves.
“CETS has the ability to put the same information in one place and make it available in a unified standard for everyone,” said Special Agent Charles Wilder, who heads DARC. “That’s important because the Internet has removed all geographic boundaries in these types of crimes.”
The CETS program was created by Microsoft at the request of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police National Child Exploitation Coordination Center—investigators there wanted a system designed specifically for child exploitation cases. The program is now being used in Canada and Australia—and Interpol, the international police organization, is working with several of its member countries to integrate CETS into its existing systems.
The ultimate goal is to expand the number of CETS users and to one day integrate all the operations so investigators can share information in a truly global way. “Right now,” Cordero said, “the immediate benefit for the FBI is that CETS saves us a tremendous amount of time in the image review process. Bad guys who trade pornographic images have massive collections,” she said. “We regularly seize hundreds of thousands of images. CETS makes the review process extremely efficient.”
She added, “The FBI has terrific partnerships with cyber investigators in the U.S. and around the world. As we move forward, CETS will allow us to strengthen those partnerships by sharing more and more critical information. This type of technology is a model for the future.”
Resources:
- Innocent Images National Initiative
- National Cyber Security Awareness Month