GRAHAM ? On page after page of search warrants filed in Alamance County Superior Court, the graphic descriptions of the photos and videos are appalling.
Children, most between 6 and 13 years old, being sexually abused or photographed unclothed and in lewd positions. Some of the children in the photos appear distressed or are covering their faces. Some are alone. Others are being coerced or forced into sexual acts with adults or other children.
The descriptions are written by investigators who use sophisticated software to download and track the source of the illegal material to computers in and around Alamance County. These detectives must view the material, both to log it as evidence while building criminal cases and to possibly identify the children.
??The stuff you have to see, I can only watch it for so long,? said Sgt. David Sykes of the Alamance County Sheriff?s Department. ?It?s not something I can do for 8 hours a day. I have to step away from it, have a cup of coffee, and come back.?
Sykes is one of two investigators at the sheriff?s department who are members of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, a national collective of agents working to squelch illegal pornography and online solicitation of minors. The task force was created in 1998 by the U.S. Department of Justice?s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to educate and train officers on how to track and stop online crimes. Nationwide, more than 3,000 agencies participate in ICAC.
The State Bureau of Investigation oversees ICAC among 135 affiliate agencies in North Carolina. Between 2007 and 2011, the SBI?s Computer Crimes unit opened 768 cases involving child pornography and exploitation, said spokeswoman Noelle Talley. The SBI got more than 5,600 tips about the crimes during that time.
The sheriff?s department joined with ICAC in 2008, sending Sykes through an intensive series of training and software licensure. Since then, he?s logged hundreds of hours of training in courses on how to catch predators and illegal pornography traders. Sykes believes the ICAC system is working to cut down on the online exploitation of children.
?The more enforcement that we?ve done in the county, the less we see? being traded, Sykes said.
?Thanks to the Internet, the underworld of child abuse and exploitation now knows few geographical boundaries. Traders of child pornography usually never meet or know each others? names. Peer-to-peer file-sharing networks and online sharing give them fast, anonymous access to each others? data.
ICAC agents developed systems that track the trade of known and suspected child pornography over P2P networks. The investigative softwares are built around the public nature of online file sharing, Sykes said. When users log into file-sharing programs, they automatically make the documents they share public ? like opening their front door and allowing the world to walk through their homes.
It begins with following a suspected computer?s Internet Protocol address.
The ICAC software allows agents to identify suspected IP addresses, identify the files they are sharing as known child pornography, record the dates and number of times they log into and share those files on a network and download the suspected files to law enforcement computers.
Sykes wouldn?t say exactly how an individual IP address becomes the target of an investigation, but ICAC and the SBI routinely take tips from the public. Sykes said that all of Alamance County?s ICAC investigations are ?self-initiated.? Even if users elect not to share their files on P2P networks, they automatically share their portion of an image or video during the download process, he said.
There are safeguards to prevent law enforcement sharing their downloaded files with the peer-to-peer network, Sykes said.
Once an IP address is flagged, the software automates the information collection process. Another program allows agencies to locate where the IP addresses are operating and Internet service providers, such as Time Warner Cable, provide law enforcement with the name on the account registered to the IP address.
?They don?t have any idea that we?re looking at them until they get the knock on the front door,? Sykes said.
The process is accurate, Sykes said. There?s only been one Alamance County case in which a search warrant was issued in suspicion of child pornography and the contraband wasn?t found, he said. That instance was likely due to a typo in the IP address matchup by an Internet service provider, leading investigators to the wrong address.
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UNLIKE 20 or 30 years ago, when child pornography was traded through mail, it?s rare that physical copies of child pornography are found, said sheriff?s office spokesman Randy Jones.
Detectives instead seize computers and electronic devices, such as thumb drives, SD cards and external hard drives. Computer forensics experts must scour the computers for evidence. The process can take up to 40 hours for a crime lab to analyze a single computer, Talley said. Sykes does his own forensics and doesn?t rely on the SBI. He also aids computer forensics investigations in Burlington and other Alamance County cities.
The ICAC software tells investigators whether a piece of child pornography has been previously identified by law enforcement. If Sykes finds a new image of child pornography, he alerts the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in hopes the victim can be identified. Sometimes pediatricians are asked to examine the images if there?s a doubt about whether an individual pictured is an adult.
?Unfortunately, most of the time there?s no question. It?s a misconception that child pornography is (of teenagers who appear old enough to be adults). That?s because these predators are attracted to children. They aren?t attracted to other adults,? Sykes said.
Alamance County Assistant District Attorney Lori Wickline, an ICAC-trained prosecutor who handles most of the child sex abuse cases here, and Sykes have learned to trust each other?s judgment while working cases together. They regularly communicate about potential charges and the outcomes of their cases.
?David is a phenomenal investigator, crossing every ?T? and dotting every ?I,? ? Wickline said. ?I know how thorough he is. And so, if he?s not comfortable charging someone, I know I wouldn?t be comfortable prosecuting the case. I respect his work that much.?
The illicit files are stored as evidence, locked away, until the case is brought to trial. Not even Wickline is allowed to possess the illegal material in preparation for trial. She must view the files with Sykes, she said. Sometimes Sykes will provide censored hard copies of the material if needed.
None of the county?s recent child pornography cases have gone to trial. If a case were to go before a jury, then jurors would have to view the images. Most cases end in plea arrangements because defendants usually admit guilt, Wickline said, and because part of the goal is to get traders registered as sex offenders and protect potential future victims.
?There?s also a sense of relief. It?s a very secretive aspect of these men?s lives ? and they are mostly men. Many of them don?t have criminal records. So there?s relief because they don?t have to hide anymore,? she said.
Sykes and Jones also spoke of the hidden nature of people who view and collect child pornography.
The suspects are usually middle-aged males. If married, their wives have no idea about their online activities. They are neighbors, friends and church members. An October, SBI-led statewide sting netted 24 arrests on child porn charges. The men arrested included an active duty Marine, a teacher and a firefighter ? men otherwise considered pillars of their community.
And it?s because of the underground nature of the child porn trade that it?s constantly evolving, they said.
New types of P2P networks have emerged, forcing ICAC to develop new programs to combat exploitation on those fronts. Data transfer over smart phones and tablets has also exploded over the last few years, offering new technological hurdles for investigators. Wireless Internet and cloud-sourcing pose challenges. Sykes is also being asked more often to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to investigate data and items coming into the U.S.
Because of the intense nature of the investigations and subject matter, ICE requires psychological evaluations every six months, Sykes said. ICAC also offers counseling options to agents.
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High-tech tracking
The Internet Crimes Against Children task force, including 135 agencies in North Carolina and hundreds more across the country, employs sophisticated technology to track traders of child pornography on the Internet. Here?s a look at how they do what they do:
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- Internet Protocol (IP) addresses
Each computer has a unique Internet Protocol address. Customers of Internet service providers, such as Time Warner Cable, can be identified by those companies? logs and individual account information.
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- Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Networks
Instead of a direct, one-on-one system of sharing ? such as emailing a photo to someone ? peer-to-peer sharing allows thousands or millions of anonymous users access to each others? files. Traders of child pornography around the world harnessed the P2P network called Gnutella to quickly and easily share illegal videos and images with each other. Other P2P networks have also arisen in the last few years.
Law enforcement computer programs allow investigators to see and search files shared by an individual computer?s IP address for child pornography.
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- SHA-1 Values
Each file has a digital fingerprint, called a SHA-1 value. The SHA-1 value code of an individual video or image remains the same every time a file is shared over a network. Changing the file name of a photo doesn?t change its SHA-1 code.
Investigators use software to compare SHA-1 values of known or suspected child pornography with shared files sent over peer-to-peer networks.
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- Mapping IP addresses
IP addresses are registered to geographic locations. Computer software makes it possible for Alamance County investigators to track IP addresses to within or near Alamance County.
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- Search warrants
When a local IP address is registered as sharing suspected child pornography and matched to a local address, investigators have probable cause to search the residence. They apply for a search warrant through a judge or magistrate. During searches of homes, they confiscate computers, discs, hard drives, jump drives and other media and storage devices. Investigators then scour the collected items for potential evidence.
Article source: http://www.thetimesnews.com/articles/detecting-58458-down-graham.html
Source: http://www.caringforourchildrenfoundation.org/?p=25583
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