A group of researchers from the University of Limerick have collaborated with Brazilian police in the fight against darknet-hosted child pornography. It is reported that the study, which was partly supported by the Science Foundation Ireland and the European Research Council, has been lauded by the Brazilian Justice Minister as a right step towards law and order.
In a nutshell, the research delves into the network analysis of Operation Darknet, a Brazilian law enforcement undertaking that led to the arrest of 55 people in 2014 – individuals who were associated with one of the planet’s biggest pedophile online forums. The operation targeted several Brazilian states, including the federal district of the country’s capital.
The Study
The specific purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of Operation Darknet in disrupting the spread of child porn across dark web spaces. The research team, which included an individual from the Federal Police, applied the techniques used in network analysis to recommend methodologies that would best target persons of interest and disrupt the distribution of inappropriate content.
In principle, the direction taken by the study dwelled on the scale of content shared via online platforms. A significant number of content distributors had garnered more than 100, 000 views. It was confirmed that eight of the ten most prolific distributors were apprehended by authorities. Otherwise, the study showed that 39% of all available content on the platform were supplied by only twenty distributors. This reality meant that law enforcement agents would only achieve a content reduction of 43%.
Outcomes
This study faced the typical pertinent issues that describe the dark web – the online forums in question had developed a highly robust and sophisticated network. It was found that there existed an unprecedented scale of connections between users, a factor that made it exceedingly difficult for the researchers to digest by using traditional network methods. The research team discovered that more than half of all detected content distributors would have to be ejected in order to achieve a total fragmentation of the network.
Otherwise, according to this study that was published in Nature’s Scientific Reports journal, six minors were rescued by Operation Darknet, and 182 users were exposed and apprehended after the 2-year long undertaking that began in 2014.
Out of the 182 users, more than 170 of them were distributors – with the number of content sharers standing at 766 out of the total of 10, 000 users analyzed. Importantly, the police probe yielded good results in the beginning by effectively arresting the individuals responsible for providing more than half of the content. Subsequent persons of interest were selected ineffectively, leading to a reduction in 58% of content postings as opposed to the expected 92%.
Tap here to join the discussion on Tape forum
