A Criminological Analysis: Using Real-Time Monitoring to Gather Data on Online Predators
Kasun Jayawardena, B.Jus
Supervisor: Dr. Colin Thorne
Submitted in fulfilment for the degree of
Masters of Justice (Research) School of Justice Faculty of Law
QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Abstract
The Internet presents a constantly evolving frontier for criminology and policing, especially in relation to online predators – paedophiles operating within the Internet for safer access to children, child pornography and networking opportunities with other online predators. The goals of this qualitative study are to undertake behavioural research – identify personality types and archetypes of online predators and compare and contrast them with behavioural profiles and other psychological research on offline paedophiles and sex offenders. It is also an endeavour to gather intelligence on the technological utilisation of online predators and conduct observational research on the social structures of online predator communities. These goals were achieved through the covert monitoring and logging of public activity within four Internet Relay Chat(rooms) (IRC) themed around child sexual abuse and which were located on the Undernet network.
Five days of monitoring was conducted on these four chatrooms between Wednesday 1 to Sunday 5 April 2009; this raw data was collated and analysed. The analysis identified four personality types – the gentleman predator, the sadist, the businessman and the pretender – and eight archetypes consisting of the groomers, dealers, negotiators, roleplayers, networkers, chat requestors, posters and travellers. The characteristics and traits of these personality types and archetypes, which were extracted from the literature dealing with offline paedophiles and sex offenders, are detailed and contrasted against the online sexual predators identified within the chatrooms, revealing many similarities and interesting differences particularly with the businessman and pretender personality types. These personality types and archetypes were illustrated by selecting users who displayed the appropriate characteristics and tracking them through the four chatrooms, revealing intelligence data on the use of proxies servers – especially via the Tor software – and other security strategies such as Undernet’s host masking service. Name and age changes, which is used as a potential sexual grooming tactic was also revealed through the use of Analyst’s Notebook software and information on ISP information revealed the likelihood that many online predators were not using any safety mechanism and relying on the anonymity of the Internet. The activities of these online predators were analysed, especially in
2
regards to child sexual grooming and the ‘posting’ of child pornography, which revealed a few of the methods in which online predators utilised new Internet technologies to sexually groom and abuse children – using technologies such as instant messengers, webcams and microphones – as well as store and disseminate illegal materials on image sharing websites and peer-to-peer software such as Gigatribe. Analysis of the social structures of the chatrooms was also carried out and the community functions and characteristics of each chatroom explored. The findings of this research have indicated several opportunities for further research. As a result of this research, recommendations are given on policy, prevention and response strategies with regards to online predators.
3
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 13
Defining Child Sexual Abuse ...... 16
Abusers and Online Predators ...... 18
Legal Aspects ...... 19
Child Sexual Abuse and Offenders ...... 20
Chapter 2: Technology Used to Facilitate Child Sexual Abuse ...... 22
The Evolving Internet: Reimagining Old Technologies ...... 22
Anonymity ...... 23
Internet Relay Chat (IRC)...... 24
mIRC ...... 25
File servers and other add-on software ...... 25
File sharing software ...... 25
Image sharing ...... 26
Transcript 1: Image Sharing of Child Pornography and Comments ...... 26
Social networking ...... 26
Instant messengers ...... 26
Chapter 3: Theory and Practice of Paedophilia in the Internet Age ...... 28
Child Sexual Abuse and Abusers ...... 29
Integrated Theory ...... 29
Quadripartite Model ...... 30
Pre-condition Model ...... 30
Pathways Model ...... 30
4
Profiling Abusers...... 31
Behavioural and Psychological Research ...... 32
Communication ...... 40
Anonymity ...... 41
Organised Abuse ...... 41
Knowledge Gaps ...... 42
Behavioural Analysis and Profiling ...... 42
Technological Utilisation ...... 42
Communication and Social Structure Analysis ...... 43
Previous Methods ...... 43
The Need for Ongoing Primary Research ...... 45
Chapter 4: Research Methods ...... 47
Design...... 47
Data Collection Procedure ...... 48
Internet Relay Chat Environment ...... 48
Table 1: Logged Chatrooms ...... 49
Method of Collection ...... 51
Setting Up of Monitoring ...... 52
Figure 1: Virtual Private Network ...... 53
Internet Relay Chat Communication ...... 54
Screenshot 1: mIRC Setup Options ...... 57
Transcript 2: Exits, Entrances and IP/ISP Information ...... 58
Transcript 3: Conversation, Advertisement and Fserver ...... 58
Sampling...... 60
5
Figure 2: Example of Whois ...... 60
Data Collation ...... 61
Transcript 4: Patterns for Macro ...... 62
Data Analysis ...... 62
Behavioural Analysis ...... 63
Intelligence Analysis ...... 63
Social Analysis ...... 64
Chapter 5: Research Findings – Behavioural Analysis ...... 66
Activity Levels ...... 67
Social Structure ...... 67
IRC-Kids ...... 67
Transcript 5: Posting Requests ...... 67
IRC-Incest ...... 68
Transcript 6: Unwelcome Advertisements in IRC-Incest...... 69
Transcript 7: Male Online Predator Activity within IRC-Incest ...... 69
IRC-Sadism ...... 69
Transcript 8: Bondage, Discipline, Sadism and Masochism Terminology ...... 70
IRC-Girl ...... 70
Personality Types ...... 71
The Gentleman Predator ...... 71
Transcript 9: The Gentleman Predator (Chat) ...... 71
Transcript 10: The Gentleman Predator (Roleplay) ...... 72
Transcript 11: The Gentleman Predator (as a Facade) ...... 73
The Sadist ...... 73
6
Transcript 12: The Sadist ...... 74
Transcript 13: The Sadist (Snuff Nicknames) ...... 76
The Businessman ...... 77
The Pretender ...... 77
Transcript 14: The Pretender ...... 78
Beastiality ...... 79
Transcript 15: Beastiality ...... 79
Transcript 16: Beastiality (Child Pornography and Comments) ...... 80
Transcript 17: Beastiality (Zoosadism) ...... 81
Archetypes ...... 82
Groomers ...... 82
Transcript 18: Groomer ...... 82
Transcript 19: Groomer (Age and Sex change) ...... 83
Dealers ...... 84
Transcript 20: Dealers ...... 85
Transcript 21: Dealers (Revealing Deviation from Advertisement) ...... 85
Transcript 22: Dealers (Nickname Changes) ...... 86
Transcript 23: Dealers (The Businessman Personality Type) ...... 87
Negotiators...... 88
Transcript 24: Negotiators ...... 88
Transcript 25: Negotiators (Child Pornography Producers) ...... 89
Transcript 26: Negotiators (Tor Hostname) ...... 90
Roleplayers ...... 90
Transcript 27: Roleplayers ...... 91
7
Transcript 28: Roleplayers (Detailed Scenarios) ...... 91
Transcript 29: Roleplayers (Unusual) ...... 92
Networkers...... 93
Transcript 30: Networkers ...... 94
Transcript 31: Networkers (Child Sexual Abuse) ...... 95
Transcript 32: Networkers (Fantasies) ...... 96
Transcript 33: Networkers (Information) ...... 96
Transcript 34: Networkers (Advice) ...... 97
Chat Requestors ...... 97
Transcript 35: Chat Requestors ...... 98
Posters ...... 99
Transcript 36: Posters ...... 99
Transcript 37: Posters (Community) ...... 100
Travellers ...... 101
Transcript 38: Traveller ...... 101
Chapter 6: ...... 103
Research Findings – Intelligence Analysis ...... 103
Activity within Undernet ...... 103
Transcript 39: Evidence of Tor Proxies...... 103
Figure 3: Analyst’s Notebook – Graphical Depiction of Proxies ...... 105
Figure 4: Analyst’s Notebook – Graphical Depiction of Age Change ...... 106
Spam ...... 106
Transcript 40: Spam ...... 106
Other Internet Technologies Utilised ...... 107
8
Image Sharing ...... 108
Trading of Child Pornography ...... 109
Transcript 41: Fserver ...... 110
Transcript 42: Gigatribe Requests...... 110
Transcript 43: Flickr...... 111
Instant Messengers ...... 112
Transcript 44: Yahoo and MSN ...... 112
Transcript 45: Grooming and Age/Sex Confirmation ...... 113
Other Networks ...... 114
Offline Intelligence ...... 115
Chapter 7: Discussion ...... 117
Goals...... 117
Behavioural Goal ...... 117
Intelligence Goal...... 121
Social Structures Goal ...... 122
Limitations ...... 122
Implications ...... 123
Society ...... 123
Government ...... 124
Chapter 8: Conclusion ...... 126
Recommendations ...... 127
Education ...... 127
Prevention ...... 128
Response ...... 129
9
Appendix 1 ...... 131
Bibliography ...... 132
10
Statement of Original Authorship
The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made.
Signature:______
Date: ______
11
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following people and organisations:
Dr. Col Thorne, my supervisor, deserves significant thanks and credit for the entire process of this research project and for being patient, tolerant and laid-back under pressure. Thanks also go to Tara McGee for guidance on research and writing.
The Queensland University of Technology, particularly the School of Justice and the Information Technology Services for support in conducting this research, which has been on my mind far longer than when we started in 2007.
My friends – Michael Jillett and Ruben Francis in particular – for their support, tolerating my absence and surviving my bad moods with good humour.
My colleagues in the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation for their support and for the flexible work practices of the Queensland Public Service.
The Queensland Police Service, especially TaskForce ARGOS, and the Australian Federal Police for supporting this project.
Benjamin Leavitt, who kindly provided technical assistance, support and patience from across the world.
And special thanks to my girlfriend, Anja, for love, support and believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself. I couldn’t have completed this without you.
This thesis and research is dedicated to the survivors of child sexual abuse.
Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him. Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821 - 1881)
12
Chapter 1: Introduction
““I just feel so damned lucky to be part of this outstanding group of paedophiles,” gushed Mara (online pseudonym “Tex”) after accessing some new content from the group’s pooled collection. He had a fetish for PTHC (pre-teen hardcore child porn) featuring girls and among his anonymous friends he had finally found acceptance. His sexual preference couldn’t be wrong, could it, if there were so many other people just like him?”
Amanda Watt (2010, 19)
Child sexual abuse is a crime which is difficult to investigate, is under-reported and has become more and more complex since the advent of new technologies, chief amongst which are the Internet and ‘Web 2.0’ Internet technologies. The constantly evolving nature of the Internet, the increasing technological prowess of each successive generation and the high-tech nature of crime presents a new, almost impossibly large horizon for investigators and scholars alike. Policing the Internet has become increasingly difficult as technology develops at a lightning pace—questions of jurisdiction, national and international laws and increased anonymity and security has complicated investigation of child sexual abuse, including child pornography.
This research paper will attempt to bridge some of the existing gaps in knowledge of online child sexual abuse, specifically within in Internet Relay Chat(rooms) (IRC), through qualitative primary research. The primary goal of this research is to monitor and identify potential behavioural patterns of online predators to enable better profiling and achieve a more extensive understanding of activities and patterns related to them. This goal will be achieved through the analysis of logs of four child sexual abuse themed chatrooms from which broad personality types will be extracted. These personality types will give context to the analysis of the activities – and behaviours stemming from them – of selected ‘archetypal’ online predators—those with similarities in activity and behaviour will be grouped and example users chosen for the analysis. This analysis will be conducted against the existing knowledge of offline child sexual offenders.
13
Arising from this primary goal is the secondary goal of gathering intelligence on the internet technologies currently adapted by online predators, particularly for the facilitation of content crimes such as the trading of child pornography. The nature of the technologies available to online predators and the manner in which they are utilised to form a ‘suite’ of methods to network and offend naturally corresponds to behavioural patterns and activities. The specific patterns of communication, the particular traditions and customs of each medium used by online predators dictates the manner in which they behave and act, in the same manner as the real-time communication on chatrooms such as the ones studied here will differ to communication in email (longer time to reply and think), or communication in a message board (shorter time to reply as the ‘thread’ of a conversation may keep going with input from other participants). The capabilities and restrictions of each medium also influence behaviour and activity. This study also demonstrates the value of such intelligence research to criminology and policing.
The third goal of this research is to critically observe the social structures of online chatrooms dedicated to the proliferation of child abuse and related content crime. Understanding of these social structures provide both researchers and investigators with a more profound insight into the way online predators create the spaces in which they network, gain acceptance and offend—a virtual world where paedophilia is accepted and illegal activities encouraged by other users.
It is important to note that certain practical time and structural constraints apply to the depth and breadth of this research. It is not feasible, within these constraints, to attempt a totally comprehensive quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data gathered, as the sheer amount of raw data available renders this almost impossible. The evolving nature of the Internet, as discussed in Chapter 2, also becomes a constraint upon practical research—the technologies utilised constantly change over time and the behaviours change to adapt to them. However, this research – and the primary research model in particular – investigates the sphere of online predators deeper than many such studies have been able to; future research within this area will hopefully extend our understanding even further.
It is also important to note that this thesis deals with illegal activities and child sexual abuse material, the full publication of which may be detrimental to victims and possible ongoing investigations. Therefore the data, when reproduced here, will be de-identified whilst retaining
14
the content—for example, in a transcript of conversation around a link to child pornography, the link and Nicknames of the participants will be de-identified while the conversation will be replicated. These transcripts will also contain spelling and grammatical errors which were not corrected to maintain the integrity of the data.
This thesis will consist of the following sections: -
Chapter 1 – defines the central concepts which are being studied through this research as well as highlighting the three goals for analysing behavioural patterns through observation and comparison to behavioural research of offline paedophiles, gathering intelligence on technological utilisation and critically observing the social structures of the online chatrooms studied;
Chapter 2 – provides an analysis of the Internet and review the technology utilised. The evolution of the Internet into a dynamic online environment characterised by functional integration is discussed in relation to criminal activity and the anonymity the Internet provides;
Chapter 3 – provides a literature review on child sexual abuse and the behavioural analysis aspects of online and offline paedophilia. It will outline the current gaps in knowledge about the behaviours and activities of online predators and create a theoretical framework from which the behavioural analysis and profiling can be carried out;
Chapter 4 – provides an in-depth outline of the methodology used to achieve the goals of this research and the restrictions placed by legislation and ethical considerations. The setup of the monitoring will be discussed, as will the data gathering stage, data collation and data analysis;
Chapter 5 – presents the behavioural research findings of the analysis performed, including personality types, archetypical profiles and social structures;
Chapter 6 – presents the intelligence research findings of the analysis performed, including intelligence data on the example users of each archetype, on technological utilisation and other networks being used by online predators;
Chapter 7 – provides a discussion of the results and findings of the collation and analysis process of the logged data; and 15
Chapter 8 – highlights the recommendations on policy, prevention and response to online predators and concludes this thesis.
To achieve these goals, definite boundaries must be established to practically limit the scope of what is being researched. For this, the concepts relating to child sexual abuse – the central broad focus of this research – must be defined and understood.
Defining Child Sexual Abuse
Within the field of psychology, Sigmund Freud first explored the effects of child sexual abuse on the psychology of survivors in his seduction theory, which posited that repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse were the cause of his patients’ mental health issues. Much research has been conducted into child sexual abuse in contemporary times, with the 1970s and 1980s marking a growing awareness of the reality of this issue (Haugaard 2000, 1036). Current discourse still has no consensus on a single definition of child sexual abuse—the age of the victim, the age of the offender, the nature of the act and the intent of offenders have been points of contention amongst child sexual abuse researchers. This is further complicated by jurisdictional issues; Australia’s age of consent for sex is 16 while the age of majority – when a minor is considered an adult for legal purposes – of all States and Territories is 18 (Harrison 1992, para. 15) although there is no Commonwealth age of majority. Compounding this imbalance between the age of majority and the age of consent, Queensland is the only State in Australia where 17 year old offenders are treated as adults instead of juveniles (Glennie 2009, para. 3-4).
The legal situation is complicated internationally as well. Prior to 2008, the age of consent in Canada was 14 (CBC News 2008, para. 1-4); this is further complicated, however, by the legality of ‘close in age’ laws which allows for 14 and 15 year olds to have sex with a partner less than 5 years older (CBC News 2008, para. 3). The disparity of the legal age of consent remains throughout the world and in places such as Japan, the legal age can be as young as 13 (Interpol 2006, para. 6).
16
Fisher and Whiting identify that a broad range of behaviours, offenders and duration are included in the concept of child sexual abuse:
“First, the definition of sexual abuse includes a broad range of behaviors [sic], including exhibitionism, kissing, fondling, digital penetration, intercourse, oral or anal sex, and insertion of objects into the sex organs. Second, these acts can be perpetrated across a broad range of intrafamilial and extrafamilial relationships, including family members (fathers, mothers, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins), familiar adults (e.g., mother’s boyfriend, clergy, neighbor [sic], teacher), and strangers. Third, across these different abusive behaviors and relationships, there is considerable variability in the duration (e.g., months, years) and frequency (e.g., once, weekly) that a child may be victimized.” (1998, 162).
The notion of ‘harm’ must also be mentioned when discussing child sexual abuse. As Haugaard (2000, 1036) observes, the term ‘abuse’ may contain connotations of the presence of harm—that the sexual acts by the adult caused harm to the underage person in some way. While the acts may be illegal under law, it can be argued that no actual harm was inflicted on the underage person, either in the short-term or the long-term. However, it must also be noted that any negative effects of childhood or adolescent sexual activity may not be readily apparent or even admitted to due to the nature of, and stigma attached to, sexual abuse.
From an online perspective, child sexual abuse conducted over the Internet makes this even more variable. Sexual grooming of underage Internet users, for example, can involve explicit communication (O’Connell 2003, 9-10), exposing the underage user to adult or illegal content (O’Connell 2003, 11) and psychological manipulation (Craven, Brown and Gilchrist 2006, 295- 296; O’Connell 2003, 8-10). Sexual activity with an underage user which does not involve grooming can be composed of – amongst many other methods – explicit conversation, fantasy- enactment (sexual roleplay), the use of webcams for sexual contact, the use of audio chat for explicit conversation or sexual roleplay and the sharing of adult or illegal content such as pornographic images, videos or written material.
17
Abusers and Online Predators
It is common to come across the term ‘paedophile’ representing all of a heterogeneous group who have a sexual interest in males or females under the legal age of consent. This can be found, for example, in the child sexual grooming literature where scholars have attempted to define child sexual grooming as:
“A course of conduct enacted by a suspected paedophile [sic], which would give a reasonable person cause for concern that any meeting with a child arising from the conduct would be for unlawful purposes.” (O’Connell 2003, 6).
This is extracted from a White Paper released by the United Kingdom Government on strengthening laws against online child sexual grooming. Another example can be found in Howitt:
“Grooming... is the steps taken by paedophiles to “entrap” their victims and is in some ways analogous to adult courtship.” (1995, 176).
Paedophilia, as Craven, Brown and Gilchrist (2006, 288) point out, is a clinical diagnosis for one specific paraphilia within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR), the diagnostic tool for mental illness used in psychiatry around the world. The DSM-IV-TR defines paedophilia as:
“...[a focus on] sexual activity with a prepubescent child (generally aged 13 years or younger). The individual with Pedophilia [sic] must be age 16 years or older and at least 5 years older than the child.” (American Psychiatric Association 2000, 571).
Clearly, this definition will not cover sexual abuse against an adolescent between 14-17 years of age. The terms ‘hebephilia’, which is a sexual preference for pubescent children; ‘ephebophilia’, which is a sexual preference for those in late adolescence and ‘infantophilia’, which is a sexual preference for infants, can also be used to describe those with a sexual interest in individuals under the age of legal consent (Hall and Hall 2007, 458).
There is also the difference between a person with a sexual preference for underage individuals and a person who offends, or acts on this preference. Paedophiles are not always abusers or 18
molesters and in Australia, at least, it is not illegal to be a non-offending paedophile (within the psychiatric definition without committing illegal acts), while it is illegal to be an abuser (committing an act of child sexual abuse). While paedophilia, hebephilia, ephebophilia and infantophilia is morally frowned upon by society and seen as a mental illness in psychology, as testament by its inclusion in the DSM-IV-TR, it can be considered unfair, misleading and inaccurate to group those with a sexual preference for individuals below the legal age of consent with those who actively offend.
These issues of definition and terminology can cause problems to arise from one profession to another—the treatment of victims and offenders, for example, may use one definition of child sexual abuse and abusers while policing agencies and the legal system may use another. The lack of a cohesive definition may lead to injustice – an adult having a sexual relationship with a 16 year old is legal in Australia while a relationship with a 15 year old who is one month shy of 16 is not – and may also lead to both abusers and victims not receiving necessary treatment (Haugaard 2000, 1036-1037).
While this presents a problem from a professional perspective, Haugaard does suggest a strategy to “...allow the definition of the term child sexual abuse to vary across contexts, for example, to use a narrower definition in research contexts and a broader definition in child protection or clinical contexts” (2000, 1038). This strategy is the most adaptable to the research presented here and therefore, working definitions and terminology must be determined.
Legal Aspects
This research will concentrate on profiling and analysing the online predators active within selected IRC chatrooms. As such, paedophiles, hebephiles, ephebophiles and infantophiles who do not offend do not have a bearing on this area as it may be argued that being present in a pro- child sexual abuse chatroom is indicative of being open to offending. The Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995 criminalises using a carriage service (such as the Internet) for child abuse material (s474.22) and child pornography (s474.19); as the chatrooms studied in this
19
research contain child abuse material and child pornography, the legality of even being present in a child sexual abuse-related chatroom can be called into question.
For the purposes of this research, a definitional model based mostly on Australian legislation will be utilised. While Commonwealth legislation does not contain an age of consent (Interpol 2005, para. 6), the general age of consent in State and Territory legislation is 16; while there are pros and cons to this age, the age of majority – 18 – will be used as a universal age of consent for the purposes of simplification. The Queensland Criminal Code Act 1899 sets out sexual offences against children in sections 208, 210, 213, 215, 217, 218A (which sets out the provisions criminalising electronic communication to procure children for sexual purposes) and 219. While the strict interpretation of these laws will not be followed – for example, once a person reaches the age of 16 they are free to have sexual relations with any other person over 16 – they will form a rough framework with which to distinguish illegal from legal acts.
Child Sexual Abuse and Offenders
This study will define child sexual abuse as an adult or person older than five years of the victim’s age conducting activities with the intention of sexually interacting with an individual below the age of 18. This definition includes grooming activities and forming non-sexual friendships or relationships with the goal of sexual interaction at some stage, as well as sexual exploitation of underage individuals, for example in the production and dissemination of child pornography.
Adults or persons older than five years of the victim’s age who conduct activities with the intention of sexually interacting with an individual below the age of 18 will be defined by the term ‘abuser’. The term ‘online predator’ is defined as anyone, including abusers, who are involved with these activities—for example through trading child pornography or actively encouraging child sexual abuse through networking with other online predators. Those with a sexual preference for underage individuals who do not offend will be referred to by the correct terms found in the DSM-IV-TR or modern usage. However, for ease of understanding, paraphilias such as hebephilia and infantophilia will be referred to as ‘paedophilia’.
20
To comprehend the extent of activities by online predators in IRC chatrooms, the Internet as a whole and related technology must be examined.
21
Chapter 2: Technology Used to Facilitate Child Sexual Abuse
The Internet has revolutionised human communication. The rapid growth of the Internet from connecting disparate local area networks to the global, multi-layered communications medium it is now has impacted on almost every aspect of human existence. The Internet has spawned online cultures, traditions and institutions which have the unique quality of being non-localised in any geographical sense, yet retaining a ‘global localisation’ within separate software, protocols and individual websites.
As with any communication medium, users have learned to utilise the Internet for criminal purposes. The Internet has evolved from simple text-based websites to complex platforms from which users can access a myriad of Internet technologies, enabling users to collaborate and network to form communities in order to carry out illegal activities such as child sexual abuse. This evolution of the Internet has allowed online predators easy access to underage users, child pornography and encouragement, acceptance and knowledge through networking with other online predators. To understand online child sexual abuse, the evolution and nature of the Internet and the technologies that have been created within it will be addressed.
The Evolving Internet: Reimagining Old Technologies
The field of online child sexual crimes is vast and almost immeasurable since the commercialisation and popularisation of international networks during the 1990s, moving from the military and universities to the public domain. In this day and age, massive amounts of data moves almost instantaneously from one end of the world to the other and the capacity of Internet Service Providers (ISP) to provide high-speed connections of up to forty gigabits per second – the equivalent of five thousand Megabytes per second or roughly the size of one standard DVD (The Local 2007) – means that the online world is constantly evolving and updating.
22
This is especially true with the advent of the ‘Web 2.0’ concept. Simply put, Web 2.0 denotes the evolution of Internet technologies from static content such as Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) files – websites with text and images which can only be changed by the owner of the website – to dynamic, user-contributed and constantly changing content, where documents and content may be changed or inserted by any user. Content Management Systems (CMS), integrated functions and a greater ease-of-use has resulted in complex social networking platforms such as Twitter (Twitter.com 2009), Facebook (Facebook.com 2009) and Myspace (Myspace.com 2009), media-rich Internet applications such as Youtube (Youtube.com 2009) and safe, secure software and processes to share files and other content. These larger content- delivery systems are made possible by the advent of broadband in most developed countries, enabling users to connect to the Internet at much greater speed than ever before.
The basic technologies behind most advanced Web 2.0 concepts are older—for example, the technology behind MySpace has existed separately for years. MySpace merely integrated and built upon blogs, forums, guestbooks and chatrooms. The basic protocol behind IRC has not changed since its creation; however the abilities of IRC clients such as mIRC (mirc.com 2009) have enhanced the basic protocol to allow for added functionality and integration with external software and websites. Along with other Web 2.0 applications, mIRC is ideally suited to the dissemination of child sexual abuse content. The mIRC software itself, file servers and other add-on software, file sharing software, image sharing, social networking, anonymity services and instant messengers form an easily-integrated system which online predators can utilise to carry out their activities with a higher degree of anonymity and safety than ever before.
Anonymity
Using Tor (torproject.org 2009) or other ‘proxy’ software, users can now anonymously access web services such as IRC with a higher degree of ease and security. A ‘proxy server’ is a computer at another geographical location which incoming and outgoing internet traffic is routed through; therefore any analysis of a user’s server will only reveal the proxy server’s details. Proxies are created with differing anonymity levels; the lowest level is known as ‘transparent’ proxies, which simply routes traffic through another server but does not mask the user’s Internet Protocol (IP) address (a numerical identification number which identifies individual computers
23
or other devices on a network such as the Internet; see Chapter 4, pages 55-56 for more information), and the highest level provides complete anonymity so only the proxy server’s IP address is displayed.
The Tor program overrides the necessity of searching for functioning proxy servers, checking anonymity and attempting to use each server through IRC, as IRC networks may prohibit access by certain proxies due to abuses in the past. This process – perhaps with the exception of a thorough anonymity check – is fully automated through Tor, which has its own network of already-established global proxy servers.
As evidenced within this research project, analysis of selected IP addresses indicated that some particular user names were linked to about five to ten IP addresses (see Chapter 6).
Anonymity services such as Tor and Freenet (freenetproject.org 2009) can also be used in conjunction with IRC to provide a safer alternative to accessing child sexual abuse content. Both services can be used to create anonymous forums, newsgroups and websites to allow for online predators to network and share information as well as encourage sexual abuse. These services can be conceptualised as a ‘parallel’ Internet and while using the same basic protocols (e.g. HTTP and FTP), have differing formats for links and addresses. Since the services – and each file – are decentralised and distributed through multiple servers all over the world, as well as being cryptographically secured, it is difficult for policing agencies to track specific users. However, a Japanese policing agency successfully prosecuted two offenders who were involved in the illegal distribution of copyrighted music and movies on software based on Freenet (Knight 2003, para. 1-9). Whilst the software was only based on Freenet, this suggests that flaws may be available in any service which enables detection.
Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
IRC was originally developed by Jarkko Oikarinen and established in Finland (Vonck 2009, para. 3). Now spanning over 60 countries, the IRC protocol allows users to chat and interact with each other in virtually unlimited chatrooms (channels) across many servers grouped into a multitude of networks. Each server in a network updates changes in chatrooms simultaneously across the other servers of that network; Undernet, the network hosting the chatrooms researched
24
here, is one such network. IRC is accessible through clients such as mIRC, which provides the user-interface to the chosen network and server which the user logs on to.
mIRC
The mIRC application (mirc.com 2009) itself is able to provide and simplify access to IRC networks and Direct Computer Connection transfer of files. It is one of the oldest client software products for accessing IRC networks and can be downloaded and used freely, with the added benefit of being easily modified by third-party scripts and add-on software, such as file servers.
File servers and other add-on software
The mIRC application is designed to be capable of minor and major modifications. This allows third-party software designers and programmers who create scripts (programming instructions to carry out certain functions) to add on to the default functions of mIRC. File server scripts (fservers) such as ‘Panzer’ (arnts.tripod.com 2004) and ‘SphooServer’ (sphoo.com n.d.) are able to create ‘virtual’ File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers using folders on a user’s computer to distribute files en masse through an integrated script. This allows for an automated file-sharing service which takes into account what the user of that service has shared in turn (uploads) to allow access to downloads. For example, if a user uploads an image, the user may be able to download 2 images in return, or if a user uploads a file of 500 kilobytes, the user is allowed to download up to that size (for example, two files of 250 kilobytes).
File sharing software
File sharing software such as Gigatribe (Gigatribe.com 2009), Bittorrent (Bittorrent.com 2009) and Flikr (Flikr.com 2009) allows for easy sharing of a user’s media collection (such as pictures and movies). Although these services are not necessarily anonymous, the sheer number of users would prove almost impossible to adequately monitor for illegal content and therefore provide a certain amount of security, in much the same way as certain social networking platforms have too many users to adequately monitor for violations of rules (Jayawardena and Broadhurst 2007, 242).
25
Image sharing
Image sharing services such as imgsrc.ru, picpaste.com and imagebam.com allows for the temporary upload of images to share freely with others in a chatroom, or share privately in a private chat. The analysis of the content of the IRC chatrooms monitored in this study reveals semi-regular placing of these links, a phenomenon referred to as ‘posting’, and the comments which follow can infer the sexual nature of the images:
Transcript 1: Image Sharing of Child Pornography and Comments
IRC-Kids Log, Thursday, April 2, 2009
[12:02]
Social networking
Although not examined directly here, in the context of this research social networking platforms such as MySpace and Facebook can be used to trace and gather information on underage users, as well as become a source for images and other media. Social networking platforms being utilised by online predators to groom children, gather private information or revealing images of underage users is a field of research in itself. Initial, exploratory research has been conducted by Jayawardena and Broadhurst (2007) but further research is needed in this field.
Instant messengers
Instant messengers such as Windows Live Messenger (download.live.com/messenger 2009) are software which allows users to chat in real-time (as in a chatroom) but with only one other person, although ‘group chat’ is now possible. This software has evolved from simply providing one-one chat to now allowing integrated webcam, microphone and online gaming support as well as being connected with wider social networking platforms. Instant messengers provide
26
online predators with a way of communicating more privately and securely with users they believe are underage, as well as through live streaming video and audio.
Each Web 2.0 Internet technology is thus linked in some way, enhancing the suite of online functions available to online predators in their activities. It is, however, impossible within the constraints of this research paper to thoroughly study every area of the Internet as each area will have its own intricacies and potentially its own specific behaviours and language added to general ones. Instead, online predators operating within the Undernet network of IRC will be the focus of this research.
27
Chapter 3: Theory and Practice of Paedophilia in the Internet Age
The study of online predators and the online environments which support them has been ad hoc at best. In recent times the media and other ‘non-scholarly’ outlets for social commentary has directed public attention to the dangers of ‘online predators’—child sexual abusers who operate online, both as a means to an end (abuse in real life) or as an end in itself (online child abuse through internet technologies or content crime such as the trading of child pornography). Television current-affairs programs such as Dateline NBC’s (2009) To Catch a Predator series, which featured a civilian volunteer organisation luring online predators to a house in suburbia to be arrested by police, and news-media attention on police stings such as Operation Centurion (Allard 2008), as well as the Australian Government’s plan for Cyber-safety (Conroy 2007, 1-8), has brought internet paedophilia sharply into the public focus.
While there has been plenty of media focus on this area, the majority of research describes only the extent and nature of online child abuse. The effects on victims and the behavioural patterns of online predators, especially primary research about the environments in which they operate, is conspicuously absent. The ‘operational’ aspects of investigating internet paedophiles have largely been avoided as a legitimate and valuable area of criminological study. Research on methodology, technological utilisation, behavioural patterns and the social framework of online communities dedicated to paedophilia is still vastly lacking, although a small number of groundbreaking studies – such as O’Connell (2003), Jayawardena and Broadhurst (2007) and Krone’s (2005) research – have provided much-needed discourse within the field.
As mentioned, this study will concentrate on the behavioural analysis of online predators within the context of the environment in which they operate. The following will detail the research already conducted into the technical and behavioural aspects of Internet paedophilia, highlighting the current gap in knowledge which this study will seek to bridge. Due to the scarcity of such research conducted within this area, this study will utilise the theory and behavioural literature for offline paedophiles to the online environment.
28
Child Sexual Abuse and Abusers
Behavioural research into offline paedophilia has been vast, concentrating on both offenders and victims. From Freud’s initial belief in repressed memories of child sexual abuse in his patients (Spanos and Carleton 1996, 69-76) to the sociological and modern psychological theories of learned behaviours, environmental influences and psychological conditions, researchers and professionals have attempted to understand the phenomenon of child sexual abuse. Offenders have been profiled extensively for the purposes of prevention, investigation, potential treatment and management.
The definitions used in child abuse discourse become even more important when approaching the subject from a psychological perspective; as mentioned in Chapter 1, Craven, Brown and Gilchrist (2006) warn of using the term ‘paedophile’ – a word with specific psychological meaning – in defining sexual grooming of children. The more general term ‘abuser’ is suggested and four theories on motivations for abuse are discussed (Craven, Brown and Gilchrist 2006, 288-291). These include the Integrated Theory, the Quadripartite Model, the Pre-condition Model and the Pathways Model.
Integrated Theory
Integrated Theory explains paedophilia as a result of adverse early developmental experience which leaves the paedophile unable to cope with maturing and the hormone surge during puberty. The abuser’s sex and aggression drives, which share the same part of the brain, are fused together and as a result, the paedophile’s sexuality is deviant. The authors explain the lack of apparent aggression in child sexual grooming – and presumably the ‘gentleman paedophile’ type highlighted later in this thesis – with indirect aggression inherent in the act of sexually preying on a child. (Craven, Brown and Gilchrist 2006, 289-290).
Craven and others point out that due to this ‘retardation’ of the brain, the abuser cannot understand the emotional world (2006, 289), which is presumably empathy—however it might be more accurate to describe it as a detachment from the emotional world, as sexual grooming suggests at least a basic understanding of a victim’s psyche and emotions. Therefore, while an 29
abuser might experience empathy to enable him/her to manipulate the victim, he or she is essentially detached from fully experiencing the victim’s pain and sympathising with it. Hence, according to the Integrated Theory, the indirect aggression is in manipulating a child to satisfy the paedophile’s sexual deviancy.
Quadripartite Model
The Quadripartite Model explains child sexual abuse as resulting from four vulnerability factors within the abuser’s personality and the presence of opportunity. The four vulnerability factors are “...physiological sexual arousal, distorted cognitions that act to justify sexual aggression, affective dyscontrol, and personality problems.” (Craven, Brown and Gilchrist 2006, 290). One or all of these vulnerability factors may cross a threshold coinciding with an opportunity and the abuser will offend; however, Craven, Brown and Gilchrist (2006) point out that this does not explain sexual grooming which continues for a long period of time, why the offences are against a child as opposed to an adult and why offenders often create their own opportunities to offend.
Pre-condition Model
The Pre-condition Model explains child sexual abuse as occurring when four pre-conditions, both internal to the abuser’s psyche and external within the situation and victim, are met. These Pre-conditions include motivation, deviant sexual arousal and blockage (when the sexual needs of the offender cannot be met by an adult) and overcoming the child’s resistance (through grooming or force). The abuser’s own inhibition must also be overcome, which may be a function of paedophile communities, the influence of peers and group dynamics such as those researched here (Craven, Brown & Gilchrist 2006).
Pathways Model
The last motivational model proposed is the Pathways Model. This model explains paedophilia and abusing as a “dysfunction of one or more psychological mechanisms—emotional regulation, intimacy deficits, cognitive distortions and sexual arousal (deviant sexual scripts).” (Craven, Brown and Gilchrist 2006, 290). One of the dysfunctional mechanisms is dominant and these
30
dysfunctions, when coupled with a sexual need, will result in a sexual offence—taking into account the presence of opportunity.
Profiling Abusers
Many derivatives and deviations exist within what is generally known about the psychological profile of child sexual abusers. As mentioned in Chapter 1, there are broad derivatives such as hebephilia – a sexual interest in pubescent children, and infantophilia – a sexual interest in children below the age of five (Hall and Hall 2007, 458). Certain characteristics exist within these groups, for example hebephiles tend to prefer reciprocal sexual relationships (Hall and Hall 2007, 458) and infantophilia usually does not involve penetration (Murray 2000, 45).
Murray provides a good summary of a more general profile of paedophiles and child molesters:
“Pedophiles [sic] and child molesters share some characteristics. Most are male, and they can be heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. Some prefer adult sex partners but choose children because they are available and vulnerable. The sexual abuse perpetrated may be a 1-time incident and may consist only of fondling. Penetration is unlikely with young children. Perpetrators' ages range from teens to midlife. Most victims are girls, and the perpetrator usually is a relative, friend, or neighbor [sic]. The home of the victim is often the setting for the incident. When boys are victims, sexual abuse may take place outside the home, and perpetrators may be strangers. Perpetrators of sexual abuse of children often claim that they themselves were victims of childhood sexual abuse. Psychological profiles are helpful but are compromised partly because many perpetrators are prisoners and control groups are lacking for this research.” (2000, 1).
One of the main aims of this research is to identify psychological archetypes in online predators and Murray’s (2000) study is able to act as a point of comparison. With the rapid advent of Internet technologies, the progression of paedophilia into the online sphere is almost inevitable; the question which must be asked is whether the psychological profile of paedophiles changes when they move into, or start from, the Internet. Do the vast networks of online predators encourage formerly ‘hidden’ paedophiles to further their interest into deviancy, perhaps even 31
pursue more and more extreme forms of child sexual abuse? Does the free, easy and anonymous access to child pornography provided by online services such as IRC, Tor and Freenet also encourage and exacerbate such deviancy? The research already conducted on the characteristics of online predators must be examined to answer these questions and identify the gaps in current knowledge.
Behavioural and Psychological Research
Various primary and secondary research in the field of online paedophilia has explored the behaviours of online predators in varying degrees and from various perspectives. Most of the available literature, such as Jayawardena and Broadhurst (2007), Craven, Brown and Gilchrist (2006) and O’Connell (2003), study the child sexual solicitation and grooming behaviours of online predators. O’Connell’s (2003) study in particular explored in detail the grooming processes of online predators and their use of internet technologies to groom children within chatrooms, demonstrating through transcripts the language and behaviours of various types of online predators. O’Connell (2003, 8-10) sets out the stages of the grooming process, from the ‘friendship forming stage’ to the ‘sexual stage’. The initial ‘friendship forming stage’ includes requests for personal photographs from the child and O’Connell (2003, 8) suggests this is also a vetting process to ascertain whether the child is real and matches the predator’s “particular predilections”. Based on this and the research of Jayawardena and Broadhurst (2007) and Krone’s (2005) observational study of police investigations into online predators, it raises an interesting question whether it is possible to falsely ‘prove’ an investigator is a child without the use of photographs. O’Connell’s practical and detailed exploration of grooming provides a rare and valuable insight into the activities of online predators, moving away from the purely theoretical and conceptual profiling within the majority of the available literature, on not only online predators but paedophilia in general.
The results of Krone’s (2005) study are quite informative on the ultimate goals of online predators—“in 68 per cent of the cases [that the Queensland Police Service investigated] the adult sought offline contact with the child.” (2005, 1). Krone stresses that the methods utilised
32
by online predators were “...committed and aggressive in their online pursuit of sexual interactions with girls less than 16 years of age.” (2005, 5). While this is certainly of great concern, it must also be seen as a weakness to be exploited within the personalities of online predators—their committed and aggressive desire for sexual contact may mean that with the minimum of detail, a predator may be convinced that he or she is speaking with an underage target. Depending on the level of social awareness and sophistication displayed by the predator, it may be possible to convince him or her of this without resorting to a personal photograph or using child, preteen or teenage speech patterns.
The four causal theories of child sexual abuse mentioned previously rely heavily on psychological disorders of various qualities and opportunity coupled with the psychological will to overcome inhibitions. While the scope of this research does not allow for an in-depth study into online child sexual grooming, it is important to keep these theories – and O’Connell’s (2003) findings – in mind as limited observations may be made into child sexual solicitation within the public discussions of IRC chatrooms.
Lowenstein (2005) has also conducted similar research and provides an excellent summary and analysis of the psychological and behavioural issues relating to the downloading of child pornography and attempts to address the question of whether downloading these illegal materials necessarily leads directly to the abuse of children. This is a highly relevant issue within the scope of this research as content crimes relating to child abuse constitute a substantial part of the interactions of online predators in IRC. This research somewhat bridges the gap in current knowledge outlined in Quayle and Taylor’s (2002) research, which bases its discourse on interviews conducted with nine social workers and probation officers who reported uncertainty as to the function the internet plays in paedophilia. This lack of knowledge by professionals who work with abusers leads to uncertain policy on paedophile internet-use, which could undermine any potential rehabilitation, treatment or risk management. Lowenstein concludes:
“The research on the effect of the downloading of child pornography suggests that while it leads to, or is associated with the sexual abuse of children in some cases, this is not always the case. Some such downloading may in fact act as a substitute for actual sexual abuse of children. At other times, it may result in a type of catharsis. Hence,
33
instead of stimulating fantasies or practices, it releases emotional tensions associated with such needs and takes on a therapeutic role preventing the sexual abuse of children. Abuse does not necessarily follow.” (2005, 51).
Even if abuse does not necessarily follow, it is beyond doubt that child pornography is used as a tool to sexually groom children. As O’Connell points out:
“...the easy accessibility of child pornography affords an adult or adolescent with a sexual interest in children the opportunity to expose a victim to child pornography as a means to lower inhibitions. Furthermore, an adult with a sexual interest in children may use that exposure as a means to coerce the child into keeping the activities secret by threatening to tell the child’s parents that he/she has viewed pornography.” (2003, 4).
Viewing child pornography creates a market for such images and videos; however the question of whether it leads to direct child sexual abuse is difficult to determine. The other questions related to this – whether the viewing of child pornography leads to more extreme sexual deviancy and whether viewing child pornography exacerbates ongoing child sexual abuse – also need to be explored. These questions can be answered to a certain extent by the research conducted here; at the very least, the role child pornography plays in online child sexual abuse communities such as those on IRC may be further explored. However, more in-depth research is needed, perhaps with the cooperation and involvement of policing agencies, to fully study this phenomenon.
Of course, to cater for child pornography consumers there will be child victims. It is common to think of this in terms of the international trade in child pornography—victims filmed overseas, for example. However, the introduction of digital cameras, webcams and mobile phone cameras has made the production of child pornography simpler and safer for the producers. A recent example of this was the case of Vanessa George, a nursery worker in the United Kingdom, who photographed her 15 year old daughter in a revealing – though non-sexual – moment and distributed the images to a website frequented by online predators (Hendry and Basnett 2009, para. 1-11). The offender also networked with two other offenders on Facebook and sent them
34
mobile phone images of the sexual abuse of children under her care (Hendry and Basnett 2009, para. 10).
The other dimension to child pornography is the victim-created pornography, images and video which children create either through sexual grooming or voluntarily (and distributed out by accident). An example of this can be found in the investigative reporting of Eichenwald (2005), who made contact with and helped an 18 year old man who used a webcam to conduct live ‘strip-shows’ online at the age of 13, progressing onto more obscene material including sexual acts with prostitutes. He was groomed and encouraged by online predators who paid for webcam sessions through the online payment portal PayPal (Paypal.com 2010) or bought gifts through the ‘wish-list’ function in online stores such as Amazon (Amazon.com 2010). A child creating child pornography places them in the role of victim and offender—becoming a producer and distributor of child pornography whilst being exploited for this very purpose (O’Connell 2003, 4). This was an issue faced by the victim in Eichenwald’s report, although prosecutors eventually granted him immunity in return for providing evidence (2005, para. 113). The phenomenon of victim-created child pornography and the legal issues surrounding it would also benefit from further study.
The solution to the lack of wider psychological and behavioural profiling of online predators is to compare and contrast existing profiling research on offline abusers with the activities and behaviours of online predators. One of two seminal research papers into the psychological profiling of paedophiles is Murray (2000) which compares and contrasts the available psychological profiling of paedophiles (those who have paedophilic sexuality but do not necessarily act on them) and child molesters (those who act on paedophilic sexuality or other motivations to abuse children). Murray identifies the following problem in the psychological profiling of paedophiles:
“A psychological profile of paedophilia and child molesting must be drawn cautiously, partly because the quality of the data is compromised by definitional and methodological problems. Limitations begin with the small number of subjects and the fact that very often the subjects are prisoners charged with or convicted of sexual crimes. Control
35
groups sometimes also are prisoners. Sometimes no control groups are included in the studies.” (2000, 37).
The limitation of a sample group composed of prisoners recurs often in research on paedophiles, and is a recognised limitation in the quantitative psychological research of Johnston, French, Schouweiler and Johnston’s 1992 study. The Johnston et al research utilises psychological testing and response measurement to explore the often-reported (and self-reported) perception of naiveté in paedophile psychology in the form of yearning for “simple non- or pre-ambivalent relationships; that is, a world in which “roses have no thorns.” (Johnston, et al 1992, 621). This theory is similar to the Integrated Theory addressed previously (Craven, Brown and Gilchrist 2006, 289-290) and postulates a lack of being able to cope with sexual and psychological maturity combined with opportunity and the (perceived) suitable non-judging, immature personality of children. Interestingly, the research concludes that the longing for non- or pre- ambivalent relationships observed in and by paedophiles “may have been seen as deriving not from the blind trust implied by naiveté, but from the distrust associated with exploitive relationships.” (Johnston et al 1992, 626).
The second seminal paper addressing the profiling of paedophiles is Hall and Hall (2007). This research is a thorough exploration of paedophilia, discussing categories, characteristics, behaviours and general psychology of paedophiles, also taking into account online predators:
“Individuals engaging in computer-based pedophilia [sic] are generally classified into 5 categories: (1) the stalkers, who try to gain physical access to children; (2) the cruisers, who use the Internet for direct reciprocated sexual pleasure without physical contact (eg, chat rooms); (3) the masturbators, who use the Internet for more passive gratification (viewing child pornography); (4) the networkers or swappers, who communicate with other pedophiles [sic] and trade information, pornography, and children; and (5) a combination of the previous 4 types.” (2007, 460).
These broad classifications can be combined with the data gathered by monitoring IRC chatrooms and extrapolated into an intelligence product for online policing as well as a source of primary criminological study.
36
It is also interesting to compare and contrast the behavioural profiles of rapists to the profiles of online predators identified through this research. In this regard, McCabe and Wauchope’s 2005 work on the behavioural characteristics of rapists constitutes a valuable resource for this study as the verbal communications of rapists to their victims is discussed and categorised. Four themes are identified by McCabe and Wauchope—the caring, persuasive, reassuring; the sexually abusive and use of explicit language; the angry, demeaning or threatening and the revenge, payback theme (2005, 240-241). These four themes are comparable to the excellent summation of Holmes and Holmes (2002) and Ressler, Burgess and Douglas’ (2004) work on the profiling of rapists presented at http://www1.csbsju.edu/uspp/CrimPsych/CPSG-5.htm (csbsju.edu 2010). The only issue with this work is that it refers to, or only studies, the male rapist—while data is lacking on female rapists, it would be of considerable interest for future researchers to study whether these profiles also fit female offenders.
The ‘caring, persuasive, reassuring’ theme included words which communicates a false empathy and compassion (false since the act itself remains hurtful) about the victim. Some rapists apologise and even attempt what they perceive as harm minimisation, as evidenced in the examples of communications McCabe and Wauchope provide:
“‘I won’t hurt you, I just want sex.’
‘I want you to enjoy this, I’m sorry, I want anal sex, grab the lubricant because I don’t want to hurt you too much.’
‘I’m sorry I don’t know why but I had to do this, tell me if I hurt you but do as I say because if you don’t it might hurt.’
‘If you cooperate I will be your boyfriend, you are beautiful.’” (2005, 240).
This is the most common theme found in McCabe and Wauchope’s (2005, 240) research, with 25% of 130 offenders sharing this theme. This theme is what csbsju (2010, para. 1-11) terms ‘power reassurance’ rapists, or ‘the gentleman, opportunity or compensatory’ rapist. This rapist is characterised by insecurity, inadequacy, social awkwardness—the act of rape is an attempt to restore confidence, especially from a sexual perspective. This type of rapist often believes –
37
whether as a form of neutralisation or actual belief – that the forced sexual acts were pleasurable to the victim.
The sexually abusive and use of explicit language theme included offenders who were abusive, demanding and used explicit language—something perhaps online predators would feel more at ease acting out with the dis-inhibition effect of the Internet, even if they would not do so in offline offending. Communications typical of offenders in this theme are:
“‘I want you on top, play with yourself.’
‘I can give you the wildest sex of your life.’
‘You have sex written all over your face.’” (McCabe and Wauchope 2005, 240)
This theme was identified as the second most-common theme in the population studied, with 24% of offenders having similar characteristics. Csbsju (2010, 12-21) describes this type of rapist as ‘power-assertive’, a “...rapist who rapes because he is a man and entitled to” (csbsju 2010, 12). Contrasting with the gentleman rapist, the power-assertive rapist does not desire interaction with the victim—his or her pleasure is the only consideration in the sexual attack.
The third theme identified by McCabe and Wauchope (2005, 241) is the ‘angry, demeaning or threatening’ theme. The communication used by this type of rapist is angry, threatening, demeaning and aggressive, such as:
“‘Keep your voice down or I will kill you.’
‘You’re going to earn it you bitch, stop your whinging, if you don’t shut up I’ve got a knife.’
‘Shut up bitch, don’t move and it will not hurt.’
‘Do you like that bitch?’” (McCabe and Wauchope 2005, 241).
This type of rapist was fairly common, typifying 18% of the sample population. The central concept behind this theme – and the fourth theme – is anger and csbsju (2010, 22-31) refers to this type of rapist as ‘anger retaliatory’, displaying anger at one person or group of people and
38
displacing it at one individual. He or she blames the victim for an unfortunate life and utilises obscene language as part of humiliating and degrading the victim (csbsju 2010, para. 26).
The ‘revenge, payback’ theme is one that McCabe and Wauchope (2005, para. 32-41) identify but seems to have similarities with the ‘angry, demeaning or threatening’ theme. The following communications illustrate this theme:
“‘This is what is going to happen if you ever think about leaving me.’
‘I will kill your new boyfriend.’
‘Where is your boyfriend now?’” (McCabe and Wauchope 2005, 241).
While there is anger and violence inherent in these communications, this theme seems to be a derivative of the third theme, only the anger is targeted specifically at the individual victim. It also seems to relate to the fourth profile identified by csbsju (2010, para. 42-51), ‘anger excitation’ or ‘the sadist’. Sadistic rapists receive sexual gratification from the physical and psychological suffering of the victims, engaging in sexual torture and the infliction of pain which, in most such cases, ultimately results in the death of the victim (cbsju 2010, para. 42-51). The death itself may be highly eroticised and desirable to the sadistic rapist, becoming an essential climax of suffering the attacker inflicts on the victim (csbsju 2010, para. 42, 51 and Knight 2006, 1192). This is similar – if not the same – as sexually-motivated serial killing, which Knight defines as:
“Sexually motivated serial murder is the killing of three or more victims over a period of more than 30 days, with a significant cooling-off period. The sexual nature of the crime, which may – or may not – be explicit, is perverse and sadistic and reflects an aggression that is particularly destructive, pathological and rooted in violent fantasies that are acted out on the victim.” (2006, 1198).
Csbsju’s profile includes the 30 day cycle (2010, 44), destructive aggression (2010, para. 42, 48) and violent fantasies (2010, 42) included in this definition; Knight includes almost all of the characteristics of sadistic rapists in her profile of sexually motivated serial killers (Knight 2006, 1191-1192). The language of this type of rapist is hostile more than profane (csbsju 2010, para.
39
45), highlighting the aggression and anger which drives and motivates. Sadism as a concept is discussed in more detail in Chapter 5 (pages 73-76), where this theme and rapist type is compared to similar occurrences of sadism in online predators.
As this study relies on public chatroom communications between users, communication and language patterns become a vital part of the identification and formation of behavioural profiles of online predators.
Communication
An interesting approach to behavioural research of online predators is to use the models and terminology in csbsju (2010) and McCabe and Wauchope’s (2005) research for analysing the language of the ‘advertisements’ and solicitations within the public discussions of IRC chatrooms. The four models of verbal behaviours of rapists identified by McCabe and Wauchope (2005, 240-241) and the four corresponding profiles provided by csbsju (2006, para. 1-51) may be applied to the language used for advertisements for ‘roleplay’, sexual discussion with children or other predators, requests for offline activities or general discussion within the chatroom. Although McCabe and Wauchope’s (2005) study is on convicted rapists and there is no guarantee that the predators will abuse offline (apart from, of course, the increased likelihood of offending by predators expressly seeking offline activities), it would be a worthwhile exercise to group different advertisements into themes and compare these to the themes identified by these studies.
Determining the behavioural characteristics and psychological profiles of online predators is vital to facilitate further research and investigation of the communities and activities in which they operate. This research, then, provides an almost unique opportunity to analyse and test existing knowledge and theories on behaviours against the empirical evidence presented within the logs of monitored chatrooms where online predators believe they are free or safe from the watchful eyes of the law and the judgement of society. Extrapolating from this research process, it is also interesting to study the ways this perceived security and safety affects the methods and structures of online child sexual abuse.
40
Anonymity
The perception of anonymity that an Internet user is well-documented—Demetriou and Silke’s (2003) seminal study into ‘deindividuation’, the concept that a lack of individual responsibility which the detachment of the Internet provides will lead to actions which the user may not contemplate offline. In their research, a fake website was set up with actual legal content and fake illegal and deviant content and the ‘hits’ (instances of access) were recorded; the majority of users who entered the website for legal content attempted to access the illegal content. Jayawardena and Broadhurst (2007) followed a similar ‘criminological sting’ research model and found that the deindividuation theory has practical application for research into online predators.
The deindividuation theory has significant implications for the goals of this research as monitoring will be conducted on public chatrooms. An initial analysis of the log files from this monitoring, however, reveal that open discussion takes place—and in fact is actively encouraged by certain users despite an acknowledged awareness that the likelihood of being monitored by policing agencies is high. The use of security methods such as accessing IRC through anonymous proxies does, obviously, give an amount of security which can make it difficult for police to track users—however for the purposes of this research it is paradoxically positive as it encourages open communication which can be analysed. This analysis of open communication will reveal behavioural patterns, technologies used and social structures and will also be useful in potentially revealing evidence of organised abuse.
Organised Abuse
A minor aim of this research is to monitor for evidence of organised predator networks (more organised than the ‘environmental’ network of an un-moderated chatroom openly dedicated to child abuse) within IRC, especially relating to unlisted ‘secret’ chatrooms or moderated chatrooms. A search of the literature within the child abuse field reveals a body of research on offline ‘ritual abuse’ but not many sources of knowledge on organised abuse. A good definition can be found in La Fontaine (1993) which, while written before the concentrated use of the internet for child abuse activities, defines organised abuse as “abuse by multiple perpetrators
41
who act together to abuse the children” (1993, 225). Evidence of this would be advertisements to abuse within a group, possibly in a customised once-off chatroom, or more ‘serious’ and organised abuse such as formal predator networks. Due to the secretive nature of such organised abuse, however, it is difficult to ascertain whether any evidence will arise in public discussion, even taking into account Demetriou and Silke’s (2003) study into the behaviours resulting from the perceived anonymity of the internet.
Of course, the very framework of next-generation, Web 2.0 Internet software and services may reveal avenues for further investigation into organised abuse or other forms of abuse. The intelligence gained from this research process can inform investigators on not only the activities explicitly occurring within the area studied but the activities which may be potentially occurring from the capabilities of the software and services utilised.
Knowledge Gaps
From the review of the current discourse and literature of child sexual abuse and online predators above, the following gaps in knowledge can be identified.
Behavioural Analysis and Profiling
As has been stated, the primary goal of this research is to analyse the behavioural characteristics of online predators operating in an IRC environment. While research has already been undertaken on various aspects of this, such as grooming (O’Connell 2003), social networking and solicitations (Jayawardena and Broadhurst 2007) and investigations (Krone 2005), in-depth observational research is clearly needed to gain the understanding needed to successfully profile online predators.
Technological Utilisation
It is clear that an understanding of the Internet technologies available to online predators will not only increase the ability to predict how online predators operate but will aid in creating prevention strategies to ameliorate the inherent danger of this use, in a similar way in which Jayawardena and Broadhurst (2003, 242) identified the most effective way to secure social 42
networking platforms against underage use. While this has been researched before, the rapid changes in technology and the evolution in Internet culture continually requires more information on technological utilisation to base further discourse. An example of this is the encryption feature of the latest Microsoft operating system, Windows 7, which enables users to hide and encrypt illegal materials such as child pornography within their hard drives (Eckersley 2009, 3). In Australia, it is not a crime to refuse to decrypt data that was requested as part of a police investigation (Eckersley 2009, 3) but it is certainly an area that needs the attention of legislators.
Communication and Social Structure Analysis
The language and social structures of the IRC chatrooms used by online predators to network have not been analysed in a concentrated way, although O’Connell’s (2003) study analysed the language of sexual grooming within similar environments. This communication must be analysed to complete an understanding of the role an environment dedicated to child sexual abuse plays in the behaviours of online predators. This includes learned behaviours from other online predators and the use of advice, encouragement or possible mentoring given in general conversation. Of course, there is more likelihood that such mentoring takes place in private conversation but due to the constraints of the monitoring process, only the public activity will be analysed—however, due to the perceived anonymity and the effect of deindividuation on users’ behaviour, open discussion still takes place within the public chatrooms.
Previous Methods
An exploratory example of previous research into examining the feasibility of internet-based research utilising criminological ‘stings’ to gain primary intelligence data on internet paedophilia was conducted by Jayawardena and Broadhurst (2007). This research model showed that a criminological ‘sting’ operation, similar to that set up by O’Connell (2003) and Demetriou and Silke (2003) in their seminal study, is a feasible method of gathering intelligence data on illegal internet activities such as child sexual solicitation and accessing illegal content.
43
The ‘criminological sting’ model of research involved primary research conducted within spheres of illegal activity – in Jayawardena and Broadhurst’s (2007) study, within social network platforms where online predators solicit children, in O’Connell’s (2003) study within internet chatrooms and in Demetriou and Silke’s (2003) study within a simulated website containing legal and illegal content to study users’ choices. Valuable theories on behaviour and technological utilisation can be concluded from the data gathered using these primary methods of research. Demetriou and Silke (2003), for example, used the ‘de-individuation’ theory of internet anonymity to explain the open illegal activities of internet users, a concept which Jayawardena and Broadhurst (2007) based their research upon.
Jayawardena and Broadhurst (2007) focussed on measuring child sexual solicitation against vulnerable, non-vulnerable personality characteristics of underage female children, often believed to be a key contributing factor to being targeted by online predators, and the presence of a personal photograph and email address in social networking profiles. Their findings indicated that while it remains a factor, vulnerability is less of an indicator of potential for providing an attractive target than perhaps previously thought—the presence of a personal photograph creates more of a difference in the amount of suspicious sexual contacts. These findings have bearing on both the research in this paper and online policing in general, revealing the opportunistic and content-driven motivations of online predators.
An alternative observational method of conducting similar research can be found in Krone’s (2005) research, where the researcher observed the Queensland Police Service undertake policing of child abuse within internet chatrooms. The research explored police stings in chatrooms and showed “the aggressive and rapid way that children are targeted by adults for sexual purposes” (Krone 2005, 1). Such cooperation with and involvement by law enforcement is an ideal and essential platform for the implementation of an effective criminological sting, allowing the researcher to be operating ‘undercover’ within an illegal environment while simultaneously being involved in the policing of that environment. The downside to Krone’s (2005) research is that the researcher’s involvement and observation remained distant from the environment. Direct ‘participation’ – whilst remaining within the boundaries of the law – can be
44
considered essential for the researcher to gain a deep ‘process-sual’ understanding of the social and community aspects of the environment (Champion 2006, 298).
The Need for Ongoing Primary Research
These research stings provide a primary research tool in gaining knowledge about illegal activities as they happen, whereas the majority of existing research, as aforementioned, is centred on the extent and nature of online paedophilia after an offence has been committed. This latter research, however, remains valuable in providing an increasing knowledge-base on the methods and utilisation of emerging internet technologies by paedophiles. Studies such as Bilstad’s (1996) provides insight into the use of internet newsgroups for criminal purposes and Stanley’s (2002) research into Child Abuse and the Internet covers a wider field of internet technologies and is an invaluable tool for both criminological research and policing. However, by the very nature of the ‘Web 2.0’ internet, the technologies change and adapt rapidly, making technical details, behavioural patterns and sociological data out of date relatively quickly (Feather 1999, 22). Facets of the Web 2.0 phenomenon, such as user-based alteration of software and social networking platforms, create a constant need for updated intelligence and information.
The evolving nature of online communication creates the largest gap in existing research which needs to be bridged with primary research methods such as non-participant observation. Researchers need to observe the activity of internet paedophiles as they occur, along with the environment in which such activities occur. In conjunction with drawing criminological data and conclusions, valuable intelligence can also be provided to aid law enforcement. A similar – though non-scholarly – approach was used in Eichenwald’s (2005) article where, as an investigative journalist, he intervened in the life of a victim of online child sexual exploitation and not only provided information on the methods and behaviours of online paedophiles but was able to convince the victim to provide valuable information to US law enforcement agencies. Eichenwald’s (2005) article provides an important insight into the realities of the child sexual grooming process and the sophisticated manipulation conducted by the predators active within
45
that area of the Internet—and serves as a point of comparison between possible different behaviours exhibited by online predators from one area of the internet to another.
A more scholarly approach can be found in Sibley and Heath’s (2004) analysis of public requests for private interaction posted in chatrooms. Similar to this research paper, Sibley and Heath recorded and analysed IRC chatroom conversation to study the communication methods of what is referred to in this paper as ‘advertisements’, that is open solicitations for private chat. The researchers found a common prototypical structure in these advertisements:
“(a) a target specifier, e.g., “any girls”; (b) the communication request itself, e.g., “wanna chat”; (c) a self-identifier, e.g., “to a guy”; and (d) a communication directive, e.g., “msg me!”” (Sibley and Heath 2004, 231).
Although the chatrooms studied were legal and general (chatrooms with names such as ‘Teen’, ‘Sydney’ and ‘Sex’) and the purpose of the research was towards analysing social structures rather than criminological aspects, it is an interesting insight into online communication, specifically within IRC. It provides an ideal point of comparison between the public communication in child abuse chatrooms and the public communication in legal chatrooms, especially within legal and illegal sexual solicitations. The patterns of speech and requests for communication identified by Sibley and Heath (2004) provide an effective tool to be utilised in studying these requests, as well as gaining a deeper understanding of online predators.
These studies not only demonstrate the need for further primary research but the vital criminological data and intelligence which can be derived from this type of research. Theories of de-individuation, observations on, and pattern-identification of, the behaviour of online predators and research into their methods, knowledge and goals form an essential body of knowledge through which even more in-depth research can be conducted.
46
Chapter 4: Research Methods
Design
This study aims to identify behavioural patterns and gather criminological data about online predators by logging public activity in four IRC chatrooms. The research addresses three broad goals relating to online predators: the identification of behavioural patterns, the research of social structures within these illegal chatroom communities and the gathering of criminological data concerning the use of other Internet technologies by online predators. These goals will be achieved through an analysis of the logs for patterns and categories of behaviour, as well as criminological ‘intelligence’ data. This will aid in the increased understanding of online predators operating in a perceived ‘safe’ environment.
While there has been considerable research conducted within the comparatively short lifespan of the internet, the methodology, technological utilisation, behavioural patterns and social frameworks of online predators still requires extensive study. Each sphere of the internet – chatrooms, forums, newsgroups and so on – has different criminological and operating environments which are constantly evolving. Research based on secondary or ‘controlled’ sources (such as police statistics, prison population samples or criminological theory) play an important part in investigation, response and prevention but lack the ability to bridge the existing knowledge gap on functioning predator communities which only primary research can provide. Research therefore needs to be conducted in a way which fulfils this need and allows for a deeper, ‘real-time’ insight into the methods and behaviours of online predators.
This study will seek to bridge this gap by researching the behavioural patterns of online predators using primary data collection and analysis techniques. This will allow an almost unprecedented opportunity to observe online predators within their social online networks and compare their behaviour within these spheres to existing knowledge and research, such as Murray’s (2000) comparison of the profiles of child molesters and paedophiles, Hall and Hall’s (2007) work on the categorisation of online predators, the rapist profiling presented by csbsju
47
(2010), McCabe and Wauchope’s (2005) analysis of the language of online communications and Sibley and Heath’s (2004) more targeted analysis of public requests for private interaction on IRC.
The criminological data and behavioural profiling which can be achieved from this process is invaluable in bridging the current gaps in knowledge examined in Chapter 3 and assisting investigators and policy makers in response and prevention. The research is, of course, highly sensitive in that it deals with child sexual abuse and child pornography and is based on covert logging and study of a human population; therefore, ethical approval was gained from the from the respective Research and Ethics Committee after consultations with State and Federal policing agencies.
Data Collection Procedure
Internet Relay Chat Environment
IRC is a largely un-moderated and decentralised system of networks, each with multiple servers across the world, which host ‘channels’ (chatrooms). The IRC protocol is quite flexible and while it is an old technology, it has been adapted through new software and the core protocol can be modified to suit almost any type of internet communication, resulting in its continuing application to tens – perhaps hundreds – of thousands of users. IRC can be used for many purposes besides person-to-person or group communication, including the trading or sharing of any types of files.
This project concentrates on the IRC network ‘Undernet’, one of the largest networks in existence. In the context of IRC, a network is a group of servers located around the world which are connected together to form a larger virtual ‘space’ where tens of thousands of users are able to participate simultaneously. A search can be conducted of any network to list the publically- viewable chatrooms active within that network; an example of such a search using the mIRC client can be found in Appendix 1 (on page 131).
48
A cursory search, using chatroom names, from the chatroom listings of the Undernet network reveal many chatrooms relating to the discussion of child abuse and the trading of child pornography. These chatrooms share one similarity within the chatroom names: they are all suffixed with the number ‘0’ followed by a varying amount of exclamation marks. Therefore, using the filter function of mIRC to search within the chatroom list – filtering for ‘!’ – reveals numerous chatrooms themed around child sexual abuse, incest, beastiality and so forth; an example listing can be seen in Appendix 1 (on page 131). Added to this, there are many chatrooms within IRC which are unlisted and ‘secret’, and there are undoubtedly many more child abuse chatrooms operating within that area.
From the chatrooms listed the research chatrooms were selected. These chatrooms have been de- identified due to ethical considerations, although as mentioned in Chapter 1, the transcripts from the chatrooms have been reproduced without modification. The chatrooms selected are outlined in Table 1:
Table 1: Logged Chatrooms
Name Description Participants and Representation IRC-Kids Innocuously but suggestively named, Usually has 100+ participants: providing a possible ‘trap’ for children – Mostly male/some female adults. who have access to Undernet. – Mostly female/some male children. IRC-Sadism Themed for underage sexual ‘slavery’. Usually has 60-70 participants: – Mostly male/some female adults. – Mostly female/some male children. IRC-Girl Themed for underage female sex. Usually has 70-80 participants: – Mostly male/some female adults. – Mostly female children. IRC-Incest Themed for adult female/female (age Usually has 30+ participants: non-specific but majority underage) – Female adults. incest. – Female children/adults.
49
These chatrooms were selected on the basis that they represented points of interest and featured, with the exception of ‘IRC-Incest’, a substantial amount of traffic in the form of users within that chatroom. A brief synopsis of each chatroom is provided below.
IRC-Kids
This is the most innocuously named chatroom within the selected group and therefore assumedly represented the most likely to accommodate underage users entering it assuming it is a ‘safe’ chatroom. This gives an opportunity for online predators to attempt sexual grooming, engage in cybersex or roleplay or otherwise interact with underage users—however, the explicit content discussed openly in the channel or the explicit usernames may result in any underage users leaving immediately.
It is important here to note that underage users may seek out or enter the other, more explicitly- named chatrooms out of curiosity, to cause trouble for their amusement (‘trolling’) or even to seek out online predators for whatever reason. This does not, obviously, lessen the impact or alter the seriousness of any potential crime which underage users may be exposed to within these chatrooms.
IRC-Sadism
This chatroom was selected as it represents a more brutal facet of online child sexual abuse. It is possible that online predators may interpret this as a ‘Bondage and Discipline, Sado-Masochism’ themed chatroom (a concept dealt with in Chapter 5, page 70), or dealing with ‘heavier’ and more explicit non-consensual themes, including the international child sex trade. It may be the case that this chatroom will hold the most – if any – evidence of organised child sexual abuse.
IRC-Girl
This is a more general but gender-specific child sexual abuse chatroom, especially when compared to IRC-Sadism. It was chosen as a representation of a general chatroom which reflects the majority of child sexual abuse cases as committed by an adult male against an underage female (Murray 2000, para. 1).
50
IRC-Incest
Incest is a common theme and occurrence in not only online child sexual abuse but child sexual abuse in general. While there are many theories on why this is so common, the simplest is that the greatest and ‘safest’ opportunity for child sexual abuse is in the home, directed at underage relatives of the offender. Ease of access, opportunities to be alone with the victim and the ability to maintain control and security within the offending may be major factors affecting the decision to abuse; of course, this is corresponding to a more classical and rational-choice based motivation for crime.
This chatroom presents an interesting observational opportunity in that adult females sexually abusing underage females are rarer than adult males sexually abusing underage females (Murray 2000, para. 41-42). As this is the case, any data on this topic of child sexual abuse is valuable, although online predators are known to change their gender online for sexual grooming or fantasy purposes. Gathering data on this phenomenon is also one of the goals of this study to determine whether the majority of users keep a fixed gender.
Method of Collection
The data, in the form of chatroom conversation logs, was gathered by an adaptation of the IRC client software ‘mIRC’ (mirc.com 2009) called ‘Chat Monitor’ (Surfcontrol Chat Monitor 2000). While mIRC can create chatroom logs without adaptation, there are several features of Chat Monitor which makes it ideal for the purposes of this study, including user analysis and automated recognition of Australian users through the IP address. Chat Monitor was therefore set up to access Undernet and the four chatrooms selected.
The number of participants in a chatroom changes constantly as participants enter and leave. However, generally there are a certain number of participants present at any given time for each themed chatroom, depending on the theme and seemingly closely related to statistics of child abuse: most perpetrators are male and most victims are female. However, it must be noted that the age and sex of participants does not necessarily reflect reality, especially when participants appear to be children—while it is not inconceivable that children would have the technical capability to log onto IRC and the curiosity to visit explicitly child abuse themed chatrooms, it is
51
unlikely they would spend a great amount of time participating. The presence of children in IRC-Kids is more likely but again, after realising the actual nature of the chatroom, they may leave. Another possibility is that children may be forced to participate by abusers. However, this study aims more to observe and research online predators than their victims.
Setting Up of Monitoring
Because of the sensitive and covert nature of this project, a strict process of operation was put in place, with clear guidelines and limits. The logging of the IRC chatrooms was conducted by Chat Monitor’s automated logging function—in other words, a ‘bot’. A bot is a software script which carries out programmed instructions without the need for human interaction. In this study, the bot appears to be another human participant within the chatrooms, albeit one that does not communicate. The bot also discourages communication or private messaging by having a Nickname (See Internet Relay Chat Communication below) that is non-gendered and meaningless. The bot automatically logged all activity within the chatroom, including entrances and exits, conversations and advertisements.
The computer running the bot was secured in the research supervisor’s office. To maintain the integrity and security of the research computer, it was decided that all internet activity should be routed through a proxy server to mask the research computer’s IP address. This increases the overall security of the project as well as the validity of the results, as participants were unlikely to change their behaviour on noticing the IP address of an educational institution.
Initially, the Tor network was selected to achieve this added security. However, Tor proved unreliable for automated monitoring—the connections to the proxy servers were often broken and the network ultimately proved unstable without 24-hour human supervision. Added to this, Undernet rejected a lot of the proxy servers on the Tor network as they had already been compromised by other users and banned by the Undernet network.
An alternative was to use Undernet’s own virtual hostmask, however efforts to sign up for this service from different locations and different email addresses failed, apparently due to an issue from Undernet’s website—an automated confirmation email failed to arrive from Undernet.
52
The third possibility was to directly route traffic through a volunteer server and this was achieved through an overseas webhost, who organised a virtual private network between the research computer and the webhost’s server. A virtual private network is an additional encrypted connection between computers over a larger network (in this case, the Internet). The research computer connected to the Internet, accessed the virtual private network and the overseas webhost and connected to Undernet through the webhost’s connection to the Internet, as can be seen in Figure 1:
Figure 1: Virtual Private Network
Internet
Research Computer Mainframe
IRC ‐ Undernet
Virtual Private Network
Overseas Webhost
This option proved to be the most stable and reliable, although the connection did disconnect unexpectedly on a few occasions. A consecutive number of days of logging were accomplished over several weeks, however the logs from Wednesday 1 to Sunday 5 April were utilised for analysis. A few hours were lost during this period as the connection disconnected and later reconnected, however the loss is minor and a large amount of data was collected. To comprehend the nature of the data collected, it is essential that the nature of IRC communication is understood. 53
Internet Relay Chat Communication
There are three main methods of communication within an IRC chatroom. The first is conversation within the chatroom itself, which is publicly viewable by anyone within that chatroom. The second is a private message, a private one-to-one chat in a separate window. The third is Direct Client to Client (DCC) chat, where the two computers involved will create a direct link for the users to talk to each other, without using the network. The latter two methods of communication will not be explored in relation to this research as it would involve direct interaction with online predators, which has legal implications.
The method utilised to achieve the goals of this study was the logging of all publicly viewable activity within the chatroom. It should be noted that it is an offence under Part 10.6, s474.22 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth) to be present (indicated through participation) within an illegal chatroom as it may be argued that the material presented in the chatrooms studied here constitute ‘child abuse material’, which is defined as:
“(a) material that depicts a person, or a representation of a person, who:
(i) is, or appears to be, under 18 years of age; and
(ii) is, or appears to be, a victim of torture, cruelty or physical abuse;
and does this in a way that reasonable persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, offensive; or
(b) material that describes a person who:
(i) is, or is implied to be, under 18 years of age; and
(ii) is, or is implied to be, a victim of torture, cruelty or physical abuse;
and does this in a way that reasonable persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, offensive.” (s473.1, Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth))
Within the chatrooms there are graphic descriptions and discussion of child sexual abuse and the many Nicknames used by participants may also directly communicate child sexual abuse.
54
Technically, then, it can be seen that being present within these chatrooms – as the bot is – is illegal under s474.22(1) of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth):
“(1) A person is guilty of an offence if:
(a) the person:
(i) uses a carriage service to access material; or
(ii) uses a carriage service to cause material to be transmitted to the person; or
(iii) uses a carriage service to transmit material; or
(iv) uses a carriage service to make material available; or
(v) uses a carriage service to publish or otherwise distribute material; and
(b) the material is child abuse material.”
For the purposes of this study, however, legal advice was obtained and restrictions complied with to proceed with the research. Policing authorities in the country where the proxy server was located were also notified.
There are three types of ‘immediate’ information that can be gathered from analysing the IRC logs monitored—IP numbers, criminological data from chatroom activity (conversation and ‘advertisements’) and evidence of online and offline criminal activity. This information is valuable to achieving the goals of this study—the criminological data will aid in the behavioural research and determining the social structures of the chatrooms, the IP numbers in gathering intelligence on the technological utilisation – specifically related to security and anonymity – and the evidence of online and offline criminal activity will aid in behavioural research as well as identifying any evidence of organised abuse.
IP numbers are the identification numbers of all computers connected to the internet. The IP number is traceable to the user’s computer and also provides information on which ISP the user is connected with and basic geographical information. The format of an IP number follows an
55
established pattern consisting of four sets of three maximum numerical characters (for example, 123.456.789.012 or 123.45.6.789). However, an IP address can be masked or routed through various proxy servers throughout the world.
‘Advertisements’ consist of participants chatting within the chatroom and advertising about/for a product or service. Through the DCC protocol and an fserver script, for example, it is possible to have a folder within the hard drive which acts as a server which users can access to download the contents of the folder. The users who are running these fservers often advertise their fserver within the chatroom, explaining the contents and how to access it. Other users may advertise different chatrooms—this could be used to gather intelligence about ‘secret’ chatrooms. Users may also advertise themselves and/or whatever they are seeking within the chatroom. The effects of the perceived anonymity of the internet upon its users have been researched and well- documented (Demetriou and Silke 2003, 214-215); because of this, participants in chatrooms may publicly reveal details about themselves or offences they have committed.
The entrances and exits of chatroom participants on IRC – called ‘parts’, ‘joins’ and ‘quits’ (quits are events when the user logs off the IRC network entirely as opposed to leaving just the chatroom; quits can be unintentional due to network issues) in the IRC terminology – are contained within the logs in the format seen in Transcript 2 on page 58, where ‘Nickname X’ denotes the chosen display name of the participant, ‘Name’ denotes the (usually fake) full name the participant enters into the setup details of mIRC and the numbers and words after the @ symbol denotes the IP or Internet Service Provider details of the user. The setup details of mIRC can be found in Screenshot 1 (page 57):
56
Screenshot 1: mIRC Setup Options
This setup does not, of course, verify any of the information entered. As can be seen, there is an option for ‘Invisible mode’ which makes a user invisible to other users who are not present in the same chatroom. It is difficult, if not impossible, to search for particular users on IRC, although there are notification features in mIRC – enhanced in Chat Monitor – which can update a user’s online and offline status.
The ISP or IP details of IRC users are displayed depending on how they connect to Undernet and whether they use one or both of Undernet’s host (ISP/IP) masking service—such as the details for Nickname 1 in Figure 2 below, which contains User.users.undernet.org as opposed to an ISP or IP. Nickname 6 shows the user’s actual IP address and all of the other users are using the alternative host-masking feature provided by Undernet which hides the actual IP but reveals the ISP—in Nickname 4’s case, it is the US telecommunications, internet and cable television company Comcast (comcast.com 2009).
57
Transcript 2: Exits, Entrances and IP/ISP Information
IRC-Kids Log, Wednesday, April 1, 2009
[12:57] *** Nickname 1 ([email protected]) has joined IRC-Kids
[12:57] *** Nickname 2 ([email protected]) has joined IRC-Kids
[12:57] *** Nickname 3 ([email protected]) has left IRC- Kids
[12:57] *** Nickname 4 ([email protected]) Quit (Quit )
[12:57] *** Nickname 5 ([email protected]) has joined IRC-Kids
[12:57] *** Nickname 6 ([email protected]) has joined IRC-Kids
[12:58] *** Nickname 7 ([email protected]) has joined IRC-Kids
Of course, it is worth noting that ‘tech-savvy’ participants of illegal chatrooms will utilise proxy servers in much the same method as this study to ensure privacy and security. While this makes online to offline tracking by law enforcement agencies difficult, participants retaining their Nickname or using the same proxy to connect each time may at least be tracked online.
The logged conversations between participants have the format seen in Transcript 3, which has been de-identified and sensitive information removed:
Transcript 3: Conversation, Advertisement and Fserver
IRC-Kids Log, Wednesday, April 1, 2009
[13:05]
[13:06]
[13:06] * Nickname 3 wonders if there are any women out there who might be interested in a rolelplay with me where I'm 13/14
58
[13:06]
[13:06]
[13:07]
[13:13]
Nickname 1 and 4 are advertising for offline interaction, whereas Nickname 3 is asking for online ‘roleplay’, a form of sexual encounter through chat. Nickname 3 is speaking in an ‘action’ format, denoted by the asterisk before the user’s name. Nickname 2 is linking the chatroom to an image through a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), presumably of child pornography. Nickname 5 is seeking interaction with a ‘girl’ – which implies an underage girl, given the theme of the chatroom involved – for the purposes of grooming, either for online or offline sexual exploitation. The terms ‘message me’, ‘PM me’ or ‘/msg’ means to start the conversation in a private one-to-one chat in a separate window. Nickname 6 uses this request but is seeking online sexual contact through either private chat, webcam or audio chat through a microphone.
Nickname 7 is an example of file sharing and trading within IRC, using a third-party software add-on to mIRC called ‘Panzer’, which is a script to facilitate the sharing of files within a certain folder on the user’s computer. An interested participant will activate the file server by typing the trigger word (in this de-identified example, ‘!Triggerword’) in the chatroom, forming a direct, computer-to-computer chat session in a separate window.
This is the technical environment in which online predators using IRC operate; in the next section, the sampling involved in the chatrooms studied for this thesis is explored.
59
Sampling
The sample consists of all participants active within the chatroom during the days when logging was carried out. As aforementioned, being present in a child-abuse chatroom may be illegal under Part 10.6, s474.22(1) and others of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth); therefore, the assumption – a fairly safe one considering the explicit and clear names of all but one chatroom used in this study – is that all participants are at least seeking to break the law.
The covert technical methods used in this study for the purposes of logging chatroom activity means that the presence of the research mechanism does not have any impact on the behaviour of the sample. The Chat Monitor software is represented as one more participant amongst many, aided, as mentioned above, by routing all traffic through a proxy server. The participants observed are therefore acting within their ‘natural’ community, with only the constraints and limitations already present.
As previously stated, the number of participants in IRC chatrooms changes constantly as participants enter and leave; it is also common for participants to be active simultaneously in more than one chatroom. The Chat Monitor software conducts a user-information check called a ‘Whois’, which is a feature native to mIRC and enhanced and automated by Chat Monitor. A Whois lists the chatrooms a user is present in as well as other important information such as the set up email and username, as seen in Figure 4:
Figure 2: Example of Whois
IRC-Girl Log, Sunday, March 25, 2009
Nickname: Nickname 1
Nickname: Name
Hostname: XXX.XXX.dsl.pth.iprimus.net.au
Channels: #Chatroom 2 #Chatroom X
IRC Server: *.undernet.org
60
The four chatrooms were continuously logged for several days, although due to technical constraints the initial logging week – Monday to Sunday – had non-consecutive days, for example Wednesday to Saturday, then Sunday to Monday of the week after. However, five days of logs were collected for analysis as a typical week, without public holidays or major events and including a weekend. While the sample population varied and fluctuated considerably, it can be estimated that at any given time there were 200-250 unique participants in all four chatrooms.
It is important to understand that this study targets only a single subset of online predators – those who use IRC chatrooms to conduct their activities. There is already a small demographic difference detected between online predators caught in police sting operations and those caught soliciting offline (Wolak, Finkelhore, Mitchell and Ybarra 2008, 119); it is not unreasonable to assume there will be differences in behaviour and perhaps demographics between online predators using IRC and online predators using other Internet technologies. This difference may be enhanced by the different cultures and community rules that exist in various Internet socialising platforms, from forums to chatrooms to social networking websites. However, through the analysis of advertisements revealing other technologies, this study also seeks to identify the extent and nature of the use of multiple Internet technologies by online predators on IRC, who for example may have a presence in chatrooms for solicitation and networking, image forums for child pornography, social networking websites such as Facebook or MySpace for access to and ‘verification’ of children and instant messenger services such as Yahoo! Messenger (au.messenger.yahoo.com 2009) for private chat, webcam and audio chat.
Data Collation
Due to the sheer bulk of the data collected in this study, some collation was needed before analysis. The raw logs were broken down in such a way as to separate the individual components of chatroom activity, such as ‘
61
This process was undertaken by importing the raw data logs, originally in Microsoft Windows ‘txt’ files, into Microsoft Word format. Once this was done, a macro was created to expedite the process of collating the logs, which contained certain patterns such as a timestamp, followed by three asterisks and followed by the Nickname of the user, as can be seen in Transcript 4:
Transcript 4: Patterns for Macro
IRC-Girl Log, Thursday, April 2, 2009
[11:21] *** BigBlkMan ([email protected]) has joined IRC-Girl
Therefore, using Microsoft Word’s ‘find and replace’ feature, a tab can be inserted after every ‘]***’ and before every ‘(~’, as these patterns are not repeated in the logs apart from in those positions. Using Microsoft Word’s Visual Basic macro recording feature, it was possible to group such find and replace instances into one automated file and process a large part of the logs instantly. It was still necessary to read through the logs, line by line, in order to ensure no mistakes were made and to place tabs in places which could not be automated; however this macro saved time and effort.
Analyst’s Notebook software was then utilised to highlight some of the technical activities online predators engaged in. As has been discussed, for example, an offender may regularly change their username on IRC, yet he or she may still retain the same IP number. This method will provide a way to ascertain all the usernames he or she has used, detect any patterns in the usernames, times of entrance and exit and perhaps predict when he or she will next enter a certain chatroom or log onto Undernet.
Data Analysis
During the process of data collation, patterns in the activity of chatroom users were highlighted and noted—repeated advertisements, different types of conversation, different types of language used and so forth. Being a qualitative, observational study, this was the primary method of analysis, followed by the tracking of these users through the Kiwi Log Viewer software 62
(Solarwinds 2010), which can be used to highlight or filter entries in log files by specific words or phrases. Through these methods, archetypical users were identified and tracked through their activity in the logged chatrooms over the five days of logging.
Two types of analysis were conducted to address the four goals of this study—a behavioural analysis to explore the behaviour of online predators and the social structures of the chatroom communities and an intelligence analysis to gain information on the technological utilisation and other criminological data.
Behavioural Analysis
The behavioural analysis will identify certain archetypes of online predators who use these public IRC chatrooms through both the collation and analysis stage. Contrasting archetypes in this case can be found among users requesting certain types of interaction (‘cam’, ‘PM’, ‘roleplay’ etc.), the aggression levels and language used by the users (the nature of the Nickname, the suggested type of roleplay, level of dehumanisation of intended victims etc.), and whether a participant is looking for online or offline contact and so forth.
An example user or users of each archetype will be selected and their actions analysed to construct general behavioural profiles of each archetype. From this process, a more sophisticated behavioural profile of online predators can emerge, including specific chatroom grooming processes as well as normalisation and discussion patterns between predators— especially discussions when a URL to an image of child pornography is posted within the chatroom. This allows valuable comparison to general profiles of ‘traditional’ offline predators, such as those of Murray (2000) and Hall and Hall (2007), to discover what, if any, behaviours change online and whether these behaviours can aid in investigations. It would also aid in discerning the differences and similarities of online and offline organised paedophilia.
Intelligence Analysis
The secondary goal of this research, the intelligence analysis, will explore the dimensions of technological utilisation by online predators and seek to gain as much information about the participants as possible. This information includes basic user information such as IP numbers and ISP data, Nicknames and dates/times of use and this information will be provided for the 63
example users of each archetype in the behavioural analysis; more general and advanced intelligence which can be derived from analysis through Analyst’s Notebook and the coding/collation process described previously will be provided in Chapter 6.
This analysis will initially be conducted in parallel with the behavioural analysis, using the same collation and analysis process. The simplest use of this analysis will be the technological utilisation—as seen in Transcripts 2 and 3 on pages 58-59, the activity within the four monitored chatrooms reveals a large amount of information on the use of other internet technologies to facilitate the trading of child pornography, online sexual solicitation and grooming of children and general discussions between online predators. File and image hosting websites and image forums, social networking platforms, webcam technology, digital microphones and fservers are some of the technologies a cursory analysis of the data reveals. The analysis of the conversations and advertisements can also reveal details of offences planned, committed or being committed as well as reveal the existence of secret chatrooms or other Internet locations.
While Analyst’s Notebook has only been used in this study for graphical demonstrations of certain technical activities conducted by chatroom users, such as name changes and proxy server use, this software can be used to reveal timelines and complex connections between events, participants, conversations and advertisements. Aside from the ability to track a participant’s actions and presence, as well as collate all known and revealed information about the participant, Analyst’s Notebook can also provide usage and access statistics. Times of peak usage, Nickname changes – especially relating to changes in sex, when an adult predator will pose as a child for sexual gratification or grooming purposes (Dombrowski, Gischlar and Durst 2007, 155- 156) – and repeated connections between unique participants can be detected using this software. Due to time and access constraints of this study, however, Analyst’s Notebook has not been utilised to its full potential; this remains an interesting avenue for further research and may reveal hidden connections as well as being of value to investigators.
Social Analysis
Observations can also be made of the social structures involved in each chatroom studied as the behavioural and intelligence analysis is being carried out. These social structures will include
64
the observation of any traditions, customs, any specific content welcome and unwelcome in each chatroom and any other differences in the types of activity occurring. This information will be of interest to both investigators and scholars alike, perhaps paving the way for deeper investigation, and will be provided to give context to the behavioural analysis.
Using both of these analytical methods to form a criminological picture out of the collated data, the three goals – research on behavioural patterns, gathering intelligence on technological utilisation and critical observation of social structures – of this study can be achieved. While this type of research may have limitations, which will be addressed later, the level of access and analysis of uncensored and valuable data will have positive implications for response and prevention measures as well as policy relating to online predators.
The next chapter will detail the results from the behavioural analysis of the data.
65
Chapter 5: Research Findings – Behavioural Analysis
The analysis of the behaviours of online predators yielded several personality types, as well as numerous archetypal profiles. This chapter will detail these findings and analyse them against the behavioural observations and profiles of the studies discussed in Chapter 3: Hall and Hall (2007), explores the categories, characteristics, behaviours and general psychology of paedophiles; Murray (2000), compares the characteristics of child molesters and non-offending paedophiles; McCabe and Wauchope (2005) identify four themes in the behavioural characteristics of rapists (the caring, persuasive, reassuring; the sexually abusive and use of explicit language; the angry, demeaning or threatening and the revenge, payback theme); csbsju (2010) provides an alternative summation of four general profiles of male rapists (the gentleman rapist, the power-assertive rapist, the anger retaliatory rapist and the sadistic rapist); and Sibley and Heath (2004) identified a common prototypical structure for advertisements.
A brief overview of the activity and social structure of the chatrooms studied is provided to give context to the personality types and profiles extrapolated from the data, which are subsequently detailed and contrasted against profiles and information on offline sex offenders as well as the existent knowledge about online predators. The links between beastiality and child sexual abuse is also explored as beastiality is one of the most commonly recurring paraphilias in the logged chatrooms. Archetypes of users are tracked through the logs and analysed against the personality types extracted from the literature about both offline sex offenders and online predators; these archetypes are illustrated by example. Data on these users, such as chatrooms participated in, ISP and IP information and days of activity, are presented to demonstrate the basic intelligence which can be gained from this type of research and surveillance.
66
Activity Levels
Friday and Saturday were the most active times for all the chatrooms. This is probably due to the free time most users have closer to the weekend, especially those who work regular hours. Visiting these chatrooms on a Friday may be a form of relaxation for some users after the stresses of a working week.
The most active chatroom was IRC-Kids, probably due to the general theme of the chatroom and the higher likelihood of encountering real underage users due to the non-explicit name. IRC- Kids was most active on Friday, April 3, the day of highest activity overall out of the chatrooms logged. This was followed by IRC-Sadism on the same day, IRC-Kids on Saturday, April 4 and IRC-Girl also on Friday, April 3.
Social Structure
The social structures of the chatrooms studied are usually quite fluid and shifting, making any firm observations difficult. However, there are certain unwritten rules and patterns of activity and behaviour which are worthy of discussion and comment.
IRC-Kids
This was the most active chatroom during the logging period, which was openly-themed as compared to the others. This general theme may have attracted the majority of users as well as the fact that IRC-Kids contained the most postings of URL links to child pornography—in fact it was the chatroom with the most occurrences of users asking if anyone was going to post child pornography, an example of which can be seen in Transcript 5:
Transcript 5: Posting Requests
IRC-Kids Log, Thursday, April 2, 2009
[15:04]
[22:03]
67
IRC-Kids Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[05:27]
[08:21]
[09:29]
[09:38]
It is clear from this that another function of these chatrooms is as a ‘safe’ way of viewing and possibly collecting child pornography. Most posts of child pornography are commented on by other users and those who post are thanked for their efforts—in fact, those who post may do so out of a need to receive the thanks and admiration of other online predators. This process reveals information about the posters, the users who view the posts and comment and the nature of the chatroom as perceived by those who use it—the child pornography posted in IRC-Kids may not be suitable for IRC-Incest.
IRC-Incest
This principle is the same with the actual content of the public chatrooms—what’s said, requested and advertised. As evidenced in Transcript 6, what’s suitable for other chatrooms may not be welcomed in IRC-Incest, although as there is no moderation in any of the chatrooms logged (see also Transcript 30 for a discussion between two users about this issue), no official action can be taken:
68
Transcript 6: Unwelcome Advertisements in IRC-Incest
#IRC-Incest Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[12:30]
Even though IRC-Incest is themed for mother-daughter incest, the chatroom seems active with male online predators looking for permissive mothers to allow access to their daughters or for sexual encounters with both mother and daughter, as can be seen in Transcript 7:
Transcript 7: Male Online Predator Activity within IRC-Incest
#IRC-Incest Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[10:48] * PervrtedGuy is a 34yr old guy into little kids (toddlers to early preteens) and would like to chat with any moms or other females who are also interested, curious, or that have fantasies about seeing a guy with a little kid. /msg me to chat. No pics. Females only.
[04:52]
As female paedophiles are rare, it would be of interest to further research female online predators, although it is doubtful that many of the users in IRC-Incest are, in fact, female. However, the differences in social structure and what is and isn’t accepted within this chatroom makes it fairly unique.
IRC-Sadism
IRC-Sadism definitely deals in more extreme child sexual abuse than in the other chatrooms, however the conversation is mostly of a similar nature to IRC-Kids. There seems to be more of a 69
tolerance for every sort of fetish in that few negative comments are made against advertisements or requests similar to the ones in Transcript 5. As mentioned in Chapter 4, there also seems to be an adaptation of the ‘Bondage and Discipline, Sado-Masochism’ (BDSM) lifestyle themes and terminology within the chatroom, as can be seen in Transcript 8:
Transcript 8: Bondage, Discipline, Sadism and Masochism Terminology
#IRC-Incest Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[06:56]
BDSM can be defined as “...a wide array of mutually defined, negotiated, and consensual acts that involve varying degrees of pain and/or power exchange expressly for the purpose of erotic pleasure.” (Ophelian 2008, 13). Some of the terms in this lifestyle are ‘Master’, referring to a dominant person in a BDSM/Slave-Master relationship, and ‘slave’, referring to a submissive person in such a relationship (Williams 2006, 337-338). Some Nicknames in all the channels studied reveal terms such as these; the features of the consensual activities of BDSM, such as bondage, humiliation, power exchange and whipping (Williams 2006, 336), may of course be used as forms of torture and sadism by online predators and paedophiles. It is important here to note that involvement with BDSM does not imply paedophilia or involvement with any illegal acts such as child sexual abuse; the ‘power exchange’ in BDSM becomes ‘power imbalance’ in child sexual abuse. The consensual and ‘safe’ sado-masochism in BDSM is not congruent to the sadism described in this study.
IRC-Girl
While specifically aimed at adult male-underage female sex, this channel seems to be even more ambiguous than IRC-Kids, which at least is themed as a general chatroom. Obviously the focus of chatroom activity was in the sexual abuse of underage girls, however there does not seem to be any activity within the chatroom that is not represented in the other three chatrooms monitored. This could be due to the lack of moderation of these chatrooms as well as online
70
predators simultaneously accessing multiple channels so that no opportunity to chat, view child pornography, groom potential victims or network with other online predators is missed.
Personality Types
The personality types identified here are general ones. Hall and Hall (2007, 462) point out the difficulty in creating a personality pattern for paedophilia as so many sub-groups exist within this paraphilia and the same applies to online predators. However, certain personality types do recur within the numerous sub-groups and these have been grouped into four overall types: the gentleman paedophile, the sadist, the businessman and the pretender.
The Gentleman Predator
The gentleman predator is similar to the ‘gentleman rapist’ of csbsju (2010, 1-11) and McCabe and Wauchope’s (2005, 240) “caring, persuasion, reassurance” theme. This type of personality type does not become too active within the chatrooms studied; they may request chat a few times and leave if they haven’t found a potential target. The language used by the gentleman predator is positive and respectful, without using obscene or degrading terms. There also seems to be a preference by the gentleman predators for chat, as opposed to roleplay, and they do not directly ask for anything more or to engage outside of IRC within the public chatrooms. A good example of the gentleman rapist is the user ‘OldrThnDirt’ in Transcript 9, who was active in IRC-Kids from Wednesday 1 to Saturday 4 April and in IRC-Girl during Thursday 2 to Saturday 4 April:
Transcript 9: The Gentleman Predator (Chat)
IRC-Girl Log, Wednesday, April 1, 2009
[13:15]
Of course, the locations specified by this user do indicate a willingness to meet with, and in all likelihood have some sort of sexual encounter with, underage girls. This positions him within
71
the ‘traveller’ profile detailed below (what Hall and Hall (2007, 460) refers to as ‘stalkers’, although the gentleman predator is not restricted to that profile, as can be seen in Transcript 10:
Transcript 10: The Gentleman Predator (Roleplay)
IRC-Girl Log, Wednesday, April 1, 2009
[14:38] * MrBux is a nice guy looking for a fun girl for a friendly roleplay. Msg me :)
‘MrBux’ was active in IRC-Girl on Wednesday 1 April and Sunday 5 April; on Wednesday he logged the above once and on Sunday he greeted the chatroom and left a while later. ‘MrBux’ is what Hall and Hall (2007, 460) would define as a ‘cruiser’, an online predator looking for reciprocal online sexual contact.
Csbsju.edu (2010, para. 1-11) indicates that the motivations of a gentleman rapist involve a confirmation of the rapist’s manhood—that he can pleasure or satisfy a woman, stemming from feelings of inadequacy with women. The act of rape in this context is about possession, as opposed to harm or sadism. Paedophiles, while likely to have been in a relationship or even married (Hall and Hall 2007, 462 and Murray 2000, para. 33), tend to have been divorced or separated from an adult partner (Connolly and Woollons 2007, 5); combined with a sense of inferiority, self-esteem issues, emotional immaturity (Hall and Hall 2007, 462) and a “fear of being able to function in adult heterosexual relations” (Murray 2000, para. 12). This seems to support the gentleman predator being quite similar to the gentleman rapist, although whether the gentleman predator reaches the offline offence stage if given the opportunity is unknown.
Conversation within IRC-Kids seems to indicate at least a superficial awareness that the gentleman predator personality type is still abusive—that having paedophilic tendencies is socially frowned upon and needs to be disguised, as in Transcript 11:
72
Transcript 11: The Gentleman Predator (as a Facade)
IRC-Kids Log, Thursday, April 2, 2009
[11:48]
This is quite revealing, not only demonstrating the security they feel within these chatrooms but a definite awareness that a facade is needed, perhaps not only to blend into the community but to gain the trust of underage users. Of course, this facade is a marked difference from the open brutality of the sadist.
The Sadist
During the course of the analysis, it became clear that certain online predators openly expressed fantasies of violent rape, brutality and other sadistic tendencies. While Hall and Hall point out that “Fifty percent to 70% of pedophiles [sic] can be diagnosed as having another paraphilia, such as frotteurism [rubbing up against another person], exhibitionism, voyeurism, or sadism.” (2007, 458). Wolak et al (2008, 119) maintain that online predators, in particular, are not amongst this minority of child sexual offenders with sadism, owing to the patience, time and planning involved in persuading and grooming a child; sadists are described as not having the necessary interpersonal skills to form the long-term relationships necessary for online sexual grooming. Sadists are adept at manipulation and conning victims to gain their trust, however this is done in a short-term way with a lot of long-term planning, but not necessarily long-term grooming or interaction with the victim (csbsju 2010 para. 45, 49). However, IRC chatrooms such as the ones studied also function as an outlet for sexual aggression and frustration. It is not beyond probability – though difficult to prove – that not only is there a chance that sadistic 73
paedophiles will be able to ‘trick’ actual underage users into meeting offline or giving them access to webcams and so forth, but that they may even learn sexual grooming techniques from other online predators.
The diagnostic criterion for sexual sadism in the DSM-IV-TR is as follows:
“Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors [sic] involving acts (real, not simulated) in which the psychological or physical suffering (including humiliation) of the victim is sexually exciting to the person.” (American Psychiatric Association 2000, 574).
Of course, most acts online can be considered ‘simulated’, however online abuse can obviously be a precursor to offline abuse as well as a ‘stopgap’ measure between offline offences, or even a way to compliment or enhance offline offending. Sexual sadism in paedophiles has not been explored as thoroughly as sadism in rapists and murderers, perhaps owing to the fact that fondling, exhibitionism and voyeurism, oral sex, frotteurism and the like are more common sexual acts in paedophilia than more forceful acts involving penetration (Hall and Hall 2007, 458; Murray 2000, para. 3 and Wolak et al 2007, 114-115), especially as paedophiles tend to use psychological grooming methods as opposed to the use of force (Hall and Hall 2007, 458).
The interest in sexual sadism from online predators is quite clear—the existence and participation levels of the IRC-Sadism chatroom is testament to that, as the very theme denotes domination, captivity and harm. The occurrence of sexual sadism in Nicknames, requests and advertisements are too common in all chatrooms to analyse with the depth this topic deserves; however some occurrences stand out and are provided in Transcript 12:
Transcript 12: The Sadist
IRC-Sadism Log, Thursday, April 2, 2009
[21:57]
IRC-Girl Log, Sunday, April 5, 2009
[00:00] * pisrag4siko loves extreme throatfucking,finger
74
throatfucking,gagging,choking,slapping,spitting,hair pulling,name calling,puking,snot,piss showers, hard extreme throat abuse, getting my lil teeny tanned face ruined, extreme throat n face destruction etc....love to be degraded n humiliated by sick nasty OLD mean abusive pervs...MAX HARDCORE style !!!! :):)
IRC-Girl Log, Friday, April 5, 2009
[14:54] * Rvisher is looking for a roleplay scene involving a young girl used by a police officer with force, humilation, and abuse. Message me if interested - detailed roleplayers only please.
Other examples exist but are covered under the Profiles section of this study. The police officer roleplay introduced by ‘Rvisher’ reflects the power assertive rapist (likely to have a traditionally masculine-oriented job such as a police officer), the anger rapist (preparation for rape can involve dressing in military fatigues or police uniform) or the sadistic rapist (holding a position of authority which is easily trusted) profiles in csbsju (2010, para. 19, 26). His/Her request for detailed roleplay and his/her comparatively good written English also fits the sadism profile, as sadistic rapists are often intellectual with some college education (csbsju 2010, para. 39). Studies have found that paedophiles and hebephiles in general have academic difficulties and lower levels of education (Hall and Hall 2007, 464 and Wolak et al 2008, 119); however it is recognised that repeat offenders tend to have average or above-average intelligence. Sexual sadists are repeat offenders, being described in the DSM-IV-TR as “chronic” and the sadistic activity with a non-consenting partner “...likely to be repeated until the person with Sexual Sadism is apprehended” (American Psychiatric Association 2000, 573).
Sexually sadistic rapists have an end-goal of killing their victims (csbsju.edu 2010); the DSM- IV-TR points out that this is the case with severe sadism, especially when coupled with antisocial personality disorder (American Psychiatric Association 2000, 574). When this occurs in paedophilia, the crime of child sexual abuse – and the associated definition of a child sexual abuser – will in all probability cease and the offender reclassified as a sadistic murderer or, if other factors are met, a serial killer targeting children. Therefore, two categories of sadism must be established when dealing with online predators—sadism (without murder, as already discussed) and ‘snuff’.
75
Snuff is a term usually used to describe a filmed murder (with or without sexual elements) used as, and specifically filmed for the purpose of, pornography. The contemporary concept of snuff was inspired by rumours that the 1976 film Snuff, which depicted the rape, murder and mutilation of the lead actress, was a depiction of actual events—which the filmmakers purposefully used as a marketing tool (Donovan 2002, 194). Whether real snuff films exist is not a matter for exploration here; for an examination of the social perceptions of snuff films, Donovan’s (2002, 194-198) article provides an excellent analysis.
The concept of snuff exists as a sexual fetish in the chatrooms studied, although not much is actively said in the public chatrooms about it. However, certain users’ Nicknames reveal this interest, as can be seen in Transcript 13:
Transcript 13: The Sadist (Snuff Nicknames)
IRC-Girl Log, Thursday, April 2, 2009
[16:06] *** snuffgrlie ([email protected]) has joined IRC-Girl
IRC-Incest Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[01:43] *** _snuffdol ([email protected]) has joined IRC-Incest
IRC-Incest Log, Saturday, April 4, 2009
[09:08] *** kiddsnuff ([email protected]) has joined IRC- Incest
IRC-Sadism Log, Saturday, April 4, 2009
[07:20] *** snuftoy16f ([email protected]) has joined IRC- Sadism
It is doubtful whether the snuff these users’ are interested in are the films, filming snuff or in being filmed—more the eroticised death the term implies. While not logged, entered or investigated in any manner, there exists a chatroom on IRC, at the time of writing, called #!!!!!pedosnuffsex, with the descriptor of “Killing children for sexual pleasure” (this was found via a general channel search). This chatroom listed only five participants, which reflects snuff as a niche fetish amongst online predators on IRC. 76
The next personality type to be discussed is “The Businessman”.
The Businessman
The ‘businessman’ seems to be a personality type not often explored in current discourse about online predators—the purposeful, almost clinical online predator who matter-of-factly describes what he/she is looking for. Examples of this personality type can be found in the Profiles section (see Transcripts 23 and 38), however he/she is characterised by fairly neutral, functional language – words such as ‘sex’, ‘young girl’, ‘active parents’ (meaning parents who sexually abuse) and so forth – with simple requests or advertisements.
It is not known whether these users are more graphic or explicit in private chat, or whether this is a tactic to both put intended targets at ease or a symptom of a shy, non-assertive personality. Perhaps, it is simply a methodical way of communicating what they’re seeking and filtering out unwanted chats. This personality type is troubling in that it is often difficult to classify under what is currently known of rapists, paedophiles and online predators. Hall and Hall’s (2007, 460) ‘networkers’ would certainly describe some of their activities. However, the personality traits of the businessman – or why they communicate in the way they do – is an area not often researched. Of course, often the subject matter of the request also gives away information as to the personality and profile of the online predator, as with the user ‘isubpups’, who is detailed in the beastiality section.
The “Pretender” is the next personality type to be considered.
The Pretender
Certain online predators pretend to be underage users or the opposite sex, both for grooming purposes and for roleplaying and chat (fantasies). Most of these users aren’t obvious or explicitly posing as such, however some do so in an attempt to stay within the bounds of the law, as in Transcript 14:
77
Transcript 14: The Pretender
IRC-Incest Log, Wednesday, April 1, 2009
[13:06] * emilyh wonders if there are any women out there who might be interested in a rolelplay with me where I'm 13/14
IRC-Girl Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[09:34]
The Analyst Notebook software can be used to detect users who use the same IP address or have the same information under the Name field in mIRC’s setup and change sex or age; an example of this can be found in Chapter 6. Due to the complexity of setting up mIRC, accessing Undernet and perhaps even setting up Tor or other proxies, it can be argued that users below a certain age – perhaps 10 – would not have the sophistication to take part in these chatrooms. However, this is ignoring the increasing sophistication of successive generations growing up in a world where the Internet and other communication technology have always been present. Certainly users purporting to be very young – below the age of 10 – may indeed be pretenders but there is never any certainty.
Why online predators take on the role of a victim is not so clear, however paedophiles have an understanding of the psychology of children and what can be termed a ‘functional empathy’—as the DSM-IV-TR puts it:
“Except in cases in which the disorder is associated with Sexual Sadism, the [paedophile] may be attentive to the child's needs in order to gain the child's affection, interest, and loyalty and to prevent the child from reporting the sexual activity.” (American Psychiatric Association 2000, 571).
The grooming techniques, for example those explored in O’Connell (2003, 8-10), includes a friendship and relationship stage which moves slowly from innocent to sexually charged to sexually abusive. This ‘functional empathy’ is not true empathy in that the paedophile or online predator does not feel for the harm he/she is causing the victim—paedophilia is egosyntonic and the paedophile does not see his/her sexual interest in children as a problem (American 78
Psychiatric Association 2000, 571). It can therefore be speculated that an online predator may enjoy another online predator’s abuse of his/her fictitious underage character, either in emulating the fantasy that the victim is ‘into it’ or seductive or, perhaps more disturbingly, in emulating the pain and suffering caused by the abuse.
The accompanying paraphilia which was dominant in the chatrooms is discussed in the “Beastiality” section.
Beastiality
In the course of the chatroom analysis, it became apparent that other paraphilias are present in concert with the main themes of the chatrooms studied. While a comprehensive list of the paraphilias encountered is impossible without deeper investigation and within the boundaries of this study, the paraphilia of beastiality stands out.
Beastiality is the term describing sexual acts on animals, as opposed to zoophilia which is considered to mean a sexual ‘relationship’ – or romantic love, an actual exclusive preference – for animals (Earls and Lalumière 2002, 84). As can be seen in Transcript 15, beastiality occurs as a fetish throughout the chatrooms studied, usually in the form of online predators wanting to discuss or fantasise about children with animals:
Transcript 15: Beastiality
IRC-Kids Log, Thursday, 2 April
[02:02]
IRC-Girl Log, Saturday, 4 April
[13:41]
IRC-Sadism Log, Friday, 3 April
79
[06:35]
The comments in relation to ‘IPozKid’s’ request is interesting and the sentiment has been repeated by other online predators in other instances, which seems to indicate that beastiality is considered more despicable than sadism—again demonstrating the egosyntonic nature of paedophilia. At other times, URLs of images depicting children involved in beastiality are shared in the public chatroom and discussed, as in Transcript 16:
Transcript 16: Beastiality (Child Pornography and Comments)
IRC-Sadism Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[08:22]
In this case the concept of a child (presumably from the description of her as ‘little’) being sexual with an animal is generally approved, possibly because IRC-Sadism is a more sadism- oriented chatroom. Sadism, and sexual abuse or violence, has been linked to beastiality and animal cruelty in various studies, recently in Hensley, Tallichet and Singer (2006, 910-923) who concluded that their study found:
80
“...that the bestialic [sic] males [the sample prison population who filled out a questionnaire were more likely to commit crimes against humans supports those studies showing that individuals who commit bestiality [sic] tend to demonstrate a diminished capacity for appropriately relating to other humans and a tendency toward aggressing against them. Having found support for the link between bestiality [sic] and interpersonal violence in our sample also lends credence to the sexually polymorphous theory whereby sexuality and aggression have become developmentally fused in these individuals.”
This corresponds to the Integrated Theory of child sexual abuse discussed by Craven, Brown and Gilchrist (2003, 289). Beastiality has also been identified in the early lives of serial killers, the link between beastiality and these sadistic crimes being termed ‘zoosadism’ (Williams and Weinberg 2003, 524). In the context of paedophilia and online predators, zoosadism presents itself as a fantasy or interest in forcing children to perform sexual acts on animals—and in the instance in Transcript 17, as a replacement for actual human children in sexual abuse:
Transcript 17: Beastiality (Zoosadism)
IRC-Kids Log, Thursday, April 2, 2009
[12:20]
This user may be using puppies as a precursor to abusing children, perhaps to get beyond any inhibition he or she may have. This could also be intended to avoid the harsher legal punishment for child sexual abuse of this nature or even simply as a fantasy online. The zoosadism of the user, however, is readily apparent and made especially disturbing by the age of the canines and humans mentioned.
These personality types and characteristic paraphilias apply to various categories of users (archetypes), which are presented in the next section.
81
Archetypes
Groomers
The term ‘groomers’ will be used to refer to online predators involved in child sexual grooming, preparing underage users for sexual encounters offline; Hall and Hall (2007, 460) give these online predators the more general label of ‘stalkers’. Groomers will tend to be of the gentleman rapist or pretender personality types, as a gentle and gradual approach is a usual tactic of groomers to gain the trust of their underage targets (O’Connell 2003, 8-10 and Eichenwald 2005, para. 35-38). Groomers can be quite subtle; the suspected groomer in Transcript 18, ‘Barie’, advertised for young girls or their mothers to chat to him for comfort:
Transcript 18: Groomer
IRC-Girl Log, Saturday, April 4, 2009
[13:14]
‘Barie’ advertised on IRC-Incest, IRC-Girl and IRC-Kids on two occasions, once immediately upon entering and the second time 38 minutes later; he was online in the three chatrooms for a total of 14 hours and 11 minutes between Saturday 4 April and Sunday 5 April. On further analysis of ‘Barie’s’ user details it would appear that he is located in Canada and is accessing the Internet through Rogers Communications Inc., a Canadian telecommunications company. ‘Barie’ quit due to a network error and did not attempt to reconnect to IRC during the logging period.
‘Barie’s’ language is quite gentle—he used the term ‘overweight’ instead of a more derogatory term such as ‘fat’, as well as describing himself as providing a ‘soft and strong shoulder’. Mitchel et. al. (2001, 3013) found that ‘troubled’ underage Internet users were more at risk of being sexually solicited and while Jayawardena and Broadhurst’s (2007, 241) research questioned this popular perception, ‘Barie’s’ targeting of ‘overweight daughters’ can be seen as an awareness of the vulnerability of young girls with body image issues. His request is quite
82
non-sexualised, yet the chatrooms he advertises in – apart from IRC-Kids – are explicitly themed for both underage sex and mother-daughter incest. ‘Barie’s’ language fits into McCabe and Wauchope’s (2005, 240) “caring, persuasion, reassurance” theme of the language used by sex offenders, categorised by a suggestion that ‘Barie’ is worried about his target victims and wants to provide comfort and reassurance. From these characteristics it seems likely that ‘Barie’ is a gentleman predator and as such, quite an effective groomer.
While ‘Barie’ is a direct groomer, there are also indirect groomers who network with other online predators, underage users or those posing as underage users – pretenders – in order to undertake child sexual grooming. This is quite rare in the open chatroom, however one notable example in Transcript 19 stands out:
Transcript 19: Groomer (Age and Sex change)
IRC-Kids Log, Wednesday, April 1, 2009
16:00
16:03
17:37
IRC-Girl Log, Thursday, April 2, 2009
[13:32] *** Cindy5yRP ([email protected]) has joined IRC-Girl
[13:32] *** Cindy5yRP is now known as trickinAgir
[13:35] * trickinAgir looking for man/woman who can pretend be a girl around 9 yo as my friend, to chat in msn with a real preteen girl to trick her into nasty stuff. Candidates must have pacience, spanish language skills, prefarably some vids or pics of real preteen girls to pretend be one of them when chatting with the REAL girl
‘Cindy5yRP’ (Cindy) is a pretender who begins activity within the logged chatrooms by commenting on an image posted by another user, then posting one of her own. Her Nickname suggests that she is available to roleplay as a five year old girl called Cindy; by the nature of her comments, the sophistication of her language and her lack of presence in any female-oriented 83
chatrooms such as IRC-Incest, it can be surmised that she is, in fact, male. For the purposes of simplification, however, this user will continue to be referred to as female.
The next day – Thursday 2 April – Cindy has joined the channel IRC-Girl and changed her Nickname to ‘trickinAgir’, presumably intending to change her Nickname to ‘trickinAgirl’ but prevented from doing so by Undernet’s 12-character limit on Nicknames. Under this Nickname, she requests the help of another online predator to groom an underage girl. She is quite methodical and thorough in her request, specifying Spanish language skills and props in the way of videos and images to deceive the intended target. Cindy’s IP address resolves to Ecuador Telecom, which may be a possible connection behind her request for a Spanish-speaker, although she seems fairly fluent in English as well.
The “Dealer” archetype will now be discussed.
Dealers
There are three types of online predator who request direct offline contact—those who request underage users to contact him/ her to talk to with a view to arranging an offline sexual encounter (without necessarily grooming); those who request arrangements where money is exchanged for offline sexual encounters and those who request to make arrangements of some sort, not involving money, for offline sexual encounters. This last category of online predators will be termed ‘dealers’. While dealers – and negotiators detailed in the following section – would fall under the broad category of ‘stalkers’ (Hall and Hall, 2007, 460), they are quite removed from groomers and other types of online predators who attempt to gain physical access to children. Dealers communicate on a direct, equal footing with other online predators to create child sexual abuse situations; because of this equal footing, most dealers fit into the businessman personality type, which is evidenced by the dealers present in the logged chatrooms.
A particularly active dealer in all four chatrooms monitored is Impregnator, who repeats variations of the following request in Transcript 20:
84
Transcript 20: Dealers
IRC-Girl Log, Wednesday, April 1, 2009
[11:25]
IRC-Incest Log, Saturday, April 4, 2009
[03:25]
[03:25]
‘Impregnator’ appears in IRC-Girl on Wednesday 1, Friday 3 and Saturday 4 April, in IRC- Incest from Wednesday 1 to Saturday 4 April, in IRC-Kids from Thursday 2 to Saturday 4 April and in IRC-Sadism from Wednesday 1 to Saturday 4 April. He rarely deviates from his advertisement except for the following comment in Transcript 21:
Transcript 21: Dealers (Revealing Deviation from Advertisement)
IRC-Girl Log, Wednesday, April 1, 2009
[15:12]
IRC-Girl Log, Saturday, April 4, 2009
[14:57]
[14:57]
[15:00]
85
[15:00]
Note: “tg” is an Internet acronym for ‘thank god’.
According to his advertisement, ‘Impregnator’ is from Peterborough, a city near Toronto in Canada. His ISP information indicates he is using Bell Canada, one of Canada’s largest telecommunications companies (Bell.ca 2010). He goes through several Nickname changes in the logged period, as can be seen in Transcript 22:
Transcript 22: Dealers (Nickname Changes)
IRC-Girl Log, Saturday, April 4, 2009
[04:37] *** Impregnator is now known as HymenHnter
[16:48] *** Impregnator is now known as m30_4girl
IRC-Incest Log, Thursday, April 2, 2009
[13:28] *** Impregnator is now known as TorontoGy
Note: these changes are reflected in the other chatrooms Impregnator was active in simultaneously on the same times and days—Undernet only allows one Nickname at a time.
As ‘HymenHnter’, he did not say anything in the public chatrooms; however as ‘m30_4girl’ he repeated the same advertisement. His language is very functional and he is clearly seeking an arrangement with other online predators rather than seeking to groom underage users directly. The language patterns exhibited by users such as ‘Impregnator’ reveal he is of the businessman personality type, although they do not correspond with those identified by McCabe and Wauchope (2005, 240-241) as he is addressing those he considers equals; his words are functional, direct and practical.
His comments about depression and suicide in IRC-Girl on Wednesday 1 and Saturday 4 April seem to be child-like in comparison, although the same amount of carelessness in grammar,
86
punctuation and spelling – even adjusting for typing errors – are evident. This may indicate he is younger than his claimed age, has an immature disposition or the comments are an attempt to elicit a sympathetic response, perhaps as a way of attracting underage users or other online predators. If it is genuine, this rare departure from his standard advertisements may reflect a personality trait of paedophiles to “experience feelings of inferiority, isolation or loneliness, low self-esteem, internal dysphoria, and emotional immaturity.” (Hall and Hall 2005, 462). Hall and Hall go on to comment:
“They have difficulty with mature age-appropriate interpersonal interactions, particularly because of their reduced assertiveness, elevated levels of passive-aggressivity, and increased anger or hostility. These traits lead to difficulty dealing with painful affect, which results in the excessive use of the major defence mechanisms of intellectualization, denial, cognitive distortion (eg, manipulation of fact), and rationalization. Even though pedophiles [sic] often have difficulty with interpersonal relationships, 50% or more will marry at some point in their lives.” (2005, 462)
This seems to offer an explanation, if true, of ‘Impregnator’s’ problems with his girlfriend and parents and his reactions to them—he appears to be turning towards his deviant interests in children as a way of dealing with, ignoring or even making use of his other issues.
A more coherent example of a dealer is ‘LoveYngGirl’, who repeats the following advertisement in Transcript 23 without any alteration:
Transcript 23: Dealers (The Businessman Personality Type)
IRC-Girl Log, Wednesday, April 1, 2009
[11:25]
‘LoveYngGirls’ is active in IRC-Sadism and IRC-Kids during all five days logged and in IRC- Girl on all days with the exception of Thursday 2 April. His ISP appears to be DSL Extreme (dslextreme.com 2010), a company based in the United States which offers fibre-optic broadband 87
connections. He was rarely disconnected during the logging period which may indicate that he is not using a proxy and that DSL Extreme is the actual ISP he is connecting through, as fibre-optic connections tend to be more stable than other broadband types.
As with ‘Impregnator’, he is of the businessman personality type—the language is quite functional, matter-of-fact and direct. Of note is the use of the word ‘relationship’ rather than a more sexual term. Combined with his Nickname, this seems to indicate a similarity to McCabe and Wauchope’s (2005, 240) “caring, persuasion, reassurance” theme, as with the user ‘Barie’ highlighted in the Groomer archetype.
Negotiators
As mentioned above, another type of online predator who requests offline sexual contact are the ones who engage in prostitution—soliciting for sexual encounters in return for money. These online predators can be termed ‘negotiators’ and usually attempt to negotiate with parents or other online predators for access to underage users. A particularly disturbing example is PainMster in Transcript 24:
Transcript 24: Negotiators
IRC-Incest Log, Sunday, April 5, 2009
[02:11]
‘PainMster’ advertised on the last day of logging, Sunday 5 April, and first advertised on IRC- Kids before simultaneously advertising on IRC-Girl, IRC-Sadism and IRC-Incest. Other than advertising, his – presuming from the Nickname and language that the user is male – only other action is to attempt to access an fserver on IRC-Kids; whether this is successful or not it is impossible to tell. His ISP is apparently Nextgentel.com, a Norwegian company which corresponds to his claim to be located in Scandinavia, although there is no country called ‘Scandinavia’.
88
This advertisement is also bordering on the international sex trade as interested parties appear to be encouraged to either recruit or kidnap homeless children. The language used by ‘PainMster’ is aggressive and dehumanising although the level his advertisement is aimed at remains on fairly equal terms; he has traits from the sadist – although not the snuff variant if taken at face- value – personality type (csbsju 2010, para. 42-51), although he is appealing to equals. It is also interesting to note the inclusion of the “no permanent damage” reassurance—this may be to appease any guilt the seller may have about the ultimate fate of the available girl or, more likely, to aid in avoiding detection of the sexual offences committed against a girl who must be returned to the other party.
From the other end of this spectrum are the producers of child pornography, for example ‘laurensfren’ in Transcript 25:
Transcript 25: Negotiators (Child Pornography Producers)
IRC-Kids Log, Saturday, April 4, 2009
[12:44]
[14:07]
[14:09]
As with the previous user ‘trickinAgirl’, the Nickname ‘laurensfren’ was obviously intended to be ‘laurensfriend’. He was active in IRC-Kids, IRC-Sadism and IRC-Girl on Saturday 4 April, entering IRC-Kids first and the other two chatrooms a few minutes later. Before he quit IRC, he changed his age and the relationship to the underage girl he claimed to make videos with, from a 21 year old with a 14 year old girlfriend to a 41 year old father with a 14 year old daughter. This could mean that the situation he describes is false and, coupled with his request for subscription to child pornography websites, he may be involved in some sort of phishing scam—a child sexual abuse version of an advance-fee fraud, only utilising a chatroom instead of email. He is clearly in the businessman personality type and it can be assumed that most negotiators are, as
89
they’re communicating with parents or minors for a functional purpose, usually a transaction. The use of purposeful and matter-of-fact language would be beneficial in organising such a transaction.
The ISP information for ‘laurensfrien’ points to Kapper.net, an Austrian website, as the ISP— this is a proxy server operating on the Tor network, as evidenced in the full hostname in Transcript 26:
Transcript 26: Negotiators (Tor Hostname)
IRC-Kids Log, Saturday, April 4, 2009
[14:30] laurensfren ([email protected]) Quit
The use of Tor makes this user almost impossible to trace, unless the kapper.net server keeps access logs and provides investigating agencies with information.
The next archetype are the “Roleplayers”.
Roleplayers
Roleplay is one of the main activities of the chatroom users within all of the chatrooms and fits Hall and Hall’s (2007, 460) ‘cruisers’ type. Roleplay can involve real underage users and online predators posing as underage users in characters who are depicted in acts of abuse. While roleplay is primarily a way of acting out fantasies, it is not inconceivable that it may be used for sexual grooming—if the online predator poses as an underage user to sexualise the conversation with another underage user.
Advertisements and requests for roleplay are numerous and common in the chatrooms logged, however a few examples stand out. One, in Transcript 27, is a particularly sadistic request by ‘BrutalBizaR’:
90
Transcript 27: Roleplayers
IRC-Sadism Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[03:54]
‘BrutalBizaR’ was active in all four logged chatrooms during Friday 3 and Saturday 4 April and did not deviate from the request above. His ISP information indicated he was using the 3 broadband network in Denmark; whether this is a proxy or his actual ISP is not readily apparent.
It is unclear what function roleplay plays for a sadistic online predator, although it is argued that child pornography and online activities “allows an individual to operationalize [sic] sexual fantasies that would otherwise have self-extinguished if it were not for the immediate feedback provided by on-line [sic] interactions.” (Quayle and Taylor 2002, 867). For online predators that do not have immediate access to potential victims or opportunities offline, roleplay and cybersex may encourage their ‘drive’ for underage sex.
There are also those who seem to enjoy more detailed roleplays with involved ‘scenes’ – a term used in the chatrooms originating from the consensual and above-age ‘Bondage and Discipline, Sado-Masochism’ lifestyle (Williams 2006, 337), the link to which is explored in Chapter 2 – or storylines, characterisation and other elements which are not essential to purely sexual roleplaying or cybersex, as can be seen in Transcript 28:
Transcript 28: Roleplayers (Detailed Scenarios)
IRC-Sadism Log, Thursday, April 2, 2009
[13:27] * Dad48-RP reads in the newspaper an ad by a young girl, offering herself for sex in return for a good place to live. she says even though that she is underage, she has her mom's consent. she is also looking for a man who can be like a father to her (message me to play)
[13:34] * Dad48-RP comes home with his gf who is your age. You are happy your dad has someone since mom left, but you want to also be part of his life...you see she gives him a cheap slut and sex all the time...you are not jealous, but you want to be as important to him as she is (message me to play it)
91
[16:36] * Dad48-RP is looking for any daughter ages 12 and up to role-play dad's private little princess and fuck toy...slow and descriptive scenes. if you wish to play innocent and naive and want quick scenes, do not message me please
[16:53] * Dad48-RP walks in at a party with his daughter, who is dressed preciselike like private sex toys dress. he sits down and looks around as the host brings in the women he hired for the evening. among those women , he sees a young girl who is not getting any attention for her age (msg me to play)
[17:56] * Dad-48-RP would like to play a retired porn actor, married to one of his previous partners (she can be either young or old) and a new actress comes to see me so she asks me to do one movie with her, since no other actors want to do with her
IRC-Sadism Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[02:06] Dad-48-RP would like to play a scene where he is a retired porn actor who did some movies with underage girls and now he married one of them. he gets a visit from a girl who wants to start but no one would go with her because of her age. (msg me to play it)
‘Dad48-RP’ uses Videotron.ca, which is an ISP servicing Quebec, Canada. It is unlikely that this is a proxy as he uses the same ISP on both Thursday 2 and Friday 3 April.
This request conveys something more than instant sexual gratification—‘Dad48-RP’ has quite specific situations in mind which he wants to play out in fantasy. This may mean that he is involved in, has read about or seen similar situations; this roleplay involves more subtlety and would seem to require an ‘acted-out’ sexual grooming of an underage party. The language he uses is closer to McCabe and Wauchope’s (2005, 240) “sexually abusive or explicit language theme”, although it is not overly sadistic in nature—his personality type is somewhere between the gentleman predator and the sadist.
More unusual requests for roleplay also arise, such as the following in Transcript 29 by RichSlut:
Transcript 29: Roleplayers (Unusual)
IRC-Incest Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[05:37] * RichSlut is looking to chat about one of four topics: 1) what life would be like if we were in an incestuous relationship (parent/child) and we were filthy rich, that we could
92
do whatever we wanted 2) a story of you being a formal dress designer with me as your model. you don't hesistate to design very slutty dressing (ex: a dress that has one breast fully exposed) i want it to be very artistic
[05:37] * RichSlut 3) a chat about what life would be like if we had 50ish cocks available at all times, and you/i wanted us to become true cock suckers 4) or possibly just a fun lesbian scene of two girls playing on my bed, only there'd be no orgasms or talk of getting wet
This user’s ISP information points towards ltdomains.com, which is a server in the United States hosted by a company called Network Solutions. It is more than likely a proxy server. The user was online in one logged chatroom, IRC-Incest, on Friday 3 April and left only the message quoted above once.
It is difficult to ascertain the true sex of the user, however the specific request for sexual play without certain sexual functions – “orgasms or talk of getting wet” – makes this request truly stand out. It is entirely possible, given the mother-daughter incest-oriented chatroom the request was posted in, that the poster is female and may consider the unwanted sexual functions to be part of more male-female online sexual roleplay. The reference to fellatio is also interesting in this regard and the humiliation and exposure inherent in the second suggested scenario perhaps points towards the “male accompanied” typology of female child sex offenders described by Hall and Hall (2007, 459). There is, though, equal chance it is a rare type of male online predator, although the majority of explicitly male online predators in the four chatrooms tend towards more conventional descriptions of abuse.
Networkers
Networking between online predators is a common occurrence in the chatrooms logged, although due to the difficulty in conducting primary research on this phenomenon without researcher interaction with online predators in online environments, it is one which hasn’t been fully explored—with perhaps O’Connell’s (2003) research being a rare exception. As a result, the personality types and language used in networking is an area which requires further study.
The perceived and real anonymity of IRC chatrooms, especially un-moderated ones such as those logged for this study, encourages networking between online predators, although the bulk of 93
such discussions would take place in private chat. However, networking does take place in open discussions between online predators and much intelligence can be gathered from this, as seen in Transcript 30:
Transcript 30: Networkers
IRC-Incest Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[13:06]
This conversation reveals some of the history behind child sexual abuse chatrooms on IRC. Reference is made to EFnet, one of the oldest IRC networks (EFnet.org 2010), and DALNet, another large IRC network which suffered from Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks (basically where every available connection to the network was ‘flooded’ by malign sources, blocking off legitimate users) in 2002, which resulted in users unable to connect to its servers 94
(Emma 2002). This caused a mass-migration of DALNet users to other networks. A cursory look at the chatroom listings for DALNet using the keywords ‘girl’ and ‘!’ reveals the presence of at least two child sexual abuse-themed chatrooms with a smaller but sizeable participant-base. However, these chatrooms are moderated and the official message one reads is: “Repeat after me, BotServ: Age 16+,Fantasy Only, NO Pic Trading, AutoGreets, Cams, Clones, Spamming, Underage Nicks, Web ads, Onjoins,F-Serves nor FTP's, 15 mins between trolling ads.” (DAL.Net 2010). This does not necessarily mean that users are 16 years of age and over, simply that users are not explicit in their Nicknames if they are, in fact, underage.
Requests to talk to other online predators about child abuse and child pornography are also part of the public chat, such as in Transcript 31:
Transcript 31: Networkers (Child Sexual Abuse)
IRC-Girl Log, Saturday, April 4, 2009
[12:55]
IRC-Girl Log, Sunday, April 5, 2009
[02:54]
IRC-Kids Log, Wednesday, April 1, 2009
[17:49]
The first networker, ‘DadO2FL’, was active in IRC-Girl, IRC-Sadism and IRC-Kids on Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 April. He began with the above request and continued requesting that any other parents with children contact him for webcam sessions with his own children and himself. The second networker, ‘grlasslvr’, was active in the same chatrooms on Wednesday 1 to Friday 3 April and in IRC-Incest on Thursday 2 to Friday 3 April.
Another use for networking with other online predators is to reinforce fantasies—as with roleplay, a way to encourage the ‘drive’ for deviant interests. This can be seen in the following request by ‘LuvKidBut’ in Transcript 32:
95
Transcript 32: Networkers (Fantasies)
IRC-Sadism Log, Saturday, April 4, 2009
[03:30]
This user was already connected to Undernet when the logging began on Wednesday 1April, then connected and disconnected from IRC-Sadism on Thursday 2 and Saturday 4 April. He was active in the same previously mentioned chatrooms.
‘LuvKidBut’ implicitly wants to network with other abusers as opposed to victims or potential victims. The specification for incest fantasies – and presumably the real cases of incest which ‘DadO2FL’ and ‘grlasslvr’ were seeking – is interesting—perhaps indicating the availability of children in the user’s family or perhaps reflecting the user’s particular fetish. Incest is a commonly recurring theme in all logged chatrooms – obviously in the case of IRC-Incest – indicating the prevalence of, and interest in, this category of child sexual abuse. Intercourse is more common in cases of incest where the victims are older children or adolescents (Hall and Hall 2007, 458); it is difficult to ascertain the exact age range the above user means when he/she refers to ‘little kids’.
As reflected in the findings of O’Connell (2003, 7), advice is given by online predators to other online predators on avoiding detection and grooming. A recurring message in all chatrooms logged during all five days can be seen in Transcript 33, about a secure IRC network using Tor:
Transcript 33: Networkers (Information)
IRC-Girl Log, Wednesday, April 1, 2009
[13:17]
[13:17]
Note: Bolded sections appeared highlighted in different colours for emphasis on mIRC
96
AnnonmeIRC repeated this advertisement in all of the logged channels during all five days and from the ISP information and IP address he/she displays, is using a proxy service – probably Tor – to connect to Undernet. The first ISP information points to Comcast, a cable television and Internet company in the United States, and the second IP address resolved to a location in Denmark.
As explained in Chapter 2, anonymity services such as Tor can be used to host virtually any Internet service or protocol; instead of utilising Tor as a proxy server to connect to Undernet, the advertised functionality above uses Tor to directly host an entire secure IRC network, OnionNet. Using OnionNet, online predators can carry out the same activities as on Undernet with greater safety and anonymity and much less chance of detection.
There is also more explicit advice on conducting offline abuse and grooming within the public chatrooms as well, as seen in Transcript 34:
Transcript 34: Networkers (Advice)
IRC-Girl Log, Saturday, April 4, 2009
[19:31]
‘VoyerDad’ appears in IRC-Girl and IRC-Kids, although he does not participate openly in the latter; both appearances were on Saturday 4 April. The above comments were the only ones made by this user in public, therefore it may be a ‘lure’ for further conversation with other online predators. This sort of advice was fairly uncommon in the logged chatrooms and would be more likely to take place within private chat.
Another archetype for consideration is the “Chat Requestor”.
Chat Requestors
The most common type of request in the chatrooms logged were requests for private chat. These closely follow Sibley and Heath’s (2004, 231-239) prototypical structure of:
97
“(a) a target specifier, e.g., “any girls”;
(b) the communication request itself, e.g., “wanna chat”;
(c) a self-identifier, e.g., “to a guy”; and
(d) a communication directive, e.g., “msg me!”” (Sibley and Heath 2004, 231).
The majority of the targets for such requests are female, which corresponds to Sibley and Heath’s (2004, 238) findings as well as the statistical evidence that girls form the majority of victims of child sexual abuse (Murray 2001, para. 1). Chat requests are one of the key tools used by online predators engaged in child sexual grooming, however since the content of the chatrooms studied here quite explicitly deal with child sexual abuse, these chat requestors are more graphic and obvious in their intentions. Examples of such chat requests are provided in Transcript 35:
Transcript 35: Chat Requestors
IRC-Girl Log, Friday, April 3, 2009 thinks about it , come see me! [00:34]
[07:31]
IRC-Kids Log, Thursday, April 2, 2009
[15:09]
IRC-Sadism Log, Sunday, April 5, 2009
[03:09]
These are a random selection of repeated requests for private chat within the public chatrooms researched. The users repeat their request until an interested party initiates a private chat with them or they disconnect from the chatrooms. Some requests and advertisements are automated 98
and will continue to repeat regardless of whether there are any responses, at least until they are turned off. These chat requestors encompass the range of personality types and profiles of online predators and offline paedophiles, from the gentleman predator to the sadist with all levels of aggression and all manner of sexual interests in between. This makes profiling this archetype of online predators almost impossible; the patterns of the chat request seem to be governed by the medium and the traditions surrounding that medium.
The “Posters” are another archetype.
Posters
Child pornography was posted in all of the chatrooms logged in this study, reflecting the findings of primary research on child sexual abuse themed chatrooms such as that conducted by O’Connell (2003, 7). Although these URL links to images (ending in Filename.jpg, for example) were not investigated in this study for legal and ethical reasons, the comments surrounding them reveal the nature of what the images depict, for example in Transcript 36:
Transcript 36: Posters
IRC-Kids Log, Thursday, April 2, 2009
[12:11]
99
Posting seems to serve several functions within these chatrooms, the most obvious being that posting such images also allows a passive ‘trading’ of child pornography, no doubt feeding into or starting collections. The users commenting on the posts are quite explicit in their language and fairly aggressive in their descriptions – for example, the comments by ‘FkHrHd’ and ‘isubpup’, both of whom can be classified by the sadistic personality type (see Transcripts 16 and 17). While it is possible to classify these users using Hall and Hall’s (2007, 460) classification of ‘masturbators’, it is clear that these users are not passively viewing child pornography; they may not only be consumers of child pornography, but they may utilise it for child sexual grooming (O’Connell 2003, 4) and subsequently for the creation of further child pornography (Eichenwald 2007 and O’Connell 2003, 4). In the context of these chatrooms, child pornography also functions to encourage the deviant interests of online predators by posting ‘on-topic’ material; this, in turn, encourages discussion and conversation which also fosters a sense of community and togetherness. This sense of community is important as advertisements and requests take up the bulk of chatroom communication, often resulting in more community- minded online predators to lament the lack of conversation, as can be seen in Transcript 37:
Transcript 37: Posters (Community)
IRC-Kids Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[15:50]
Of course, fear of detection may be the primary reason which keeps users from openly participating, especially in posting child pornography, and conversing, although enough revealing information is communicated in advertisements and requests. The profile of paedophiles highlighted in Hall and Hall (2005, 462) would lend credence to a search for justification, normalisation, belonging and community by online and offline paedophiles; the Internet is well-suited for this purpose. The virtual communities built around these chatrooms, with the perception of anonymity and lack of risk in forming interpersonal relationships, encourages more openness and discussion. Within the virtual ‘walls’ of this conceptual sanctuary, the deepest and most secret deviancies can be explored in perceived safety and the posting of child pornography – especially depicting child specific acts of child sexual abuse as in the previous examples – encourages the sharing of these hidden desires.
The last archetype for discussion are the “Travellers”.
Travellers
Travellers are online predators who are willing to travel great distances to sexually abuse underage users they meet online, or arrange with parents or caregivers to meet and abuse their children. An excellent example of a traveller is ‘Chckster’, who repeats the advertisement in Transcript 38 in IRC-Girl, IRC-Kids and IRC-Sadism on all five days logged:
Transcript 38: Traveller
IRC-Kids Log, Thursday, April 2, 2009
[11:31]
IRC-Kids Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[14:59] Chckster- ([email protected]) Quit
101
‘Chckster’ is quite careful about hiding his ISP information and uses Undernet’s own hostmasking service; he appears to have quite a stable broadband service as he rarely has any disconnections. In the instance above, he has intentionally quit IRC as opposed to being disconnected through connection instability.
The language he uses is very matter-of-fact and functional and therefore he fits into the businessman personality type. He only ever alludes to a sexual encounter in wanting to ‘possibly meet’ a ‘girl’, which is in keeping with his cautious trait—even his Nickname is simply a name and not a description of himself or what he wants, as opposed to the users ‘Impregnator’ and ‘LoveYngGirl’. He does not depart from the message above to comment on anything else. Given this level of caution, it is likely that ‘Chckster’ is not indulging in a fantasy but really seeking to meet with an underage user offline.
Travellers are perhaps one of the most dangerous types of online predators as they are in a position to travel such great distances and are desperate, naive or reckless enough to do so. While many online predators in these chatrooms are seeking chat or roleplay, travellers are expressly seeking meetings, making them more likely to offend directly and physically. ‘Chckster’ is careful with his online activities, which implies he is patient and intelligent; his neutral language is perhaps on purpose to disguise what could well be a sadistic personality type.
To develop policy and practices against this and other types of online predators, the intelligence which can be gathered from the analysis of these chatrooms must be explored. The next chapter will detail the findings from the intelligence gathered during the collation and analysis of the chatroom data.
102
Chapter 6: Research Findings – Intelligence Analysis
A large amount of intelligence about online predators and paedophilia on the Internet can be gained from the analysis of the logged chatrooms. This intelligence can be separated into four categories: activity within Undernet, other Internet technologies utilised, other networks and offline intelligence. Each of these categories will now be dealt with individually.
Activity within Undernet
The activity within the logged chatrooms reveals a lot about how online predators operate within IRC. The use of proxies and other anonymity services constitutes the major hurdle for investigators in tracking online predators; more and more, even older generations of Internet users are becoming tech-savvy in keeping secure.
The simplest method of establishing security is using a service such as Tor; by changing the firewall settings on IRC clients such as mIRC to access the Tor program, users can very simply disguise their ISP or IP information. As evidenced in this study (see Chapter 4), Undernet has blocked many Tor proxy servers for various reasons; however, with patience, all a user has to do is keep changing the Tor servers until he/she finds one which Undernet has not blocked. A search for users using Tor in the chatrooms reveals multiple instances of Tor access in all of the chatrooms during the chatroom logging period, as in Transcript 39:
Transcript 39: Evidence of Tor Proxies
IRC-Kids Log, Wednesday, April 1, 2009
[14:20] raji ([email protected]) has joined IRC-Kids
IRC-Sadism Log, Thursday, April 2, 2009
[16:50] Domped ([email protected]) has joined IRC-Sadism
103
IRC-Girl Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[02:37] *** EvlpedM ([email protected]) has joined IRC-Girl
IRC-Incest Log, Saturday, April 4, 2009
[10:15] *** MuscleGodes ([email protected]) has joined IRC-Incest
IRC-Girl Log, Sunday, April 5, 2009
[01:08] *** playtme ([email protected]) has joined IRC-Girl
It must be noted that some Tor servers do not contain the word ‘tor’ in the ISP information, making it more difficult to ascertain whether it is a Tor proxy. Of course, Tor is simply one of the ways of utilising a proxy—programs called ‘proxy scanners’ can scan an IP range for proxies as well as judge the level of anonymity provided by each identified proxy (Shareware Connection 2010). Proxies are also listed on websites, although as these are publicly available, it is presumed that they are eventually banned by networks such as Undernet. Tor remains the easiest method of utilising a proxy server. Using Analyst’s Notebook, it can be seen in Figure 3 (on page 105) how one user can have several proxies through the course of his or her activity:
104
Figure 3: Analyst’s Notebook – Graphical Depiction of Proxies
[email protected] [email protected]
Link Link
Link Link [email protected] DA32yoo [email protected]
Link Link
[email protected] [email protected]
As mentioned in Chapter 4, it is common to find users utilising Undernet’s own host masking features—either the IP address mask or the virtual hostmask (Undernet 2010, para. 5-6). While this allows users to remain anonymous in chatrooms, it may be possible to access actual information about these users through Undernet itself as the network supports the Virtual Global Taskforce, a combined taskforce of international policing agencies involved in investigating online child sexual abuse (virtualglobaltaskforce.com 2010).
As previously mentioned, one tactic used by online predators to sexually groom underage users is to pretend to be younger, or even of the opposite sex. This can also be a mechanism for fantasising, chat or roleplay. Analyst’s Notebook is also able to show and track this phenomenon, as seen below in Figure 4:
105
Figure 4: Analyst’s Notebook – Graphical Depiction of Age Change
Link Link
Older^M boy12
It is interesting to note, as with the example above, that underage users – or those posing as such – frequently use all lower-case Nicknames while online predators’ Nicknames tend to be capitalised. Whether this is for the sake of convenience and ease of identification or to signify differing levels of power and control, as with a consensual and above-age Dominance/submission relationship (Williams 2006, 335), is difficult to ascertain; however, both reasons are likely to be involved.
Spam
As with any other public Internet community, especially without moderation, IRC chatrooms also get ‘spam’—unsolicited, off-topic messages which are repeated ad nauseum. Some spam messages are advertisements for other chatrooms or links to websites or images which are off- topic, but advertised as material the chatroom user may be interested in. Chatrooms dealing with child sexual abuse are no exception to this, especially since the ones here are un-moderated. Examples of such spam can be found in Transcript 40:
Transcript 40: Spam
IRC-Kids Log, Thursday, April 2, 2009
[11:21] angela http://www.loregate.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&id=6&Itemid=2 [11:23] angela New!! http://www.stqou.com/vb/stqou-link.php?p=158
106
IRC-Sadism Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[02:49]
The websites ‘angela’ is linking to seem to be websites teaching English to Arabic speakers—the site stqou.com is entirely in Arabic, though. It is difficult to determine what purpose ‘angela’s’ advertisements serve in the chatroom, although it is a possibility this user is present in all IRC chatrooms without the presence of moderators capable of banning him or her. It is also a possibility that the bot repeating what looks like a fileserver advertisement and a link to another IRC chatroom is legitimate, however there is no instance of any user commenting about the contents of any files transferred from such an fserver.
Other Internet Technologies Utilised
Online predators now have access to Internet technologies which are safer and more secure to use and gives them easier access to potential victims than ever before. During the course of the analysis conducted on the logged chatrooms, several Internet technologies were used by online predators to enhance or add other functionality to their activities. These technologies include image sharing technologies, technologies to facilitate the trading of child pornography and instant messengers.
107
Image Sharing
The sharing of child pornography images is ideally suited to the IRC environment. Commonly, images found online are of the ‘jpeg’ web standard, which are compressed image files well- suited for access through the Internet (Joint Photographic Experts Group 2010, para. 1-6). Most images found on the Internet are jpegs, and their relatively small file size and high quality renders them ideal for linking within IRC chatrooms, for discussion or collection; as a result, the majority of images found in the chatroom logs are of this format.
As a result, URLs of child pornography images are submitted (or ‘posted’) to various chatrooms and discussed. One of the most common methods of placing these illegal images online is by using an image host such as PostImage.org (postimage.org 2010), which is described in the ‘About’ section of the website as:
“PostImage.org was founded in 2004 to provide forums with an easy way to upload images for free. PostImage is a very simple, fast, reliable free image host. It's perfect for linking to auctions, message boards, blogs, and other websites. PostImage guarantees maximum uptime and performance so your image will be here whenever you need it. There is no registration or login, all you have to do is submit your picture.” (PostImage.org/about.php 2010, para. 1).
The sheer bulk of images posted to it and the challenge of moderating these images would make it almost impossible for the website owners, or authorities, to keep track of them. Several other image hosting websites were used, such as filesurf.ru (filesurf.ru 2010) and imgsrc.ru (imgsrc.ru 2010). The latter is interesting as it is a website hosted in Russia with content in English. The description of the website on its own homepage reads:
“iMGSRC.RU (short for image source) is a rapidly growing community, dedicated to sharing. Photo sharing. Beauty Sharing. We've recently reached population of 211000 USERS with total of 17000000 PHOTOS uploaded. You can browse through our vast collection of all kinds of amateur and professional
108
photos with thousands uploaded daily! Given our advanced search system you will find any kind of photo in a second.” (imgsrc.ru 2010, para. 1-3).
It appears this website works on a registration and album system—once a user registers, he or she receives an album (presumably a folder on the server under the user’s registered name) in which image files can be uploaded and displayed. The search function on the homepage shows an option to search for albums without passwords, which signifies that some albums may be password-protected to maintain security. A couple of the updates on the homepage are also quite revealing:
“skinny: Happy New Year! (2008-12-30) iMGSRC.RU wishes all the best to all our legit users. We had hard time fighting spammers, CP-poster and alike during the whole 2008 year and we will continue to work making iMGSRC.RU a better place to live. See you in 2009 and over :) Good luck!” (imgsrc.ru 2010, para. 13).
“skinny: policy enforcements (2009-08-14) OK, guys. Let me remind you that iMGSRC.RU is a general photohosting service and if you came here in search of CP or to make GT/trade requests you came wrong place. GT is not allowed. CP is not allowed. Reposts are not allowed. So stop trades and don't post underage nudity or be banned. I warned you.” (imgsrc.ru 2010, para. 8).
The term ‘CP’ in this context means child pornography. It is interesting to note that trading is occurring within this image hosting service—it is probable that to avoid detection by providing some sort of description of the contents of a password-protected album, traders may network in chatrooms such as the ones studied here and trade passwords and URLs to their albums hosted in imgsrc.ru and similar websites. Again, the sheer bulk of images stored within the imgsrc.ru servers and its vast user-base would be problematic for moderation, as reflected in the above comments.
Trading of Child Pornography
While the trading of child pornography does occur within the chatrooms studied, the extent of this is not as widespread as first thought, possibly because the chatrooms were specifically 109
themed around sexual activities as opposed to the trading of images or video. However, the most obvious instance of advertisements for trading was an fserver which ran in IRC-Girl, IRC-Kids and IRC-Sadism on all five days logged, as in Transcript 41:
Transcript 41: Fserver
IRC-Girl Log, Wednesday, April 1, 2009
[12:52]
It is impossible from this description to ascertain the content of this fserver, however the presence in child sexual abuse-themed rooms indicates a good possibility of child pornography.
A relatively new peer-to-peer software which allows encrypted and secure data transfers between individuals – similar to fservers but with more security features and a graphical user interface – is Gigatribe (gigatribe.com 2010). Multiple users on all channels logged, requested trading on Gigatribe; an example from IRC-Kids can be found in Transcript 42, with repeated requests omitted:
Transcript 42: Gigatribe Requests
IRC-Kids[17:48] *** Log, gigatribe` Thursday, is now April known 2, 2009as gig atribe``d [17:48] *** gigatribe`d is now known as gigatribedad [11:29][18:04]
Gigatribe, in a similar way to Bittorrent (bittorrent.com 2010), acts as a method of transfer between two users—the files being transferred are stored on the users’ computers. This allows
110
for the potential transfer of an unlimited amount of content, more than is available on any sort of server, restricted only by the limits of the user’s computer and bandwidth. Decentralisation of this kind allows Gigatribe to avoid legal responsibilities for the content being shared by users, as stated on the Gigatribe website:
“GigaTribe's purpose is to allow people in a community to interact with each other, not with strangers. If you accept strangers into your network, you run the risk of being exposed to offensive, indecent, or even illegal content. In the latter case, it is your duty to report it to the proper authorities. We are in no position to conduct investigations which should be handled by the police.” (Gigatribe 2010, para. 1).
The website goes on to state that any user reported as involved with illegal content would have his or her account terminated. It is interesting that there is no mention of Gigatribe passing such information to the relevant authorities.
Using a more centralised approach is Flickr (flickr.com 2010), which allows users to upload images and videos to share privately or openly, similar to imgsrc.ru. An album from Flickr was posted once in IRC-Girl, IRC-Kids and IRC-Sadism on Thursday 2 to Wednesday 3 April, as in Transcript 43:
Transcript 43: Flickr
IRC-Girl Log, Thursday, April 2, 2009
[22:14]
However, this merely demonstrates the possibility of using Flickr in this manner, as it is impossible to determine the contents of the account. The fact that Flickr was only posted once during the entire period of logging is a good indication that it is better-moderated than imgsrc.ru or Gigatribe, or its structure is easier to moderate.
111
Instant Messengers
Instant Messengers afford online predators privacy and added functionality which greatly augments the tools he or she has for child sexual grooming or abuse. In fact, most modern Instant Messenger programs present an integrated suite of functions with which to carry out almost any aspect of online child sexual abuse.
Instant Messengers are programs which, at the most basic, provide a real-time private chatroom—similar to IRC chatrooms but composed of a connection between only two users. A user has a ‘friends list’ attached to their registered account and depending on the user’s chosen settings, only those on the friends list are able to communicate with them. This provides a certain degree of privacy which a public chatroom – even with private messaging – cannot provide, with the added benefit of less distraction for both the online predator and the intended target.
One of the commonly used Instant Messengers is Yahoo! Messenger (Yahoo!7 Messenger in Australia), which needs a Yahoo! email account to activate. Once installed and activated, it allows webcam capability, computer-to-computer voice chat via microphone, photo-sharing with integration into Flickr (which is also a Yahoo! product), access to chat with users on other Instant Messenger networks such as MSN and mobile phone integration (yahoo.com 2010). Yahoo! Messenger is used in the IRC chatrooms for private conversations, as can be seen in Transcript 44:
Transcript 44: Yahoo and MSN
IRC-Girl Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[08:46]
[11:33] * beache is 46 yo M in FL looking for girl to chat or mic on yahoo msn or skype
IRC-Incest Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[10:42]
112
[16:32]
The main activity on Yahoo! Messenger appears to be voice chat via microphone or the use of webcam, two activities that presumably act to confirm the sex – and potentially the age – of an underage user. It is interesting to note that webcam and audio chat are seen as goals within the grooming process which will lead to an offline sexual encounter. It is likely that a chat starts in private message then proceeds to Instant Messenger, therefore it is difficult to track using only the public chatroom data—research methods such as those used by O’Connor (2003) are needed to fully explore this process; however, certain exchanges in the public chatroom are quite revealing of what does occur in private message, as can be seen in Transcript 45:
Transcript 45: Grooming and Age/Sex Confirmation
IRC-Kids Log, Friday, April 3, 2009
[05:31] * juliejeune is coming silently, looking around with my 10 yo girl face.. my little sister on my arms ( a 6 month old baby)....looking all that people and thinking who will want have fun with me and my sis...(can speak in french, spanish and english)..is looking for someone into long and detailled roleplay, accepting to be guided and able to provide long sentences, with complex answers.... [05:31]
This simple challenge, put in a fairly friendly way by ‘Ntr0x’ with smiling emoticons, may or may not be enough to encourage an actual underage user to comply with his or her wishes; however, this allows a glimpse into the grooming process carried out in private message. It is unlikely that ‘juliejeune’ is an actual ten year old girl, as her speech patterns, claim of fluency in three written languages and the nature of her roleplay scene point towards more maturity. Of course, proof of her age and sex would necessarily involve more than simply a chat on MSN 113
Messenger, or Windows Live Messenger (download.live.com/messenger 2010) as it is now known—a webcam, a microphone and photographs are undoubtedly what ‘Ntr0x’ is seeking.
Windows Live Messenger also integrates a similar functionality to Yahoo! Messenger—in fact, the two Instant Messenger systems achieved interoperability in 2006 (Microsoft 2006, para. 19). Webcam, voice chat, photo-sharing and mobile phone integration are now common in many related communications applications, such as Skype.
Skype (skype.com 2010) is a popular online communications software which has the capability to make low-cost computer-to-landline and computer-to-mobile phone calls, as well as sharing the same (free) features as an Instant Messenger (skype.com 2010, para. 4). Although not mentioned much in the logged chatrooms, certain Nicknames with ‘Skype’, ‘MSN’ or ‘Yahoo’ attest to its use as a tool for online predators—with perhaps the added utility that online predators may be able to cheaply fund underage users’ contact from the user’s computer to the online predator’s landline or mobile phone.
Other Networks
It is relatively surprising that the only other secure network publically shared or discussed in the chatrooms is the Tor network. Freenet (freenetproject.org 2009), for example, seems to be more decentralised and secure than Tor, especially for the trading of child pornography, however, it is not discussed or advertised at any stage. It is quite probable, of course, that such information is shared between online predators in the comparative security of private chat. However, other networks on IRC are mentioned in passing, as can be seen in Transcript 30 (page 94), which provides valuable data on the history of child sexual abuse chatrooms in IRC networks. Currently, Undernet has the greatest number and participation levels of these types of chatrooms on IRC and perhaps the most easily investigated, as there is no moderation.
114
Offline Intelligence
Considerable intelligence can be gathered from the conversations within the logged chatrooms, however much of this intelligence would be of an indirect nature, as it is doubtful many online predators would mention offences committed or planned in public chat. Attention payed to the dealers and negotiators, especially, may provide leads into international sex trafficking, child sexual abuse and the production of child pornography. Cases of incest may also be revealed within the chatroom, although it is difficult to separate true cases from fantasy and roleplay— there are, for example, many users with Nicknames pertaining to incest (with ‘Dad’ or ‘Mom’). However, a concentrated investigative effort with deeper investigation than is capable in this study, perhaps over the period of several weeks, would no doubt net a great deal of intelligence.
Within the analysis conducted for the behavioural profiles and personality types alone, much intelligence can be gathered into activities. In Transcript 9 (page 71), it is entirely possible that ‘OldrThnDirt’ has offended previously within the areas he specifies—and he is obviously willing to take any offences away from online fantasy to offline meetings. Similarly, ‘Impregnator’ in Transcript 20-22 (pages 85-86) reveals his location and does not appear to be using a proxy to protect his ISP information. Police sting operations could easily be set up with these users to achieve an arrest with this intelligence.
The production of child pornography has been made simpler by the Internet—with a simple digital camera, anyone with access to a child – or children themselves – can produce child pornography to transfer to online predators, for money, exchange or for free. This makes the negotiators in Transcript 25 (page 89) of special interest, although his or her location cannot readily be traced—however a monitored transfer of money or even false persuasion might reveal important information.
Another focus of this research was to gain any evidence of organised predator networks beyond that of the IRC chatrooms monitored. While there were advertisements by online predators seeking to network with each other (see Chapter 5, pages 93-97), there were no public advertisements or information about any organised predator groups. As stated previously, this is
115
not too surprising—such groups are not likely to advertise publicly for security reasons, any recruitment activities are more likely to be carried out in private message.
The results of this analysis will be discussed in the next chapter with regard to the main findings of the research.
116
Chapter 7: Discussion
Goals
The primary goal of this thesis was to develop personality types and behavioural archetypes of users participating in the four logged IRC chatrooms over the five days of logging to enable better profiling of online predators and bridge the current gap in knowledge about their activities and behavioural patterns. This primary goal leads into the secondary goal of the study: to gather intelligence on the activities of online predators within their communities, particularly on their utilisation of contemporary Internet technologies to serve their purposes. The third goal was to gain an understanding of the social structure of the chatrooms studied, which gives context to the behavioural and intelligence goals.
Behavioural Goal
The behavioural analysis of the chatrooms yielded four broad personality types – the gentleman predator, the sadist, the businessman and the pretender – and eight behavioural archetypes consisting of the groomers, dealers, negotiators, roleplayers, networkers, chat requestors, posters and travellers. These findings expand current knowledge of the activities and behavioural patterns of online predators operating in their own communities and within IRC chatrooms. Once identified, these behavioural patterns were compared and contrasted to the behavioural and profiling research of offline paedophiles and sex offenders. The businessman and the pretender personality types were ones not explored in any great detail in other studies, although profiling users with these characteristics is difficult without direct interaction.
The businessman personality type is a very functional one—one which, perhaps, poses the most danger to children through other online predators looking to prostitute, swap or send their children to another online predator. In the context of networking within online communities such as the ones studied in this research, this is a very real possibility, especially if the businessman has a child of their own. While a businessman may not be an effective groomer, he
117
or she can be a threat as he/she has passed any inhibition against arranging to sexually abuse children offline.
The pretender can also be considered a dangerous personality, especially when coupled with the groomer, dealer and traveller archetypes as pretenders have more experience or better ability to manipulate and exhibit the fake empathy necessary for grooming. An online predator who is capable of maintaining an underage character, especially one of the opposite sex, poses a serious and direct threat to underage users who may believe they are on equal terms with another underage user.
Similarly, the gentleman predator is perhaps far more dangerous than the businessman and the sadist in the likelihood of successfully manipulating a child into an offline sexual encounter. The gentleman predator makes an effective groomer, emotionally manipulating his or her target with patience and with a long-term goal.
The findings related to the sadist personality type are also interesting. While sadism is only present in a minority of paedophiles, the presence of an entire and quite populous chatroom dedicated to the subject of underage sexual slavery seems to indicate that sadistic fantasies, at the very least, are quite common amongst online predators—perhaps using the anonymity of the Internet to act out desires which would have been otherwise inhibited. The presence of those interested in snuff was even more surprising and suggests the same un-inhibiting effect of anonymity. These findings have a direct impact on the profiling of online predators as such tendencies tend to provide predictable behaviour patterns, and point towards crimes of opportunity as opposed to long-term grooming (the creation of opportunity)—which in turn may mean a category of online predators more likely to be hasty and be caught in police sting operations. On the other hand, as mentioned in Chapter 5, the networking between sadists and groomers may teach sadistic online predators techniques of long-term grooming.
Connected to these two – arguably more serious – paraphilias was the finding of a link between beastiality and child sexual abuse and how common this link seems to be. As with sadism and snuff, the Internet may well attract those with such interests to form communities and justify and encourage their behaviour and deviancies. It would be of interest for further research to be
118
conducted on whether those without a specific interest in beastiality would still appreciate the beastiality pornography involving minors, perhaps due to general sadistic appreciation of the humiliation and suffering of the minor.
The archetypes provide a fascinating perspective on the way online predators operate in a community—while beyond the scope of this study, it would be of interest to compare these roles to the way groups of offline paedophiles operate, although such groups would be comparatively rare. Groomers tend to fit the stereotypical paedophile profile—introverted, manipulative, superficially charming and willing to offend but patient in creating the right situations. This is quite close to McCabe and Wauchope’s (2005, 240) “caring, persuasion, reassurance” theme and csbsju’s (2010, para. 1-11) “power reassurance” profile. It is a safe assumption that an online environment not only allows groomers safer access to children but allows them to be more confident in themselves—the fantasy of roleplay and cybersex with underage victims, even if they are other online predators, reinforces confidence and decreases low self-esteem and self doubt. This in turn may encourage them to be bolder in their attempts at child sexual grooming and potentially more aggressive in offline sexual encounters.
As opposed to groomers, dealers and negotiators are quite direct in their requests for sexual contact which, in a way, makes them slightly less dangerous to children online than groomers. Of course, the danger from these types of online predators comes from predator-to-predator arrangements such as swapping of children or prostitution. While there have been reports of international paedophile rings with members who travel to sexually abuse other members’ children, there does not appear to be much behavioural or psychological analysis of these travellers, perhaps due to the ethical, operational and legal considerations involved. IRC chatrooms may therefore represent a good opportunity for further, deeper research into dealers and negotiators in cooperation with police.
Roleplayers and chat requestors are quite general archetypes of online predators—no single personality type, either the ones found in this study or in comparison to offline sex offenders, characterise these archetypes. These activities are amongst the most common in the monitored chatrooms and encompass the gamut of fetishes and deviant interests.
119
Compared to roleplayers and chat requestors, posters are quite few in number—however these few tend to post multiple child sexual abuse images and encourage open discussion of these images. For those who are likely to offend offline – such as groomers and travellers – posters play an important part in dehumanising victims, normalising sexual abuse and appealing to the egosyntonic nature of paedophilia by showing children who appear to be ‘enjoying’ acts of abuse. For those who are more likely to engage in cybersex, roleplay or content to observe and collect – being Hall and Hall’s (2007, 460) ‘cruisers’ or ‘masturbators’ – posters encourage fantasies and arousal whilst increasing collections of images. Posters can also provide intelligence on where child pornography is being stored or how it is being disseminated.
Networkers present an interesting opportunity for further research, although such research would need ethical consideration for interaction with these online predators, as networking seems to be conducted more in private message. However, the activities of networkers – particularly in advertisements – provide a lot of valuable information on technological utilisation and the subjects of predator-to-predator conversations.
Travellers are more likely to be the most guarded of online predators as they reveal information about their location or places they will visit which naturally makes them more detectable. Travellers, in the same manner as dealers and negotiators, constitute a somewhat greater danger to children online than most other archetypes as they have gotten past any inhibitions about attempting to meet in person for a sexual encounter. They are most likely to arrange for child sexual abuse through parents or caregivers and are usually in a position to travel greater distances – for example, they are likely to have access to vehicles or financial access to other means of travel such as airplanes.
In identifying these personality types and archetypes, research into offline sex offenders has proven invaluable. The behavioural research and profiles in Murray (2000), McCabe and Wauchope’s (2005), Hall and Hall (2007) and csbsju (2010) have extensive similarities and can translate into identifying personality types of online predators. The differences between the research into offline sex offenders and online predators, such as the businessman and pretender personality types, can also be quite revealing.
120
Intelligence Goal
The intelligence accumulated in the course of this research is very promising from a policing and investigations perspective—the user information, particularly, demonstrates that not all users of these chatrooms are protecting themselves adequately online. ISP and IP data, coupled with location information which ‘dealers’, ‘travellers’ and ‘negotiators’ may divulge through advertisements and other conversations, is of particular use to investigators tracking down suspected abusers and sex traffickers. Australian policing authorities, for example, may request user information from an Australian ISP based on even a hostmask which reveals the name of the ISP. This intelligence gathering is also greatly enhanced by the use of software such as Analyst’s Notebook, which is capable of revealing name and age changes, the use of proxies and connections between events and users, as demonstrated in Chapter 6.
It is evident that software and services such as Tor have made policing within this sphere difficult and complex. Covert monitoring alone cannot provide enough information on the most sophisticated and dangerous online predators, such as the ‘traveller’ user ‘Chckster’ in Transcript 38 (page 101), and these users will require more traditional policing methods such as interaction and a sting operation in the vein of the ones studied in Krone (2005). The downside of these operations are the comparatively large amount of resources and time needed to make even a single arrest, although this can be ameliorated slightly by using trained and vetted volunteers in a model similar to that of the To Catch a Predator series (Dateline NBC 2009), though perhaps without the involvement of the media.
The intelligence gathered on the utilisation by online predators of various contemporary Internet technologies is also important to policing, as well as developing policy and legislation to prevent and adequately respond to the activities of online predators. Image hosting services with servers in countries such as Russia and within the former Soviet Union may cause jurisdictional issues, especially in relation to local laws where, for example, certain types of child pornography may not be illegal. The standards and efficiency of local policing agencies would also be of concern, as well as the levels of cooperation and any treaties which may apply.
121
The decentralised nature of some Internet technologies such as Freenet and Tor, as well as the sheer size and related difficulties in moderation of other services and technologies, also presents a problem in response and prevention. However, IRC chatrooms such as the ones studied provide an opportunity to act against any advertised illegal use of technologies through tracking and investigation, as well as intelligence gathering activities similar to that conducted here— knowing which technologies are likely to be used by online predators improves the ability to predict their actions. The networking aspect of these chatrooms implies that online predators learn from each other, establishing patterns of technology use and behaviour.
Social Structures Goal
Perhaps due in part to the secretive nature of online predators, the goal to gather information on the social structures of the IRC chatrooms studied was not as successful as first expected. While observations were able to be made into the social structures, traditions and culture of each chatroom, it is a safe assumption that most of the social communication arising from the chatrooms are conducted in private chats. This meant that observations were mostly on the activity within the chatrooms as opposed to the ways in which the users interacted with each other and the content of their interactions. However, a significant amount of information was able to be extrapolated from the data and critical examination of the social structures of the chatrooms was able to be made.
Limitations
As mentioned in Chapter 1, this research is almost purely qualitative and observational due to the nature and constraints of the thesis structure. As such, a quantitative analysis of the logs was not carried out; such an analysis would reveal more precise information on peak times of usage, the occurrence of certain events and be able to track qualitative patterns in the data.
While the data collected is vast, the scope of this study is narrowed to one medium, that of IRC. The activity on IRC does not represent the nature of activity on other mediums such as image boards or services such as Freenet; each part of the Internet has its own customs, traditions and social structures—each community is different, even on the same topic. Even within the medium 122
of these chatrooms, the peripheral technologies utilised by online predators, the sophistication and behaviours of the users will alter as time goes on. Therefore it is important to avoid generalising the results of this study and applying them to other online mediums without further extensive research.
To achieve an even more comprehensive understanding of online predators, not only should future research be expanded to include qualitative methodology but primary research such as this should delve deeper and wider than the monitoring of IRC chatrooms. Investigative interaction with online predators both during their activities and after any arrest, perhaps with police involvement and cooperation, would be of immense benefit to research; however this must be balanced with ethical considerations and the rights of the studied populations.
Implications
Society
The public perception of the dangers of the Internet certainly includes online predators since the publicity of high-profile cases such as the recent murder of teenager Carly Ryan after a father and his son created a fake identity online to seduce her (ABC News 2010, para. 1-10) and current affair programs such as To Catch a Predator. However, it is unlikely that the public are completely aware of the level of organisation and networking shown by online predators and the level of technological utilisation and knowledge they demonstrate.
This research has shown the dangers inherent in Instant Messenger software, webcams, microphones and social networking platforms, as well as the ways in which online predators operate within these mediums. An excellent example of this is illustrated in Transcript 45 (page 113), where the online predator attempts to manipulate a user he/she thinks is a 10 year old girl, all the while keeping the conversation light and playful. While children and teenagers today are, no doubt, more sophisticated, tech-savvy and knowledgeable than ever before, they will always remain vulnerable in that they are children—naive, trusting and seeking acceptance and belonging. This will always make children vulnerable to the manipulations of online predators, regardless of the technical steps taken to prevent or lessen this risk. 123
Government
The Australian Commonwealth Government is planning to implement a technical solution to the issue of child protection, online predators and child pornography via ISP-level filtering of Internet content. Content that is in a black list will be refused to Australian consumers, which the Commonwealth Government states is:
“...consistent with the recent child online protection guidelines issued by the International Telecommunications Union. The guidelines state that the strategic objective for the internet industry for child internet safety should be to reduce the availability of, and restrict access to, harmful or illegal content and conduct.” (Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy 2009a, para. 2).
This is similar to the function of software such as the Government’s NetAlert filter (Australian Government 2010, para. 2) and commercially available filters such as NetNanny (ContentWatch 2010), except on an ISP-level and taking away the consumer’s choice.
This filtering will not affect any activity on IRC as it only applies to websites, excluding Internet services such as IRC, peer-to-peer, Instant Messengers and Usenet groups. The Frequently Asked Questions section of the Commonwealth Government website detailing the plan asks the question “Can’t these filters be readily circumvented? Will they filter non-web material such as peer-to-peer?” (Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy 2009b, para. 36), the answer to which is:
“A technically competent user could circumvent filtering. The Government has always said that filtering is not a silver bullet solution. It is part of a suite of measures that will help to reduce the risk of inadvertent exposure to Refused Classification-rated material, particularly by children.” (Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy 2009b, para. 37).
This does not appear to answer the question on non-web material and the second part of the answer is a justification based on blocking material refused classification by Australian authorities but hosted on international servers. This also seems to avoid the reality that children and teenagers are quite adept with computing technology, as evidenced in the case highlighted 124
by Jayawardena and Broadhurst of a 16 year old male who “‘cracked’ the NetAlert filter in 30 minutes and cracked an upgraded filter within 40 minutes” (2007, 243). Such knowledge, once, gained, can be distributed online through services such as IRC in the same manner as online predators share information and knowledge, resulting in even younger Internet users having access to instructions on how to circumvent any filters.
It is also unlikely that the bulk of child sexual abuse material such as child pornography is stored in websites—while websites are clearly used to share child pornography, as evidenced by the findings of this research, the bulk of this material will likely be stored and shared on peer-to-peer services such as Gigatribe and other networks such as Freenet and Tor. If the Commonwealth Government blacklists the image sharing website imgsrc.ru for hosting child pornography (and which they openly admit is an issue the website is faced with and finds difficult to manage), should Gigatribe also be blacklisted for the same reason? Similar reasoning would apply to protecting children on Instant Messenger software, which can be used to produce child pornography. Of course, it is unlikely that this flow-on effect would happen, however such extreme steps are needed for the Commonwealth Government’s filtering plan to succeed in any meaningful way.
125
Chapter 8: Conclusion
The value of conducting research into online predators, especially primary research with practical application, is beyond doubt. From the findings of this research it can be seen that online predators are utilising cutting-edge Internet technologies to produce and disseminate child pornography, access children and maintain their security and anonymity online. In doing so, new and unique categories of online predators are formed, new behaviour patterns unique to the Internet are created and new virtual communities are established, all of which constantly adapt and evolve with the evolving nature of the Internet. This research and the data it is based on is thus a snapshot of a wider and somewhat elusive target.
This thesis represents a qualitative analysis of behavioural patterns and intelligence which can inform policing activities, policy and further research. The personality types, behavioural archetypes and – especially – the intelligence gathered on technology and communities will always need updating, unlike offline paedophilia before the influence and globalisation caused by the Internet. This research therefore must represent only the beginning of other research projects within this area, with similar – if not greater – levels of access.
The aim of all such research into online predators and paedophilia is to protect children from the dangers posed by the Internet. It is, of course, important not to lose sight of the positive impact the Internet can have on children, however this must always be tempered with an awareness and understanding of these dangers—and a knowledge of the ways in which online predators behave and the ways in which they use the Internet. This thesis is of interest to those working to respond to this danger, however prevention will always lie in education and keeping children connected to parents, caregivers, family and friends offline. Online predators thrive on the private, the secret and the vulnerable.
With this in mind, the following section presents a number of recommendations to enhance prevention and response strategies in regard to online predators.
126
Recommendations
The following are recommendations which will aid in preventing and responding to the dangers posed by, and activities of, online predators. These recommendations concentrate on the areas of education, prevention and response.
Education
Education is a facet of the Commonwealth Government’s cyber-safety initiative of which ISP- level filtering is but a part. The education plan for online safety seems to be quite broad and involves parents, children and teachers (Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy 2009b, para. 1-14). It is essential for parents and caregivers, in particular, to have a working knowledge of the Internet and specific technologies such as Instant Messengers and peer-to-peer technology, as they play the most direct and influential role in ensuring the safety of children online. In a globalised and interconnected world, it is no longer feasible for those of past generations to remain ignorant of computers and the Internet—this ignorance is dangerous, as can be so easily seen in the case illustrated within Eichenwald’s (2005) report :
“Justin's mother, Karen Page, said she sensed nothing out of the ordinary. Her son seemed to be just a boy talented with computers who enjoyed speaking to friends online. The Webcam, as she saw it, was just another device that would improve her son's computer skills, and maybe even help him on his Web site development business.
"Everything I ever heard was that children should be exposed to computers and given every opportunity to learn from them," Ms. Page said in an interview.
She never guessed that one of her son's first lessons after turning on his Webcam was that adults would eagerly pay him just to disrobe a little.” (2005, para. 38-40).
The intelligence and awareness displayed by online predators researched in this study speaks volumes on the importance of education.
127
Prevention
Certain strategies are presented here to prevent, or at least lessen the likelihood of, online child sexual abuse. The following prevention strategies are aimed at families:
1. Human supervision of children using the Internet. This is key to all other prevention strategies and is the most important strategy. No technological solution is completely effective in protecting children online and it is necessary for parents or caregivers to supervise their children’s Internet time. This does not have to involve sitting beside the child, especially for older children and teenagers—being in the same room and having visibility to the computer’s monitor is enough.
2. Locate computers in family areas. A computer – or any other device such as a mobile phone – with Internet access in a child’s bedroom, especially one with peripheral hardware such as webcams and microphones, allows an online predator private access to that child’s bedroom. Often children may demand their personal computers and this only poses a danger to them if located in a private area; having computers located in a family area aids supervision and maintains a connection between the parent or caregiver and the child. Groomers, such as the user ‘Barie’ in Transcript 18 (page 82), thrive in a situation where the child is disconnected or distant – physically and/or emotionally – from family and friends due to various issues such as low self esteem.
3. Open communication of Internet safety issues. To maintain the connection between children and parents or caregivers and to educate both parents and children on the Internet and online predators, it is important for families, as well as educators, to discuss Internet safety. Such open discussion can facilitate the subsequent communication from children to parents or other authorities of any suspicious activity they encounter. It is important here to ensure that the child knows he or she will not get punished, is not at fault and will not be in any ‘trouble’ for reporting these situations.
4. Choosing computers, software and Internet access carefully. There is little reason for a child – or even a teenager – to own a webcam or a microphone, or to have Internet access on their mobile phones. It is up to the parents or caregivers to vet the software and
128
hardware a child has access to, especially in the home. If a webcam or other hardware is necessary, for example in a rural schooling situation or for communicating to distant relatives or friends, then parents or caregivers should strictly control the access to this hardware and supervise its use.
While filtering software definitely has a place in providing Internet safety, public policy should shift focus away from the reliance on a technological solution and towards increased education and awareness. Prevention strategies such as those above will guarantee children’s safety to a far greater extent than filtering is capable of and with fewer implications for civil liberties. Child pornography and other illegal materials need to be investigated and ceased, of course, but simply blocking this material on websites will not discourage production and dissemination. A global, coordinated effort, such as the Virtual Global Taskforce (virtualglobaltaskforce.com 2010), to investigate these materials consists of a more effective response, however any such taskforce needs to be truly global, requiring the majority of countries to support it. Of course, this may require countries such as Japan to increase the minimum age of consent.
Response
This research has shown the amount of information even a limited qualitative analysis yields from the study of hubs of online predator activity such as the logged IRC chatrooms. It is clear that there is a distinctive criminological and policing benefit from further research, both qualitative and quantitative, into these and similar hubs such as Freenet and Tor.
This research does raise some clear recommendations for future research and investigation, however. Greater numbers of online predators than first thought appear to not use proxies to maintain their anonymity. As aforementioned, future research would benefit from being conducted with police involvement; it is also obvious that increased funding and resources need to be directed into online policing operations. A sustained covert monitoring of IRC chatrooms would result not only in criminological data being gathered but in vital information being revealed, such as an online predator advertising Tor or Freenet accidentally revealing a real IP address. Coupled with real-time offline police work, this may result in significant arrests and prosecutions.
129
Legislative change is also vital to support these and other such operations. As mentioned in Chapter 3, increasingly advanced technologies are available to online predators, such as the Windows 7 operating system and its encryption feature (Eckersley 2009, 3). To allow police better operational efficiency, legislation must be changed to reflect these advanced technologies, such as the requirement to decrypt data needed as part of a police investigation. While giving police these powers, legislation and policy must also deal with the realities of child pornography—that children themselves may be producers and distributors of it, on the encouragement of online predators. In the case covered in Eichenwald’s (2005) report, the underage child grew into adulthood producing child pornography for money, which would almost place him within the negotiator category.
It is clear that the responsibility for the safety of children must not only lie with governments to filter out these threats or police in detecting and responding to them, but ultimately on families as well. Education and human supervision are the two strategies with the most certainty of maintaining online safety.
130
Appendix 1
131
Bibliography
ABC News. 2010. Man found guilty of murdering Carly Ryan. ABC News. January 22. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/21/2798264.htm (accessed January 23, 2010). Allard, T. 2008. Child Sex Abuse: Centurion’s Shocking Fact File. The Sydney Morning Herald. June 5. http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/evil-webs-million- shocks/2008/06/05/1212258967845.html (accessed April 11, 2009). Amazon. 2010. Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com (accessed January 23, 2010). American Psychiatric Association. 2000. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision. Washington DC: American Psychiatric Association. Armstrong, H. L. and P. J. Forde. 2003. Internet Anonymity Practices in Computer Crime. Information Management and Computer Security 11 (5): 209-215. (accessed December 19, 2008 from EBSCOHost Database).
Australian Government. 2010. NetAlert Protecting Australian Families Online. http://www.netalert.gov.au/ (accessed January 6, 2010). Bell Canada. 2010. Bell Canada. http://www.bell.ca (accessed January 15, 2010). Bilstad, B. T. 1996. Obscenity and Indecency on the Usenet: The Legal and Political Future of Alt.Sex.Stories. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 2 (2): 1 (accessed May 22, 2007, from Blackwell Synergy Database). Bittorrent, Inc. (2009). What is Bittorrent?. Retrieved July 8, 2009 from http://www.bittorrent.com/btusers/what-is-bittorrent.
Casanova, M. F., D. Solursh, L. Solursh, E. Roy and L. Thigpen. 2000. The History of Child Pornography on the Internet. Journal of Sex Education and Therapy 25 (4): 245-251. (accessed April 12, 2009 from ProQuest Database). CBC News. 2008. Canada’s Age of Consent Raised by 2 Years. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/05/01/crime-bill.html (accessed January 21, 2009). Champion, D. J. 2006. Research Methods for Criminal Justice and Criminology. Sydney: Prentice Hall. Comcast. 2009. Comcast. http://www.comcast.com (accessed December 24, 2009). Connolly, M. and R. Woollons. 2007. Profiles of criminal groups: Child molester and rapist groups compared. Social Work Review 19 (3): 3-11. (accessed December 13, 2009 from EBSCOHost Database).
132
Conroy, S. 2007. Labor’s Plan for Cyber-Safety. http://www.alp.org.au/download/now/labors_plan_for_cyber_safety.pdf (accessed April 11, 2009). ContentWatch. 2010. NetNanny. http://www.netnanny.com/ (accessed January 28, 2010). Craven, S., S. Brown and E. Gilchrist. 2006. Sexual Grooming of Children: Review of Literature and Theoretical Considerations. Journal of Sexual Aggression 12 (3): 287-299. (accessed January 22, 2009). Criminal Code Act 1899 (Qld).
Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth).
Csbsju. 2010. Rapist Types and Methods of Avoidance. http://www1.csbsju.edu/uspp/CrimPsych/CPSG-5.htm (accessed January 6, 2010). DAL.Net. 2010. DALnet: The Dalnet IRC Network. http://www.dal.net/ (accessed January 14, 2010). Dateline NBC. 2009. To Catch a Predator. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10912603/ (accessed April 11, 2009). Demetriou, C. and A. Silke. 2003. A Criminological Internet Sting: Experimental Evidence of Illegal and Deviant Visits to a Website Trap. British Journal of Criminology 43 (1): 213-222.
Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. 2009a. Internet Service Provider (ISP) Filtering. http://www.dbcde.gov.au/funding_and_programs/cybersafety_plan/internet_service_provider_is p_filtering (accessed February 10, 2010). Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. 2009b. Cyber-Safety Education. http://www.dbcde.gov.au/funding_and_programs/cybersafety_plan/education (accessed February 10, 2010). Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. 2009c. Dombrowski, S. C., K. L. Gischlar and T. Durst. 2007. Safeguarding Young People from Cyber Pornography and Cyber Sexual Predation: A Major Dilemma of the Internet. Child Abuse Review 16: 153-170. (accessed 22 January, 2009 from Wiley Interscience database). Donovan, P. 2002. Crime Legends in a New Medium: Fact, Fiction and Loss of Authority. Theoretical Criminology 6 (2): 189-215. (accessed January 28, 2010 from EBSCOHost Database).
DSL Extreme. 2010. DSL Extreme: High Speed DSL and Fiber. http://www.dslextreme.com (accessed January 26, 2010).
133
Earls, C. M. and M. L. Lalumière. 2002. A Case Study of Preferential Bestiality (Zoophilia). Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment 14 (1): 83-88. (accessed January 28, 2010 from ESCOHost Database).
Eckersley, I. 2009. Computer Crime Time. Inside QUT. November 3.
EFnet. 2010. EFnet: Eris Free Network – The Original IRC Network. http://www.efnet.org (accessed February 2, 2010).
Eichenwald, K. 2005. Through His Webcam, a Boy Joins a Sordid Online World. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/national/19kids.ready.html?ei=5090&en=aea51b3919b236 1a&ex=1292648400&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1182664112- MNxnNGCw/i8IG4dD/aG5uw&pagewanted=all (accessed April 16, 2007).
Emma. 2002. What DoS/DDoS Is: A Plain English Explanation. http://zine.dal.net/previousissues/issue19/what-dos.php (accessed January 25, 2010).
Facebook. 2009. Facebook. http://www.facebook.com (accessed November 25, 2009).
Feather, M. 1999. Internet and Child Victimisation. In Children and Crime: Victims and Offenders Conference, 1-22. (accessed February 27, 2007, from Informit Database).
Filesurf. 2010. Filesurf. http://www.filesurf.ru (accessed January 8, 2010).
Fisher, C. B. And K. A. Whiting. 1998. How Valid are Child Sexual Abuse Validations?. In Expert witnesses in child abuse cases: What can and should be said in court, ed. S. J. Ceci and H. Hembrooke, 159-184. Washington DC: American Psychological Association.
Flickr. 2009. Flickr. http://www.flickr.com (accessed February 24, 2009).
Freenet. 2009. Freenet: The Free Network. http://www.freenetproject.org (accessed March 22, 2009).
Glennie, C. 2009. Sounds of Summer: Queensland Justice. ABC News: The World Today. December 23. http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2009/s2779222.htm (accessed February 10, 2010).
Grabosky, P. 2007. The Internet, Technology, and Organised Crime. Paper presented at Organised Crime in Asia, National University of Singapore.
Gigatribe. 2009. Gigatribe: Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Software Website. http://www.gigatribe.com/en/home (accessed April 12, 2009).
134
Hall, R. C. W. and R. C. W. Hall. 2007. A Profile of Paedophilia: Definition, Characteristics of Offenders, Recidivism, Treatment Outcomes and Forensic Issues. Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research 82 (4): 457-471. (accessed 10 April, 2009 from EBSCOHost Database).
Harrison, M. 1992. What’s New in Family Law? Parental Authority and its Constraints: the Case of ‘Marion’. Family Matters (32): 10-12. http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/fm1/fm32mh.html (accessed February 2, 2010).
Haugaard, J. J. 2000. The Challenge of Defining Child Sexual Abuse. American Psychologist 55 (9): 1036-1039. (accessed September 15, 2009 from EBSCOHost Database).
Hendry, T. and G. Basnett. 2009. Mum Sent Nude Photos of Daughter to Paedophile Ring. News of the World. December 14. http://www.news.com.au/world/mum-sent-nude-photos-of-daughter- to-paedophile-ring/story-e6frfkyi-1225810202128 (accessed December 14, 2009).
Hensley, C., S. E. Tallichet and S. D. Singer. 2006. Exploring the Possible Link Between Childhood and Adolescent Bestiality and Interpersonal Violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 21 (7): 910-923. (accessed January 28, 2010 from EBSCOHost Database).
Howitt, D. 1995. Paedophiles and Sexual Offences Against Children. Oxford: John Wiley and Sons.
Imgsrc. 2010. Imgsrc.ru: Free Image Hosting. http://imgsrc.ru/ (accessed January 8, 2010).
INTERPOL. 2006. Legislation of Member States on Sexual Offences Against Children: Japan. http://www.interpol.int/Public/Children/SexualAbuse/NationalLaws/CsaJapan.pdf (accessed December 28, 2009).
Jayawardena, K. and R. Broadhurst. 2007. Online Child Sex Solicitation: Exploring the Feasibility of a Research ‘Sting’. International Journal of Cyber Criminology 1 (2): 228-248. http://ccrimejournal.brinkster.net/jayavardenajccvol1is2.htm (accessed 14 June, 2008).
Johnston, S. A., A. P. French, W. F. Schouweiler and F. A. Johnston. 1992. Naiveté and Need for Affection Among Paedophiles. Journal of Clinical Psychology 48 (5): 620-627. (accessed December 15, 2009 from EBSCOHost Database).
Joint Photographic Experts Group. 2010. The JPEG Committee Home Page: Internet Applications. http://www.jpeg.org/apps/internet.html (accessed January 11, 2010).
Knight, W. 2003. ‘Anonymous’ File-Traders Arrested. New Scientist (News). December 1. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4436-anonymous-filetraders-arrested.html (accessed September 16, 2009).
135
Knight, Z. G. 2006. Some Thoughts on the Psychological Roots of the Behaviour of Serial Killers as Narcissists: An Object Relations Perspective. Social Behaviour and Personality 34 (10): 1189-1206. (accessed December 4, 2008 from EBSCOHost Database).
Krone, T. 2005. Queensland Police Stings in Online Chat Rooms. Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice 301: 1-6. (accessed June 28, 2008, from Informit Database).
La Fontaine, J. S. 1993. Defining Organised Sexual Abuse. Child Abuse Review 2: 223-231. (accessed December 9, 2008 from EBSCOHost Database).
Lowenstein, L. 2005. Recent research into the downloading of child pornographic materials from the Internet (1983-2004). Community Safety Journal 4 (3). (accessed February 17, 2009 from ProQuest Database).
McCabe, M. P. and M. Wauchope. 2005. Behavioural Characteristics of Rapists. Journal of Sexual Aggression 11 (3): 235-247. (accessed April 12, 2009 from EBSCOHost Database).
Microsoft. 2006. Yahoo! and Microsoft Bridge Global Instant Messaging Communities. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/jul06/07-12IMInteropPR.mspx (accessed January 8, 2010).
mIRC. 2009. mIRC: Internet Relay Chat Client. http://www.mirc.com (accessed January 1, 2009).
Mitchel, K. J., D. Finkelhor and J. Wolak. 2001. Risk Factors for and Impact of Online Sexual Solicitation of Youth. Journal of the American Medical Association 285 (23): 3011-3014. (accessed May 14, 2007 from ProQuest Database).
Murray, J. B. 2000. Psychological Profile of Paedophiles and Child Molesters. Journal of Psychology 134 (2). (accessed April 12, 2009 from EBSCOHost Database).
MySpace. 2009. MySpace. http://www.myspace.com (accessed November 25, 2009).
O’Connell, R. 2004. A Typology of Cybersexploitation and Online Grooming Practices. http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Society/documents/2003/07/17/Groomingreport.pdf (accessed October 4, 2007).
Ophelian, A. 2008. Stranger in a Strange Land: Navigating Issues of BDSM and Polyamory in Graduate Training. Division 44 Newsletter 24 (2): 13-14. (accessed January 21, 2010 from EBSCOHost Database).
Panzer. 2004. Panzer Fileserver. http://arnts.tripod.com/ (accessed June 28, 2008).
PayPal. 2010. PayPal. http://www.paypal.com (accessed January 23, 2010).
136
PostImage. 2010. PostImage.org: Free Image Hosting. http://www.postimage.org/about.php (accessed January 11, 2010).
Quayle, E. and M. Taylor. 2002. Paedophiles, Pornography and the Internet: Assessment Issues. British Journal of Social Work 32: 863-875. (accessed January 18, 2009 from EBSCOHost Database).
Shareware Connection. 2010. Proxy Scanner. http://www.sharewareconnection.com/proxy- scanner.htm (accessed February 3, 2010).
Sibley, C. G. And S. O. Heath. 2004. A Quantitative Analysis of the Content and Structure of Public Requests for Private Interaction Posted in Online Public Chatrooms. CyberPsychology and Behaviour 7 (4): 231-239. (accessed March 21, 2009 from EBSCOHost Database).
Skype. 2010. Skype: Set Your Conversations Free. http://www.skype.com/intl/en/getconnected/ (accessed January 8, 2010).
Solarwinds. 2010. Kiwi Log Viewer. http://www.kiwisyslog.com/kiwi-log-viewer-overview/ (accessed January 5, 2010).
Spanos, N. P. and U. Carleton. 1996. Multiple Identities and False Memories: A Sociocognitive Perspective. Washington DC: American Psychological Association.
Sphooserver. n.d. Sphooserver. http://www.sphoo.com (accessed March 3, 2008).
Stanley, J. 2002. Child Abuse and the Internet. Journal of the Home Economics Institute of Australia 9 (1): 5-27. (accessed May 14, 2007, from Informit Database).
SurfControl Chat Monitor. 2000. California: SurfControl plc. Software: Windows XP.
The Local. 2007. Sigbritt, 75, Has World’s Fastest Broadband. The Local. July 12. http://www.thelocal.se/7869/20070712/ (accessed December 24, 2009).
Tor. 2009. Tor: Anonymity Online. http://www.torproject.org/ (accessed April 12, 2009).
Twitter. 2009. Twitter: See What People are Saying. http://www.twitter.com/ (accessed November14, 2009).
Virtual Global Taskforce. 2010. Virtual Global Taskforce. http://www.virtualglobaltaskforce.com (accessed January 11, 2010).
Vonck, T. 2003. mIRC: IRC Frequently Asked Questions. http://www.mirc.com/ircintro.html (accessed April 12, 2009).
Watt, A. 2010. The Net. QWeekend. February 27. 137
Williams, C. J. and M. S. Weinberg. 2003. Zoophilia in Men: A Study of Sexual Interest in Animals. Archives of Sexual Behaviour 32 (6): 523-535. (accessed January 14, 2010 from EBSCOHost Database).
Williams, D. J. 2006. Different (Painful!) Strokes for Different Folks: A General Overview of Sexual Sadomasochism (SM) and its Diversity. Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity 13: 333-346. (accessed September 21, 2009 from EBSCOHost Database).
Windows Live Messenger. 2009. Windows Live: Messenger. http://download.live.com/messenger?wa=wsignin1.0 (accessed December 15, 2009).
Wolak, J., D. Finkelhore, K. J. Mitchell and M. L. Ybarra. Online “Predators” and their Victims. 2008. American Psychologist 63 (2): 111-128. (accessed 26 January, 2009 from EBSCOHost database).
Yahoo!. 2009. Yahoo!7 Messenger - Instant message, PC Calls and More. http://au.messenger.yahoo.com (accessed 2 May, 2009).
Youtube, LLC. 2009. Youtube: Broadcast Yourself. http://www.youtube.com (accessed 25 November, 2009).
138