The shame of being duped and having their images shared online has led many victims to feel suicidal. “One of the challenges is just the amount of data we have to sift through,” Milka said. She noted that cellphones are capable of more storage than before, which can slow an investigation down because it takes more time to analyze data on seized digital devices. Kimberly Milka, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office who also spoke generally and not about any pending cases, said the FBI is beginning to see a number of AI child exploitation cases around the country. More than 51,000 of the total CyberTipline reports were immediately escalated to law enforcement, in many cases because they involved a child in imminent danger, according to the tipline website. To gain access to the group, prospective members allegedly had to upload a sexually explicit image of a naked child, younger than 13.
This reality has led to an ongoing debate about whether the dark web should exist. Detractors argue that online anonymity encourages criminality and impedes law enforcement. Advocates defend the dark web as a last potential refuge against oppressive governments and communities. The sharing of illegal pornography and discussion of illegal sex acts account for a significant portion of dark web traffic. The extent of the problem became clear in 2015, when the FBI shut down a dark web site on Tor named Playpen that hosted 23,000 sexually explicit images of minors.
It is a good way to prevent third parties from tracking online activities. People in countries with heavy internet censorship must get a VPN or Tor browser to access the surface web. It is easily accessible by the general public and requires no special configuration.
Is It Illegal To Access And Browse The Dark Web?
Sci-Hub is a massive database that eliminates the barriers to getting scientific knowledge. It contains millions of scientific research documents from around the world. The site seeks to liberate information by making it free to individuals and institutions.
- Police have since arrested 79 people in connection with the investigation, but more than 1,400 suspects who used the site have been identified.
- People paying with supposedly “anonymous” Bitcoin cryptocurrency were traced.
- One of the largest paedophile networks in the world has been shut down in an international operation coordinated by Europol.
- The majority of the users on the dark web use the Tor (The Onion Router) browser.
- For example, the center receives both money and in-kind donations from tech companies, while employees of the same companies are sometimes members of its board.
- If an activity is deemed illegal by the governing bodies you fall under, then it would be illegal.
How To Access The Dark Web Safely
Since the dark web operates in a largely unregulated environment, there is no way to ensure the legality or ethicality of the content being accessed. Users may inadvertently come across child pornography, revenge porn, or other forms of exploitative material. He went on to present a map of the United States covered with red dots, each representing a computer used to share images of child sex abuse. Fewer than two percent of the crimes would be investigated, he predicted. “We are overwhelmed, we are underfunded and we are drowning in the tidal wave of tragedy,” he said. Tips included tutorials on how to encrypt and share material without being detected by the authorities.
Archived Content
Those reports involve cases in which “bad actors” use AI to create nude images from photographs of fully clothed children, according to Hayley Elizondo, program manager of the tipline’s public reports. Investigators viewed the hundreds of arrests as a success for authorities in their battle against illegal sites, which use cryptocurrencies because of their presumed anonymity and ability to render purchasers untraceable. The site allowed users to pay for the hundreds of thousands of child pornographic videos using the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, allowing users a degree of anonymity online. “The website monetized the sexual abuse of children and was one of the first to offer sickening videos for sale using the cryptocurrency Bitcoin,” the NCA said in a statement.
- Led by German forces, Operation Stream has been branded as ‘one of the biggest blows against child pornography in recent years, if not ever’, the deputy head of the Bavarian criminal police, Guido Limmer, told a press conference.
- If you are engaging in the use of the dark web and have been charged with Internet sex crimes, it’s critical to work with an experienced sex crimes attorney who can help you protect your rights.
- This list is not exhaustive, and there are many more types of onion sites on the dark net, including websites offering fraud services, botnet panels, file repositories for pirated media, forums for extremist groups, and more.
- The dark web hosts a wide range of sites — from whistleblower tools and secure email platforms to underground forums, black markets, and dark web mirrors of legitimate news outlets.
- The dark web, however, is a very concealed portion of the deep web that few will ever interact with or even see.
Outcome From The International Cooperation Investigation
He warned that many children unknowingly expose themselves to danger simply by sharing explicit pictures either with a partner or friend. Before these children realise it, they are trapped in a world they could never imagine. He explains that the perpetrators do not work in silos, but rather as part of a larger network which makes it difficult to track down those truly in control. Authorities remain committed to following leads, bringing more offenders to justice, and dismantling similar networks worldwide. Before authorities took it down on March 11, 2025, Kidflix was expanding at an alarming rate. Users could also earn tokens by uploading material, verifying titles and descriptions and assigning categories to videos, it added.
Human Trafficking And Exploitation
It includes media and archives which cannot be crawled and indexed with current search engine technology. The dark web has a reputation for being a lawless digital underworld filled with criminals and illicit activities. While it’s true that illegal transactions happen there, the dark web itself isn’t inherently illegal.
Dark Web Child Abuse: Hundreds Arrested Across 38 Countries
If you’ve ever experienced an uptick in phishing attacks and spam after a data leak or breach, it may be because your personal information has been posted to the dark web. The dark net’s layered encryption and routing protocols offer stronger anonymity, making onion sites appealing to whistleblowers, political dissidents, privacy advocates — and, inevitably, cybercriminals. An empathetic Internet sex crimes attorney from Johnson/Citronberg, PLLC, is here to listen to your story, gather case details, and build up a strong defense strategy. Get in touch with a compassionate team member from our law firm today. Users need an identity-protection technology, like Tor, to access the dark web. Current law enforcement’s understanding of the dark web’s criminal activities is lacking.
The data shows that WhatsApp, the company’s encrypted messaging app, submits only a small fraction of the reports Messenger does. The law enforcement officials also pointed to problems with Microsoft’s Bing search engine, and Snap, the parent company of the social network Snapchat. After years of uneven monitoring of the material, several major tech companies, including Facebook and Google, stepped up surveillance of their platforms. In interviews, executives with some companies pointed to the voluntary monitoring and the spike in reports as indications of their commitment to addressing the problem. While not an onion site, Tor Metrics can provide a fascinating peek “under the hood” of the dark web. It tracks Tor user activity by region, showing trends in access and adoption without collecting personal data.
How The Operation Was Busted
One legal expert described the verification as a ‘PR stunt’ and called for Pornhub to be investigated. We also found that the age verification process on Pornhub, one of the largest porn platforms in the world, can be easily overcome by typing in a mobile number or email address. LBC found at least 50 sites in a simple Google search that either had no age verification or flimsy checks which were easy to overcome — and stopped counting at that point, though many more were visible. A grand jury in the Southern District of Texas returned an indictment today charging Matthew Liam Johnstone, 36, of Ireland, with numerous offenses stemming from his sadistic online exploitation of… The Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs provided significant assistance in bringing Marques to the United States and procuring foreign evidence during the investigation.
No one is hiding here—they’re just guaranteeing that people in censored countries can read the news without being flagged. The dark web isn’t just one sketchy marketplace hiding in a corner of the internet; it’s more like a messy, unregulated community with everything from freedom fighters to full-blown cybercriminals. Onion links have no regular domain names registered under the domain name registry. Instead, they are designed using a cryptographic key and can be accessed only through software like the Tor browser. Hence, you never know when a popular .onion site is going to vanish, or even die. Though it’s still helpful, a static list isn’t enough (we try to keep our own, the one above, up-to-date, though).
The center has said it intends to make significant improvements to its technology starting in 2020, but the problems don’t stop there. The police complain that the most urgent reports are not prioritized, or are sent to the wrong department completely. The following year, Congress passed legislation that acknowledged the severity of the crisis. Some of the strongest provisions of the law were not fulfilled, and many problems went unfixed, according to interviews and government documents. A spokeswoman for Verizon said that Tumblr prioritized time-sensitive cases, which delayed other responses. Since Verizon acquired the company in 2017, the spokeswoman said, its practice was not to alert users of police requests for data.
You are entitled to one free copy of each of your three reports once a year. It was shut down last year after a UK investigation into a child sex offender uncovered its existence. “I thought that I was in the underbelly of society — until I came here,” said Ms. Lippert, the prosecutor with the task force in Illinois, who had worked for years at a busy Chicago courthouse. Much of the federal money goes toward training new staff members because the cases take a heavy emotional and psychological toll on investigators, resulting in constant turnover. Mr. Shehan, the vice president, said such disclosures might discourage tech companies from cooperating with the center. In a statement, the national center said it did its best to route reports to the correct jurisdiction.
