Could do with some advice regarding child porn in a forum

[BlueIce]

I'm a room owner in a well known chatsite/forum and for too long now, someone has been posting pretty graphic child porn in our forums. They use hundreds of different nicknames, and despite the room owners demands the chat site owner does something about it, they claim he's using a proxy IP and can't be stopped. The photos are quite disturbing and sickening and I, along with the multitude of room owners who have to go into our forum controls to delete these photographs (forums are moderated - trusted members only allowed to post until we accept or decline posts), find it hard to believe that in this day and age where authorities can capture the world's best hackers, one child porn spammer is running amok and causing high feelings of disgust and anger at not only his success in doing what he likes, but the lack of action in finding him.
Perhaps some of you guys have some idea what the procedure is for catching this bloke. The worst part of it all is: these are little kids being abused in the worst possible way, and it's very hard to accept the mundane excuses from the forum admins that "we cant catch him, we've contacted the police and they cant catch him either." That doesnt cut it with me. What do you think.

[Legoate]

Um, did you try calling the police?

[BlueIce]

I'm in Australia but I did email the FBI through their web site. They directed me to another site which was no help at all. It referred to victims and suspects, then asked for IRC urls and F serve triggers and I have no idea what they're on about. I thought you guys would maybe have some ideas. What can the local boys in blue do regarding child porn. It's not their department is it?

[Creeker]

Bump up ...

to get some of the professional Child Porn combatants attention....

[BlueIce]

Thanks Creeker. I've only just discovered this site and instantly thought of you guys to maybe help with this problem. This guy needs to be caught and canned.

[Kimble]

I'm in Australia but I did email the FBI through their web site. They directed me to another site which was no help at all. It referred to victims and suspects, then asked for IRC urls and F serve triggers and I have no idea what they're on about. I thought you guys would maybe have some ideas. What can the local boys in blue do regarding child porn. It's not their department is it?

You said you're in Australia and contacted the FBI, but I didn't see anything in your post that suggested the poster of these images was inside the United States. Do you have reason to believe this person is inside the U.S.? FBI has jurisdiction in the U.S., but they can't do anything if a suspect, for example, was a British citizen inside the United Kingdom, other than refer you to Scottland Yard or Interpol.

Also, who is the other site the FBI referred you to? If the suspect is an American, or inside the United States, another federal agency to reach out to if the FBI wasn't much help is the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement), who are responsible for fighting child pornography that crosses international borders due to their customs mission. If you're in Australia, and the suspect posting child pornography is in the U.S., ICE should be able to help.

[BJJVad]

There will always be someone that can get in. Contacting local agencies to the server will generally start a criminal report, or an investigation. Depending on the agencies resources, it may be to large of an issue for them and may need to be bumped up.

Remember the squeaky wheel is the one that gets greased. I am assured some of the information below was probably being done, but if not, provides good insight on how to begin to fight this problem. It also contains a large listing of banned proxies.

Remember the intranet is global and your dirtbag could live in an area where the same laws of the land may not apply.

GearHack: Fight Comment Spam, Ban IP's

Fight Comment Spam, Ban IP's

For a while now, I have been fighting comment, track-back, and link spam. It seems that as soon as your blog or web site gets a little bit of traffic, it start attracting spammers all over the world. So if you have a site that allows comments, trackbacks, or links, you'll need a method to deal with spam.

When spammers spam your site, they generally use a series of open proxies or bots. Open proxy is a public relay server on the Internet. Bots are computers that have been taken over by spammers. Very rarely do sparnmers use their own IP's for spamming. If they did, it world be easy to shutdown their operation.

I found one method to stop spam quite effective. And that is to ban open proxy and bot IP's. So I started collecting IP's from spams that I get. At first, it was a tedious manual task. But soon, the list grew. And with the help of honey pots and automated processing, the task became easier. Now it is at a point where the IP ban stops 95% to 99% of the spam. So far, not a single valid comment has been banned from using this IP list. As the list continues to grow, it will continue to improve its effectivity.

I have been sitting on this list for quite some time now. And I could see the spammers are relentless, because they kept on coming back even though the spams that do get through are deleted within a day. I am tired of them trying to take advantage of the good folks who are distributing information on the Internet. So l decided to distribute my IP ban list on this web site to help you fend off spams. The IP's are gathered from several web sites that I run, including the very popular Camera Hacker web site. The ban list is updated periodically; once a day currently. Dates are noted with the list.

Comments & Discussion >>
Tips

The list is big and will get bigger. Insert the list into a database (say MySQL) for fast queries.

When you download the list, always clear out the old list then insert the new list. Some entries may be removed when the list is updated.

Comments & Discussion >>
IP List

The two lists below are identical. They are just archived differently. One list is archived using ZIP, while the other list is archived with tar and gz. Download the archive that is convenient for your system.

* IP_List.tar.gz
* IP_List.zip

Approximate File Size: 25369496 Bytes
Number of Entries: 9618424
Wed Jan 28 04:01:19 UTC 2009



* DailyDiff.tar.gz
* DailyDiff.zip

Approximate File Size: 120563
Number of Entries: 28576
Wed Jan 28 01:47:43 UTC 2009

[Switchback]

Ban the idiots and then just make it where you have to verify every new member and refuse verification of proxy servers.

Done.

[BP348]

Dosen't Australia have sometype of ageny like the FBI? I would think they would be the place to start. Not much an American agency can do if whoever is posting the pictures isn't in the United States.

[corporal716]

In my area we have a multi agency hi-tech crimes taskforce. I’m sure Australia has something similar. Call your local police and see if they can put you in contact with the right people for where you live.

[BlueIce]

It's hard to find information like that from these admin. You ask questions they basically tell you to mind your own business, gag you in the room owners forum for mentioning the child porn pics being posted in your forum. Cybertipline was the link i clicked on in the FBI site but it seems to deal more with direct crimes perpetrated against kids, asking for suspects names etc.
I wish they could find this bloke. What would be found on his hard drive would get him sent away for the rest of his miserable life. Thing is..the admin from this forum insist on all room owners deleting all photographs that he's posting. I've told my manager to not delete. If anyone approaches me for proof..it's there. I'm pretty sure he's in the states, as dozens of room owners have sought assistance from the FBI and their local boys.
One interesting point I'd like to make is this..bear with me. I get a little long winded at times.
A new forum for teens opened up and I was in the room owners forum, reading the various comments directed at the new room owner. People were slamming her for having a teen room and predicting it would entice the CP spammer and peds. I replied in her defence and about an hour later I saw a message alert addressed to me in her forum. I went in and it was child porn posted on the boards. Now this bloke could be a room owner who saw the messages posted about the new room and my speaking out in her defence resulted in a message left for me in her forum or - because i know the room owner and have been in her forum before, he's seen my name on the visitors list and posted not only to me, but to other visitors to her forum.
I know that coincidences have no place in investigations or evidence - but it did seem coincidental that shortly after my post appeared in the room owner's forum, i was addressed by this eejit.
I sent an email to admin voicing my suspicions about him possibly being a room owner, and unsurprisingly, i have had no reply from admin.
If he's a room owner - he has to pay for his forum by credit card or money order. This chat/forum site has thousands of members, but only hundreds of room owners. The possibility of him being a room owner narrows down the investigation to only a few hundred people.
That's why I came looking for you guys. I thought maybe some of you would have some experience in dealing with this kind of thing, but, I'm taking all advice on board. Thanks for all your help so far.

[Sgt. Slaughter]

If the Admin doesn't give a ****, it's time to leave.

[Creeker]

If the Admin doesn't give a ****, it's time to leave.

I concur, else you will face the same Court and liability as the ones who are posting the smut.

I hear that you can purchase stock in Internet Brands.

[Sgt. Slaughter]

Plus, every time you look at that crap it gets stored on your computer - even when you think you've "deleted" it.

[BlueIce]

Only time I look at that crap is when I'm deleting it from my forum. Bit hard to not look at it when it's posted in a moderated forum and you have to scroll down to delete.
I've contacted the local boys in blue and they've taken all relevant info and will pass it on to someone who deals with internet child porn. Like he said though..the net is crawling with these mongrels and it's more a case of take a ticket and wait your turn.