Meet the Hacker Who Busts Child Pornographers on the Dark Net

[Venustus]

In October, the Norwegian hacker Einar Otto Stangvik exposed the largest and most well-known dark web portal for the sexual abuse of children through a great deal of patience, creative ideas, and a simple technological trick.

But Stangvik and his colleagues at the newspaper VG could hardly believe what they discovered this past January: The forum Childs Play, which had more than a million users worldwide, was run by a task force of the Australian police.


For eleven months, the Australian investigators monitored the site for information about perpetrators, victims, and users. Just a few weeks ago, the portal was taken down.

It wasn't the first time that Stangvik, who used to work as an IT-security expert for various Norwegian companies, had dug around the darker corners of the web to hunt down backers and perpetrators of child pornography. Back in 2015, he used a program he'd written himself to unmask 95,000 users worldwide who had downloaded photos and videos online.

We wanted to find out from Stangvik: How do you track pedophiles on the dark net? Is the dark net really that much worse than the regular internet when it comes to child pornography? Is it justifiable for the police to masquerade as child-pornography admins for eleven months—or are there technological alternatives?

Further Reading

 

[Rengar]

He is THE BOSS

 

[Venustus]

He is THE BOSS

Anything that exposes scumbags like these is a welcome!!

 

[ElectricSheep]

Wish there were more like him, digging them out and exposing them...

 

[Dave Russo]

Good job,hope to see the day ransomware crooks get caught by someone who can hack to the source

 

[mlnevese]

I don't know him but I already like him... a lot...

 

[TairikuOkami]

Is it justifiable for the police to masquerade as child-pornography admins for eleven months—or are there technological alternatives?

It is estimated, that about 50% of those easily accessible webpages are run by CIA and other police agencies in different countries.

A typical scenario, CIA busts a webpage, grabs photos/videos and use them as honey-pots for years, as in this article.

That raises a question: Would not it better to actually block those webpages?! It is a double-edge sword.

 

[Venustus]

It is estimated, that about 50% of those easily accessible webpages are run by CIA and other police agencies in different countries.

A typical scenario, CIA busts a webpage, grabs photos/videos and use them as honey-pots for years, as in this article.

That raises a question: Would not it better to actually block those webpages?! It is a double-edge sword.

Indeed, it's a "double edged" sword but I guess this is their way of catching these criminals!Either way more is needed to be done with pedophiles and child abusers,but unfortunately the mechanics of the dark web make it very hard to stop this kind of activity,which is of pandemic proportions!!
The abuse of children is the epitome of evil!!!

Following his arrest, the FBI seized control of the website and controversially kept it running for nearly two weeks, using it to distribute malware aimed at unmasking Playpen's members.

Dark Web Child Porn Kingpin Sentenced To 30 Years In Prison

Spoiler: Steven W. Chase

 

[In2an3_PpG]

I salute this man.

Now if only there was an emoji for it. Nevertheless i give this man a

 

[brambedkar59]

Anything that exposes scumbags like these is a welcome!!

Amen to that.

 

[bribon77]

Ax for those perverts.:devil:

 

[XhenEd]

I wonder what kind of security this hacker uses to prevent vengeful hackers to attack him given that his identity is revealed publicly.

 

[mlnevese]

I wonder what kind of security this hacker uses to prevent vengeful hackers to attack him given that his identity is revealed publicly.

Whatever it is it must be very good... I really doubt someone did not try to attack him for his work.

 

[Weebarra]

Well done that man Stangvik, we all need people like him to protect our innocents.