Horseman Number 3: IRC and crypto and stego, oh, my...

[R. A. Hettinga]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_2082000/2082657.stm


BBC News Online: Sci/Tech
Tuesday, 2 July, 2002, 13:30 GMT 14:30 UK
Accessing the secrets of the brotherhood

Police using the internet to lure paedophiles
As police break an internet paedophile ring known as the Shadowz
Brotherhood, News Online looks at how they did it.

The arrest of 50 people all over Europe and the seizure of scores of
computers, hard drives and thousands of disks is the culmination of a
complex and elaborate operation.

The National Hi-Tech Crime Unit and their colleagues in Europol had to use
all their technical know-how to break into the Shadowz Brotherhood.

Paedophiles are naturally suspicious of newcomers into their social circle
and, like many criminal groups operating in cyberspace, are skilled at
counter-surveillance.

" Child pornography constitutes a disgrace to human dignity. "
Gilles Leclair
Europol

Neither Europol or the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit would comment on whether
undercover police officers posed as paedophiles in order to infiltrate the
ring.

But, reading between the lines, that is the only way the police could have
accessed the Shadowz Brotherhood's website and gained the confidence of the
other members.

A Europol spokesman said the group's activities centred around a website
which had an archive of child abuse images.

He said that when uploading and downloading images to and from the site
they used sophisticated encryption techniques, often hiding obscene
material in apparently innocent picture files.

The website was run by a group of hardcore paedophiles called
"administrators" who operated a star-rating system.

Girl identified

The administrators would vet new members, who would then receive a "one
star" rating allowing them to enter fairly tame newsgroups and bulletin
boards.

To gain further stars they had to upload images of child sex abuse for
viewing and downloading by other members.

As they gained more stars they were allowed access to restricted sites and
protected rooms containing the most perverted material.

An administrator would be on duty 24 hours a day to assess new images.

Proxy servers were used to disguise where members were accessing the site
from and it is believed that special software was used to give those
involved cyber anonymity.

BBC News Online's technology correspondent Mark Ward said criminal groups
often used servers run by other innocent organisations to host illegal
images.

" Criminal groups take advantage of the high-tech technology to attack the
principles and the values of our democratic systems "
Gilles Leclair
Europol
He said many universities and other vulnerable organisations spent a lot of
effort making sure their servers were not used by such groups.

He said paedophiles often met each other in prison and kept in contact
afterwards, passing on codewords, information about sites online and advice
about how to avoid scrutiny online

Most of those involved are believed to have taught themselves computer
encryption techniques.

But Europol had its own team of intelligence analysts, working in a secure
operations room in The Hague equipped with the latest technology.

They processed information received on a daily basis from investigators in
the different participating states.

In March police monitoring the site identified a six-year-old girl and went
to the US to take her away from a suspected paedophile.

Team of analysts

Detectives are expected to spend months trawling the suspects' hard drives
in an attempt to locate images which would lead to convictions.

Europol said the Shadowz Brotherhood was formed in 2000, but some of its
members had been in contact on the internet before that date.

Europol's deputy director Gilles Leclair, head of Serious Crime Department,
said: "Child pornography constitutes a disgrace to human dignity.

"Criminal groups take advantage of the high-tech technology to attack the
principles and the values of our democratic systems.

"But, once more, the international law enforcement co-operation proved very
effective and gave a strong and decisive answer against organised crime."

-- 
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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