Bitcoin Forum

Paedophiles sell child abuse images for bitcoin

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/14/paedophiles-sell-child-abuse-images-for-bitcoin

Paedophiles are using the digital currency bitcoin to buy child sexual abuse images online, according to the Internet Watch Foundation.

In its annual report for 2014, the group, which is tasked with attacking the problem of child abuse images online, said a number of the “most prolific commercial” child sexual abuse websites started accepting the currency as a payment for images last year. It discovered 37 websites selling the images for bitcoins between January and April 2014

What payment method did they use before bitcoin?

bitcoin can not be blamed for this, without any bitcoin pedophiles can still buy online images of child sexual abuse by other means of payment.

Without an internet trail, many paedophiles might never be caught.

Let them do that, it just makes it easier to catch them.  ;)

Most of these people think Bitcoin is anonymous, and that acctually help law enforcement agencies to track and trace them.  ;D ;D

They might think Bitcoin is a safe heaven, but the people on Silkroad thought that too, until they got busted.

I would have been dissapointed if Bitcoin could not have been used for this... in that case, it would have had no value and failed as a currency, compared to all the other currencies used for the same thing.

This is just more FUD being spread by journalist seeking attention... nothing new... NEXT?

I'd like to point out to people who may not have noticed, the guardian disabled comments for this particular article because of the inevitable backlash over this obvious bullshit, we know that there will be criminals using Bitcoin, but as usual the media is trying to create the narrative of "Bitcoin used by drug dealers/peadophiles/terrorists" to scare everyone from using it.

It's no different than any other currency, the mechanism can change but anything with a value can be traded.
Its digital but you need to have a technical level as well to use it.
Quite the complex network though hacked servers + spam mail to get to the source material not commonly seen elsewhere in any form of operation logistics.
Reading the IMF report I guess the bloom filter on porn and flat chests in the UK is highly effective looking at the 2014 2013 numbers the false positives do number about 25% in gross numbers around 10,000+ cases though.

Looking forward to see the private Internet Watch Foundation releasing the list of those 37 sites that have closed along with all the other sites they have blocked in the UK and that no longer exist. In a nice list for everyone to audit what was blocked in the past.

Obvious honeypot to get paedos to use traceable bitcoins like the DEA tried to do.

There are some attractive things about Bitcoin that fiat lacks which makes it more suitable for these sorts of things. With the exception of cash, fiat currencies are inherently traceable whereas Bitcoin can be made almost untraceable using mixers. More importantly, electronic fiat is tied to real-life identities whereas Bitcoin addresses aren't. It would be trivial for a government or bank to trace the real-life identity of someone who sends or receives a fiat transaction into their bank or PayPal account but Bitcoin is pseudonymous and decentralized. The most that a government can do is sift through the blockchain in the hopes that one of the senders/recipients messed up or was careless with their security.




Actually if the bitcoins were properly mixed and the owners had good security practices, never reused addresses, etc. then it would be very difficult to trace the coins. If they had exchanged them to anonymous altcoins and then converted them back into BTC then it would probably be near impossible.

Exactly. The medium which they use to buy the images isn't the problem here it's the people that create the images and the sites that sell them. The police need to do their job and shut down the sites and prosecute their owners and the people that host them.

I totally agree with you

I doubt it. Bitcoin is unfortunately a far better way for people to send money online and not get caught than any other payment system, but that's not to say you can't be traced especially if you're sloppy with your safety. I just hope they don't use this tony percentage of people who use it to buy this sort of stuff to try smear bitcoin as a whole.