Link to a Cracked article......
5 Things I Learned Infiltrating Deep Web Child Molesters
http://www.cracked.com/personal-exp...infiltrating-deep-web-child-molesters_p2.html
People on SOHH used to talk about the deep web all the time.
5 Things I Learned Infiltrating Deep Web Child Molesters
http://www.cracked.com/personal-exp...infiltrating-deep-web-child-molesters_p2.html
#5. In The Dark Web, You'll Find A Whole Pedophile "Community"
jrwasserman/iStock/Getty Images
To infiltrate this stygian pit of awfulness, Pam used the same anonymizing service revered by drug dealers and privacy advocates: Tor. If you don't pay much attention to Internet-news, Tor is a free service you can use to try and thwart government surveillance of your online communication -- basically wiping away your tracks. Ironically, Tor was developed with a lot of government help and is currently used by the military, NSA, and CIA for their own stealth-browsing needs. Like so many times before, the government engineered the means for its own defeat.
Tor Project
Sadly, not an Onion gag-site.
Once you're in, you go searching for the illegal stuff the same way the pedophiles do -- they have set up a system to make it easier for them to find each other. So, while they don't like to advertise, child pornographers do have their own Wikipedia, which is accessible through Tor. It's named "Hard Candy," because there is no God and whatever odious being vomited us into existence abandoned us to the void long ago.
Hard Candy
The first link is to "The Pedophile's Handbook." We're warning you to turn back now.
Pam eventually wound up at a discussion forum called 3DBoys, which is full of erotic art and stories about every nightmare your parents ever had while you were growing up.
3DBoys
"Good riddance." -- the real world.
However, there wasn't any actual porn on 3DBoys. Everything there was on the edge, certainly, but members were extremely careful never to blindly masturbate their way into outright illegality. However, during her exploration of 3DBoys, Pam learned of a site called 7axxn, which was essentially the Mos Eisley Cantina for child pornographers.
Since basically everyone on 7axxn was guilty of more federal crimes than your average Batman villain, membership was heavily restricted. Like that creepy rich people sex club from Eyes Wide Shut, the only way in to 7axxn was to get an invitation from a current member. Some of those members hung out in a less-restricted Tor chatroom, but it looked like gaining their trust would require breaking the law: "If you didn't provide a link to child porn every 10 minutes, you were kicked off," says Pam. This whole "incriminate yourself to get inside" attitude was common among pedophiles of the Deep Web: "There are a lot of forums that don't even allow new members unless they submit an application where they upload examples from their own CP library. I wasn't about to even try that."
Medioimages/Photodisc/Photodisc/Getty Images
Reminder: This is a $20,000,000,000 industry.
It's sort of like how drug dealers in the movies will force suspected undercover cops to do a line of what is supposedly cocaine in order to prove their shared criminality -- the big difference being that it's totally legal for cops to do that kind of stuff in the interest of busting criminals. Pam wasn't a cop, so, if she downloaded or exchanged any illegal pornography, she would be in just as much trouble as the band of villains she was attempting to infiltrate. Finally, she got lucky. "The third day someone said, 'Oh yeah, I've got an invite,' and I was like, 'Can I have an invite, too?'"
Thanks to the, uh, generosity of that particular pedophile, Pam was in. And the further in she got, the more terrifying the implications of her research became. As Nietzsche said, "She who fights with monsters should look to it that she herself doesn't get raided by the FBI for her browser history." Which is to say, the legal status of Pam's work was rather murky. "Researchers do have some legal protections in these situations, but my primary adviser was fuzzy about whether I was even eligible as an undergrad. This started six months of paranoia that every time the doorbell rang, it was the FBI coming to get me for my data. Sometimes, I still jump [when I hear it]."
But, the FBI never came, and, over the course of the next month, Pam observed what we can safely call the Internet's worst community, where she learned ...
People on SOHH used to talk about the deep web all the time.
#4. There Are Two Opposing "Camps" Of Child Molester
Thomas Northcut/Digital Vision/Getty Images
There's something we should establish right away. There are pedophiles out there who desperately don't want to harm children and hate the urges they feel -- we interviewed a few of them a while back. But, what Pam found on 7axxn was a shytload of people dedicated to raping and victimizing children and also finding new ways to do it.
7axxn is a community of "over 90,000" registered users, filled with gigabyte after gigabyte of child pornography, which is easily the most depressing set of statistics ever recorded. Most users are just there for the porn, but hundreds of them also contribute to a lively set of discussion forums. There are even polls, breaking down the popularity of things such as "Hurtcore," which is the charming shorthand term for pornography featuring the violent physical abuse of children (Note: About 40 percent of respondents said they "love it!," and another 19 percent merely thought it was "okay, not my favorite.")
7axxn
We take it back. This is the most disturbing set of statistics ever recorded.
Other highlights of the discussion included a debate over the merits of drugging children, in which one member insisted that drugs weren't necessary because " ... children are quite heavy sleepers without taking any medication at all!"
Those awful "practical" threads actually revealed a major divide within the "community," between people who were more-or-less at peace with the fact that they were sexually assaulting victims who were incapable of giving consent, to those who considered themselves child lovers, insisting they were merely in a mutual sexual relationship with someone who happened to be a kindergartner. Here's a sample post from a thread asking whether or not respondents preferred "real sex or real rape." Quote:
"Enjoy what you want; that's your business, NOT MINE. But don't you DARE, EVER paint me with the same brush as you do yourself. And don't ever call yourself a child lover, either. You've got some nerve.
Do you also think that stealing something is the same as buying it, too? Well, if that's the case, I hope you open a shop in my village soon. Of course, I myself would never steal anything from you. The only people you'd have to worry about is people just like yourself. What a way to go through life: having no desire to ever look in a mirror and see someone you could possibly respect."
7axxn
Note their signature: "Young lady, the solution to all your problems is right here in my pants."
Pam got her first hints of the divide between "child lovers" and "child molesters" when she was browsing around the 3DBoys community, seeing posts like this:
"Hi thestruggle, [smiley face]
You have to learn to disassociate your thinking of pedophilia with hurting or abusing children. You have been brought up to, not talk to strangers etc when you was a child because your parents who think pedos hurt children passed that idea on to you & now your mind is confused ...
The truth is, some people do hurt children but the majority of pedophiles (paedophile is latin for child lover -- paed=child & phile=love) love children and would not hurt them or harm them in any way."
3DBoys
His or her username was "pdiatric." Sweet Jesus, please don't let him or her be a pediatrician.
We've actually encountered this ourselves, by the way. After we did the aforementioned article with the pedophiles who were trying to undergo treatment to stop, some lovely soul tweeted to us an earnest defense of child molestation based around two key points of indestructible logic:
A) Children have sex with each other!
And ...
B) Pedophilia means "child friend." No, really!
twitter.com/letmemakeadamna
So, which is it, "friend" or "lover"? We're starting to think these people suck at Latin.
You'll note the same "linguistic root of the word 'pedophile'" talking point Pam ran into above. They also claimed that our article's point of view represented, "... the breeder/prude/cretin's agenda treating kids as property without a will or say of their own." As if the children's "innocence" (that is, the fact that they don't know what's happening and are easily lied to) isn't the very thing that turns them on.
In other words, there are child molestation crusaders out there, and Pam ran into a lot of this on the Deep Web. Below is one response to a 7axxn post from a guy, bemoaning his inability to be anything but a "leech" (a person who consumes the content but never submits any) because his family situation made it impossible to actively share child pornography. The other members suggested he could aid "the cause" by helping to "enlighten & educate" the children in his life on the "true philosophies of love":
"Firstly, there is nothing wrong with being a "leech" for on topic IMHO.
It is important we spread the content for all who share our orientation. But it is equally important that we make the world see that so called 'children' are human beings that enjoy sexuality as much as 'adults'.
If you do not wish to engage in sexual activity with our younger brothers & sisters, then please at least enlighten & educate them on the true philosophies of love, happiness & sexuality. Show them that the violence we ingrate into our 'civilization' is unacceptable, and nurture the emotion & feelings that come naturally to humanity.
It will allow them to become more balanced in their post-pubescent years. Acknowledging that sexuality between humans regardless of age is not evil or destructive."
7axxn
Somebody actually argued sex with children will make then better adults.
Advice of this nature is typically dispensed by cloven-hooved tentacle beasts wearing person costumes. Unfortunately for the whole damn human race, some of the people who aim to "enlighten" kids (a term here meaning "molest") actually have children of their own.
That's right ...