The National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction

These two applications (Fairplay, RoundUp) are currently the only sources of data in the UnitedStates known to the Department on the volume of child pornography traded over peer to peernetworks. They do not, however, represent the total volume of child pornography traded over theInternet for these reasons:• The number and names of child pornography files change every minute. It is thereforeimpossible to determine an accurate, absolute count of all child pornography files on theInternet. Both Fairplay and RoundUp limit their hits to a discrete number of known files(for technological and investigative efficiency reasons).• Some computers and computer users are exchanging files currently unknown to lawenforcement or not on the watch list for Fairplay and RoundUp; those files, computers,and computer users cannot be counted.• The tools we have to monitor the trading of child pornography on the Internet work onsome of the most widely used computer file sharing clients. 15 There is file trading traffic,some of it presumably child pornography, on other peer-to-peer file sharing applicationsthat are not accounted for by these tools.• Beyond peer-to-peer file sharing tools, child pornography is traded over the internet viae-mail applications, chat rooms, IRC, web site downloads and other applications. Theseforms of child pornography trading are not included in the counts from OperationFairplay and RoundUp.• Not all unique IPs identified by Operations Fairplay and RoundUp represent anindividual who is intentionally trading in child pornography. There have been casesidentified through these operations of users who unintentionally downloaded a single fileof child pornography over the Peer-to-Peer file sharing network (e.g., while searching foradult pornography). While these unintentional down loaders are contributing to the globalproblem of the online availability of child pornography, they are not themselvesconsumers of child pornography. Further, IP addresses are not static, so a consumer ofchild pornography may be counted numerous times by these operations as his IP addresschanges over time.Over 100 search warrants have been completed from leads generated by Operation RoundUpsince its initiation last year.15 One particular network is also used because its configuration supports the efficient investigation of onlinetransactions and because this network was specifically noted in a GAO report as a major source of pornographytrading. U.S. General Accounting Office (2003). Statement of Linda D. Koontz Director, Information ManagementIssues.“File-Sharing Programs. Child Pornography Is Readily Accessible over Peer-to-Peer Networks.” GAO-03-537T.13