File-Sharing Programs: Users of Peer-to-Peer Networks Can Readily
Access Child Pornography (09-SEP-03, GAO-03-1115T).		 
                                                                 
The availability of child pornography has dramatically increased 
in recent years as it has migrated from printed material to the  
World Wide Web, becoming accessible through Web sites, chatrooms,
newsgroups, and now the increasingly popular peer-to-peer file	 
sharing programs. These programs enable direct communication	 
between users, allowing users to access each other's files and	 
share digital music, images, and video. GAO was requested to	 
determine the ease of access to child pornography on peer-to-peer
networks; the risk of inadvertent exposure of juvenile users of  
peer-to-peer networks to pornography, including child		 
pornography; and the extent of federal law enforcement resources 
available for combating child pornography on peer-to-peer	 
networks. Today's testimony is based on GAO's report on the	 
results of that work (GAO- 03-351), Because child pornography	 
cannot be accessed legally other than by law enforcement	 
agencies, GAO worked with the Customs Cyber-Smuggling Center in  
performing searches: Customs downloaded and analyzed image files,
and GAO performed analyses based on keywords and file names only.
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-03-1115T					        
    ACCNO:   A08367						        
  TITLE:     File-Sharing Programs: Users of Peer-to-Peer Networks Can
Readily Access Child Pornography				 
     DATE:   09/09/2003 
  SUBJECT:   Child abuse					 
	     Crime prevention					 
	     Crimes or offenses 				 
	     Internet						 
	     Web sites						 

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GAO-03-1115T

                                       A

Test i mony Before the Committee on the Judiciary U. S. Senate

For Release on Delivery Expected at 2 p. m. EDT FILE- SHARING on Tuesday
September 9, 2003

PROGRAMS Users of Peer- to- Peer Networks Can Readily Access Child
Pornography

Statement of Linda D. Koontz Director, Information Managment Issues

GAO- 03- 1115T

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: Thank you for inviting us to
discuss our work on the availability of child pornography on peer- to-
peer networks. 1 In recent years, child pornography has become
increasingly available as it

has migrated from magazines, photographs, and videos to the World Wide
Web. As you know, a great strength of the Internet is that it includes a
wide range of search and retrieval technologies that make finding
information fast and easy. However, this capability also makes it easy to
access, disseminate, and trade pornographic images and videos, including
child pornography. As a result, child pornography has become accessible
through Web sites, chat rooms, newsgroups, and the increasingly popular
peer- to- peer technology, a form of networking that allows direct
communication between computer users so that they can access and share
each other*s files (including images, video, and software).

As requested, in my remarks today, I will summarize the results of a
review that we recently conducted to determine

 the ease of access to child pornography on peer- to- peer networks; 
the risk of inadvertent exposure of juvenile users of peer- to- peer

networks to pornography, including child pornography; and  the extent of
federal law enforcement resources available for combating

child pornography on peer- to- peer networks. We also include an
attachment that briefly discusses how peer- to- peer file sharing works.

Results in Brief It is easy to access and download child pornography over
peer- to- peer networks. We used KaZaA, a popular peer- to- peer file-
sharing program, 2 to

search for image files, using 12 keywords known to be associated with 1 U.
S. General Accounting Office, File- Sharing Programs: Peer- to- Peer
Networks Provide Ready Access to Child Pornography, GAO- 03- 351
(Washington, D. C.: Feb. 20, 2003). 2 Other popular peer- to- peer
applications include Gnutella, BearShare, LimeWire, and Morpheus.

child pornography on the Internet. 3 Of 1,286 items identified in our
search, about 42 percent were associated with child pornography images.
The remaining items included 34 percent classified as adult pornography
and 24 percent as nonpornographic. In another KaZaA search, the Customs
CyberSmuggling Center used three keywords to search for and download child
pornography image files. This search identified 341 image files, of which
about 44 percent were classified as child pornography and 29

percent as adult pornography. The remaining images were classified as
child erotica 4 (13 percent) or other (nonpornographic) images (14
percent). These results are consistent with observations of the National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which has stated that peer- to-
peer technology is increasingly popular for the dissemination of child
pornography. Since 2001, when the center began to track reports of child
pornography on peer- to- peer networks, such reports have increased more
than fourfold* from 156 in 2001 to 757 in 2002.

When searching and downloading images on peer- to- peer networks, juvenile
users can be inadvertently exposed to pornography, including child
pornography. In searches on innocuous keywords likely to be used by
juveniles, we obtained images that included a high proportion of

pornography: in our searches, the retrieved images included adult
pornography (34 percent), cartoon pornography 5 (14 percent), and child
pornography (1 percent); another 7 percent of the images were classified
as child erotica.

We could not quantify the extent of federal law enforcement resources
available for combating child pornography on peer- to- peer networks. Law
enforcement agencies that work to combat child exploitation and child
pornography do not track their resource use according to specific Internet
technologies. However, law enforcement officials told us that as they
receive more tips concerning child pornography on peer- to- peer networks,
they are focusing more resources in this area.

3 The U. S. Customs CyberSmuggling Center assisted us in this work.
Because child pornography cannot be accessed legally other than by law
enforcement agencies, we relied on Customs to download and analyze image
files. We performed analyses based on titles and file names only.

4 Erotic images of children that do not depict sexually explicit conduct.
5 Images of cartoon characters depicting sexually explicit conduct.

Background Child pornography is prohibited by federal statutes, which
provide for civil and criminal penalties for its production, advertising,
possession, receipt,

distribution, and sale. 6 Defined by statute as the visual depiction of a
minor* a person under 18 years of age* engaged in sexually explicit
conduct, 7 child pornography is unprotected by the First Amendment, 8 as
it

is intrinsically related to the sexual abuse of children. In the Child
Pornography Prevention Act of 1996, 9 Congress sought to prohibit images
that are or appear to be *of a minor engaging in sexually explicit
conduct* or are *advertised, promoted, presented, described, or
distributed in such a manner that conveys the impression that the material
is or contains a visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit
conduct.* In 2002, the Supreme Court struck down this legislative attempt

to ban *virtual* child pornography 10 in Ashcroft v. The Free Speech
Coalition, ruling that the expansion of the act to material that did not
involve and thus harm actual children in its creation is an
unconstitutional violation of free speech rights. According to government
officials, this ruling may increase the difficulty of prosecuting those
who produce and possess child pornography. Defendants may claim that
pornographic images are of *virtual* children, thus requiring the
government to establish that the children shown in these digital images
are real. Recently, Congress

6 See chapter 110 of Title 18, United States Code. 7 See 18 U. S. C. S:
2256( 8). 8 See New York v. Ferber, 458 U. S. 747 (1982). 9 Section 121,
P. L. 104- 208, 110 Stat. 3009- 26. 10 According to the Justice
Department, rapidly advancing technology has raised the possibility of
creating images of child pornography without the use of a real child (*
virtual* child pornography). Totally virtual creations would be both time-
intensive and, for now, prohibitively costly to produce. However, the
technology has led to a ready defense (the

*virtual* porn defense) against prosecution under laws that are limited to
sexually explicit depictions of actual minors. Because the technology
exists today to alter images to disguise the identity of the real child or
make the image seem computer- generated, producers and

distributors of child pornography may try to alter depictions of actual
children in slight ways to make them appear to be *virtual* (as well as
unidentifiable), thereby attempting to defeat prosecution. Making such
alterations is much easier and cheaper than building an entirely computer-
generated image.

enacted the PROTECT Act, 11 which attempts to address the constitutional
issues raised in The Free Speech Coalition decision. 12 The Internet Has
Emerged

Historically, pornography, including child pornography, tended to be found
as the Principal Tool for

mainly in photographs, magazines, and videos. 13 With the advent of the
Exchanging Child

Internet, however, both the volume and the nature of available child
Pornography

pornography have changed significantly. The rapid expansion of the
Internet and its technologies, the increased availability of broadband
Internet services, advances in digital imaging technologies, and the

availability of powerful digital graphic programs have led to a
proliferation of child pornography on the Internet.

According to experts, pornographers have traditionally exploited* and
sometimes pioneered* emerging communication technologies* from the dial-
in bulletin board systems of the 1970s to the World Wide Web* to access,
trade, and distribute pornography, including child pornography. 14 Today,
child pornography is available through virtually every Internet

technology (see table 1). 11 Public Law No. 108- 21 (Apr. 30, 2003). 12 S.
Rep. No. 108- 2, at 13 (2003). 13 John Carr, Theme Paper on Child
Pornography for the 2 nd World Congress on Commercial Sexual Exploitation
of Children, NCH Children*s Charities, Children & Technology Unit
(Yokohama, 2001). (http:// www. ecpat. net/ eng/ Ecpat_ inter/ projects/
monitoring/ wc2/ yokohama_ theme_ child_ p ornography. pdf)

14 Frederick E. Allen, *When Sex Drives Technological Innovation and Why
It Has to,* American Heritage Magazine, vol. 51, no. 5 (September 2000),
p. 19. (http:// www. plannedparenthood. org/ education/ updatearch. html)
Allen notes that pornographers have driven the development of some of the
Internet technologies, including the development of systems used to verify
on- line financial transactions and that of digital watermarking
technology to prevent the unauthorized use of on- line images.

Tabl e 1: Internet Technologies Providing Access to Child Pornography
Technol ogy Characteristics

World Wide Web Web sites provide on- line access to text and multimedia
materials identified and accessed through the uniform resource locator
(URL).

Usenet A distributed electronic bulletin system, Usenet offers over 80,000
newsgroups, with many newsgroups dedicated to sharing of digital images.
Peer- to- peer filesharing

Internet applications operating over peer- to- peer networks enable
programs direct communication between users. Used largely for sharing of
digital music, images, and video, peer- to- peer applications include
BearShare, Gnutella, LimeWire, and KaZaA. KaZaA is the most popular, with
over 3 million KaZaA users sharing files at any time.

E- mail E- mail allows the transmission of messages over a network or the
Internet. Users can send E- mail to a single recipient or broadcast it to
multiple users. E- mail supports the delivery of attached files, including
image files. Instant messaging Instant messaging is not a dial- up system
like the telephone; it

requires that both parties be on line at the same time. AOL*s Instant
Messenger and Microsoft*s MSN Messenger and Internet Relay Chat are the
major instant messaging services. Users may exchange files, including
image files. Chat and Internet

Chat technologies allow computer conferencing using the keyboard Relay
Chat over the Internet between two or more people.

Source: GAO.

Among the principal channels for the distribution of child pornography are
commercial Web sites, Usenet newsgroups, and peer- to- peer networks. 15
Web sites. According to recent estimates, there are about 400,000

commercial pornography Web sites worldwide, 16 with some of the sites
selling pornographic images of children. The child pornography trade on
the Internet is not only profitable, it has a worldwide reach: recently a
child

pornography ring was uncovered that included a Texas- based firm providing
credit card billing and password access services for one Russian

15 According to Department of Justice officials, other forums and
technologies are used to disseminate pornography on the Internet. These
include Web portal communities such as Yahoo! Groups and MSN Groups, as
well as file servers operating on Internet Relay Chat channels.

16 Dick Thornburgh and Herbert S. Lin, editors, Youth, Pornography, and
The Internet,

National Academy Press (Washington, D. C.: 2002). (http:// www. nap. edu/
html/ youth_ internet/)

and two Indonesian child pornography Web sites. According to the U. S.
Postal Inspection Service, the ring grossed as much as $1.4 million in
just 1 month selling child pornography to paying customers.

Usenet. Usenet newsgroups also provide access to pornography, with several
of the image- oriented newsgroups being focused on child erotica and child
pornography. These newsgroups are frequently used by commercial
pornographers who post *free* images to advertise adult and child
pornography available for a fee from their Web sites.

Peer- to- peer networks. Although peer- to- peer file- sharing programs
are largely known for the extensive sharing of copyrighted digital music,
17 they are emerging as a conduit for the sharing of pornographic images
and videos, including child pornography. In a recent study by
congressional

staff, 18 a single search for the term *porn* using a file- sharing
program yielded over 25,000 files. In another study, focused on the
availability of pornographic video files on peer- to- peer sharing
networks, a sample of 507 pornographic video files retrieved with a file-
sharing program included about 3.7 percent child pornography videos. 19
Several Agencies Have Law

Table 2 shows the key national organizations and agencies that are
Enforcement currently involved in efforts to combat child pornography on
peer- to- peer

Responsibilities Regarding networks.

Child Pornography on Peerto- Peer Networks

17 According to the Yankee Group, a technology research and consulting
firm, Internet users aged 14 and older downloaded 5.16 billion audio files
in the United States via unlicensed filesharing services in 2001.

18 Minority Staff, Children*s Access to Pornography through Internet File-
Sharing Programs, Special Investigations Division, Committee on Government
Reform, U. S. House of Representatives (July 27, 2001). (http:// www.
house. gov/ reform/ min/ pdfs/ pdf_ inves/ pdf_ pornog_ rep. pdf)

19 Michael D. Mehta, Don Best, and Nancy Poon, *Peer- to- Peer Sharing on
the Internet: An Analysis of How Gnutella Networks Are Used to Distribute
Pornographic Material,*

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology, vol. 1, no. 1 (January 2002).
(http:// cjlt. dal. ca/ vol1_ no1/ articles/ 01_ 01_ MeBePo_ gnutella.
pdf)

Tabl e 2: Table 2: Organizations and Agencies Involved with Peer- to- Peer
Child Pornography Efforts Agency Unit Focus Nonprofit

National Center for Missing Exploited Child Unit Works with the Customs
Service, Postal Service, and the FBI to analyze and Exploited Children and
investigate child pornography leads.

Federal entities

Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Proactively investigates crimes
against children. Operates a national Investigation a *Innocent Images
Initiative* to combat Internet- related sexual exploitation of children.

Criminal Division, Child Is a specialized group of attorneys who, among
other things, prosecute Exploitation and Obscenity those who possess,
manufacture, or distribute child pornography. Its High Section

Tech Investigative Unit actively conducts on- line investigations to
identify distributors of obscenity and child pornography.

Department of Homeland U. S. Customs Service

Conducts international child pornography investigations as part of its
Security CyberSmuggling Center a, b mission to investigate international
criminal activity conducted on or facilitated by the Internet.

Department of the Treasury U. S. Secret Service a Provides forensic and
technical assistance in matters involving missing and sexually exploited
children. Source: GAO.

a Agency has staff assigned to NCMEC. b At the time of our review, the
Customs Service was under the Department of the Treasury. Under the
Homeland Security Act of 2002, it became part of the new Department of
Homeland Security on March 1, 2003.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), a
federally funded nonprofit organization, serves as a national resource
center for information related to crimes against children. Its mission is
to find missing children and prevent child victimization. The center*s
Exploited Child Unit operates the CyberTipline, which receives child

pornography tips provided by the public; its CyberTipline II also receives
tips from Internet service providers. The Exploited Child Unit
investigates and processes tips to determine if the images in question
constitute a violation of child pornography laws. The CyberTipline
provides

investigative leads to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U. S.
Customs, the Postal Inspection Service, and state and local law
enforcement agencies. The FBI and the U. S. Customs also investigate leads
from Internet service providers via the Exploited Child Unit*s
CyberTipline II. The FBI, Customs Service, Postal Inspection Service, and
Secret Service have staff assigned directly to NCMEC as analysts. 20 20
According to the Secret Service, its staff assigned to NCMEC also includes
an agent.

Two organizations in the Department of Justice have responsibilities
regarding child pornography: the FBI and the Justice Criminal Division*s
Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS). 21

 The FBI investigates various crimes against children, including federal
child pornography crimes involving interstate or foreign commerce. It
deals with violations of child pornography laws related to the production
of child pornography; selling or buying children for use in child
pornography; and the transportation, shipment, or distribution of child
pornography by any means, including by computer.

 CEOS prosecutes child sex offenses and trafficking in women and children
for sexual exploitation. Its mission includes prosecution of individuals
who possess, manufacture, produce, or distribute child pornography; use
the Internet to lure children to engage in prohibited sexual conduct; or
traffic in women and children interstate or internationally to engage in
sexually explicit conduct.

Two other organizations have responsibilities regarding child pornography:
the Customs Service (now part of the Department of Homeland Security) and
the Secret Service in the Department of the Treasury.

 The Customs Service targets illegal importation and trafficking in child
pornography and is the country*s front line of defense in combating child
pornography distributed through various channels, including the Internet.
Customs is involved in cases with international links, focusing on
pornography that enters the United States from foreign countries. The
Customs CyberSmuggling Center has the lead in the investigation of
international and domestic criminal activities conducted on or facilitated
by the Internet, including the sharing and distribution of child
pornography on peer- to- peer networks. Customs maintains a reporting link
with NCMEC, and it acts on tips received via the CyberTipline from callers
reporting instances of child pornography on Web sites, Usenet

newsgroups, chat rooms, or the computers of users of peer- to- peer 21 Two
additional Justice agencies are involved in combating child pornography:
the U. S. Attorneys Offices and the Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention. The 94 U. S. Attorneys Offices can prosecute
federal child exploitation- related cases; the Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention funds the Internet Crimes Against Children Task
Force Program, which encourages multijurisdictional and multiagency
responses to crimes against children involving the Internet.

networks. The center also investigates leads from Internet service
providers via the Exploited Child Unit*s CyberTipline II.

 The U. S. Secret Service does not investigate child pornography cases on
peer- to- peer networks; however, it does provide forensic and technical
support to NCMEC, as well as to state and local agencies involved in cases
of missing and exploited children.

Peer- to- Peer Child pornography is easily shared and accessed through
peer- to- peer filesharing

programs. Our analysis of 1,286 titles and file names identified
Applications Provide

through KaZaA searches on 12 keywords 22 showed that 543 (about 42 Easy
Access to Child

percent) of the images had titles and file names associated with child
Pornography

pornography images. 23 Of the remaining files, 34 percent were classified
as adult pornography, and 24 percent as nonpornographic (see fig. 1). No
files were downloaded for this analysis.

22 The 12 keywords were provided by the Cybersmuggling Center as examples
known to be associated with child pornography on the Internet. 23 We
categorized a file as child pornography if one keyword indicating a minor
and one word with a sexual connotation occurred in either the title or
file name. Files with sexual

connotation in title or name but without age indicators were classified as
adult pornography.

Figure 1: Classification of 1,286 Titles and File Names of Images
Identified in KaZaA Search

The ease of access to child pornography files was further documented by
retrieval and analysis of image files, performed on our behalf by the
Customs CyberSmuggling Center. Using 3 of the 12 keywords that we used to
document the availability of child pornography files, a CyberSmuggling
Center analyst used KaZaA to search, identify, and download 305 files,
including files containing multiple images and duplicates. The analyst was
able to download 341 images from the 305 files identified through the
KaZaA search.

The CyberSmuggling Center analysis of the 341 downloaded images showed
that 149 (about 44 percent) of the downloaded images contained child
pornography (see fig. 2). The center classified the remaining images as
child erotica (13 percent), adult pornography (29 percent), or
nonpornographic (14 percent).

Figure 2: Classification of 341 Images Downloaded through KaZaA

Note: GAO analysis of data provided by the Customs CyberSmuggling Center.

These results are consistent with the observations of NCMEC, which has
stated that peer- to- peer technology is increasingly popular for the
dissemination of child pornography. However, it is not the most prominent
source for child pornography. As shown in table 3, since 1998, most of the
child pornography referred by the public to the CyberTipline was found on
Internet Web sites. Since 1998, the center has received over 76,000
reports of child pornography, of which 77 percent concerned Web sites, and
only 1 percent concerned peer- to- peer networks. Web site referrals have
grown from about 1,400 in 1998 to over 26, 000 in 2002* or about a
nineteenfold increase. NCMEC did not track peer- to- peer referrals until
2001. In 2002,

peer- to- peer referrals increased more than fourfold, from 156 to 757,
reflecting the increased popularity of file- sharing programs.

Tabl e 3: NCMEC CyberTipline Referrals to Law Enforcement Agencies, Fiscal
Years 1998* 2002

Number of tips Technol ogy 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Web sites 1,393 3,830 10,629 18,052 26, 759 E- mail 117 165 120 1,128
6,245 Peer- to- peer - - - 156 757 Usenet newsgroups & bulletin

531 987 731 990 993 boards Unknown 90 258 260 430 612

Chat rooms 155 256 176 125 234 Instant Messaging 27 47 50 80 53 File
Transfer Protocol 25 26 58 64 23

Tot al 2,338 5,569 12,024 21,025 35, 676

Source: Exploited Child Unit, National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children.

Juvenile Users of Peerto- Juvenile users of peer- to- peer networks face a
significant risk of

Peer Applications inadvertent exposure to pornography when searching and
downloading

images. In a search using innocuous keywords likely to be used by May Be
Inadvertently

juveniles searching peer- to- peer networks (such as names of popular
Exposed to

singers, actors, and cartoon characters), almost half the images
Pornography

downloaded were classified as adult or cartoon pornography. Juvenile users
may also be inadvertently exposed to child pornography through such
searches, but the risk of such exposure is smaller than that of exposure
to pornography in general. To document the risk of inadvertent exposure of
juvenile users to pornography, the Customs CyberSmuggling Center performed
KaZaA searches using innocuous keywords likely to be used by juveniles.
The center image searches used three keywords representing the names of a
popular female singer, child actors, and a cartoon character. A center
analyst performed the search, retrieval, and analysis of the images. These
searches produced 157 files, some of which were duplicates. From these 157
files, the analyst was able to download 177 images..

Figure 3 shows our analysis of the CyberSmuggling Center*s classification
of the 177 downloaded images. We determined that 61 images contained adult
pornography (34 percent), 24 images consisted of cartoon

pornography (14 percent), 13 images contained child erotica (7 percent),
and 2 images (1 percent) contained child pornography. The remaining 77
images were classified as nonpornographic.

Figure 3: Classification of 177 Images of a Popular Singer, Child Actors,
and a Cartoon Character Downloaded through KaZaA Federal Law

Because law enforcement agencies do not track the resources dedicated to
Enforcement Agencies

specific technologies used to access and download child pornography on the
Internet, we were unable to quantify the resources devoted to Are
Beginning to Focus investigations concerning peer- to- peer networks.
These agencies

Resources on Child (including the FBI, CEOS, and Customs) do devote
significant resources to

Pornography on Peerto- combating child exploitation and child pornography
in general. Law

enforcement officials told us, however, that as tips concerning child Peer
Networks

pornography on the peer- to- peer networks increase, they are beginning to
focus more law enforcement resources on this issue. Table 4 shows the
levels of funding related to child pornography issues that the primary
organizations reported for fiscal year 2002, as well as a description of
their efforts regarding peer- to- peer networks in particular.

Table 4: Resources Related to Combating Child Pornography on Peer- to-
Peer Networks in 2002 Organization Resources a Efforts regarding peer- to-
peer networks

National Center for $12 million to act as national resource center and
NCMEC referred 913 tips concerning peer- to- peer Missing and Exploited
clearinghouse for missing and exploited children

networks to law enforcement agencies. Children

$10 million for law enforcement training $3.3 million for the Exploited
Child Unit and the CyberTipline $916,000 allocated to combat child
pornography

Federal Bureau of $38. 2 million and 228 agents and support personnel for

According to FBI officials, they have efforts under way Investigation
Innocent Images Unit to work with some of the peer- to- peer companies to

solicit their cooperation in dealing with the issue of child pornography.

Justice Criminal $4.38 million and 28 personnel allocated to combating The
High Tech Investigative Unit deals with Division, Child child exploitation
and obscenity offenses investigating any Internet medium that distributes
child Exploitation and pornography, including peer- to- peer networks.
Obscenity Section

U. S. Customs Service $15. 6 million (over 144,000 hours) allocated to

The center is beginning to actively monitor peer- to- peer CyberSmuggling

combating child exploitation and obscenity offenses b networks for child
pornography, devoting one half- time Center investigator to this effort.
As of December 16, 2002, the

center had sent 21 peer- to- peer investigative leads to field offices for
follow- up. Source: GAO and agencies mentioned.

a Dollar amounts are approximate. b Customs was unable to separate the
staff hours devoted or funds obligated to combating child pornography from
those dedicated to combating child exploitation in general.

An important new resource to facilitate the identification of the victims
of child pornographers is the National Child Victim Identification
Program, run by the CyberSmuggling Center. This resource is a consolidated
information system containing seized images that is designed to allow law
enforcement officials to quickly identify and combat the current abuse of
children associated with the production of child pornography. The system*s
database is being populated with all known and unique child pornographic

images obtained from national and international law enforcement sources
and from CyberTipline reports filed with NCMEC. It will initially hold
over 100,000 images collected by federal law enforcement agencies from
various sources, including old child pornography magazines. 24 According
to Customs officials, this information will help, among other things, to
determine whether actual children were used to produce child

24 According to federal law enforcement agencies, most of the child
pornography published before 1970 has been digitized and made widely
available on the Internet.

pornography images by matching them with images of children from magazines
published before modern imaging technology was invented. Such evidence can
be used to counter the assertion that only virtual children appear in
certain images.

The system, which became operational in January 2003, 25 is housed at the
Customs CyberSmuggling Center and can be accessed remotely in *read only*
format by the FBI, CEOS, the U. S. Postal Inspection Service, and NCMEC.

In summary, Mr. Chairman, our work shows that child pornography as well as
adult pornography is widely available and accessible on peer- to- peer
networks. Even more disturbing, we found that peer- to- peer searches
using seemingly innocent terms that clearly would be of interest to
children produced a high proportion of pornographic material, including
child

pornography. The increase in reports of child pornography on peer- to-
peer networks suggests that this problem is increasing. As a result, it
will be important for law enforcement agencies to follow through on their
plans to devote more resources to this technology and continue their
efforts to develop effective strategies for addressing this problem. Mr.
Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be pleased to answer

any questions that you or other Members of the Committee may have at this
time. Contact and

If you should have any questions about this testimony, please contact me
at Acknowledgments

(202) 512- 6240 or by E- mail at koontzl@ gao. gov. Key contributors to
this testimony were Barbara S. Collier, Mirko Dolak, James M. Lager,
Neelaxi V. Lakhmani, James R. Sweetman, Jr., and Jessie Thomas.

25 One million dollars has already been spent on the system, with an
additional $5 million needed for additional hardware, the expansion of the
image database, and access for all involved agencies. The 10- year
lifecycle cost of the system is estimated to be $23 million.

How File Sharing Works on Peer- to- Peer

At tachment I

Networks Peer- to- peer file- sharing programs represent a major change in
the way Internet users find and exchange information. Under the
traditional Internet client/ server model, access to information and
services is accomplished by interaction between clients* users who request
services* and servers* providers of services, usually Web sites or
portals. Unlike this traditional model, the peer- to- peer model enables
consenting users* or peers* to directly interact and share information
with each other, without the intervention of a server. A common
characteristic of peer- to- peer programs is that they build virtual
networks with their own mechanisms for routing message traffic. 1

The ability of peer- to- peer networks to provide services and connect
users directly has resulted in a large number 2 of powerful applications
built around this model. 3 These range from the SETI@ home network (where

users share the computing power of their computers to search for
extraterrestrial life) to the popular KaZaA file- sharing program (used to
share music and other files).

As shown in figure 4, 4 there are two main models of peer- to- peer
networks: (1) the centralized model, in which a central server or broker
directs traffic between individual registered users, and (2) the
decentralized model, based on the Gnutella 5 network, in which individuals
find each other and interact directly.

1 Matei Ripenau, Ian Foster, and Adriana Iamnitchi, *Mapping the Gnutella
Network: Properties of Large Scale Peer- to- Peer Systems and Implication
for System Design,* IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 6, no. 1 (January*
February 2002). (people. cs. uchicago. edu/~ matei/ PAPERS/ ic. pdf)

2 Zeropaid. com, a file- sharing portal, lists 88 different peer- to- peer
file- sharing programs available for download. (http:// www. zeropaid.
com/ php/ filesharing. php) 3 Geoffrey Fox and Shrideep Pallickara, *Peer-
to- Peer Interactions in Web Brokering Systems,* Ubiquity, vol. 3, no. 15
(May 28* June 3, 2002) (published by Association of Computer Machinery).
(http:// www. acm. org/ ubiquity/ views/ g_ fox_ 2. html)

4 Illustration adapted by Lt. Col. Mark Bontrager from original by Bob
Knighten, *Peer- toPeer Computing,* briefing to Peer- to- Peer Working
Groups (August 24, 2000), in Mark D. Bontrager, Peering into the Future:
Peer- to- Peer Technology as a Model for Distributed

Joint Battlespace Intelligence Dissemination and Operational Tasking,
Thesis, School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Air University, Maxwell Air
Force Base, Alabama (June 2001).

Figure 4: Peer- to- Peer Models

As shown in figure 4, in the centralized model, a central server/ broker
maintains directories of shared files stored on the computers of
registered users. When Bob submits a request for a particular file, the
server/ broker creates a list of files matching the search request by
checking it against its database of files belonging to users currently
connected to the network. The broker then displays that list to Bob, who
can then select the desired file from the list and open a direct link with
Alice*s computer, which currently has the file. The download of the actual
file takes place directly from Alice to Bob.

This broker model was used by Napster, the original peer- to- peer
network, facilitating mass sharing of material by combining the file names
held by thousands of users into a searchable directory that enabled users
to

5 According to LimeWire LLC, the developer of a popular file- sharing
program, Gnutella was originally designed by Nullsoft, a subsidiary of
America Online. The development of the Gnutella protocol was halted by AOL
management shortly after the protocol was made available to the public.
Using downloads, programmers reverse- engineered the software and created
their own Gnutella software packages. (http:// www. limewire. com/ index.
jsp/ p2p)

connect with each other and download MP3 encoded music files. Because much
of this material was copyrighted, Napster as the broker of these exchanges
was vulnerable to legal challenges, 6 which eventually led to its demise
in September 2002. In contrast to Napster, most current- generation peer-
to- peer networks are

decentralized. Because they do not depend on the server/ broker that was
the central feature of the Napster service, these networks are less
vulnerable to litigation from copyright owners, as pointed out by Gartner.
7 In the decentralized model, no brokers keep track of users and their
files.

To share files using the decentralized model, Ted starts with a networked
computer equipped with a Gnutella file- sharing program such KaZaA or
BearShare. Ted connects to Carol, Carol to Bob, Bob to Alice, and so on.
Once Ted*s computer has announced that it is *alive* to the various
members of the peer network, it can search the contents of the shared
directories of the peer network members. The search request is sent to all
members of the network, starting with Carol; members will in turn send the
request to the computers to which they are connected, and so forth. If one
of the computers in the peer network (say, for example, Alice*s) has a
file that matches the request, it transmits the file information (name,
size, type, etc.) back through all the computers in the pathway towards
Ted, where a list of files matching the search request appears on Ted*s
computer through the file- sharing program. Ted can then open a connection
with Alice and download the file directly from Alice*s computer. 8 The
file- sharing networks that result from the use of peer- to- peer

technology are both extensive and complex. Figure 5 shows a map or
topology of a Gnutella network whose connections were mapped by a network
visualization tool. 9 The map, created in December 2000, shows 1,026 nodes
(computers connected to more than one computer) and 3,752 edges (computers
on the edge of the network connected to a single

6 A& M Records v. Napster, 114 F. Supp. 2d 896 (N. D. Cal. 2000). 7 Lydia
Leong, *RIAA vs. Verizon, Implications for ISPs,* Gartner (Oct. 24, 2002).
8 LimeWire, Modern Peer- to- Peer File Sharing over the Internet.

(http:// www. limewire. com/ index. jsp/ p2p) 9 Mihajlo A. Jovanovic, Fred
S. Annexstein, and Kenneth A. Berman, Scalability Issues in Large Peer-
to- Peer Networks: A Case Study of Gnutella, University of Cincinnati
Technical Report (2001). (http:// www. ececs. uc. edu/~ mjovanov/
Research/ paper. html)

computer). This map is a snapshot showing a network in existence at a
given moment; these networks change constantly as users join and depart
them. Figure 5: Topology of a Gnutella Network

One of the key features of many peer- to- peer technologies is their use
of a virtual name space (VNS). A VNS dynamically associates user- created
names with the Internet address of whatever Internet- connected computer

users happen to be using when they log on. 10 The VNS facilitates point-
topoint interaction between individuals, because it removes the need for
users and their computers to know the addresses and locations of other
users; the VNS can, to certain extent, preserve users* anonymity and
provide information on whether a user is or is not connected to the
Internet at a given moment. Peer- to- peer users thus may appear to be
anonymous; they are not, however. Law enforcement agents may identify
users* Internet addresses during the file- sharing process and obtain,
under a court order, their identities from their Internet service
providers.

10 S. Hayward and R. Batchelder, *Peer- to- Peer: Something Old, Something
New,* Gartner (Apr. 10, 2001).

(310381)

a

GAO United States General Accounting Office

Child pornography is easily found and downloaded from peer- to- peer
networks. In one search, using 12 keywords known to be associated with
child pornography on the Internet, GAO identified 1,286 titles and file
names, determining that 543 (about 42 percent) were associated with child
pornography images. Of the remaining, 34 percent were classified as adult
pornography and 24 percent as nonpornographic. In another search using
three keywords, a Customs analyst downloaded 341 images, of which 149
(about 44 percent) contained child pornography (see the figure below).
These results are in accord with increased reports of child pornography on
peer- to- peer networks; since it began tracking these in 2001, the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has seen a fourfold
increase* from 156 in 2001 to 757 in 2002. Although the numbers are as yet
small by comparison to those for other sources (26,759 reports of child
pornography on Web sites in 2002), the increase is significant.

Juvenile users of peer- to- peer networks are at significant risk of
inadvertent exposure to pornography, including child pornography. Searches
on innocuous keywords likely to be used by juveniles (such as names of
cartoon characters or celebrities) produced a high proportion of
pornographic images: in our searches, the retrieved images included adult

pornography (34 percent), cartoon pornography (14 percent), child erotica
(7 percent), and child pornography (1 percent).

While federal law enforcement agencies* including the FBI, Justice*s Child
Exploitation and Obscenity Section, and Customs* are devoting resources to
combating child exploitation and child pornography in general, these
agencies do not track the resources dedicated to specific technologies
used to access and download child pornography on the Internet. Therefore,
GAO was unable to quantify the resources devoted to investigating cases on
peerto- peer networks. According to law enforcement officials, however, as
tips concerning child pornography on peer- to- peer networks escalate, law
enforcement resources are increasingly being focused on this area.

Classification of Images Downloaded through Peer- to- Peer File- Sharing
Program

FILE- SHARING PROGRAMS

Users of Peer- to- Peer Networks Can Readily Access Child Pornography

http:// www. gao. gov/ cgi- bin/ getrpt? GAO- 03- 1115T

To view the full testimony, click on the link above. For more information,
contact Linda Koontz at (202) 512- 6240 or koontzl@ gao. gov. Highlights
of GAO- 03- 1115T, a testimony

before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate

September 9, 2003

The availability of child pornography has dramatically increased in recent
years as it has migrated from printed material to the World Wide Web,
becoming accessible through Web sites, chat

rooms, newsgroups, and now the increasingly popular peer- to- peer file
sharing programs. These programs enable direct communication between
users, allowing users to access each

other*s files and share digital music, images, and video. GAO was
requested to determine the ease of access to child pornography on peer-
to- peer

networks; the risk of inadvertent exposure of juvenile users of peerto-
peer networks to pornography, including child pornography; and

the extent of federal law enforcement resources available for combating
child pornography on peer- to- peer networks. Today*s testimony is based
on GAO*s report on the results of that work (GAO03- 351), Because child
pornography cannot

be accessed legally other than by law enforcement agencies, GAO worked
with the Customs CyberSmuggling Center in performing searches: Customs
downloaded and analyzed image files, and GAO performed analyses based on

keywords and file names only.

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Attachment I

Attachment I How File Sharing Works on Peer- to- Peer Networks

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Attachment I How File Sharing Works on Peer- to- Peer Networks

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Attachment I How File Sharing Works on Peer- to- Peer Networks

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Attachment I How File Sharing Works on Peer- to- Peer Networks

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