Creating Honeypots to Prevent Online Child Exploitation

Abstract

Honeypots have been a key tool in controlling and understanding digital crime for several decades. The tool has traditionally been deployed against actors who are attempting to hack into systems or as a discovery mechanism for new forms of malware. This paper presents a novel approach to using a honeypot architecture in conjunction with social networks to respond to non-technical digital crimes. The tool is presented within the context of Child Exploitation Material (CEM), and to support the goal of taking an educative approach to Internet users who are developing an interest in this material. The architecture that is presented in the paper includes multiple layers, including recruitment, obfuscation, and education. The approach does not aim to collect data to support punitive action, but to educate users, increasing their knowledge and awareness of the negative impacts of such material.

Accessing child sexual abuse material: Pathways to offending and online behaviour

“…This provides opportunities for individuals to embed CSAM among legal pornography and this puts the onus on the site owners to identify and take down illegal content. Pornhub (2021) reported that they had identified more than twenty-thousand videos and photos as potential CSAM in one year, representing 0.6 % of the total site content, and that they were taking additional steps to cleanse their site of CSAM (see Scanlan et al, 2024).…”

“…Our findings suggest that embedded CSAM in legal pornography sites may be particularly problematic as a gateway to offending. It is gratifying to see that some companies (e.g., Pornhub, 2021;Scanlan et al, 2024) are making efforts to screen site content for CSAM, but undoubtedly more could be done across the pornography industry in this regard.…”

“…In addition to simply removing CSAM, automated warning messages that pop up when an Internet user attempts to reach a prohibited site, or uses a search terms related to CSAM, show promise as an CSAM prevention strategy (Hunn et al, 2023;Prichard, et al, 2022a, b;Scanlan et al, 2024). Message content can be varied to address issues raised by participants in the current study.…”

“…And therapeutic-focussed messages can direct users to services that may assist them to stop using CSAM. Warning messages against CSAM use are becoming more widely used by online companies, including Google (Essers, 2013), Facebook (Wong, 2021), and Pornhub (Grant, 2022;Scanlan et al, 2024). With some exceptions (e.g., see Picarelli, 2009), there has been a reluctance by law enforcement agencies to adopt strategies for CSAM other than arrest, in part for fear of being seen to be 'soft' on offenders (Scott, 2017).…”