This week a moderator for a major darkweb child pornography internet repository was sentenced to 20 years in prison, as well as lifetime monitoring upon release, for his involvement with the site, which is nothing less than shocking. David L. Browning, the convicted moderator, was required to delete anything from the site, Playpen, that did not relate to child pornography, including images, videos, and even discussions.

Browning is not the first Playpen-related conviction. A site administrator, Michael Fluckiger, was sentenced to 20 years just a few weeks ago, and another administrator, Steven Chase, is currently awaiting sentencing. In addition to these 3, there were 48 other individuals prosecuted as a result of their involvement with Playpen.

Recently, the terms darkweb and deepweb have made news headlines as law enforcement have been catching up on the technology criminals are utilizing to stay hidden online. The deepweb simply refers to websites that do not get indexed by search engines, which means these sites won’t turn up in a Google or Yahoo search.

Child Pornography Digital Sting

In 2015, the FBI located the Playpen servers in North Carolina. However, rather than immediately take the server down so site users could no longer access the illegal content, the FBI loaded their own malware that traced the IP addresses of the site’s users. The Bureau allowed the server to run for another two weeks, just letting their malware gather information. As a result of the digital sting, the FBI made over 50 arrests.

Surprisingly though, several prosecutions were dropped over the concern that the source code of the malware would have to be released, which could allow sophistacted online criminals to gain the upper hand.

Related Resources:

  • Therapists Must Report Patients That View Child Porn, California Court Rules (FindLaw’s Law and Daily Life)
  • Professor Caught Watching Child Porn on Plane (FindLaw Blotter)
  • Arsonist’s Heart Wasn’t in It; Pacemaker Data Leads to His Arrest (FindLaw Blotter)
  • Bath Photos & Wal-Mart: What is Child Pornography? (FindLaw Blotter)

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