413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

One guy hacked into my computer one night … He took images off my PC and he showed
me he did it and started trading the images and videos with other guys. He was just an
ass. At that point I thought I had enough. I don’t know what his motivations were—
hackers like to brag. Each person in the group was supposed to be trusted individuals.
There were five to six people in the group. Then the images got traded beyond that. (D1)
Another offender shared one of his private images with a trading partner and then later discovered that
trading partner hacked into his computer and uncovered additional images in hidden directories.
In-Person Interactions
Five offenders (24 percent) met with trading partners in person. This could be for security, in order to
guarantee that members of closed trading groups are not law enforcement officers:
I met one of the guys in person. Just to get to know the person behind the screen name.
We all verify that we are all real people behind there. You did not have to provide original
images—just want to make sure you are who you are and not the police. (D1)
Taylor and Quayle (2003) quote an IRC channel operator, who had a rule that participants could never
meet in real life, since he believed that could potentially lead to child molestation. Jenkins (2001) also
found that participants on child pornography bulletin boards would never meet in person and the mere
suggestion is met with scorn. One offender in our sample had a similar reaction, since he considered
meeting to be unnecessary and create additional risk:
Interviewer: Did you ever want to meet in person
Respondent: Yeah, well, I never really put much thought into it. If someone asked to do
it—every now and then they would—that was a red flag for me. No reason for it. If you got
what I need, send it electronically. If it’s a security issue, we both shouldn’t want to be on
here right now. (I1)
One offender would use dating websites to find men with similar interests. When meeting in person,
discussion about child pornography would arise:
I would enter screen names of people I knew—I met these people online. I don’t
remember how I met them—through gay, hook-up websites … I would meet up with the
guys in person and then they would talk about the child pornography—this was
something that came up. There were three to four people. I don’t think they knew each
other. We would get together one-on-one. I got to know them for a few months on the
website before I met them in person. The child pornography came up eventually after
meeting them. (D2)
Steps to Reduce Risk
In social networks, the most common strategy for minimizing risk was to limit trading networks to
trustworthy individuals. More desirable trading partners would have similar preferences, familiarity with
child pornography series, access to private or rare material, and referrals from other traders.
One offender, however, said that efforts to keep his network small were futile, because an individual in his
network was arrested:
I limited the guys I talked to. The problem is I limited myself, and then one of those guys
got caught. So limiting myself didn’t help. (C7)
Numerous offenders believed it was illegal for law enforcement to send child pornography to catch
offenders, since this would be entrapment or because law enforcement would have to engage in illegal
activity. Due to this rule, an offender would wait to receive images before sharing them, though this could
occasionally result in a stalemate, with neither partner wanting to share first:
I always had them send me files first. I thought that would be entrapment [if police sent
images], but apparently they can break the law to catch people breaking the law. But then
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