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German police smash child sexual abuse site (www.dw.com)

submitted 1 month ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

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German police say they have shut down a "dizzyingly large" child sexual abuse image website with hundreds of thousands of users. Six people with links to the network were arrested.

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[-] Ep1cFac3pa1m@lemmy.world 49 points 1 month ago

…hundreds of thousands of users

ಠ_ಠ

[-] Omgboom@lemmy.zip 23 points 1 month ago

Six people with links to the network were arrested.

[-] Ep1cFac3pa1m@lemmy.world 26 points 1 month ago

I can understand only arresting 6 people, because I doubt very many people had their hands on the actual website. But the fact that hundreds of thousands of people actually interacted with the site is downright mind boggling.

[-] subignition@fedia.io 12 points 1 month ago

If it's any comfort (it might not be), a few hundred thousand out of like 8 billion is a pretty small percentage. It's troubling that it evaded the law for long enough to accumulate that many users in one place, though :/

[-] itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 month ago

It's 1 in ten thousand. Likely much more in Europe or North America, accounting for people without reliable Internet access and non-English speakers. There's statistically at least a hand full in your city, if it's larger than a village

[-] webpack@ani.social 5 points 1 month ago

it could be you, it could be me, it could even be-

[-] Kronusdark@lemmy.world 33 points 1 month ago

Phrasing on that headline. 😂

[-] gregor@gregtech.eu 13 points 1 month ago

Yea, it is quite unfortunate

[-] thefartographer@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago

The files are in the computer

[-] einkorn@feddit.org 11 points 1 month ago

Yeah, but did they take down the website only, or did they also take down the content they mostly link to?

In the past, there have been investigations by multiple news outlets where they found that German police would routinely seize forums and domains where links to CP were posted but would not request the hosting providers of the linked content to delete the material.

[-] SassyRamen@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

I heard about this on the Radio yesterday, IIRC they have information on a good amount of the users. I hope they find them.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

They smashed it? What, did they hit the server with a sledgehammer? Did a cop turn into The Hulk? What?

German police say they have shut down a "dizzyingly large" child sexual abuse image website

Bah.

[-] boreengreen@lemm.ee 8 points 1 month ago

Yea, the title suck.

[-] Moonrise2473@feddit.it 7 points 1 month ago

How the fuck someone can hoard 14 fucking terabytes of sick photos???

I hope everyone involved in the production of such material spends the rest of their lives in a Guantanamo style box

[-] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

data storage detection dogs

didnt know dogs were used for this too!

[-] independantiste@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 month ago

Hundreds of thousands of users??

[-] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

some of them might even be Lemmy users...

[-] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

I bet they did

[-] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 month ago

A++ Would smash again.

[+] 30p87@feddit.org -17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Ok, but WHICH site did they take down? Any names or links?

🤦‍♂️

Any name of the website, for reference, or any links to further statements? Just because our police claim they achieved something does not mean I believe them at all. And even if they actually took down something, a forum style site very likely means all content was hosted externally. Essentially, the site could be rebuilt in a few days in that case.

Just stating "we took down some bad CP site" without ANY further explanation is worthless, because websites and especially darknet services are much more complicated than there being a single server, you plug that off and you saved the day. If "the internet never forgets", the darknet even gains from such events. Each piece of content will be locally stored by at least a dozen of the hundreds of thousand of members. And after that, it will be uploaded to new services (if it wasn't just spread out to dozens of 3rd parties anyway), and more people will download it. So the situation could be worse now. Doesn't matter for the stats and publicity of course. But being able to comprehend their claims and actions would at least give one either the satisfaction that cops achieved something and those fuckers were taken down, or another reason for facepalm.

The most important thing with such an event here is transparency. And in history, recently and nearly a century ago, it's not like blindly believing cops was a good option.

[-] floofloof@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 month ago

[-] Nollij@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 month ago

Not to take away from the joke or the implication, but I'm pretty sure the info is useless now. Just like knowing about Silk Road.

That said, I have no idea what value they could get from having an answer.

[-] 30p87@feddit.org 5 points 1 month ago

Transparency from a police force that, historically, was not transparent but arbitrary, and again reverts to that.

this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2024

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