A Supercomputer Goes Porn-Hunting: Fighting Pedophiles the Geeky Way
As the world’s second most powerful computer, the Jaguar has been called on to do many things, particularly for the US Department of Energy. In 2011, it will be asked to use its tremendous power to fight crime. It’s going pedophile hunting. Scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee where Jaguar is housed are working with local and national law enforcement to put Jaguar’s incredible processing abilities to work with Artemis, a program that finds pornographic images and videos on computers and networks. Named after the Greek goddess of the hunt, the program quickly scans computers for flesh-colored pixels that could be pornography. “Across the globe criminals are using technology to facilitate the sexual exploitation of children,” said Grier Weeks, executive director of the National Association to Protect Children, or PROTECT. “Police are overwhelmed and outnumbered. These Oak Ridge scientists are the good guys we’ve been waiting for. Their computers will become child rescue engines.” It can take the search process down from weeks to hours, expediting arrests and prosecutions. It could also prevent crimes like the murder of Somer Thompson. A cyber crimes unit began forensic analysis on Jarred Harrell’s computer on October 9, 2009. 10 days later he allegedly kidnapped Thompson. Artemis on Jaguar may be able to prevent such cases as early as late-2011. “With the current process, it could take weeks for law enforcement to track someone down,” said Robert Patton, a scientist at Oak Ridge who, along with Carlos Rojas, runs the Jaguar and pedophile project. “Right now we could probably do it in a few days. What we want is to do it in a few hours.” While Artemis is already being used directly on suspects’ computers and has been involved in 30 arrests, Jaguar is not expected to be ready to use it until the end of 2011. Currently, Patton’s team is testing and simulating on Jaguar. Investigators are eager to see it live as soon as possible.
Wow, those commenting about computer technology are really niave.
For one they’re not idiots behind these computers. What child exploiters do to hide, someone in law enforcement will break, simple 🙂
For another, let’s hope all pedophiles think they are smarter then well paid, well educated and very motivated law enforcement, let’s hope they do keep it encrypted or don’t install updates, whatever they think won’t get them caught and lets hope they post this useful information of how smart they are so law enforcement knows where to direct their energy, cause that just helps technology like this locate them 🙂
I see a major flaw in this. Surely in order to find images on peoples’ computers, you need to infect them with a worm first. Unless Microsoft publishes one, you are unable to see your pictures from outside unless you are a user of Internet Explorer (yay ActiveX).
Child pornographers are probably seeing all this -hype- about it (major mistake right there) and will refuse to install the Microsoft update or just disconnect themselves from the Internet during the search.
Although you may catch a few, I doubt the damage will be significant and exploiting children will continue unhindered.
Amirite?
really nice post, and helpful
well im going to prison. not because i have child porn, but because that program is gonna screw over anyone with pornographic images of naked, short, small breasted women.