Web Analytics for Good: Catch Child Pornography Criminals

Reading this article resonated well with my view that web analytics is a tool that can be used for both good and evil. The author was explaining how ad tech is like a gun that can do alot of damage in the hands of the irresponsible. This inspired me to think of ways where web analytics can be used for good; to solve a problem in the real world. My hope is that this article will spark good ideas from you too.

The Problem: Online Child PornographyThe following is an excerpt from Enough is Enough, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to making the Internet safer for children and families.

• Child pornography is one of the fastest growing businesses online, and the content is becoming much worse. In 2008, Internet Watch Foundation found 1,536 individual child abuse domains. (Internet Watch Foundation. Annual Report, 2008).
• Of all known child abuse domains, 58 percent are housed in the United States (Internet Watch Foundation. Annual Report, 2008).
• The fastest growing demand in commercial websites for child abuse is for images depicting the worst type of abuse, including penetrative sexual activity involving children and adults and sadism or penetration by an animal (Internet Watch Foundation. Annual Report, 2008).
• In a study of arrested child pornography possessors, 40 percent had both sexually victimized children and were in possession of child pornography. Of those arrested between 2000 and 2001, 83 percent had images involving children between the ages 6 and 12; 39 percent had images of children between ages 3 and 5; and 19% had images of infants and toddlers under age 3 (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Child Pornography Possessors Arrested in Internet-Related Crimes: Findings from the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study, 2005).
• Child pornography has become a $3 billion annual industry (Top Ten Reviews, 2005).

The Solution:With criminals using the internet, it is vital that the law enforcement and concerned citizens adapt to follow them. Through a collaboration with the Government Agency (e.g., Federal Bureau of Investigation), a honeypot website can be released to trap child pornography criminals. Prior to launch of this project, we shall seek the court’s advice regarding the legality of tracking the visitor without permission once he accesses the honeypot website.

Using collected knowledge regarding the habits and profiles of these criminals, a marketing strategy will be launched to filter people who have malicious intentions. This may require a series of actions from the suspect that demonstrates he arrived and then accessed pornographic materials at the honeypot website, not by accident. The website visitor will be assigned a userID in Google Analytics. Thanks to David Simpson’s workaround so that we don’t violate Google’s terms of service, we can map the user ID stored in Google Analytics to locally stored personally identifiable information (PII) such as name and email address. Additional data can be mined from social networks. The Global Positioning System (GPS) and location of the visitor can be inferred from network signals such as IP address, RFID, WiFi and Bluetooth MAC addresses, and GSM/CDMA cell IDs, as well as user input as Jonatan Heyman has demonstrated. Screenshot of the visitor can be taken inspired by notorious applications of Remote Administration Technology. After sufficient digital evidence has been accumulated, the police can make the arrest within 24 hours or ideally catch the criminal in the act.

Help me improve this project with your comments or steal my idea for your next startup.