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Paedophiles who download child pornography are using 'open networks' in Irish hotels to avoid detection, it has emerged.
The Sunday Tribune recently revealed there have been almost 5,000 detections of individuals in Ireland downloading or trading in child pornography over the past six months, with several people accessing illegal images hundreds of times a month.
About 800 computers are used every month to download or trade images of children being abused.
To avoid garda detection, paedophiles often use open internet networks so they cannot be traced. A garda source said open internet networks in hotels, and to a lesser extent B&Bs and pubs, all over the country are frequently being used to download child porn.
But the new Communication (Retention of Data) Bill, which comes into effect in November, will introduce strict rules relating to public Wi-Fi/internet access.
All users in public places, such as hotels, must be identified by a log-in process, and businesses must keep data on all of its internet users for two years.
Hotels that fail to store this data will be fully liable for any illegal browsing activity, and reprimanded for non-compliance.
Criminals who download child porn are currently doing so with relative ease on open networks, a source said. Gardaí are anxiously awaiting the introduction of the new law and say privately that the hotel sector has been "particularly slow" in implementing internet security measures to protect themselves.
"Only a handful of hotels around the country are already compliant with the directive. We are disappointed at how unwilling they have been to tackle this problem. It is a straightforward process to change internet access from an open to a secure network. Many of them may get caught out in November if they do not update their systems. At the moment, hotels are a soft touch," the source added.
Last month, software company TLO, which is based in Florida, provided the Sunday Tribune with detailed information on the number of people trading illegal child pornography, along with their locations. One individual in Dublin was detected 315 times in January downloading or sharing images of the sexual abuse of children. In the same month in Cork, a computer was identified as being involved in the same activity 197 times.
Gardaí are deeply concerned about the levels of trading in Ireland and a detective from the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Investigation Unit recently completed a training seminar run by TLO in Denmark which explained how to use its technology.
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This is nothing new. People wanting to access illegal content have been using open/unsecured/public wifi networks for ages. This is not just limited to public wifi access in hotels. It also goes for other public venues and even more for unsecured private wifi networks with a range extending beyond the walls of peoples houses. The insecurity of wifi routers shipped by the major ISP is an ongoing and well documented problem (http://bit.ly/1YYnOR).
As for public wifi access offered by hotels, cafes and other public venues; there is a completely different issue at play. Under current EU Data retention laws public wifi providers have to retain a certain amount of user data. The only way to do so is by implementing a so-called "one time registration and session authentication system". This means that every user has to register their details with the provider once after which they will be issued with a user name and password. These credentials will then be required every single time that this user wants to access the service. Note: this does not require charging for the service!
One of the main setbacks of this required security is that in quite a few cases it is being implemented in such a ham-fisted way that it makes accessing the services such a chore than people just give up. Only a few wifi service providers have so far managed to implement a user friendly login procedure.
However in the end all this is not foolproof. As there is no requirement to provide authenticated proof of ID when registering for these services all this can be circumvented. It is no more foolproof than requiring people to register prepaid mobile phones. Last but not least even when the user would be required to provide verifyable proof of ID there are lots of ways "mask" your access websites or services. Anonymous proxies are only one. In a non-totalitarian society there is no way to stop a determined offender...