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.

      • Ep1cFac3pa1m@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        27
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        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
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          13
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          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
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            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

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    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.

  • einkorn@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    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
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      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.

  • Moonrise2473@feddit.it
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    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

  • Lucy :3@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    arrow-down
    23
    ·
    edit-2
    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.

      • Nollij@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        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.

        • Lucy :3@feddit.org
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          1 month ago

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