ISIS: Protecting children in online social networks

ISIS项目的目的是制定一个以道德为中心的监测框架和工具，以支持执法机构为保护儿童而对在线社交网络进行监管。该项目将开发自然语言分析技术，以帮助从聊天记录和监测机制中识别恋童癖者，这些机制可以非侵入性地连接到文件共享系统，以识别虐待儿童媒体的分发者。将严格研究与此类监测活动有关的道德操守问题，并将这些问题持续反馈到框架和工具的制定过程中。该项目的成果将由儿童剥削和在线保护中心作为其自身警务活动的一部分加以使用和评估。近年来，在线社交网络的数量和使用迅速增加，例如，聊天和文件共享系统。这些社交网络在剥削儿童方面构成两大风险：1.儿童积极参与聊天室和网络社区。恋童癖者可以利用这些论坛来预测儿童（Lee Costi的被捕和定罪[Guardian，23/06/06]），甚至计划与恋童癖有关的活动（恋童癖者使用这些系统计划虐待儿童的定罪[Guardian，6/02/07]）。这些关切反映在虚拟全球工作队的成立、CEOP的启动以及苏格兰立法将在聊天室"培养"儿童定为刑事犯罪。恋童癖者传播和分享虐待儿童的媒体恋童癖者可以利用文件分享系统等机制建立自己的社交网络，以传播和分享虐待儿童的媒体。兰开斯特大学最近的一项研究发现，Gnutella点对点网络上1.6%的搜索和2.4%的回复与非法性内容（包括虐待儿童的媒体）有关。考虑到系统的规模，这些结果表明，仅在Gnutella网络上，每秒就会发生数百次非法图像搜索。Isis旨在解决这方面的三大研究挑战：1。如何在网络社区中识别活跃的恋童癖者？恋童癖者经常伪装成儿童，以便与潜在受害者建立联系并取得他们的信任。区分儿童之间或儿童与成人之间的无辜互动与这种掠夺性的进步是一项重要的任务。与此同时，恋童癖者可能使用多个在线身份，已知的恋童癖者可能在一个网络中被发现后转移到其他在线社交网络。因此，至关重要的是，一旦在一个网络中发现了恋童癖者，就可以在他/她可能试图用来培养儿童的其他网络中成功地发现他/她。2.如何识别虐童媒体的核心传播者？关键的研究挑战是从文件共享系统中存在的过多的完全法律的材料中准确地识别虐待儿童的媒体。恋童癖者经常使用专门的词汇来描述他们共享的媒体/随着时间的推移而演变和变化的词汇/并在不同的文件共享网络上操作。任何监控框架都必须能够非侵入性地连接到现有的文件共享系统，因为目前有大量的此类系统和客户端可用。这种监测工具还必须能够区分这类媒体的核心传播者和纯粹的用户，以帮助执法机构从根本上解决问题。如何确保这种发展保持道德做法？这种监测和分析技术的发展提出了一些道德挑战，涉及以有益的方式利用框架和工具保护儿童，同时保护在线社交网络的无辜用户并维护他们的隐私。

The aim of the Isis project is to develop an ethics-centred monitoring framework and tools for supporting law enforcement agencies in policing online social networks for the purpose of protecting children. The project will develop natural language analysis techniques to help identify paedophiles from chat logs and monitoring mechanisms that can be non-invasively attached to file sharing systems for identifying the distributors of child abuse media. The ethical issues associated with such monitoring activities will be rigorously studied and consistently fed back into the development of the framework and tools. The project results will be used and evaluated by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) centre as part of their own policing activities.Recent years have seen a rapid rise in the number and use of online social networks, e.g., chat and file sharing systems. These social networks pose two significant risks in terms of child exploitation:1. Paedophiles predating on childrenChildren actively participate in chat rooms and web-based communities. Paedophiles can use such forums to predate on children (highlighted by the arrest and conviction of Lee Costi [Guardian, 23/06/06]), or even to plan paedophilia-related activities (illustrated by the conviction of paedophiles who were using such systems to plan child abuse [Guardian, 6/02/07]). These concerns are reflected by the formation of the Virtual Global Taskforce, the launch of the CEOP and Scottish legislation to criminalise the 'grooming' of children in chat rooms.2. Paedophiles distributing and sharing child abuse mediaPaedophiles can formulate their own social networks using mechanisms, such as file-sharing systems, in order to distribute and share child abuse media. A recent study at Lancaster University found that 1.6% of searches and 2.4% of responses on the Gnutella peer-to-peer network relate to illegal sexual content (including child abuse media). Given the system's scale, these results suggest that, on the Gnutella network alone, hundreds of searches for illegal images occur each second. Isis aims to address three major research challenges in this context:1. How to identify active paedophiles across online communities?Paedophiles often masquerade as children in order to establish contact with potential victims and gain their trust. Distinguishing the innocent interaction amongst children or amongst children and adults from such predatory advances is a non-trivial task. At the same time paedophiles may use multiple online identities and known paedophiles may move to other online social networks upon detection in one network. It is, therefore, vital that once a paedophile is detected in one network, s/he can be successfully detected in other networks which s/he may attempt to employ for grooming children. 2. How to identify the core distributors of child abuse media?The key research challenge is to accurately identify child abuse media from the plethora of perfectly legal material that exists within file sharing systems. Paedophiles often use specialised vocabulary to describe their shared media/a vocabulary that evolves and changes over time/and operate over different file sharing networks. Any monitoring framework must be non-invasively attachable to existing file sharing systems given the wealth of such systems and clients available today. Such monitoring tools must also be able to distinguish core distributors of such media from mere users to help law enforcement agencies in tackling the problem at its roots.3. How to ensure that such developments maintain ethical practices?The development of such monitoring and analysis techniques raises a number of ethical challenges pertaining to utilising the framework and tools in a beneficial way for child protection while protecting innocent users of online social networks and safeguarding their privacy.