Justifiable Hacking? Anonymous Reports Destroying Child Porn Destination, Lolita City

We’ve wandered into interesting ethical territory involving child pornography. The hacker group that dubbed itself “Anonymous” claims to have busted an online child pornography ring called Lolita City, one among more than 40 darknet sites it says it has targeted. The group released more than 1500 user names, making them, and other data it culled, available to the public. According to its Pastebin document, Anonymous also found the identities of several members of the group, and has offered the information to various law enforcement agencies worldwide.

Anonymous says it started looking at the darknet, or hidden internet that is not crawled by search engines, after reading Wired’s expose on the Silk Road. Reports Wired, anyone can buy any type of drug on this unseen web. The hackers looked into the Hidden Wiki and found “Hard Candy,” described as an area for people with sexual interest in children. Anonymous removed the links, but, it says, they were replaced within five minutes.

And so it began.

Granted, this story is the type difficult to verify. Though the owner of Lolita City reportedly sought out the hackers and threatened them with the Russian mob after they caused a denial of service, we only have the group’s word to take; it’s unlikely that the proprietor of a child pornography community would bring his concerns to the FBI or his country’s equivalent.

But the concept of the story is nearly more important than the story itself. Anonymous is best known for its threat to bring down Facebook, yet here it is in a cyber-war with people most of us would find reprehensible, if we could find them. And Anonymous says that they have found them and will continue to look for more.

Is it OK for this group to take down servers if what the servers hold is far more harmful than the hacking itself? They are acting as vigilantes for the most vulnerable among us, driven by the same revulsion and anger that the rest of us feel at the thought of what happens to these children, how they are being viewed, how the pornography is made and how it can spur more abuse. A quick look through their list of missives on the subject demonstrates this reaction.

Even more interestingly, could the hackers, if their identities were uncovered, be legally prosecuted for their cyber-attacks on these child pornography sites? Should they be? That could send us down a slope that allows hacking if the climate is right. Or, if they are prosecuted, it could tie the hands people with the skills to prevent the spread of child pornography.

It’s a complicated issue with a whole lot of gray. We have a group that breaks the law, and yet it used that breach to help society as a whole, and children in particular. If that is where they want to use their considerable talents, well, best of luck, and may all the targets’ IP addresses be readily traced.


People also view

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *