THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Interpol will directly train a contingent of tech-savvy police officers from the state to fight groups that source and circulate child pornographic content through encrypted websites and social media platforms. The training will be given by the officers attached with the Interpol’s Crime Against Children Unit and International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.
The training will be held either in Thiruvananthapuram or Kochi in the coming months. About 50 officers, both male and female, will be drawn from the hi-tech cell, cyber cell and the Cyberdome, Cyberdome nodal officer AGDP Manoj Abraham told Express.The Interpol officers will give hands-on training to Kerala cops in ways to crack encrypted sites, tracking the activities of the paedophile gangs operating in cyber space and advanced techniques to detect individuals and groups who source and circulate child pornographic materials.
The Kerala police on Sunday busted a group of people indulging in circulating child porn materials. The raids and arrests were the result of ‘Operation P-Hunt’ and the influence of elite organisation like Interpol in the mission was written all over it. “The tools to unmask culprits’ IP-address were provided by the Interpol. We got in touch with them during the Cocoon cyber conference programme conducted by the Cyberdome in Kochi last year.
They have now informed us they are open to providing more digital tools to fight the child abusers and child porn makers. They were satisfied with our ways of functioning and the dedication we showed towards the cause,” said Manoj.
The technical advancement the police’s cyber crime fighting teams made after aligning with Interpol was very much evident from the way they managed to break into encrypted sites. It’s for the first time Kerala Police managed to penetrate the darknet to crash into the activities of the paedophile groups that hitherto enjoyed total anonymity by operating through anonymity networks like Tor.
“Some of the arrested during the raids were using software like Tor to remain invisible. They thought their anonymity will remain intact and they can never be caught,” Manoj added. Express had earlier reported the Cyberdome has made its presence in the darknet. The police said they will continue with Operation P-Hunt.
Police to check foreign connections of groups circulating child porn
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The police top brass has directed the local SPs to conduct a probe on their own to check whether pornographic images and videos of under-aged girls from the areas falling under their jurisdiction were uploaded into cyberspace. The police on Sunday had arrested as many as 21 people for circulating pornographic contents of children and seized electronic gadgets in which those were stored.
Some of the video clips appeared to have been shot in Kerala and hence there were apprehensions minor girls were abused in this pursuit. Meanwhile, there have been doubts galore over whether the videos have been sold to websites operating anonymously. “We are examining all angles. Those arrested are well-educated and hence there were chances they might have been part of a wide network with extensive contacts.