KUALA LUMPUR: It is a never-ending race in the Dark Web as thousands of child predators compete with each other by the minute to share the most explicit of pornographic materials.
There is no restraint in the pursuit of their obsession for images and videos of children, some who have not even celebrated their first birthdays.
The websites, shielded by layers of hard-to-break firewalls, are mostly for members only.
Once in, the predators have unbridled access to galleries brimming with the illicit materials.
Some of these child pornography sites would market their live chat rooms as those without “XXX materials”, but there is really no limit to the depravity.
There are also dedicated websites featuring videos with the most horrifying display of sexual manipulation of babies and young children.
Those who are online, confident that their real identities are protected, cheer on.
To the community on these sites, it is just another day of entertaining their twisted sexual desires.
Greetings were aplenty, and everybody was either poking fun at each other or was busy exchanging views and laughter over the materials they had shared.
Closely guarded by the browser’s complex networks of anonymity, the massive collection of images and videos depicting children being abused in so many different ways moves from one user to another with ease.
For new guests, a sidebar is provided beside the main message board for them to read on the manual on how to keep their activities in the website safe from the scrutiny of law enforcement agencies. These are just a few samples of paedophilic websites available on the darker side of the web, undetected and untraceable by normal browsers.
Zack, who has an insight into the world of paedophiles, said these predators failed to recognise that visiting these websites was wrong.
“For them, it is just a space where like-minded people gather.”
His casual remark betrays the reality of how horrible and downright monstrous the actions committed by his peers are.
The age of the children inside the pictures and videos shared by the members range from as young as 1 to 16, and they are all neatly catalogued for easy browsing under the headers of gender, age and positions.
The New Straits Times, in penetrating the Dark Web, learnt that in some of the active forums, paedophilic content come at a price.
Some of the paedophile websites, chatrooms and forums charge users up to US$28 (RM114) for first-time registration.
The Dark Web forms the bedrock for many of the recent controversial and dangerous cyber activities.
In October 2013, Ross William Ulbricht was arrested by the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation for using the Dark Web as a platform to sell drugs worldwide under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts”. The same platform was used by Richard Huckle to spread pornographic images of his victims.
The website where he posted his collection can be accessed only through a specific browser synonymous with the Dark Web.