Biden advocated the adoption of more aggressive techniques yesterday at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing about child exploitation on the Internet.
The software, called “Operation Fairplay,” allows officers to download suspected contraband files from P2P networks and then identify the IP address of the computer on which the files were stored, and sometimes the general location of the computers themselves. They then request more detailed information from ISPs, which they hope will lead them to a suspect.
Special Agent Flint Waters, who works in the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office, developed Operation Fairplay two years ago. Waters, part of a federal program called the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which consists of 59 law enforcement agencies nationwide, said that Operation Fairplay is being used by law enforcement agencies across the U.S. and in 18 other countries, including England, France and Sweden.
According to a CNET article posted yesterday, “Investigators [using Operation Fairplay] have recorded more than 642,000 ‘unique serial numbers’ that can be traced to the United States and another 650,000 of them that cannot be traced to a particular country, with the number of unique serial numbers rising steadily each month since ‘widespread capturing’ of the details began in October 2005.”
During the committee session, Biden nonetheless expressed his frustration that too few personnel and other resources were being earmarked to deal with the unlawful exchange of child pornography in the United States, and pushed for the passage of S.1738, the Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2007, which would, among other things, “increase resources for regional computer forensic labs, and to make other improvements to increase the ability of law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute predators.”
"We can get our arms around it, the worst aspect of it, if we provide the resources," Biden said.
In response to critics of the program, Waters has asserted that no one is trying to demonize P2P networks, just those who use it for illegal purposes.
“Blaming this problem on peer-to-peer innovation is like blaming the interstate highway system when someone uses it to transport drugs," he said.