On-Line Images Of Child Abuse...

[sandyRoe]

Recent revelations of governments spying on their citizens, and those of other countries, prompted the thought that they should use some of their talents to hunt down those making fortunes from images of abuse.
Is the fact that they don't seem to be doing that just down to lack of funding?

[Buenchico]

>>>those making fortunes from images of abuse

While there may have been commercial activity related to child abuse images in the past, the traceability of such activity (through credit card transactions, for example) means that there's probably very little now. Most of the trade in child abuse images is likely to be on a simple peer-to-peer basis (i.e. sharing images, free of charge, among like-minded individuals).

The activities of GCHQ are already used to track down those involved in child exploitation networks:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/operation-tempora-gchq-in-fresh-snooping-row-as-it-eavesdrops-on-phones-and-the-internet-8669137.html

While that, in itself, might be welcomed, it is slightly worrying that an agency using powers which can, by law, only be used in the interests of national security, is actually using those powers for something else. It raises the obvious question about just what else they might be doing which doesn't come under 'national security'.