Posthearing Questions from the September 9, 2003, Hearing on "Pornography, Technology, and Process: Problems and Solutions on Peer-to-Peer Networks" Page: 3 of 5
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We do not know if the volume of child pornography on peer-to-peer networks is
underreported. In our testimony, we cited the number of reports or tips received by the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) as one indication of the
volume of child pornography on peer-to-peer networks and on the Internet in general.
NCMEC, a federally funded nonprofit organization that serves as a national resource
center for information related to crimes against children, operates a CyberTipline that
receives child pornography tips provided by the public; its CyberTipline II receives tips
from Internet service providers. The Exploited Child Unit investigates and processes tips
to determine if the images in question constitute a violation of child pornography laws
and provides investigative leads to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S.
Customs, the Postal Inspection Service, and state and local law enforcement agencies.
As shown in table 1, in 2003 the NCMEC CyberTiplines received over 62,000 Internet-
related reports of child pornography. Of these, 840, or about 1.4 percent, were related to
peer-to-peer networks. However, we do not know if the number of reports received by
NCMEC accurately reflects the volume of child pornography on peer-to-peer networks or
on the Internet in general, since the reports are based on tips that the public or system
users submit rather than a systematic analysis of network content.
Table 1: NCMEC CyberTipline (Internet-Related) Referrals to Law Enforcement Agencies, Fiscal
Years 1998-2003
Number of tips
Technology 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Web sites 1,393 3,830 10,629 18,052 26,759 45,035
E-mail 117 165 120 1,128 6,245 12,403
Peer-to-peer - - - 156 757 840
Usenet newsgroups & 531 987 731 990 993 1,128
bulletin boards
Unknown 90 258 260 430 612 1,692
Chat rooms 155 256 176 125 234 786
Instant Messaging 27 47 50 80 53 472
File transfer protocol 25 26 58 64 23 13
Total 2,338 5,569 12,024 21,025 35,676 62,369
Source: Exploited Child Unit, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
4. Is there something particularly dangerous about the pornography on peer-to-
peer networks, either in the user's ability to share it anonymously or in its
accessibility to children?
The pornography available on peer-to-peer networks is not necessarily more dangerous
than the pornography available on Web sites or through other electronic means of
dissemination. Although some users of peer-to-peer networks might believe that they are
sharing files anonymously, it is possible for law enforcement officials to discover theGAO-04-207R
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United States. General Accounting Office. Posthearing Questions from the September 9, 2003, Hearing on "Pornography, Technology, and Process: Problems and Solutions on Peer-to-Peer Networks", text, November 14, 2003; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc300769/m1/3/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.