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I mentioned this awhile back when a similar topic came up. Awhile back I wrote a small crawler/search engine for onion sites that didn't log visitor info, just

I mentioned this awhile back when a similar topic came up. Awhile back I wrote a small crawler/search engine for onion sites that didn't log visitor info, just the search terms. After about a week if running I went back to see what people were searching for and the majority of it was child porn. I was totally shocked. I had anticipated cracking and warez type stuff but not child porn, or at least not at the levels I was seeing. I shut down the app after that :(

mynewtb 10y ago
Maybe it was 50% law enforcement and 49% journalists?
- hackermailman 10y ago
  I always assume when some vandal/vigilante takes down a service is that they're just interfering with an investigation to actually catch these criminals instead of scattering them to new unknown services. Reminds me when Assad, early in the Syrian war was using an insecure private email server to dictate all actions of the military and police, which some idiots discovered so decided to spam it with threats and he shut it down. Meanwhile the opposition (before they became foreign terrorists) had also broken into the server and were able to counter the military and police actions against them until they lost this golden intelligence source from the idiotic actions of vigilantes purporting to be on their side.
  - ycmbntrthrwaway 10y ago
    > Reminds me when Assad, early in the Syrian war How persuasive is your example depends on which side the reader takes in this war. (I don't take either)
    - hackermailman 10y ago
      You can be pro-Syrian government and still see from that example how naive vigilantism can screw your cause more than it does your enemies. A different example would be some terrorist run Telegram channel full of Assad moles who lost their intel access because pro-Assad vigilantes successfully managed to guess a password and showed up to spam shutting the channel down. I'd bet on this Tor host being an active sting operation considering the fate of the previous one, FreedomHosting.
    - celticninja 10y ago
      The point made is valid regardless.
herbst 10y ago
Can confirm, had the same shocking experience. But i think its mostly curious people and not actually people who would classify as pedos
- Omnius 10y ago
  I don't follow. If you go looking you have issues. I have never been online and been like "hmm i should see what all this CP hype is all about".
  - herbst 10y ago
    Well in my world view and i could be totally wrong most of these were kids. There are A LOT of kids on the darknet. Looking for free steam keys was one of the other dominant searches i noticed.

mynewtb 10y ago

Maybe it was 50% law enforcement and 49% journalists?

hackermailman 10y ago
I always assume when some vandal/vigilante takes down a service is that they're just interfering with an investigation to actually catch these criminals instead of scattering them to new unknown services. Reminds me when Assad, early in the Syrian war was using an insecure private email server to dictate all actions of the military and police, which some idiots discovered so decided to spam it with threats and he shut it down. Meanwhile the opposition (before they became foreign terrorists) had also broken into the server and were able to counter the military and police actions against them until they lost this golden intelligence source from the idiotic actions of vigilantes purporting to be on their side.
- ycmbntrthrwaway 10y ago
  > Reminds me when Assad, early in the Syrian war How persuasive is your example depends on which side the reader takes in this war. (I don't take either)
  - hackermailman 10y ago
    You can be pro-Syrian government and still see from that example how naive vigilantism can screw your cause more than it does your enemies. A different example would be some terrorist run Telegram channel full of Assad moles who lost their intel access because pro-Assad vigilantes successfully managed to guess a password and showed up to spam shutting the channel down. I'd bet on this Tor host being an active sting operation considering the fate of the previous one, FreedomHosting.
  - celticninja 10y ago
    The point made is valid regardless.

herbst 10y ago

Can confirm, had the same shocking experience. But i think its mostly curious people and not actually people who would classify as pedos

Omnius 10y ago
I don't follow. If you go looking you have issues. I have never been online and been like "hmm i should see what all this CP hype is all about".
- herbst 10y ago
  Well in my world view and i could be totally wrong most of these were kids. There are A LOT of kids on the darknet. Looking for free steam keys was one of the other dominant searches i noticed.