International Journal of Internet Science

A peer reviewed open access journal for empirical findings, methodology, and theory of social and behavioral science concerning the Internet and its implications for individuals, social groups, organizations, and society.

Temporal Patterns of Pedophile Activity in a P2P Network:
First Insights about User Profiles from Big Data
Raphaël Fournier¹ & Matthieu Latapy^2
1Laboratoire CEDRIC, CNAM Paris, France, ²Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, CNRS, LIP6 UMR 7606, 4 place Jussieu 75005 Paris, France

Abstract: Recent studies have shown that child abuse material is shared through peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, which allow users to exchange files without a central server. Obtaining knowledge on the extent of this activity has major consequences for child protection, policy making and Internet regulation. Previous works have developed tools and analyses to provide overall figures in temporally-limited measurements. Offenders' behavior is mostly studied through small-scale interviews and there is few information on the times at which they engage in such activity. Here we show that the proportion of search-engine queries for pedophile content gradually has grown by a factor of almost 3 in three years. We also find that during the day, certain hours are, on average, privileged by seekers. Our results demonstrate that P2P networks are actively used to search for pedophile content and we find new and large-scale results on pedophile offenders' profile, indicating that a substantial proportion is well-integrated into family life and professional work activities.

Keywords: P2P networks, eDonkey, pedophile activity, user profile, Big Data

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