Deep web is new focus of fight against paedophiles

(ANSA) - Syracuse, July 31 - Italian non-profit group Meter, which hunts paedophiles on the internet, said on Friday that the deep web was becoming the new focus of the fight against online child pornography and that criminals were increasingly using Bitcoin as a system of payment.
    The deep web is a section of the Internet that is not indexed by standard search engines. Meter said that about 70,000 child pornography sites in the deep web had been reported to authorities between 2012 and 2014.
    "The deep web is the hidden part of the Internet that has become the ideal place for crime rings," said Meter. "The phenomenon has moved towards this uncontrollable free-zone at an exponential pace." Meter President Fortunato Di Noto said that cases of sexual torture on increasingly young children were rising and that paedophiles were finding it easier to access sites anonymously.
    Huge amounts of transactions are taking place via peer-to-peer system Bitcoin, bypassing intermediaries such as banks so that payments are harder to trace, Meter said.