HELLO AUSTRALIA

On March 19th, I head to Australia and then to New Zealand. Getting pretty excited about the trip. Just read this online this morning. -Craig

The 50-year-old from Melton will face court this week on counts of possession and transmission of child pornography.
The man was among 22 people arrested in Australia, the United States, England, Canada and Germany.
His computer was seized in November last year and has undergone detailed forensic examination.
The Herald Sun online understands one other Australian has been arrested.

The Melton man was arrested by detectives from the Victoria Police sexual crime squad's internet child exploitation team.
He was bailed in an out-of-sessions hearing before a bail justice and will appear for a filing hearing in Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Friday.

Authorities involved in the international investigation have identified and rescued 20 of the children featured in more than 400,000 pictures, video files and other images.

Some of the children, aged as young as five, were portrayed engaged in sexual behaviour.

The images were traded and distributed globally in the online pornography ring, according to US and international authorities.

Queensland police Detective Chief Superintendent Ross Barnett said Australian investigators discovered the ring and infiltrated it under cover in 2006.

“From our perspective, it’s definitely the largest and most sophisticated and disciplined group that we have ever seen operating in this environment,” Supt Barnett said.

US authorities will not say how they eventually broke through several layers of encryption, background checks and other security measures the pornographers used to protect their online user group from being accessed.

The porn ring was run like a business, FBI executive assistant director J. Stephen Tidwell said today, with the lewd images used as currency instead of cash.

“This is beyond a quantum exponential leap for us to see folks that have gone to this much trouble to produce this kind of volume of horrific exploitation of children,'' Mr Tidwell said.

Viewers could gain access to the online forum only after passing a series of what Mr Tidwell called “various benchmarks and bars to get over to get into their group”.

He admitted that “with 400,000 (images) we’re going to be at this for years, trying got find the victims''.

skrose wrote on March 5th 08 at 08:37AM

craig...hope this is part of your low information diet

Suricou Raven wrote on March 5th 08 at 09:46AM

50 year old from Melton?

Thats too much info - its enough for anyone who notices their 50 year old neighbour has been out of town to put it together. I dont care how serious the charges are - noone who is accused of any sex related crime should have their identity made so easily available until *after* they have been convicted - otherwise, even someone who is found innocent in court is still going to face the lynch mob once they get home, and probably be forced to move to another state to escape the stigma, even if they did nothing wrong at all. Innocent until proven guilty, remember.

Joel wrote on March 5th 08 at 10:46PM

I'm not sure I entirely agree with that last comment. I mean to say that I do agree to some extent, and I certainly wouldn't want to be accused publicly of anything as terrible as this if I were innocent, but if you imagine the great lengths to which these people have gone to obtain access into the group, there must be all KINDS of records of their names, addresses, phone numbers, aliases, job histories, etc. I'm not convinced it's possible in a case like that to BE innocent of the crime? Maybe my perspective is wrong. At any rate, I'm glad they've cracked this group's shell and are putting an end to it. That's amazing. Glory to God!

Cameron wrote on March 6th 08 at 01:03AM

Melton is quite a big suburb here in Melbourne Australia!! I dont think you could indentify someone from that information.

Suricou Raven wrote on March 7th 08 at 02:03PM

"Melton is quite a big suburb here in Melbourne Australia!! I dont think you could indentify someone from that information."

Wouldn't need to. Every fifty year old male in the suburb could be getting suspicious looks by now.

And Joel... it is perfectly possible for an innocent person to be accused. Aside from the possibility of police or ISP error, what about pedophiles who use stolen credit card details to cover their tracks, or trojans on someone else's computer? Mistakes happen. Innocent until proven guilty demands that the identities of the accused remain secret until after they are convicted.

David wrote on March 10th 08 at 08:10PM

I agree with Suricou Raven on that particularly in today's legal and political environment that ensures that anyone found guilty of such a crime will never be able to put it behind them - at least not in this life. We should at least give people the benefit of the doubt and their privacy until they are indeed found guilty. Supposedly the legal standard, at least in America, is innocent until proven guilty. The media delights in destroying peoples lives when they are merely suspected of a crime. I think that is wrong.