The Internet, child pornography and cloud computing: the dark side of the web?

Abstract

The advent of cloud-computing technology, the much-heralded development of remote and multilayered storage, presents a multiplicity of likely opportunities for potential criminal behaviour, and corresponding challenges to lawyers and regulators. One area of note in this context is the so-called ‘deepnet’ – Internet content, although theoretically accessible, is not indexed via usual search engine means, only being detectable via software such as ‘the Onion Router’ – the distribution of files over multiple nodes to facilitate their de-encryption. This article argues that this development, in conjunction with the utilisation of the cloud-computing techniques of establishing hosting facilities on demand, presents specific new challenges to those charged with combating a range of nefarious on-line activities of interest to law enforcers. In particular, this article will focus on the online propagation of pornographic material, and the additional difficulties of detection and criminal regulation posed by the deepnet. It will be argued that not only is detection rendered more difficult by virtue of the marriage of the technological development of the Deepnet, and tools for access to it such as the Onion Router with ‘the Cloud,' but also that effective policing is hindered, not least by the adoption of outdated and inappropriate policing and regulatory practices, this latter point being analysed via regulatory theory. Finally, this article contends that, in the technological medium in hand, alternative regulatory methods – including an increased focus upon regulation by user groups – rather than being discouraged, profitably could be employed in order to effect a realistic and sustainable regulatory framework.