Pain That Hurts and Pain That Alters
Technologically Speaking Podcast: Season 2, Episode 3. This episode discusses sensitive topics including violence against children. Listener discretion is strongly advised.This is the first episode in a two-part series on how S&T is working to combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse. Host John Verrico is joined by Patricia (Patty) Wolfhope, subject matter expert in digital forensic systems, for an eye-opening discussion of the scope of this insidious threat and why developing tools to enhance law enforcement effectiveness is a top priority for the Department. Though some of the descriptions of what takes place on the dark web are very dark indeed, audiences will also leave this episode more aware of how to recognize signs of online exploitation and sextortion. The second part of this two-part series features Patty’s colleague, Shane Cullen, who will delve deeper into additional aspects of S&T’s digital forensics portfolio. Shows notes:
- Feature Article: S&T Tech Leads to Children Rescued and Traffickers Arrested
- Feature Article: DHS S&T and HSI Collaborate on Technologies to Save Children from Abuse and Exploitation
- When speaking about facial recognition, Patty mentioned “the IARPA program Janus.” The Janus algorithms were developed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) program.
- Information, resources, and conversation guides about how sextortion works and how to talk to your children about it are available at ICE.gov/Sextortion.
- To report online child exploitation, call the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678).
- The NCMEC has outlined tips for parents and young people if they or their child face sextortion, including:
- Remember, the predator is to blame, not your child or you.
- Get help before deciding whether to pay money or otherwise comply with the predator. Cooperating or paying rarely stops the blackmail and continued harassment.
- REPORT the predator's account via the platform's safety feature.
- BLOCK the predator and DO NOT DELETE the profile or messages because that can be helpful to law enforcement in identifying and stopping them.
- Let NCMEC help get explicit images of you off the internet.
- Visit MissingKids.org/IsYourExplicitContentOutThere to learn how to notify companies yourself or visit cybertipline.org to contact us for help with the process.
- Ask for help. This can be a very complex problem and may require help from adults or law enforcement.
- If you don't feel that you have adults in your corner, you can reach out to NCMEC for support at gethelp@ncmec.org.
- Technologically Speaking Podcast
- Recorded on: January 4, 2023
