QLD Police crack peer-to-peer networks

The agency said Wednesday that the 30-member taskforce set up to combat child pornography, codenamed Argos, had made its first arrest using the p2p cracking kit.

Taskforce representatives, police from other jurisdictions and agencies and prosecutors received training from US law enforcement this week on strategies for investigating the sharing of child exploitation material (CEM) on p2p networking sites.

During a training session on Tuesday, it is alleged that investigators identified that a Brisbane resident had been making CEM available to p2p users.

A subsequent search warrant executed on a 53-year-old man's residence allegedly turned up a "large quantity of CEM" on a computer in the house.

The man was charged with one count each of using a carriage service to access child pornography material, using a carriage service to make child pornography material available, possession of child exploitation material and make child exploitation material.

Appearing on ABC1's Q&A program last night, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy used the development as an example of the existence of technology that was being used to actively target the sharing of objectionable content over secure connections.

He accepted that the mandatory Internet filters proposed by the Government will not be able to monitor or block p2p links - but saw the use of tools such as the Queensland Police's new kit as examples of how agencies were cracking down on non-HTTP channels.