Google block will not stop child porn, experts warn - Telegraph.co.uk ~ Electronic Gadgets

Dr Joss Wright, a research fellow at the Oxford Internet institute at the University of Oxford, said: "The first thing to remember is that Google is the search engine, not the Internet. The only thing that they are going to be able to block is things coming up in their search; they can't take it down from the Internet.

"It is only going to work for the search engine, and when you get down it how many people are actually going to Google looking for child abuse images? If they are searching for it they will now just go to search engine A or B."

Dr Wright, who recently wrote a report on cybercrime for the UN, said that paedophiles tend to use encrypted systems such as emails rather than websites to share child pornography.

"Does it really have a significant effect," he asked. "Are there really a significant number of people Googling child porn? I am not convinced it is going to have a huge impact."

His fears were echoed by child protection campaigners, who warned that the reforms fail to tackle the "dark corners of the Internet" away from the public search engines.

Former Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) chief executive Jim Gamble said: "I don't think this will make any difference with regard to protecting children from paedophiles.

"They don't go on to Google to search for images. They go on to the dark corners of the Internet on peer-to-peer websites."

However, Mr Cameron is due to announce a joint US and British task force to track down those who operate on the so-called "dark web" and hide behind complex encryption systems.

Google said that their restrictions will be launched in the UK first, before being expanded to other English-speaking countries and 158 other languages in the next six months.

A further 13,000 search terms linked with child sex abuse will flash up with warnings from Google and charities telling the user that the content could be illegal and pointing them towards help.

Google and Microsoft, who cover 95 per cent of the market, had originally argued against the very principle of blocking the material, claiming it could not and should not be done.

But new algorithms, sets of instructions for software, have now been developed which block illegal pornography and pathways to illegal content. Alongside the 100,000 blocked terms system is designed to pick up on new code words or terms paedophiles start to use and block them too.

However, this is a process which has proved almost impossible in other situations, Dr Wright said.

"If you block a certain word people will find a way around it. If you look at China every time they block a word a new one pops up.

"It is an endless spiral and it is an ongoing process of change. The trouble really comes when the amount things you have to block to be up to date means you start to ban innocuous things.

"If paedophiles start referring to abuse images as cake you can't block cake from Internet searches."

He said that the only way to truly remove child abuse images was to take them down from the source, and prosecute those who are responsible.

Google has also developed the technology to tag illegal images and videos so that all duplicates can be removed across the Internet.

Dr Wright said that when you change an image slightly, for example resizing it, it becomes a completely new file.

Although technology has the capability of detecting this new file, it runs the risk of over-blocking images, so people could end up seeing their innocent holiday images removed, or under-blocking, so that there is a false sense of security about what is available.

Those involved in copyright law have been looking into using similar technology for years.

But when it came to images of child abuse image "people agree it is best to be heavy handed", Dr Wright said, so as long as the companies have the balance correct it is likely to be successful.

Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman, has admitted that "no algorithm is perfect", but he has pledged that his company would "do everything in our power to protect children from harm."

The Internet companies will work alongside the National Crime Agency and the Internet Watch Foundation to target "peer to peer" file sharing networks which paedophiles use to contact each other.

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