Integrating new services for ICAC* Investigators
* Internet Crimes Against Children
Today, we launch a new concept for ICAC Investigators to search for data online. By integrating some of the most innovative online investigation services into Paliscope, you will not only be able to work more efficiently, but also uncover more clues and evidence online.
When we started to develop Paliscope, we had a clear picture of what we wanted it to be. A software that helps make online investigations more effective, structured and secure – regardless of type of investigation. Now, we want Paliscope to incorporate the knowledge and experience we’ve gathered from working with law enforcement – and especially child sexual abuse investigators. So, we came up with the ICAC Package.
What is the ICAC package?
The ICAC Package is an integration of some of the most frequently used services by investigators working with Internet Crimes Against Children. There are some really great services for online investigations already out there, so we thought why not integrate them into Paliscope, and merge all the stages of having to use different stand-alone tools in order to find and collect evidence online? Well, we thought it, and we did it.
As a result, four new services have been integrated into Paliscope: The Arachnid Web Crawler, CameraForensics and Web-IQ.
These services in combination enable users to search for more clues online – no matter the type of clue. Let’s say you have a username that you want to investigate. By using Web-IQ you can now search for more information about this username on the dark web. With CameraForensics, it is also possible to use the EXIF data to search for other similar images online, based on location, camera serial number etc. You can also scan the web using Project Arachnid to find out if an image exists elsewhere online. By doing this you can find new places online where previously unknown material – and more clues – can be found.
The services
Project Arachnid
Project Arachnid discovers child sexual abuse material (CSAM) by crawling URLs previously reported to Cybertip.ca, or directly into the Arachnid API. The integration with Paliscope facilitates the work to match already collected images against Arachnid’s database of known URLs to find the online locations of the image, which could lead to more associated images being found (e.g. from the same image series or taken by the same camera).
CameraForensics
CameraForensics is a tool that indexes imagery across the web to match online and offline personas. Their growing database of over two billion images can link devices, similar images, locations, EXIF data and other metadata. Integrated into Paliscope, investigators will be able to match the collected data directly against the CameraForensics database to find more clues online.
Web-IQ
Web-IQ searches through the Darknet to find active child sexual abuse forums. With the integration to Paliscope, investigators can simply cross-reference usernames and other intel with hundreds of thousands of forum profiles and millions of posts. The Web-IQ database is continuously updated, and together with a historical archive, it enables the investigator to find more information about victims and suspects and get a grip on what is happening on the Darknet.
The ICAC Package will be available at the beginning of next year.
You’re welcome to contact us if you want to know more.
Shortly we will also integrate services for law enforcement and the private sector.
