How to... fight pedos without actually helping them

This sounds like a very simple thing, yet Anonymous failed at it every single time they attempted it. Since I acknowledge their good intentions (of course e-fame plays a major role, too) and am also aware of the importance of this matter, I decided to write a how-to to help them direct their energy to useful paths.

Table of Contents

1. WHAT!? WHY DO YOU SAY WE FAILED?
2. Preparations
3. Things to avoid at all costs
4. Things to keep in mind

1. WHAT?! WHY DO YOU SAY WE FAILED? 

Because you did. All Anon actions against pedos I’m aware of totally backfired or were highly questionable. Some simply framed people as pedos, just to rake in some e-fame or to silence enemies. Others post IP’s and demanded their “Anonfamily” to attack this alleged pedos without ANY proof, details or whatever.

A short list of Anon’s operations

• Fake Lulzsec hack, framing 7,5k people and spam-bots as pedos in order to get e-fame. They uploaded child porn in order to make their lies a bit less obvious.
• A “Pedo cop” was attacked and harassed by some Anons who either wanted to frame a cop or were too preoccupied with looking at the scantily clad underaged girls to actually read the mails. Those explained that the picture was part of an investigation against the ex-boy-friend of one of the girls.
• #OpDarknet. Epic fail op that not only tipped off the criminals, but also destroyed evidence, rendered the collected data useless and tried to frame unrelated people as members of a pedo site. Even the involved Anons acknowledge this. One wrote an apology to one of the framed people.
• PedoCop reloaded. Cabincr3w found a joke mail and screamed “pedo!”. They wrote an apology. After being scolded long enough. Good cabincr3w. *pat pat*.
• Anon @VizFoSho and others spread dox of an enemy that tried to frame said enemy as a pedo. His crime: Being an operator in a teen chat. While being a teen.
• #TwitterPedoRing. Had good intentions but couldn’t resist the attempt to rake in e-fame. Tipped off the people they reported with several bragging pastebin files and twitter posts. Most likely lead to destruction of evidence and maybe even hindered existing investigations.

 You get the picture. That’s why this How-To is so terribly necessary. Not only for people who want to actively target online-pedos, but also for those who avidly spread the informations others give them. Mostly without ever checking the facts and even attacking those, that point out blatant lies or errors.

2. Preparations

 “Be prepared, be prepared, this lesson must be shared, this lesson must be shared to be prepared…”

                                                      - TheGoat from Hoodwinked!

A good preparation is the base for success. Here a short list of what to consider for your planned Op:

- Read laws. Especially if you are from the USA you should keep in mind that not all countries have the same age of consent. In many European countries the age of consent is 16. Not debating that people who look for such teenagers are creeps (they are!), but they do nothing illegal. Targeting them based on USA laws doesn’t make that much sense. Instead of collecting incriminating evidence, like for example Hawkeye tried, you just waste your time flirting with a pedophile. Also there are other legal things that should be considered.

- Get to know your team. This stuff is sensitive matter, you don’t want a person in your team that, for example, thinks it funny to slip in the name of his least favorite teacher. #OpDarknet had someone in the team who did exactly that sort of thing. This also means: No “everyone who wants to post stuff can send it to us!” calls in Twitter or IRC. This means to delay the e-fame raking. If that’s a problem for you, you shouldn’t do an op.

- Organize your team and get everyone to acknowledge the rules. Make sure everyone knows the right procedure and doesn’t ruin the op out of silly, selfish reasons. Assign everyone a task for which they are responsible. Appoint, as a group, at least one person who isn’t involved in the actual work, but serves your group as a quality control agent. This position requires the person to verify information, proof read texts and to remind the others if they stray from the group's codex. This person actually has to look HARD for possible problems. Simple cheering isn't enough.

- Set a procedure for dealing with found pedophiles. Look up which police addresses to contact and how to preserve evidence without incriminating yourself OR compromising the evidence. Since you are Anons, you might want to find a way for this which allows you to stay anonymous. Maybe assign one person as contact person. Set a procedure for documenting all your research results. Not only those that are interesting for sensationalists.

3. Things to avoid at all costs

Don’t brag.

Seriously, don’t brag.

And never brag.

At least not until you HAVE something to brag about, which would be an arrested pedo.

Also all other ways of tipping pedophiles off are a bad idea. This includes threats, open pillorying and trolling. 
 

Don’t think that it’s a funny game. It’s about peoples life and you should act sensible and sane. Don’t endanger victims by carelessly enraging the abusers. Don’t publish ANYTHING before you are 100% sure. Take what you do seriously, it’s not about you and your e-fame.

Don’t ruin investigations. Even if #Seabitches were sensible enough to not mention the name or handle of the person in question, posting such a thing too early could have ruined the efforts of the police. Also, if a policemen supplies you with information about the criminal, check first if it’s OK to share them. In some countries such details (like court record or previous investigations) are confidential and usually not to be shared with outsiders. Revealing that such information was given to you can, under circumstances, give the criminal “ammunition” for his legal case. Or he could even press charges against the police. 

Avoid sensationalism. Treat this problematic topic with decency and respect for the victim's privacy.

4. Things to keep in mind

You are not the police.

You have literally no executive power over other people. This is not “unfair”, but a necessary restriction in society to prevent angry mobs that don’t question even such ridiculous accusations like the one VizFoSho spread.

Evidence is a tricky thing. If you access the E-Mail-account of those people or their data, the evidence you gather is most likely completely useless. Even worse: It is compromised and can’t be used in court. This may sound unfair, but keep in mind that Anonymous falsely accused over 7500 people of being pedo, while the list of the rightfully accused people is rather short. Random people from the internet that carry said Anonymous banner are usually not considered a reliable source. Evidence is only evidence if police and court can be sure that no one tampered with it.

Evidence also can be destroyed. The evidence you gathered is most likely just a small piece of what really is there. Also, like I said above, the evidence you gathered will, most likely, not be very helpful. Tipping off pedophiles can cause them to wipe their hard drives or even change their computers. If there is no computer matching the data, the criminal could claim someone else used his unprotected w-LAN, for example.

That’s why it is vital that the criminal doesn’t know that you reported him and the original evidence can be gathered by the police. #Seabitches claimed that Twitter logs stuff and that this stuff would be accepted as evidence. Even if this works, you don’t want the criminal to erase the rest of his crimes. Just like you don’t want a heroine dealer to flush away 90% of his drugs. The amount of found evidence can be important for the verdict the criminal faces.

Never rush releases. Talk them through, check facts, criticize each other if necessary. And always wait until your actions lead to the desired effect. In this case an arrest. Be patient, it may take a while for the police to verify your data and to maybe monitor the criminal or even set up a trap for him. Again, this is not necessarily a sign for a broken system, but for a system that tries to respect the in dubio pro reo principle. 

Learn from the mistakes other people made, don't reproduce them.

You also may disrupt an existing undercover police investigation if you carelessly attack. That's why you should inform the police first.

If you hinder police investigations, you risk that kids will suffer for longer or won't be rescued at all. And you will be responsible for that.

Thanks for reading, 
Justice Duck