Tuesday 8th of June 2021

Sex offender targeted 2,000 victims online

  • A “sadistic paedophile” targeted almost 2,000 victims online, blackmailing them into sending him degrading images of themselves and abusing others.
  • Abdul Elahi, of Birmingham, also ran encrypted digital “master classes to train paedophiles” to avoid detection, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.
  • At Birmingham Crown Court, he admitted 158 offences against 79 victims.
  • The NCA said it was “some of the most sickening sexual offending” it had seen and that the scale was “industrial”.
  • Detectives, who believe there are many more victims, said the 26-year-old would operate by targeting people across the world on so-called ‘sugar daddy’ websites, promising thousands for posed images
  • “The extent of the offences is almost unheard of…” said CPS prosecutor Sarah Ingram. “This level of depravity is shocking and will impact the victims for their whole lives.”
  • For the full story, select here.

 

Violent messages sent from one primary school pupil to another

  • Furious parents have demanded a Milton Keynes primary school take action after a pupil sent a message via social to a classmate threatening her with a knife.
  • The child wrote to another child: “Hello, I have your address. I’m coming to your house. Are you alone? You are. I’m outside your house. I’m coming for you.”
  • There were then emojis of a long-bladed knife and hand showing a middle finger before the message continued: “I have a knife. Haha ha, I see you. Come with me or die.”
  • According to parents, the child who received the messages was left terrified, and the school involved is refusing to do anything or involve safeguarding professionals.
  • A spokesman for the council said tonight: “Staff at the school acted quickly to separate the pupils involved and will follow all appropriate safeguarding procedures.”
  • For the full story, select here.

Researchers call for change in Cocos Island Top-Level Internet Domain to protect children.

  • The .cc internet domain for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands should be claimed by the Australian government to stop it being abused by scammers and people hosting child abuse websites, Australian National University researchers have said.
  • Under the system that governs domain names on the internet, the .cc suffix was set up in the 1990s for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands territory, far off the coast of Western Australia.
  • Due to it being one of the cheapest domains to buy websites, the .cc suffix is one of the most commonly used top-level domains for hosting child abuse material, the ANU lecturer Dr James Mortsensen and the PhD researcher Samuel Bashfield wrote in Policy Forum on Tuesday.
  • The Internet Watch Foundation ranked .cc in the top 10 of most-abused top-level domains in 2019 for hosting child sexual abuse material but it dropped out of the top 10 in 2020.
  • For the full story, select here.

    Apple continues to fight for privacy with app tracker reports

    • Apple device users will now be able to see when individual apps request access to features such as the microphone, camera, photo gallery, and which third parties they have connected with in the last seven days.
    • The new “app privacy report” feature was unveiled at the firm’s annual developers’ conference, WWDC.
    • Apple has prioritised privacy lately, including a war on ad-tracking.
    • For the full story, select here.
    • To learn more about Apple’s other privacy settings, read our recent article here.