The creator and lead administrator of a highly sophisticated Tor-network-based website dedicated to the sexual abuse of children was sentenced Friday, along with three others, for their roles in this global child exploitation enterprise. Patrick D. Falte, 29, of Franklin, Tennessee, was sentenced to 35 years in prison for engaging in a child exploitation enterprise, three counts of advertising child pornography, and three counts of distributing child pornography. Benjamin A. Faulkner, 28, of Ontario, Canada, was sentenced to 35 years in prison; Andrew R. Leslie, 24, of Middleburg, Florida, was sentenced to 30 years ... (full story)

Four men from across the U.S. and Canada were sentenced to decades in prison for running what the Justice Department called a “highly sophisticated” encrypted underground network for trading child pornography. The Justice Department said the four convicted men ran a “global child exploitation enterprise” called “The Giftbox Exchange” on the open-source Tor Network, which uses an overlay network for directing internet traffic, obfuscating the details, locations and identities of those using it. The website was paid for through bitcoin transactions, and the men “used other advanced technological means to thwart law ... (full story)