#Baksabang Hides in "Shelter Servers": One-on-One Transactions to Avoid Police Crackdown

[경향신문]

Videos of sexual exploitation, which were mostly traded on Telegram in the past, are still actively traded on Discord, a voice chatting platform for games. For the past year, the police have concentrated their investigative capacity to put an end to the illegal videos distributed through Discord, but it was not enough stop the crime.

On the afternoon of March 3, a post was uploaded on a Discord server (room), with over 2,800 participants, claiming to sell illegal videos. The list of illegal videos included “teens, 20,000 won, 300 videos” suggesting that they were illegally captured videos of children and teenagers.

The operator announced, “Purchasing is simple. After we confirm the number of the Culture Voucher, we will give you the Megacloud link (where the illegal videos are stored) and password.” In a forum for buyer reviews, one person wrote, “Good value for money.”

There was also a server that advertised that it sold the videos of sexual exploitation distributed in the Telegram Baksabang, known as the Nth Room. In a Discord server that the reporter logged onto on February 24, a person sold videos announcing, “Welcome to the Baksabang database.” The operator announced, “We also have (videos of) celebrities and a lot of legendary videos (which were in the Baksabang).” In another Discord server, someone posted an ad saying, “We have a lot of deepfake (AI-based technology used to synthesize images, particularly by replacing a person’s face with another person’s face), celebrities, and composite images.”

The methods used by the criminals to avoid police investigation have also evolved. Some servers operated a so-called “shelter server” in case the server is destroyed due to a police investigation. On March 1, when the police announced a crack down on the illegal distribution of cyber sexual violence, an announcement popped up on Discord, “Due to the crack down beginning tomorrow, we will temporarily remove the adult videos (pornography). You can receive the videos if you send us a direct message.” Instead of posting the illegal videos on the Discord server, which is accessible to a number of people, some expressed plans to engage in one-on-one transactions to avoid the police crackdown.

Discord is one of the overseas chatting platforms that users moved to since last March, when the police began investigating Telegram, which had been the hotbed of sexually exploitative videos. Reportedly, the platform is popular among South Korean game users. At the time, the police established a special investigation headquarters for digital sexual crimes and conducted an investigation with the local police agencies overseeing each social media, and the Gyeonggi Bukbu Provincial Police Agency investigated Discord. Last April, the Gyeonggi Bukbu Provincial Police Agency arrested ten people including eight middle and high school students who had bought and sold videos of sexual exploitation on Discord, but they failed to eradicate the crime.

This year, the police once again announced plans to strictly tackle the distribution of illegal videos. On March 1, the police announced, “We will crack down on illegal supply chains and distributors of cyber sexual violence with a goal to fundamentally block all sources of supply and demand by October this year.” Suppliers who produce and distribute sexually exploitative content, illegal videos and illegal composite images through secured chatting platforms including Discord and the users who purchase, own and view these contents will be the target of the latest crackdown.

A police representative said, “Crimes using Discord, whose server is located overseas, will all be caught,” and added, “Since legislation allowing undercover investigations for digital sexual crimes against children and teenagers has been enacted, we will fiercely tackle the problem.” On February 26, the National Assembly passed an amendment of the Act on the Protection of Children and Youth Against Sex Offenses opening the door for the police to conduct investigations undercover without disclosing their police status to catch digital sex offenders targeting children and teenagers beginning this September.