Homeland Security Official Charged in Online Seduction

The system has failed.

Plot synopsis: DHS press secretary is caught in online sting, as he has sexual online chats to what he thinks is a 14yo girl but is really a cop.

Seriously, what's wrong with these people? Do you need a 14yo so badly, at any cost, you're willing to tell them you actually work for Homeland? Is that supposed to turn on 14 year old girls?

You would think the deputy press secretary of Homeland Security would know that he could be easily caught on the internet trying to solicit sex from a minor, or at least that the Department would know what he is doing on their computers. But he doesn't, for two reasons: a) he's stupid; b) in fact, the Department doesn't know what he is doing, because the Department is stupid.

I'll do you one better: no one traffics kiddie porn on IRC if they have half a brain in their head. You want to traffic kiddie porn? Make your connections over online games like WoW, Everquest, or Halo. In the case of the former two, the chat conversation works as well as irc, and in the case of the latter, it's voice traffic. In no case is the transcript or anything else logged. I bet there's more weird crap happening in online games than you'd want to know.

Add to that freenet, which is basicaly encrypted decentralized bittorrent with invite-only peers, and you've got a pretty robust digital underground.