In February 2015, the FBI took control of Playpen , the largest child pornography site on the Dark Web. But instead of shutting it down, it kept it up for two weeks, distributing malware to its visitors in the hope that it could track down its users.
Recently, a report was filed in the court proceeding against the website's administrator showing that the site significantly improved its performance during its supervision and management by the FBI, and even with positive comments from its users.
The defense of the man accused of being the original administrator of Playpensaid that these improvements led to the website becoming even more popular.
“The FBI distributed child pornography to viewers and downloaders around the world for nearly two weeks, up until at least March 4, 2015. It also worked to improve the performance of the website beyond its original capabilities,” says Peter Adolf, the defendant’s attorney in the Western District of North Carolina.
“As a result, the number of visitors to Playpen, under government control, increased from an average of 11,000 weekly visits to approximately 50,000 per week. During those two weeks, the site’s membership increased by 30%, the number of unique weekly visitors to the site more than quadrupled, and approximately 200 videos, 9,000 images, and 13,000 links to child pornography were posted. Government agents worked hard to upgrade the site’s ability to distribute large quantities of child pornography quickly and efficiently, resulting in users receiving more child pornography faster than ever before.”.
Another document filed by the defense in court estimates that a "conservative estimate" of the number of illegal images distributed by the FBI is 1,000,000.
