PhotoDNA image-matching technology available at no charge to help law enforcement more quickly identify and rescue victims.

London, UK — Embargoed until 13.00 GMT, March 19, 2012 — Microsoft Corp. and NetClean today announced a joint effort to combat the sexual exploitation of children by making Microsoft PhotoDNA technology available and accessible to law enforcement agencies worldwide to help enhance child sex abuse investigations, thereby empowering law enforcement to more quickly identify and rescue victims. PhotoDNA is a signature-based, image-matching technology already used by online service providers for disrupting the spread of some of the worst-known images of child pornography online. Today’s news provides law enforcement, at no charge, a variety of options to take advantage of the same effective technologies to fight child sexual exploitation that technology companies themselves already use.

“We can’t allow people to keep trading these horrifying images online when we have the technology to help do something about it,” said Stuart Aston, Chief Security Officer at Microsoft UK, “Without innovation and public demand for technology companies and electronic service providers to play a more productive and proactive role in the fight against online child exploitation, the technological advantage will remain with the abusers rather than those working to protect abuse victims. Law enforcement agencies are doing incredible work to fight child sexual exploitation every day, and we are proud to joinwith NetClean to support that mission.”

“This technology saves time and resources, but most importantly, it saves kids,” said Christian Sjöberg, founder and CEO of NetClean. “We are arming law enforcement with tools that can help them better investigate child exploitation cases and get these horrible criminals off the streets. NetClean Analyze Digital Investigator (DI) and PhotoDNA aim to help expedite their efforts to put an end to child pornography.” 

The Growing Problem of Child Pornography Online

Before the internet, it was relatively difficult for paedophiles to find and share child pornography and images of child rape, let alone build connections amongst themselves to facilitate such abuse. It was a world of the physical, where one paedophile had to meet another on the streets and somehow discover a mutual affinity for the sexual exploitation of kids before they might share with and encourage each other. The internet has enabled marvellous progress for mankind in countless ways, but as the world has become vastly more interconnected, the child pornography problem has soared. 

Since 2002, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) reports it has reviewed more than 65 million images of child pornography online, with the volumes steadily increasing, the crimes becoming more violent and the victims getting younger. An estimated 10 percent of images reviewed by NCMEC in 2011 involved infants and toddlers, who cannot tell anyone about their abuse.

In the UK, the Internet Watch Foundation’s hotline processed 48,702 reports in 2010, which is a 27.6 per cent increase over 2009. 

The more complex the problem grows, the more sophisticated the technology must be in order to help address it. As such, although law enforcement around the world works diligently to combat child exploitation and the spread of child pornography online, investigators are challenged by massive amounts of data and limited resources.

Supporting Law Enforcement Through Technology Innovation

PhotoDNA is an image-matching technology developed by Microsoft Research in collaboration with Dartmouth College that creates a unique signature for a digital image, something like a fingerprint, that can be compared with the signatures of other images to find copies of that image. NCMEC and online service providers such as Microsoft and other online service providers currently use PhotoDNA to help find, report and eliminate some of the worst-known images of child pornography online.

Although initially designed for online service provider use, law enforcement globally has voiced strong interest in the potential use of PhotoDNA in child sexual exploitation investigations since its introduction in December 2009. Based on the expressed need, Microsoft and NetClean are working together to make PhotoDNA available to law enforcement worldwide through tools that many agencies already use. With today’s announcement, law enforcement worldwide can now use this technology to help with the following:

•                To create a link between online service reports and law enforcement investigations to help speed the identification of victims, so they can be rescued and their abusers brought to justice

•                To allow faster review of the massive number of seized images so investigators and prosecutors cantackle more cases

•                To limit the exposure of investigators to the corrosive effects of viewing abuse images

Specifically, PhotoDNA will be available to law enforcement at no charge via the following:

• NetClean Analyze. PhotoDNA is beingmade available through a new version of NetClean Analyze, a free technology toolbox for police forces working with child sexual exploitation (CSA) image cases,which is already used by law enforcement in many countries worldwide. (http://www.netclean.com/eng/?page_id=34) NetClean Analyze is a multidimensional platform for CSA investigations that helps streamline workflows for varioustasks involved in cases. The easy-to-use interface helps provide a powerful and fast application able to deal with millions of files at the same time. The integration of PhotoDNA adds to tools already available in NetClean Analyze to help investigators save time by quickly identifying duplicate images in investigations. The new version will also include functionality to support connections between NetClean Analyze and the Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS) where appropriate.
• Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS). PhotoDNA is being integrated into CETS, a collaborative global law enforcement program supported by Microsoft technology for child pornography investigations that helps law enforcement agencies eliminate duplication, making it more efficient for the agencies to follow up on leads, collect evidence and build cases against suspected child pornographers. CETS is currently used by agencies in Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, Italy, the UK and the US.
• Direct licencing. Certain law enforcement agencies with the technical capacity and resources required to manage PhotoDNA source code integration themselves can licence directly for use of PhotoDNA in child sexual exploitation investigations.

Welcoming today’s announcement, a spokesperson for the Internet Watch Foundation said: 

“The Internet Watch Foundation has been working to eliminate online child sexualabuse images and videos for 15 years. Over this time we have progressively seen more content featuring the rape and sexual torture of younger children. We have therefore grown our expertise and experience to be nimble in our tracking and targeting of this content.”

“It is of great importance for us to collaborate with those at the cutting edge of technology to give us the most effective tools possible to do our work.

“PhotoDNA gives us the opportunity to make massive progress in protecting victims from their sexual abuse images being seen time and time again and it will enable us to quickly identify unknown victims in order to share information with law enforcement agencies. 

“The development of PhotoDNA and the decision to make this technology available to law enforcement globally is a fantastic leap forward to eliminating this content and aiding those whose job it is to rescue children and arrest offenders.”

Additional information about Microsoft PhotoDNA technology and news is available in the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit’s PhotoDNA Newsroom at http://www.microsoftphotodna.com.

About NetClean

NetClean Technologies is a world leader in technical solutions for preventing the spread of child sexual abuse content. The products are developed in cooperation with police authorities and NetClean’s proactive solutions are employed by millions of users. NetClean’s client portfolio includes, among others, mid-size to multinational companies as well as government agencies, internet providers and police authorities. Currently, law enforcement agencies in 30 countries useNetClean’s Analyze, as well as more agencies undergoing trials. NetClean works closely with several non-profit organizations, for example the World Childhood Foundation founded by Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden.

About Microsoft

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realise their full potential.

About Microsoft EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa)

Microsoft has operated in EMEA since 1982. In the region Microsoft employs more than 16,000 people in over 64 subsidiaries, delivering products and services in more than 139 countries and territories.

This material is for informational purposes only. Microsoft Corp disclaims all warranties and conditions with regard to use of the material for other purposes. Microsoft Corp shall not, at any time, be liable for any special, direct, indirect or consequential damages, whether in an action ofcontract, negligence or other action arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of the material. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting any kind of warranty.

NetClean PR Contacts

Laura Spence, LEWIS PR, 02078022626,

netclean@lewispr.com

Microsoft PR Contacts

Rapid Response Team, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, (503) 443-7070,

rrt@waggeneredstrom.com <or insert local contact information as appropriate>

NetClean Integrates Its Core Technology with the McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator Security Management Platform

~ Customers to benefit from better protection against child sexual abuse content being accessed and shared on corporate devices ~

London — February 27, 2012 — NetClean, a world leader in technical solutions for preventing the spread of child sexual abuse content, announces that NetClean ProActive’s integration with McAfee® ePolicy Orchestrator® (McAfee ePO™) software has achieved McAfee Compatible status. The integration helps make it easier for enterprises to prevent child sexual abuse content from being accessed or shared via the corporate network.

 NetClean ProActive is a distributed software system, managed by NetClean ProActive Management Server (NMS). The NetClean ProActive agents shield business networks from child sexual abuse content and alert them to attempted sharing or viewing of such content. The agents examine all content and, if an incident occurs, the designated contact within the organisation is notified via text message or email from the NMS. As a result, administrators no longer need to continually monitor their infrastructure for this type of content;  rather, alerts indicate when and where the content is discovered, removing the need for administrators to view the abuse content itself.  The integration of NetClean ProActive with the ePolicy Orchestrator software enables easy deployment of the shielding and tracking technology, and management of notifications from a central point.

 As a member of the McAfee® Security Innovation Alliance (SIA) partner program, NetClean has also signed a Sales Teaming Agreement with McAfee.  Under the terms of this agreement, McAfee and NetClean will collaborate to promote the joint solution to businesses worldwide.

 “It’s great to be able to work with a leading player in the IT security space, and to help educate the market  on the sheer scale of this problem, said Christian Sjoberg, CEO of NetClean, “Our mutual customers can easily and effectively banish virtually all child sexual abuse content traversing the corporate environment.”

 “We are delighted to see NetClean complete its integration with ePolicy Orchestrator platform,” said Ed Barry, vice president of the McAfee Security Innovation Alliance. “This integration will further advance the value of McAfee’s security management platform and will benefit our mutual customers.”

 The ePolicy Orchestrator platform is the first that lets enterprises and governments centrally manage security and compliance products from multiple vendors, offering unprecedented cost-savings and return on investment. With more than 45,000 customers and managing more than 60 million PCs and servers, this unique platform is helping McAfee SIA partners to extend their reach and create complementary functionality.

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About NetClean
NetClean is a world leader in technical solutions for preventing the spread of child sexual abuse content. The products are developed in cooperation with police authorities, and NetClean’s proactive solutions are employed by millions of users. NetClean’s client portfolio includes, among others, small to multinational companies as well as government agencies, internet providers and police authorities. For more information: www.netclean.com
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For more information, contact:�
Laura Spence at LEWIS PR
netclean@lewispr.com
02078022626

McAfee and ePolicy Orchestrator are trademarks or registered trademarks of McAfee, Inc.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-17023530

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/courts/notorious-paedophile-priest-left-laptop-with-280000-childporn-images-on-plane-3003899.html

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/security/3329577/twitter-lagging-behind-in-protecting-users-against-child-abuse/

http://www.information-age.com/channels/security-and-continuity/perspectives-and-trends/1670588/facing-up-to-the-issue.thtml

London, UK – October 4, 2011 – NetClean, a global leader in technical solutions for preventing the spread of child sexual abuse content, has launched NetClean ProActive Appliance (NPA) following a partnership with École Polytechnique de Montréal, Canada (Polytechnique).

NPA is a stand-alone appliance that blocks the access, viewing and sharing of child sexual abuse content on networks, regardless of source and network protocol.

The appliance’s innovative design enables it to quickly and accurately block content without impacting bandwidth, comparing all images with those classified by law enforcement agencies to ensure that only child sexual abuse images are blocked.

NPA can be connected anywhere in the network, but is most commonly connected behind the firewall to control traffic to and from the Internet.

NPA is a custom-designed FPGA, which handles all file recognition using the patent-pending NetClean FileDNA algorithm. This ensures a high-efficiency product since the FPGA is dedicated to only detect traffic for illegal images.

The unique file-detection algorithm was developed by Dr. Jean-Pierre David, an Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering at Polytechnique and is licensed to NetClean.

The university partnered with NetClean to work on the project after witnessing numerous media reports of seizures of child sexual-abuse content and the breaking of several high-profile child-abuse rings.

Christian Sjoberg, CEO at NetClean, said: “At NetClean we have spent nearly a decade raising awareness about how to prevent offenders from viewing and distributing child sexual abuse materials. Speaking to Police forces and businesses globally, we realised the demand for more sophisticated technologies that will positively impact on society by solving this growing problem.

“It has been a pleasure to work with Dr. David at Polytechnique and its commercial partner Gestion Univalor, L.P, who also believe strongly in developing effective solutions that will prevent the spread of child sexual abuse content, especially in an era when offenders are using increasingly sophisticated technology to engage in illegal activity.”

Jean-Pierre David, Assistant Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering at Polytechnique said, “What is great with this invention is that the detection works with simple fragments of known digital content, such as the ones present in IP packets. There is no more need to reconstruct the complete files. As soon as enough evidence is found, an alert is sent and the transfer may be blocked before the complete file is transmitted. The technology presently supports 1Gbit/s networks but we expect to reach 10GbE in the near-term and 40/100GbE in the mid-term.”

NetClean has been in collaboration with Interpol for several years with the user-friendly analysis tool NetClean Analyze being currently used free of charge by police authorities in 30 countries. International collaboration is made easier by authorities in different countries being able to more easily access each other’s databases using digital signatures from images and video files that are classified as being child pornographic.

 “The conference delegates showed a very strong interest in our technology and we received a lot of proof that our tool makes their daily work so much easier. We are unfortunately facing a continual increase in child pornography. In order to meet the increasing workload that this entails, it is even more important to have effective tools and to collaborate over international border”, says Johann Hofmann, Product Manager at NetClean, who participated at the conference.

Recently the NetClean Analyze DI (digital investigator) was released with the next generation of image and video technology including GPS tracking, which shortens the analysis time even further and simplifies investigations. The software has also been adapted to catalogue the material and to generate reports prior to a criminal trial. 

For further information please contact               

 Christian Sjöberg, CEO, Telephone: +46 703 37 02 03, christian.sjoberg@netclean.com

Fredrik Frejme, Marketing Manager, Telephone: +46 705 29 49 38, fredrik.frejme@netclean.com

About NetClean
NetClean is a world leader in technical solutions for preventing the spread of child sexual abuse content. The products are developed in cooperation with police authorities, and NetClean’s proactive solutions are employed by millions of users. NetClean’s client portfolio includes, among others, small to multinational companies as well as government agencies, internet providers and police authorities. For more information: www.netclean.com

London, UK – 6 September, 2011 – NetClean, a world leader in technical solutions for preventing the spread of child sexual abuse content, has launched NetClean Analyze DI, the ‘next generation’ version of its free Analyze software.

Analyze DI serves to improve the quality of child sexual abuse investigations conducted by law enforcement agencies, reduces work input for investigators, and manages the entire investigation in one application. NetClean re-designed the software to combat the increasing number of seizures and to address the higher complexity and size of files being created and captured.

Analyze DI simplifies the creation cases by blending with forensic investigator’s existing platforms. By allowing the forensic investigator to automatically extract evidence from seized media through scripting, it reduces the amount of manual effort by an officer who is traditionally required to sift through mountains of information. The software’s streamlined interface also makes it easy for non-forensically trained users to adopt. It allows anyone to efficiently categorise up to a thousand files per minute of seized evidence. It also reduces examination time of videos files from real time to just a few seconds.

It also deals with the analysis and storage of images and video files in one application, enables maintenance and archival of image hash codes, and customisable reporting tools for use in court .

NetClean Analyze DI delivers a greater level of granular detail to investigations as case workers can now locate and identify evidence based on geographic location due to the software’s GPS tracking which supports embeddable maps for GPS tags. The functionality continues to recognise camera make and file information and further introduces new ways to review this information (eg: EXIF).

Last but by no means least the software incorporates powerful video processing techniques which split out files into a collage of multiple stills. The result generates efficient analysis of video content at a much quicker speed.

Christian Sjoberg, CEO at NetClean, said: “One of the strengths, and something that we have worked hard for with this new version, is to be able to tackle the new challenges in CSA investigations.  This is represented by the ever increasing cases and also the complexity of these cases in terms of file size, resolution, file formats, etc. We have risen to the growing complex challenge by loading the new generation software with cutting-edge new data- and file- management functions, a fast and intuitive database engine, together with a more streamlined interface and new interactive ways to browse for critical case file information.

He added: “In essence we’ve taken all the back-breaking work out of looking for vital and growing stores of CSA evidence. In short it means cases can be created swiftly, more compelling evidence discovered, structured and stored more rigorously. The knock -on effect is the investigative teams can locate and break organised offender networks much faster. Ultimately that means that thousands more vulnerable children are saved, and fewer children exposed to this extremely serious, and global, digital socio-economic threat.”

NetClean continues to collaborate with law enforcement organisations worldwide to incorporate hash codes into NetClean Analyze DI. The software is equipped hash codes of known illegal child sexual abuse material whereupon additional codes can easily be uploaded to the software’s database. When an end-user creates a case and loads images and videos onto the software it automatically maps the files to the databases. If there is a match, information will be provided on the specific file and appropriate action then taken.

NetClean Technologies provides the Analyze software free of charge primarily to law enforcement agencies as well as national and federal agencies responsible for child sexual abuse (CSA) investigations. It is currently available in 30 countries worldwide.

Link to the article: http://www.hrreview.co.uk/hrreview-articles/hr-strategy-practice/how-hr-can-stamp-out-the-dirty-staff-secret/30890