Officials face many roadblocks when conducting child pornography investigations. Recently released documents reveal that the FBI is not immune to such frustrating circumstances.

The FBI can make no progress in investigating a web site reportedly hosting child pornography if that site is connected to an IP-anonymizing portal, such as The Onion Router (TOR). TSChan is one of these sites of the Web's hidden underworld, which basically prevents the FBI or anyone else from finding any leads that could result in legal action being taken to combat child pornography.

The FBI acknowledges the impossibilities it faces in getting anywhere when everyone connected to the TOR Network is anonymous. Thus, because the person who reported TSChan for hosting child pornography “had no other information about who the subjects of the pictures were or who would have posted the pictures,” the FBI was forced to halt the investigation.

The pornography industry is extremely well funded. There are millions of dollars spent on creating and hosting such destructive content. With disheartening news such as this from the FBI, it's a reminder to protect our kids from those who will intentionally harm and exploit them.

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