Latest news with #KikMessenger
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Evansville man reportedly confesses to child solicitation
HENDERSON, Ky. (WEHT) – The Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Office arrested an Evansville man on Thursday after he reportedly admitted to officers that he solicited minors for sexual acts. According to a release from the sheriff's office, local authorities began an investigation in February after detectives assigned to the Indiana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received a cybertip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that an IP address connected to Christopher William Evans, 42, had been used to distribute suspected child sexual abuse material, including images of adults engaging in sexual acts with children. Detectives executed a search warrant at Evans' home in Grandin Pointe Mobile Home Park and reportedly took him into custody without incident. Princeton man accused of possessing multiple child porn videos Authorities say after Evans was detained, he confessed to downloading and distributing child pornography and admitted to using Kik Messenger to solicit sexual acts from minors, but claimed he never followed through. Multiple electronic devices were seized from his home, and will undergo forensic examination by the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Office Digital Forensics Lab. Evans was charged with child exploitation, possession of child pornography and child solicitation. He is being held without bond. 'Every time someone downloads or shares child pornography, they are directly fueling the demand for the abuse and exploitation of children,' explained Sheriff Noah Robinson. 'Arresting individuals who possess this material is critical, not just to hold offenders accountable, but to disrupt the cycle of victimization.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Yahoo
Columbus firefighter living in Lancaster accused of receiving child pornography
A Fairfield County man who works as a Columbus firefighter was arrested on Wednesday, May 21, on federal child pornography charges, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Ohio has announced. Carson Bigham, 23, of Lancaster, is accused of receiving child pornography. He was arrested at his home in Lancaster and appeared in federal court on Thursday, May 22, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for Ohio's Southern District. According to charging documents, law enforcement agencies received two separate cyber tips from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children regarding an unnamed Columbus man who was charged with federal child pornography crimes in March. One of the tips was from the Kik Messenger app concerning the distribution of 13 child pornography files. The second tip was from Sniffies LLC, a map-based hookup application for gay and bisexual men. Law enforcement seized electronic devices from the unnamed Columbus man and found conversations between him and Bigham that included discussions about having sex with minors, according to federal prosecutors. Bigham allegedly received child pornography during these conversations, prosecutors said, which included files showing minors engaged in sexual acts with adults. Prosecutors said that Bigham used the screen name "daddy" during these conversations. Law enforcement officers discovered that Bigham is employed as a Columbus firefighter, and photographs of Bigham matched those sent to the Columbus man during their conversations, the U.S. Reporter Shahid Meighan can be reached at smeighan@ at ShahidMeighan on X, and at on Bluesky. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus firefighter Carson Bigham faces federal child porn charges
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Yahoo
Portland man convicted after trying to meet children for sex at Seattle hotel
This story was originally published on A 64-year-old man from Portland has been sentenced to four years in federal prison after traveling across state lines to have sex with minors, according to a news release from Acting U.S. Attorney Teal Luthy Miller Tuesday. Marc David McCool was arrested on May 16, 2024, after arriving at a Seattle-area hotel where he believed he would meet a 7 and 11-year-old for sex. According to case records, McCool had initially reached out to a social media ad posted by undercover agents. For more than six weeks, police said McCool described his sexual interest in children over the Kik Messenger app. Ultimately, McCool decided to travel to Seattle. He was arrested after traveling by train and a rideshare to a Seattle hotel. When police arrested McCool, they allegedly found condoms, baby oil, rope, and stuffed animals. In court, McCool said his life has been forever changed. He told the judge he had lost everything and harmed his relationships with everyone he loves. He expressed hope of receiving treatment while in prison. The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigation as part of the Seattle Police Department Internet Crimes against Children Task Force.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Yahoo
Waynesville man sentenced for possessing, sharing child pornography
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — The U.S. District Court in Springfield has sentenced a man from Waynesville, Missouri, for sharing child pornography on the internet. Michael Howard Collard, 44, who has been in federal custody since his arrest, received a 10-year prison sentence without parole and 10 years of supervised release after his incarceration. Collard was also ordered to register as a sex offender once he is released from prison. Springfield man sentenced 30 years for drug-trafficking Collard pleaded guilty to the receipt and distribution of child pornography on June 17, 2024. Court documents state he admitted to sharing images of child sexual abuse material over Kik Messenger with an undercover officer. In May 2022, law enforcement seized Collard's Samsung and Kyocera phones from his home and through a forensic evaluation, they found over 160 images and 90 videos of child pornography on his phones. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Forbes
08-04-2025
- Forbes
The Wiretap: Plagued By Child Predators, Former $200 Million Whisper App Has Disappeared
The Wiretap is your weekly digest of cybersecurity, internet privacy and surveillance news. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here. getty A decade ago, Whisper looked like it might be the next big thing in Silicon Valley tech. But in recent months, with no announcement or farewell note–and after a string of cases where pedophiles had used the app for child grooming–Whisper quietly went offline. Backed by $60 million in venture capital and at one time valued at $200 million, Whisper's promise of a place to share their secrets anonymously had drawn millions of users. Then came the bad news: media reports questioning just how well protected those secrets were. One report, from The Guardian, was especially damaging. It claimed that the app was monitoring users' locations even when asked not to do so and that it was sharing personal information with the Department of Defense. The Guardian later significantly walked back on its claims, acknowledging that locations were only tracked via IP addresses, which can be inaccurate, and the DOD info-sharing agreement did not include personally identifiable information and was for a suicide prevention project. Since then, Whisper has been riddled with a bigger problem, according to case files reviewed by Forbes: child predators. Most recently, a federal search warrant detailed a case from mid-2024 where three different undercover agents were posing as minors on Whisper as part of stings to catch men planning on grooming underage kids. All three were contacted by the same suspect, according to the warrant, and asked to move over to Signal for more private chat where the offender initiated sexual conversations with the undercover accounts. Forbes discovered numerous other cases over the last five years where similar operations took place. Whisper was owned by which has acquired a number of apps over the years that have had significant problems with child sexual abuse, most notably Kik Messenger. Forbes has previously reported on the rampant child abuse imagery trade on that platform, which numerous cases indicate still continues today. In one warrant from 2024, an investigating agent put it bluntly that Kik was a "preferred choice" among pedophiles and is "a prominent meeting place for individuals seeking to share child pornography and engage in child exploitative dialogue." Unlike Whisper, Kik remains online. did not respond to requests for comment. Why and when Whisper was shut down, or how it became a hangout for child abusers, has gone unexplained by its owners. Got a tip on surveillance or cybercrime? Get me on Signal at +1 929-512-7964. National Security Agency director General Timothy Haugh. (Photo by) Gen. Timothy Haugh, NSA director and head of U.S. Cyber Command, was fired last week. The sackings came after President Trump had been visited by far-right activist Laura Loomer, who once described 9/11 as an inside job, and who'd advocated for Haugh to be given his marching orders. Haugh's civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble, was also let go. On X, Loomer wrote that both Haugh and Noble had been 'disloyal to President Trump.' Google has released a paper outlining the risks of AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence, which promise to have the same or greater reasoning abilities than humans. It's partly a terrifying warning about an AI future in which the machines turn malicious, but also a guide on how we might stop that happening. Google has also released a new tool, Sec-Gemini v1, using AI for good, in supporting cybersecurity teams in dealing with the glut of threats facing organizations and individuals the world over. The FBI took over the online identity of an alleged prolific money launderer to get an insight into their operations, while allowing criminal movement of funds, 404 Media reports. As part of the operation, first reported by Forbes, the FBI demanded Google provide identifying information for all viewers of some select YouTube videos, which they believe the launderer had watched. Two Iranian nationals have been charged for acquiring U.S.-origin parts for Iranian military drones. The charges are tied to an investigation into how Iranian-made drones containing U.S. parts had been acquired by Russia and shot down in Ukraine, according to the Justice Department. Human rights and media organizations have won a fight with a U.K. court to ensure that a hearing about planned backdoors in Apple's iCloud aren't held in secret. The government will now have to openly explain its reasoning behind an order that demanded Apple give it access to encrypted backups. A global law enforcement operation has taken down one of the largest pedophile platforms in the world, Kidflix. The State Criminal Police of Bavaria, Germany, led the operation against Kidflix, which saw 1.8 million users login between April 2022 and March 2025, according to Europol's figures. It hosted around 72,000 videos before it was shuttered. As many as 1,400 suspects have been identified worldwide.
