How paedophiles use cookies and keywords to hide sexual abuse images in innocent-looking sites

Tech-savvy paedophiles are using a series of digital techniques known as "masking" and "breadcrumbing" to hide illegal materials from regular web users online, while allowing others to track down criminal images and film by following a series of covert clues. The trend was exposed by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) in its latest annual report, which covers new information on how child sex abuse images and videos are being hosted, distributed and identified online. Normally used by cyber-criminals, the tricks are used to hide illegal material in plain sight. "If you access the site directly, you just get legitimate content," Sarah Smith, a technical researcher at the IWF, told The Independent. "If you follow the pathway through links from other sites, then it unlocks the child sexual abuse imagery. "It's stored in the browser, and it drops a cookie into the browser so it can see the trail that you've come along to actually access the site.