‘We have done all we can to stop the child pornography posts’ – Maltese IRC Channel Manager says

The channel manager of the Maltese IRC channel being inundated with posts to child pornographic chat rooms, told The Malta Independent on Sunday that they have done all they can to stop such posts.

This newsroom was recently provided with a dossier of information of online chat activity on the Maltese IRC channel by a user who came forward (which is also in the hands of the police, showing that the channel was frequently targeted by child pornographic channels, where depraved individuals congregate to share images and information about their sick predilections. The Channel Manager has come forward to give their side of the story.

The manager said he is quite sure that the different online identities posting the links are in fact the same person, a person who originally used a Maltese IP address changing his Internet Protocol address each time he is banned.

“Around two years ago, the Channel Manager of the chat room at the time didn’t want to continue working on the channel, and wanted us, the operators, to choose someone to replace him and I was chosen. One of the other operators asked if he could manage the Malta channel with me. I didn’t accept and this person said he wanted to damage the channel’s reputation. Around a week later, these posts began popping up. I suspect that it is either that person behind it, or perhaps someone else who is a mad man.

“This person then began changing his IP address and username each time he is banned,” the Channel Manager said.

“In December 2015, we banned the person posting these links around 300 times and yet he still logs on. The ban log was full so we couldn’t issue anymore bans, in other words, we can’t do anything about it,” the manager claimed. He said that the ban logs are cleared every now and again when they get full.

The manager explained that he had informed the police around 18 months ago, who in turn told him to contact the Internet Service Provider (ISP) of the Maltese IP address he believes belongs to the person who posts the links. The ISP, he said, asked for an affidavit signed by a notary etc. and that the whole process was very complicated. “We don’t make any profit from running this site, and I told them they were going to make me give up because of the complicated process. Had they been ready to help me, I would have carried on, but to handle it on my own, go to a lawyer, then back to the police, etc… I gave up. If the police want to investigate, the IP address is still in use.”

He provided this newsroom with a number of chat logs on the matter. One such log shows a conversation between the channel manager and the alleged cul- prit. The two began to argue about some other users using vulgar nicknames in the room when the alleged culprit, using the online nickname MarioSEX brought it up. In response, the Channel Administrator said, “At least they do not use obscene language and login with nicknames belonging to others, offending people and posting pornographic material of underage persons.”

In response, MarioSEX said “lol, If you leave me in peace, I will be quiet (jien jekk thallini kwiet, kwiet noqod man), but if on occasion I request a b**w**b you don’t need to call me an animal”.

The whole saga began when a concerned citizen, given the pseudonym Mr Borg in past articles, came across the online paedophilia operation quite accidentally. His saga, in fact, began a few years ago when he was physically assaulted by another man. The man claimed that someone using Mr Borg’s name and surname was on a Maltese IRC chat room, and that whoever had used his name had harassed his wife. Someone, Mr Borg said, had told his attacker where he was. After the incident, Mr Borg began entering the chat room in order to see what was going on and to figure out how someone using his name had known certain personal details about him.

A couple of years later, he began to receive phone calls from friends who told him that someone impersonating him was using obscenities and threatening people in a Maltese chat room.

In 2014, while keeping an eye on the channel, Mr Borg received a virtual invite to a chat room to go into other channels, where pornographic material, including child pornography, was shared. He reported the situation to the police, and provided this newsroom with the dossier of information.

Police sources said they are investigating the case.