# Creating Honeypots to Prevent Online Child Exploitation
## 2 Background
### CEM Education for Deterence  
Despite recognition that the accessibility and availability of CEM on open-access areas of the Internet has declined, due to the combined efforts of law enforcement agencies and the Internet industry, the risk that an individual will be exposed to CEM online remains. Studies indicate that exposure to CEM may occur within a range of online spaces includinga substantial proportion through Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing networks [25] and adult pornography websites.  
The prevalence of CEM on P2P networks has been described as 'endemic' [26] (p. 2) with recent estimates suggesting that globally, as many as 3 in 10,000 Internet users may share CEM on P2P networks [27].  
Recently, the purported availability of CEM on popular mainstream pornography websites has attracted media attention [28]. The potential for popular genres of ostensibly legal pornography, such as the category of \"teen\", to represent a stepping stone or gateway to CEM offending has been recognised [29; 30]. Moreover, a growing number of qualitative studies with CEM offenders suggest that it is not uncommon for onset--the first deliberate viewing of CEM [31]--to begin following initial inadvertent exposure to CEM while searching for adult pornography [32; 33]. Underlining concern, [PERSON] et al. [34] points to the possibility that perhaps as many as 1 in 5 adult pornography users have seen CEM online, although caution is warranted as this is not a prevalence estimate per se.  
Explanations of the individual factors that may lead an individual to begin and to continue to view CEM vary. This is unsurprising, given that such offenders tend to have heterogenous demographic profiles [35]. Indeed, it is frequently pointed out that the most striking characteristic of these offenders is their \"ordinariness, not [their] deviance\" [36] (p. 193). Yet, there is broad agreement within the literature that situational factors, such as opportunity, may well have a greater impact on the likelihood of an individual beginning to viewing CEM than individual factors, including a pre-existing sexual interest in children [37].  
A compelling theoretical explanation of this phenomenon comes from the situational crime prevention theory [17; 38]. The theory rests on the premise that all criminal decision-making occurs in an interaction between _individual_ and _situational_ factors. Making this point, [PERSON] and [PERSON] argue that the extraordinary expansion of the CEM market has been primarily fuelled by _situational_ factors--namely ready access to digital cameras and the internet--rather than an increase in _individual_ factors, like paedophilia. On the internet, users are largely anonymous, have easy access to CEM, and enjoy a comparatively low risk of detection provided they take basic precautions.  
Situational crime researchers observe from other data that previously law-abiding individuals can be \"drawn into committing specific forms of crime if they regularly encounter easy opportunities for these crimes\" [39]. Perceptions of moral ambiguity increase this risk [38]. Studies suggest that cognitive distortions around the harmlessness of viewing CEM may play a role in onset [40; 41]. Of broader concern, research examining public perceptions of CEM offending, particularly towards the possession and viewing of CEM, indicate that public awareness of the harms caused by CEM offences may be low [42].  
Within a suite of other strategies, automated warning messages have been proposed to tackle some forms of CEM offending, particularly with respect to attempts to search for and view CEM online [43].