National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's law enforcement services portal.

• Author: Smith, Micah
• Position: Feature: The Prosecutor

ON FEBRUARY 15, 2011, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) launched the Law Enforcement Services Portal (LESP), an invaluable new tool for child pornography investigations. This portal gives law enforcement officers and prosecutors around the world direct access to various resources of the non-profit organization's Exploited Child Division (ECD).

Using the LESP, investigators will be able to do "hash searches," comparing hash values from images of child pornography stored in a suspect's computer to those in NCMEC's Child Recognition and Identification System. This automated comparison will determine whether the images are an identified child or a recognized or unrecognized hash value. The Initial Hash Value Comparison Report is a quick and efficient way to get a preliminary evaluation of these images, not unlike other field tests. It can help investigators decide what steps to take next, including search warrants, interrogation, and charging considerations.

Prosecutors and law enforcement officers working on child pornography cases can register for access to the LESP at https://lesp.cybertip, org and click on "Register." Once granted access to the LESP, investigators can paste up to 100 hash values for comparison in NCMEC's database. For submissions of up to 10 hash values, the LESP will generate a report immediately. For submissions between 11 and 100 hash values, the LESP will send an email with the results when the comparison has been completed. The reports will be maintained in the My Reports section on the Web site and can be saved and exported in PDF and SCV (comma separated value) formats.

Hash values also can be submitted using a desktop application (available for Windows and Mac operating systems). The desktop client application allows an investigator to navigate to a folder containing seized content and select any number of files for submission--in excess of the 100--item limit imposed on the Web interface, One additional benefit to using the desktop client is the software's feature of bundling all of the content submitted through the client into a ZIP file that is ready to be burned to disc and mailed to NCMEC for a complete analysis.

After performing a hash value comparison through the LESP, law-enforcement officers should...