At any one time, some 750,000 pedophiles are prowling the Internet, the United Nations says. They might be lurking in chat rooms. Or swapping images of adults having sex with kids.
It's a virtual epidemic of child pornography, and to fight it, law enforcement officers from all over are converging on a cavernous building in South Florida. Here they have access to the most advanced technology for finding pedophiles.
But this isn't run by any government agency. The desks, computers, technology — all are provided free by a former drug smuggler named Hank Asher.
Called a "mad scientist'' by one employee, Asher has made a fortune collecting public records — deeds, lawsuits, voter registrations — and combining them into databases that can be invaluable in locating people. Plug a name into Accurint, Asher's best-known product, and you'll see addresses, possible relatives, licenses held.
It was Asher's technology that helped police find the Washington, D.C., snipers.
Now he is building a super computer and a database "a thousand times more powerful" than anything he has developed yet.
"I can find out way too much about you,'' he says.
Source: St. Petersburg Times
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