Help in reporting child porn

I hope the need to report child pornography never arises at your house. But if anyone in your family uses a file-sharing service such as Grokster, Morpheus, Kazaa, or BiTTorrent, it could happen, because illegal child porn is traded on P2P networks. [See "Porn exceeds music in online file-sharing" in my 3/21/03 issue, referring to an '03 study of what people were searching for specifically on the Gnutella-based P2P networks (42% for porn, 38% for music, 6% for illegal child porn).] We've known about the porn risk in file-sharing for some time, but it was confirmed once again today, when a file-sharing trade association announced the launch of P2P Patrol, a Web page with instructions on what to do if you inadvertently download child porn images while file-sharing and how to report it, CNET reports. Please note what P2P Patrol says about deleting and not forwarding any child porn images, because possession and distribution are illegal in the US and many countries. The page explains how to permanently delete it while providing sufficient evidence to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's CyberTipline.com, other hotlines, or law enforcement agencies. For on P2P risks, see "File-sharing realities for families" in my 5/28/04 issue.