Researcher Garth Bruen long has investigated the seamier corners of the Internet, but even he was shocked to discover Rapetube.org, a site urging users to share what it called "fantasy" videos of sexual attacks.
Bruen gradually discovered dozens of sites offering attacks on drunken women, lesbians or schoolgirls to anyone with a credit card. Some said the clips were fictional, but others had the word "real" in their titles. At least a few touted videos that he feared might show actual crimes.
Bruen tried to determine who operated the sites, a first step toward possibly having them shut down. But he quickly hit a wall. The contact information listed for websites increasingly is fictitious or intentionally masked by "privacy protection services" that offer ways around the transparency requirements built into the Internet for decades.