G-MEN CRACK CHILD PORN ENCRYPTION

A man who tried using encryption to keep his collection of child porn images hidden on his computer has ended up pleading guilty to possessing child porn, after the FBI cracked his software.

Federal authorities tell the Associated Press Terry Herzog, of the Forest Park suburb of Cincinnati, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court Feb. 14, facing up to five years behind bars, a $250,000 fine, and the forfeit of his computer equipment. The AP says he will be sentenced after a court pre-sentencing investigation.

It began when an undercover Florida law enforcement officer reported he had received child porn from Herzog by way of America Online several times during 1994, the AP says. The FBI tells the AP they identified him from an online alias he used.

But Herzog learned the FBI had asked about him and he used an encryption program to keep the child porn on his hard drive to keep it from being found, the prosecution argued. His computer was seized in 1995, the AP says, and an FBI team broke the encryption and accessed the child porn.