This talk is part of the TrustCon 2024 Investigations & Authenticity Lightning Talk session. Lightning talk sessions are 50 minutes long, featuring a series of short 5-7 minute talks back-to-back in the same room, followed by Q&A at the end.

Little is known about the bad actors in distributing non-consensual intimate images online in exchange for monetary gains, and how they leveraged online platform policy vulnerabilities to avoid detection. This study explored the hidden community of ‘baiters’ and buyers of non-consensual intimate images (NCII), and document how bad actors evade tech platform policy enforcement against non-consensual intimate images. Fifteen actors were selected through snowballing technique. Data were collected through patron interviews and undercover attempt to purchase non-consensual intimate images. Results had shown that 1) baiters/sellers use social networking sites to attract potential buyers for their baits; 2) both baiters/sellers and buyers move to at least 5 different online platforms to facilitate a transaction with no trace as possible: from selection of baits, to closing the deal, payment, to sharing of NCII to buyers. Authors put together recommendations to help strengthen tech enforcement against non-consensual intimate images.