Governments and private sector officials from around the world sought ways Thursday to jointly combat cybercrime, whose growth mirrors the phenomenal rise of the Internet's popularity.

At a conference in Strasbourg, organized by the Council of Europe, delegates from Europe, the United States, Australia and China discussed ways on how can national law stop those who commit fraud, spread racism, steal credit card numbers or sell child pornography worldwide.

2001 Cybercrime Convention—the first international treaty of its kind—has been signed by 30 countries, including Canada, Japan, South Africa and the United States, but is law in only eight.

Albania, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia and Macedonia are the only nations that have ratified the treaty, which names four types of cybercrime: confidentiality offenses, notably breaking into computers; fraud and forgery; content violations, such as child pornography and racism; and copyright offenses.

Sites promoting racism, hatred and violence have risen by 300 percent since 2000, and Internet child pornography is an industry worth some $20 billion this year.

"Surveys in 2003 suggest that child pornography accounts for 24 percent of image searches in peer-to-peer applications," said the report.

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