A specialist unit is being set up by the British government to hunt down paedophiles who are using a hidden part of the internet known as the 'dark net' to share child pornography.

The National Crime Agency and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) will use the latest technology to crackdown on users of the so called dark net, or deep web.

Prime minister David Cameron said the new unit is aimed at 'shining a light on the web’s darkest corners' as he announced a package of measures to tackle online child abuse.

Scroll down for video

Dark net use in the UK has risen faster than in any other country in the world according to a recent report by the National Crime Agency and now a special unit is being established to crackdown on those using the sites

He said it had become necessary to target the dark net as paedophiles were increasingly using it to communicate with each other and to disguise their identities.

The new unit will use new advances of analysing images and communications to trace the 'digital footprints' left by the users who share them.

WHAT IS THE DARK NET? The dark net is a subsection of the deep web - the part of the internet that does not show up in searches or on social media. Most of the information on the web is far down on dynamically generated sites, unable to be found or seen by traditional search engines, which are rather like dragging a net across the surface of the sea, missing much of the information in the depths. The dark net is used as a way of sharing information and trading goods, but the anonymous and encrypted nature of it has attracted large amounts of illegal activity. The Silk Road website and its successor that were recently shut down was used to sell drugs in exchange for bitcoins, the electronic currency. Other dark net sites allow users to share pornographic photographs, hacked information, credit card numbers and other illegal goods. The Silk Road used an underground computer network known as the The Onion Router (TOR), which is a matrix of encrypted websites and servers that disguise the identity of users. It uses numerous layers of security and encryption, hiding the IP address and the activity of the user. Just 0.26 per cent of the daily internet traffic from the UK accesses this hidden part of the internet. Advertisement

The National Crime Agency estimates that around 20,000 people from the UK use secret or encrypted networks each day.

The dark net consists of a network of encoded websites that sit behind the publicly available websites and cannot be found with normal search engines.

It came to prominence in 2012 when the FBI made a series of raids on Silk Road, an online marketplace described as the 'eBay for illegal drugs'.

Mr Cameron said: 'The so-called "dark-net" is increasingly used by paedophiles to view sickening images.

'I want them to hear loud and clear, we are shining a light on the web’s darkest corners; if you are thinking of offending there will be nowhere for you to hide.

'Every time someone chooses to view an online image or a video of a child being abused, they are choosing to participate in a horrific crime.'

The new unit is intended to focus on the most prolific users of the dark net to begin with.

Figures compiled by the National Crime Agency suggest that use of the dark net rose by two thirds in 2012.

Hidden capabilities that enable users to email and host file storage through encrypted and anonymous networks are provided by services like the The Onion Router (TOR).

TOR users currently represent 0.18 per cent of the total number of internet uses in the UK.

However, in a recent investigation, GCHQ and the NCA were able to track down a British man who had been maintaining chat rooms and websites in the Far East and Eastern Europe that were used to share child pornography around the world.

He was also offering advice to other paedophiles about how to hid their behaviour and was using software to keep himself anonymous.

David Cameron unveiled the new unit to target the dark net at the #WeProtect Children Online summit

Analysis by experts at GCHQ allowed them to trace the man and he was later sentenced to three years in prison for making and distributing indecent images of children.

Mr Cameron announced the establishment of the joint NCA and GCHQ unit at the #WeProtect Children Online summit in London, which brought together delegates from 50 countries and 26 technology firms to discuss how to tackle child abuse online.

He unveiled new technical solutions that the internet industry will use to support the new special unit.

Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Twitter and Yahoo will use the digital fingerprints, or hash values, of thousands of known child sex abuse image to prevent them from being viewed or shared.

Technology companies and law enforcement agencies from 30 countries around world have agreed to work together to tackle online child abuse, which is to be supported by a £50 million child protection fund

Google has also developed new technology that allows child abuse videos to be identified and blocked and is to work with Yahoo to pilot it.

Microsoft, Google and Mozilla have also said they will investigate ways of placing restrictions within their browsers to block people from accessing child pornography.

Google and Microsoft have both also introduced a number of changes to their search functions not only the UK but across the world.

Google claims to have seen a fivefold reduction in the number of searches for child abuse images since these changes were made.