Microsoft has crafted a new weapon that internet service providers will be able to wield to battle the growing problem of child pornography.
The technology colossus is giving the US National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) software that uses unique "signatures" of pornography to find images of minors being sexually abused.
"We think this is going to have an extraordinary impact," NCMEC chief executive officer Ernie Allen said earlier this week in a conference call with reporters.
"It is really timely; child pornography has absolutely exploded with the advent of the internet."
Microsoft researchers worked with Dartmouth College computer science professor Hany Farid to create PhotoDNA software that pinpoints identifying characteristics in digital images that computers can scan for online.
"The basic idea is you extract a unique signature from an image," Prof. Farid said. "It is similar, hence the name, to human DNA."
Unlike current digital image-identification software, Photo-DNA reliably identifies pictures even if size, colouring or other characteristics have been altered, as is common on the Internet, according to Prof. Farid.
The NCMEC will begin by using PhotoDNA to amass signatures of "the worst of the worst" child pornography images they have catalogued in their work with abuse victims and law enforcement agencies.
"The offenders get arrested but the images stay out there forever," Mr Allen said.
"What we are doing with Photo-DNA is focus on the worst of the worst," he said, images that "no one can suggest (involve) protected speech or violation of privacy rights."
The rising sea of child pornography images show increasingly younger victims being subjected to greater violence, according to Mr Allen.
While the problem is global, research indicates that the United States is the top consumer of online child pornography, he added.
"We have very young children who are being victimised in very serious ways and it continues as long as these images are online," Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said during the call.
"We can't allow people to keep trading these horrifying images online when we have the technology to do something about it."
The NCMEC is experimenting with PhotoDNA and plans to release the software to internet service providers worldwide in coming months so "these companies can take appropriate steps," according to Allen.
Microsoft is hoping that internet service providers along with the people that use them will do more to combat child pornography.
"We think this donation makes it easy for members of the online community to work with the centre to keep child porn off the internet," Smith said.
PhotoDNA is being incorporated into Microsoft's Bing search engine but the industry needs to "have discussion" about how to address problems of child pornography being sent in email or other private accounts, according to Mr Smith.
Microsoft has devoted a microsoftphotodna.com website to information on the issue and a campaign dubbed A Childhood for Every Child.