Article Title: Cyberwatch: Pedophiles on Line

Edition: July 2001
Category: Horizons
Author: M. E. Kabay
Article:

The author is an Associate Professor in Computer Information Systems at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont

This is the opening column in a series devoted to how ordinary people can protect themselves against threats involving the Internet as a mechanism for abuse.

Children, parents and teachers face a new area of danger: the Internet. This column will review the dangers that people can meet on the Internet and then examine some of the technology that is helpful in preventing harm.

Let's start with pedophiles. Pedophilia is defined as sexual arousal in response to contact with or images of prepubescent children. Some pedophiles misrepresent themselves as youngsters in chat rooms or via e-mail and trick children into forming friendships with what they believe are peers. In one notorious case, a 47-year-old man misrepresented himself as a 15 year-old boy in e-mail to a 12-year old girl in New Jersey. The victim's mother stumbled onto a package from her daughter to a man she didn't know because the child had put the wrong postage on it. On the video tape inside, she found that her little girl had been cavorting naked in front of the family video camera.

In June 2000, child safety experts warned the U.S. congressional committee on child online protection that with the average of age of online users declining (children between the ages of two and seven are among the fastest growing user cohorts on the Internet), children increasingly are put at risk by their careless or ignorant online activities. The committee heard that 3,000 children were kidnapped in the U.S. last year after responding to online messages posted by their abductors. A recent survey of teenage girls found 12% had agreed to meet strangers who had contacted them online.

Practical recommendations for parents and others for protecting children against online pedophiles:

Explain the dangers of communicating with strangers via the 'Net in the same terms that you discuss the dangers of talking to strangers anywhere else.

Alert children to the questionable identity of anyone they meet exclusively through the 'Net or via e-mail. Discuss the possibility that people are not who they claim to be in their online persona.

Establish a calm atmosphere so that kids will not fear your reactions if they are troubled by what they encounter online. Worst of all would be to punish a child for reporting a disturbing incident.

Tell children not to give their address or their pictures to strangers they meet electronically.

Discuss online relationships in a friendly and open way at home. Show interest in the new friends without expressing hostility or suspicion; ask to participate in some of the online chats and e-mail correspondence. Invite your children to sit in with you during your own online interactions.

Parents should talk to their child's new online friends' parents by phone and, eventually, in person before allowing contacts.

Any attempt to induce a child to meet the correspondent alone or secretly should be reported to local police authorities for investigation.

Children should report any suggestions that they engage in virtual sex play or sexual fantasies to parents right away.

Making, transmitting and storing child pornography is a felony; report all such cases to local police authorities at once.

Children receiving a request for anything unusual (for example, a request for a piece of clothing) should immediately report the incident to their parents.

Resources:

Child pornography.
http://www.fbi.gov/contact/fo/detroit/crimes2.htm

F.B.I. warns of child exploitation.
http://broadcast.webpoint.com/wphl/cybersafe/cybersafe_fbi.htm

In plain site: Pedophiles online, How to protect children.
http://www.thecpac.com/protect.html

Internet safety: Warning signs.
http://www.fbi.gov/contact/fo/norfolk/intnet.htm

Parents can protect their children from child predators roaming the Internet: Six simple guidelines.
http://www.yellodyno.com/html/inetpeds.html

When to call the F.B.I.
http://broadcast.webpoint.com/wphl/cybersafe/cybersafe_fbi2.htm

Children's Protection and Advocacy Coalition
http://www.thecpac.com/index3.html

Pedolphiles and child molesters: The slaugher of innocence.
http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial/pedophiles/

Guarding Our Children's Innocence Against Pedophiles.
http://modena.intergate.ca/personal/ranubis/

Hunting pedophiles on the Net: Is the truth about cybercrimes against children tamer than fiction?
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2000/08/24/cyber_menace/

Pedophiles flooding British Internet chat rooms.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/reuters_wire/1046323l.htm

Protecting children from pedophiles.
http://www.afn.org/~monica/

Online stalking and pedophiles: Protect yourself and your family.
http://www.carteret.com/children/

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