The lure of the Internet Cyber molesters

While at work this afternoon, I was reading my provinces leading newspaper. One of the articles really shocked me, only because of how truthful it is, and how someone finally had something to write an article that is read by over 5 million each day, and even more online.

If you’re interested, please read on.

The lure of the Internet Cyber molesters
By KIM BRADLEY

CAUTION: Some of the material in the following article may shock and offend you. It is included because we believe it is important that you understand the true nature of this threat to your children’s well-being. YOU CAN pour a coffee, tie your shoes, or comb your hair in the same time it takes a child to be sexually solicited online.

That’s what I discovered posing on the Internet as a 13-year-old girl. I was like most other skeptical adults when I first signed up to write this series. I knew Internet luring existed, but I didn’t realize how common or dangerous it is. Nor did I think I had the computer knowledge to seek out the online predators who prey on kids. Turns out, you don’t need to know anything about computers, except how to turn one on.

PREDATORS COME from all corners of the globe and they’re not shy about coming into your home via your computer. Take the man from the U.K. I chatted with the first time I signed on to a Yahoo chat room as a teen. In the first few lines of the chat, he had asked me where I was from, how old I was and if I was alone. Four lines and about 46 seconds into the chat he asked: “Wanna see my c—?”

I didn’t even get a chance to answer before I was asked to accept a webcam image from Marckwz2000. I accepted and there he was, being broadcast into my house, typing with one hand and playing with himself with the other.

Not far into the chat, I asked Mark, who claimed to be 19 years old, if 13 was too young for him.

What he said next really scared me.

“There’s no such thing as too young,” he responded.

“The younger the better.”

He had already added me to his buddy list that would show him whenever I was online, but I signed off that second and blocked his e-mail. Markwz2000 was the first in about 100 different men I chatted with online in the last few weeks.

I used to think it would be difficult to bump into a pervert online, that you would have to know where to look in order to find them. But the truth is, if you’re a child, they find you.

Take Yahoo for instance. One of many hunting grounds for pedophiles and perverts. Yahoo.com offers a wide variety of user group chat rooms that anyone can sign into. User groups are chat rooms created by a user, not by Yahoo, and can be accessed by anyone as long as the room isn’t full and the user has a Yahoo ID account.

These rooms can be about anything and everything, but from my experience, they’re all about sex. Take the topic “schools and education” in Yahoo chats for example. This is where I found Mark, or should I say Mark found me.

In this area, which is one some kids may turn to if they’re researching a school project, or looking for friends who are online, you can talk about “8-12 kiddies into sex,” or “girls 11-14 for much older men.”

At any given time there are hundreds of these user groups up and running, and they’re usually full.

Yahoo spokesman Colleen Finnegan refused to comment on its chat rooms but said in a written statement: “When notified of illegal content, we review every report and take appropriate action swiftly.”

Most of the chats start off the same.

As soon as you sign into a room, no matter what the topic, someone will almost immediately send you an instant message asking you for your “a/s/l”, which I recently learned means age/sex/location.

This is the true test for some men. After you’ve answered those questions, they’ll hopefully say that you’re too young and sign off, or they’ll continue chatting. In the chats I had, most wanted to talk to me despite my age.

Take tla53 (a/s/l: a 46-year-old man from Tennessee) with whom I chatted briefly the other afternoon.

After he learned how old I was, he wanted to know if I’d ever been with an older man.

Then he wanted to know if I’d ever seen an older man’s penis, and then he showed me his.

He chatted with me, asking me things about my previous sexual experience while he typed with one hand and showed me what he was doing with the other.

It didn’t matter to him that “my mother” may walk in at any second, he urged me to touch myself.

It got to the point where I didn’t need to respond anymore, he just kept talking.

Meanwhile, several other men were ringing in wanting to talk to me. At one time eight different men were masturbating on the screen at once, all believing they were talking to a 13-year-old girl from Canada.

I was always sure to tell them that I wasn’t alone and that my mom was in the house nearby.

It didn’t matter.

Take iceman77394, who said he was a 27-year-old from Alabama. He wanted to teach me how to play with myself even though I told him my mom was with me.

“Just one time,” he wrote.

“You’ll be fine,” he said when I refused.

“You can do it, baby,” he said.

Then there are men who are even more frightening than the obvious perverts. Like pilot0173, who identified himself as a 32-year-old from North Carolina. He found me after I signed into a room called “young girls wanting to run away.”

He believed I was unhappy and said he would drive to Toronto from North Carolina “if it meant my happiness.” I asked him if he thought it was too far away and he responded:

“If you were unhappy and wanted to leave, your happiness would be worth the drive.”

We continued to chat for a while and he told me he was a furniture manufacturer who drove “an okay car” that was in good enough shape to make the trip. He also told me that if I ever needed any help with anything, he could be here in a flash.

Then, as he signed off, he said: “If you ever need to talk, let me know. You have a friend here if you ever need one.”

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WEB HIT

-68% of kids say their parents never sit with them while they are online

– 15% of kids say they have met in person someone they only chatted with on the Internet

Source: The Young Canadians in a Wired World for Media Awareness Network, 2001, media-awareness.com

Source: Toronto Sun