A 'Darker' aspect of the web

[ghostman11]

Is this a specific problem here or on chat? I almost get the youngster posing as a girl to get schoolwork done but a adult pretending to be a child??? i find that disturbing to the point i really cant see it. As a parent it would alarm me should ANYONE be found to be posing as a child, purely on the grounds of child safety, Adults pretending to be children is also known under the term of GROOMING! so again as a parent if anyone has any doubt about adults pretending to be children it should be taken very seriously and looked into.
This is also the reason why my wife and myself control Logans access to the internet so tightly, this was the one place i felt i could be a little more relaxed with him and not so invasive to his privacy. So any doubts lets do something, on our part we will indeed provide proof later watch this space

 

[jpanhalt]

G11 and killivolt, I hadn't even considered what you seem to be talking about. I was thinking all communications would be out in the open. Maybe PM's should be turned off, except for moderators, for anyone who is not classified as an "adult."

Of course, that might add a difficult confirmation if applied to everyone, but if "grooming" is the issue, then there would be no advantage to pretending to be a child.

John

 

[large_ghostman]

G11 and killivolt, I hadn't even considered what you seem to be talking about. I was thinking all communications would be out in the open. Maybe PM's should be turned off, except for moderators, for anyone who is not classified as an "adult."

Of course, that might add a difficult confirmation if applied to everyone, but if "grooming" is the issue, then there would be no advantage to pretending to be a child.

John

THIS IS GHOSTMAN11 i have grabbed the keyboard off LG as i spotted your post he was reading.
adults pretend to be children exactly for the purpose of grooming, they know much of youth culture and start with a casual friendship discussing the kind of things kids discuss. Normally they are very clever and over a extended period of time the child's trust is gained and things start to get sinister, for example although this is just one example of many things that can and do happen a great deal. the child is sent a pic of the other so called child this pic normally shows a child 2-3 years older than the child they are contacting and maybe just has the child standing infront of the webcam shirt off, a picture is then requested showing the same from the real child. NO need to go any further on here but you get the picture, i have had many dealings with some very bad situation's with kids (not that young to be fair and mostly girls) who were first year uni students. enough to say adults posing as children are a danger and to be taken seriously

 

[jpanhalt]

I guessed at the meaning of grooming from your earlier description. I also am in a medium size city and read the news.

Wouldn't turning off PM's to, from, or between junior members help address that issue?

John

 

[ericgibbs]

hi John,
We [moderators] have never received any complaints from members regarding unsolicited PM's of suspected ' grooming'.
I cannot see why any member would want to divert this Thread into that way of thinking?

IMHO there is no requirement for Administration to turn off PM's; the user has already got the option to block unwanted conversations.

The OP is asking about the 'fairness' of adult members posing as a child or a female in order to get a 'better' response to their posts.
I guess its pretty obvious to most older members that a number of posts are not being made by children or pseudo females.

Regards
Eric

 

[NorthGuy]

About 15 years ago, I bought a stock of a tech company (don't remember the name). And then I see my stock falling, which wasn't very usual during the tech boom. Turned out that the CEO got arrested because he tried to seduce a 15-year old girl over the Internet. The girl turned to be not a girl, but an FBI agent who arrested the guy.

 

[MrAl]

Hi,

It sounds like some members are requesting that ETO turn into the US Government (chuckle). Please dont let that happen. We cant stop everyone from doing bad things all the time and we dont want to employ 'blanket' policies that bother the innocent much more than the non. I get enough of that living in the US.
Let the appropriate agencies handle the most inappropriate and let us have our normal communications.

 

[jpanhalt]

hi John,
We [moderators] have never received any complaints from members regarding unsolicited PM's of suspected ' grooming'.
I cannot see why any member would want to divert this Thread into that way of thinking?

IMHO there is no requirement for Administration to turn off PM's; the user has already got the option to block unwanted conversations.

The OP is asking about the 'fairness' of adult members posing as a child or a female in order to get a 'better' response to their posts.
I guess its pretty obvious to most older members that a number of posts are not being made by children or pseudo females.

Regards
Eric

My comments were related specifically to posts #21 and #22 . Before those posts, like I previously said, I hadn't even imagined the fraud described by 3v0 would take that direction. However, living in a relatively big city that has witnessed some outrageous events recently, I think Ghostman 11's concerns cannot be ignored.

So long as you have confidence that any affected children would report to the moderators, I am satisfied no further discussion is needed.

John

 

[large_ghostman]

hi John,
We [moderators] have never received any complaints from members regarding unsolicited PM's of suspected ' grooming'.
I cannot see why any member would want to divert this Thread into that way of thinking?

IMHO there is no requirement for Administration to turn off PM's; the user has already got the option to block unwanted conversations.

The OP is asking about the 'fairness' of adult members posing as a child or a female in order to get a 'better' response to their posts.
I guess its pretty obvious to most older members that a number of posts are not being made by children or pseudo females.

Regards
Eric

Eric if you have concerns that an adult is posing as a child then OUT THEM! simple as that, by not naming names you just create mistrust, posing as a child to gain help is one thing (i still dont buy this, i dont see the child having the advantage), but my concern is how do you know what the intentions really are? why would a child report someone who they thought was also a child sending them a friendly pm? they wouldn't. the same way i do not believe an adult would with bad intentions would use a medium such as a forum to do anymore than gain contact. Read about it there is enough information around, the normal route gain trust and contact move onto skype pm's etc.
so the point isnt anyone doing something wrong on here, the point is adults pretending to be children, where it would be possible to strike up a friendship with other kids and move it off onto another medium, I should point out that cant happen to us personally as a family as logan has no access to skype other than when he is with one of us, he also has no facebook page or any other of the so called social media, yes he has a smart phone in order to contact us in an emergency, but it is strictly monitored and in my wifes name as a contract phone so we get the bill and all call or txt information. may seem extreme to some, but myself i would rather that than have to deal with the consequences.

SORRY JUST REALIZED I HADN't LOGGED LOGAN OFF MY LAPTOP!!
THIS IS JASON HIS DAD (GM11)

So rather than say older members know this or that name names because i for one are not happy that adults pretending to be children are tolerated in any form on here no matter the intention.
also remove that picture please it is NOT APPROPRIATE on this forum or relevant to this discussion

 

[ghostman11]

it is a concern as obviously i have a child on here who is in the high risk group for those that are targeted. Up until you raised this it had never occurred to me that adults would be pretending to be children, I am aware some the so called teenage forums are rife with it to such an extent that several police forces in the uk have membership there to try and monitor it. but an electronics forum!!!!
makes my head spin
I used to make Logan have a thing is his signature that said only pm him if i knew you, but i had started to ease up and let him have some privacy, i dont want to stop contact for him as he likes to talk electronics and has become friendly with some members.
no easy answer, last resort i guess i can ask anyone sending him a pm also includes me in the conversation, but that still seems invasive at 13, it was all much easier when he was 11 !
anyway rant over as i have had time to adjust.
Jason Bell (on my own user name this time )

 

[JimB]

This thread confuses me.

There are several posters on here who I would describe as "frauds" in one way or another.
But I never suspected that there were persons posing in the role of the opposite gender or an adult as a juvenile.

And as for "Beware of the 'Peds under the Beds", are we to be overcome by the wave of peedofile (sp!) hysteria which abounds in the red top newspapers.
Or, am I just being my cynical self as usual?

JimB

 

[ghostman11]

its only hysteria until it happens the everyone says well that should have been spotted. take for example 2 year olds at a nursery a couple of years back not far from me in devon. or take the whole jimi savile and others thing, or the 20 year old sentenced last year for numerous sexual offenses against young children he met over the internet (actually again that was in devon ).
you see a different internet when you have young children especially young teen's, they have forums and such especially for them. Logan had an account for around three days before i looked at his messages. You would not believe the filth that had been sent to him, clearly 99.9% of that had been sent from adults.
so he got banned from joining in the teenage type internet and now is only allowed on here, because i thought nah a electronics site about the only fraud you would get here is some ass pretending to know more than he does kind of thing. Then out of the blue we are informed that actually it's well known that adults are here posing as children and boy's posing as girls.
Two things happened at this point, 1) i just assumed i was being told i was pretending to be a child for help.
2) after that shock went it dawned on me i was being told that the very thing i have tried to keep logan away from was infact a well known occurrence on here.
Now however i have had chance to think about this and to be honest i think there has to be a distinction between the forum and chat.
yes on chat you get some funny types sometimes, people pop up that never really post anything on the forum. some are old hands that have just stopped posting on the forum but enjoy the chat room like mike, but alot are people you never hear of on the forum, so as far as Logan is concerned, he isnt allowed in the chat room unless the likes of eric or 3V0 are around in there (and one or two others) he does sometimes pop in but unless there are people he knows well from here in there he has to leave.
so on reflection i think yes i lost my temper but that is the response i would expect from any father (especially one who has been on the net since the days of JANET and phone coupled modems!), having calmed down i dont actually think the the forum has the pes under the bed. And to be honest had this thread been closed within one or two posts i would still have been left wondering. so all in all i think it's been worthwhile exploring the issue.
at least for the forum. i dont go into chat much so cant comment on that, however if 3V0 is saying there are plenty of imposters on there then it should be taken seriously he isnt one of the panic drama merchants, so i would take what he say's seriously. As for LG he is allowed in the forum but for now the chatroom is off limits.
he also wants to post a picture on here of us together lol, that i will get around to doing

 

[cowboybob]

If I may be so bold:

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”, (attributed to a variety of authors) is, to me, the only reasonable solution to the theme of this thread.

G11 is exercising the concept beautifully.

 

[ghostman11]

thank you very much. Something i wasnt going to share openly on here might give some a different perspective.
for a number of years i was a part time guest lecturer on embryology for a couple of universities, and for 2 years i also acted as personal tutor to a group of first year students studying a one of course that had been put together by the uni (this was around 7 years ago).
One of my students was a young lady of 18 who had a superb future ahead, very level headed and incredibly hard working, She was however shy and found it hard to relate to people of any age especially her peers. so insteadof going out at weekends to the student union bar, she would spend time on a chatroom that IIRC was called paltalk. Very little regulation of monitoring back in those days of the net and students had a great advantage in the fact most rooms at the uni had fast internet, now this chatroom was both audio and video so people could join a group and everyone could see everyone else you, you also had the option of going into a 'private'room for one to one chats.
Without going into detail she was befriended by someone claiming to be about her age and didnt have a webcam, however she did and over time he became her "internet boyfriend" she grew to trust him.
after several months she started to indulge in adult type conversations with her boyfriend and although he didnt have a cam she would perform certain acts on cam for him.
After several weeks of this she came to see me in tears. Apparently she had found a video online of herself performing one of these acts, it was posted by her boyfriend who actually turned out to be 56 years old and a senior member of a website where predominately men posted video's of there conquests online, the point of the site was basically dirty old men getting young women to perform acts on cam then the video would be posted on this site for other perv's!
She felt awful and degraded and was so upset i suggested she go to her student accommodation to calm down while i sort help from senior staff at the uni and the welfare officer, i also contacted the police.
Within an hour we were ready to send for her and sort the problem out, no answer came from her room and the door was eventually kicked in with myself there and a police officer and the uni welfare officer. I will not describe the scene but it will haunt me forever, the girl had committed suicide and a girl with a bright future was no more.
so yes i see peds under the bed, i also have seen first hand the effects and devastation these type of people can and do cause. IT WILL NOT HAPPEN to MY KIDS!!! not while i breathe

 

[ericgibbs]

I also would NOT tolerate anything that threatens my families children or any other child in this manner.

I would remind posters to this OP's thread, the topic as I understood it was nothing to do with child abuse.
It was referring to members possibly posing as children or pseudo females when posting in order to get preferential treatment.

Eric

 

[ericgibbs]

Hi guys,
At the request of the OP of the 'Frauds' thread I have moved the posts that have discussed the 'darker' side of the web.
I will try to move the posts to this Thread. DONE OK.

Eric
The Thread Title can be changed, if necessary.

 

[ghostman11]

i dont see why it was split, the topic was the same, ADULTS pretending to be children. The only difference as i saw it was the OP was concerned for a different reason to those of us that have young children, but we were all talking about ADULTS pretending to be KIDS. I dont see the problem if they purely want help, i find it pathetic and sad that an adult would do it for those reason's but i dont see the harm as far as questions go and the very simple answer is ignore any you feel are doing this. The only time i see it as a problem is from a safety point simple as that.
as for me and LG if anyone has doubts your welcome to a quick skype one night with us, but dont expect him to be too chatty to begin with lol he takes time to warm to people face to face
and dont ask him to solder something in front of you or we will be on the bloody cam all night!

 

[4pyros]

I think they are two different things, both are sad but one is bad.

 

[jpanhalt]

The difference I see is also a quantitative one. The motive for both is to obtain an unfair advantage -- just like when some people who claim to be a minority to gain votes or get the benefits of affirmative action.

However, the advantage obtained in the cases mentioned by 3v0 is nothing in comparison to the damage done by pedophiles. I understand and agree with the decision to divide the thread. I think 3v0 made his point. Not to demean the importance of ETO on the global stage, I wondered how people could feel so inadequate as to play that game.

As for the subject of this thread, I find pedophilia and severe child abuse repulsive. It saddens me that in today's society, expression of tenderness and love by adults need be so inhibited for fear of misinterpretation. I have been hugged by more than one teacher and never suffered as a result. My solution for those who so abuse children is not relevant here. My view of the role "tolerance" plays in facilitating that abuse is probably not popular either.

John