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Keeping children safe on Internet
Investigators offer some suggestions to help your children stay safe on the Internet. Among them:
· Talk to your children about safe use of the Internet and establish rules and boundaries for them to follow
· Keep computers in public parts of the home, not in a child's room

· Monitor children's Internet use
· Eliminate Web cam use or allow your children to use it only with parental supervision
· Advise your children to correspond online only to people they would chat with face-to-face.
· Encourage children to tell a parent if they are approached in a sexual manner on the Internet
· Children should not put "sexy" photos of themselves on their Web page or other Internet sites, nor should they submit photos with identifiers such as their school name
· Check to see whether your children's schools are teaching Internet safety to children of all ages

Video Clip(s)
Chief Operating Officer Alan Blake discusses the Missouri Sexual Offender Treatment Center in Farmington for sexual predators who have been civilly committed.

The information highway includes dangerous detours where sexual predators and pornographers troll for victims.

As more children surf the Internet, establish their own Web sites, and join in chat rooms with their peers, the potential increases for sexual predators to lure youngsters into private discussions or liaisons on the street. And while youth are swapping music online, child pornographers are using the same file-sharing sites to trade child pornography and recruit new victims.

The idea that a stranger can reach into your home through a computer is very disturbing. The knowledge that those strangers could be pedophiles or pornographers is almost too frightening for some parents to admit. However, ignoring the problem is not the way to protect your children, investigators and prosecutors say. (See 'chat abbreviations' on tips page to learn commonly used terms)

“It's a hard thing for most adults to wrap their minds around,” said Joe Laramie, who heads the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, located in Clayton. “But parents need to be aware of issues, online as well as off line. They need to teach their children that they have a safe place when it comes to telling parents that things are ‘out of sorts.’”

The Department of Justice studies indicate that one in every seven children has been approached online for sexual reasons. One in three has received unwanted sexual materials/nude photos over the Internet. One in three has communicated with a stranger and one in nine has formed a close relationship with someone he or she met online.

It happens to children who are not afraid to talk about sex with strangers online.

It happens to naïve youth who believe whatever someone tells them in an instant message in a chat room.

And it happens to well-behaved children, good students, and responsible teenagers whose parents trust them — but underestimate the craftiness of some sexual predators.

According to a report in October for the PEW/Internet and American Life Project, studies show that approximately 32 percent of teenagers who go online have been contacted by a stranger, and nearly 25 percent of those teens say they were scared or uncomfortable as a result. Girls are nearly three times more likely than boys to report online contact that scared them or made them uncomfortable.

In 2007, U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway’s office in St. Louis prosecuted a record number of child sex exploiters in the eastern district of Missouri: 51 men and one woman, including defendants from Desloge, Ironton and Potosi. That number was up from 34 child sex exploitation indictments in 2006 and 10 in 2000. (See Websites for resource sites that provide information on protecting your children from sex abuse and Internet predators)

Nearly all of the offenses in the eastern district were for child pornography. However, child sex exploitation also involves child sexual abuse and transportation of a child over state lines for sex.

Nearly all the convicted child pornographers were white men from rural as well as urban areas, Hanaway said. They ranged in age from 18 to people in their 60s.

“If you look at the general criminal population, most criminals tend to ‘age out’ of their ‘business’ by the age of 40,” Hanaway said. “That is not true of these guys.”

Federal convictions for child pornography included possession, production and distribution of the illegal material.

“The number of Internet pornography arrests and convictions has more than tripled since 2000,” U.S. Attorney Catherine L. Hanaway said. “We’re getting at least one production or possession of child pornography every week in the eastern half of the state.”

The frequency of such problems on the Internet led Missouri leaders to tighten efforts to identify, catch and incarcerate men and women who entice youngsters online and who possess, produce or distribute child pornography on the Internet.

“If you have a child at home, this is something you ought to be concerned about,” said Gov. Matt Blunt. “If you’ve got a child at home who spends a lot of time online, it’s definitely something you ought to talk with them about.”

Highway of opportunity

Secrecy has always been part of a child exploiter’s life, and that limited their access to victims. The Internet improved that access, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Carrie Costantin of the eastern district.

The Internet has  become a highway of opportunity for pedophiles, child pornographers and sexual predators who are looking for victims, she added.

Pedophiles and child pornographers use a variety of ways to contact children online, including Yahoo groups, newsgroups, peer-to-peer opportunities such as Kazaa or LimeWire, social networking sites such as MySpace.com, Web cams, video collection sites such as YouTube, Xboxes and instant messaging.

In public or private groups, people can exchange photos or videos, and chat. Often, conversation with potential victims as well as with other pornographers, begins in a public forum, then moves into private chat room.

Most of the potential victims are 13-16 year olds, Costantin said.

The increased use of Web cams and camera phones add to the spread of child pornography.

“If they take a photo while molesting a child, that photo inevitably gets out onto the Internet,” she said.

Hanaway said some people are not certain what constitutes child pornography.

“Child pornography is not 15-year-old girls taking their tops off,” Hanaway said. “Seventy percent of these victims are under the age of 12, 50 percent are under the age of 5, and 30 percent are younger than 3. We have even seen infants being raped.”

Hanaway said studies indicate that for every identified victim when an offender is caught, there usually are more victims who do not come forward. Many of those arrested for pornography already have expanded into molestation or other forms of sexual abuse.

“It is my fondest wish we just catch people for child pornography before they touch a kid,” Hanaway said.

Creating communities

Before the Internet, it was a “lonely life” for child pornographers, Costantin said. With the new technology, it not only is easier to find other pedophiles, but it can be done without being seen.

“One thing the Internet has done is to create communities in chat room based on topics, where people can exchange photos and videos,” she added. “There is an impression of anonymity.”

In the chat rooms, people who are sexually attracted to children can trade pornography, teach others how to approach children and discuss tips for grooming and molestation, Costantin said. Private groups set up for child porn often go unnoticed until someone reports it to the Internet provider or to law enforcement, she added.

Undercover officers on the Internet typically pose as young teenage girls. They enter sites that are likely to attract sexual predators, and engage strangers in Internet conversation.

A 2005 Internet undercover operation illustrates some of the common ways Internet predators entice children and teenagers. The Internet conversation between a predator and an undercover investigator took place in a chat room called, “I Love Older Men.”

A man began flirting with the investigator, who he thought was a 14-year-old girl. The man soon asked for more photos of her.

“He wanted proof that she was not a cop,” Costantin said. “People who are fakes usually have only one picture of themselves.”

Because the investigator knew that, there were several photos available to show the man.

In the conversation, the man asked sexual questions, finally offering to meet the 14-year-old to have sex. Still a bit skeptical, he wrote, “If this is fake, I wasted a trip and a hotel room.”

Indeed, he had.

“It’s tough sometimes, being a predator on the Internet,” Costantin joked.

Getting the photos

Often, the encounters are not as much about having sex with the child as they are about preserving photos or videos of those encounters. Predators don’t usually continue to bother children who continually resist their advances, Costantin said.

“These guys don’t waste time talking to 14-year-old girls unless there’s something in it for them,” Costantin said.

When predators find a child who is willing to spend time talking with them, he or she tries to manipulate the child into providing nude photos with the use of a Web cam or a camera phone. The predator promises that the photos will not be seen by anyone else. That is usually a lie.

Sometimes, the pedophile is the one providing nude photos or doing the sexual acts. In one case, an Internet predator was caught after he showed himself performing sexual acts with a 9-year-old boy and a 3-year-old boy.

One misconception about the Internet is that you can remain anonymous, whether you are commenting, sharing private information with a friend, or soliciting children for sexual exploitation.

“There is an IP address association with each posting,” Costantin said. “We can track it back to the source.”

In this case, the FBI tracked down the IP address, went to Cape Girardeau and served a search warrant. They found the man in bed, asleep, with a child. The man was arrested, convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Working together 

The fight against Internet predators begins with state leaders and reaches into individual homes.

Blunt has supported additional funding for cyber crime grants during the past two years, and anticipates another increase in funding in 2008. He wants e-mail addresses and instant messaging names of sex offenders to be available to parents, who can then check to see if criminals are communicating with their children. He also supports new laws to make it illegal to misrepresent yourself online.

“Often these dangerous offenders will claim to be a teenager or a preteen, and they’re not,” Blunt said. “We want to make that a crime.”

Attorney General Jay Nixon has turned over to the Missouri Highway Patrol 694 names of convicted sex offenders who had pages on MySpace.com, which is a popular social networking Web site where teens and youth establish personal Web sites and communicate with others online. MySpace.com removes names of identified sex offenders and forwards the account information to Nixon’s office.

On Monday, MySpace announced an agreement with Nixon and attorney generals from 48 other states and the District of Columbia to create and lead an Internet Safety Technical Task Force. The task force will work to develop age and identity verification tools for social networking Web sites. MySpace will invite other social networking sites, age and identification verification experts, child protection groups and technology companies to participate. The task force will report back to the attorney generals every three months and is expected to issue a formal report with findings and recommendations at the end of the year.

Details of the MySpace agreement are available at  http://ago.mo.gov/newsreleases/2008/pdf/MySpace-JointStatement0108.pdf .

Nixon’s High Tech Computer Crime Unit (HTCCU) assists local law enforcement with investigation and prosecution of Cybernet crimes and leads training and education sessions to help citizens avoid becoming victims of online predators.

“During 2007, the HTCCU performed 16 training sessions for law enforcement, school officials, local prosecutors and other interested members of the general public across the state,” Nixon said. “We have also given 66 presentations in Missouri schools during the past two years, with more than 5,100 students, parents, teachers and school officials participating.”

Project Safe Childhood

Throughout Missouri, law enforcement teams have been working with prosecutors to nab Internet predators and child pornographers before they can harm any children. On the eastern half of the state, state and local law enforcement agencies work with the U.S. Attorney’s office, the Regional Computer Crimes Education and Enforcement Group (RCCEEG), Laramie’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC) and the FBI’s Innocent Images National Initiative (INI).

The agencies work together as part of Project Safe Childhood, a U.S. Department of Justice initiative that partners federal, state and local law enforcement in the effort to fight computer-based exploitation of children.

The project began May 17, 2006. It involves the above agencies as well as the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals Service and advocacy organizations such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).

As part of Project Safe Childhood, U.S. Attorneys offices across the country filed 2,118 cases of child sex exploitation in fiscal year 2007 against 2,218 defendants. Those figures represent a 27.8 percent increase from 2006.

Clayton crime fighters

Laramie’s group in Clayton is one of 59 Internet Crimes Against Children task forces in the country. Task force members provide information, equipment, and resources to prevent or investigate Internet crimes against children. Since 1998, ICAC groups across the country have received nearly 200,000 complaints that led to the arrest of 10,500 people in the United States who tried to sexually victimize children.

ICAC task force members made a total of 2,354 arrests for online child exploitation crimes across the nation last year, almost 15 percent more than in fiscal year 2006.

Efforts of Missouri’s ICAC members have helped increase the number of cases dealt with in Missouri, including the 2007 record in the eastern district, Laramie pointed out.

“We have a greater percentage of prosecutions per capita in Missouri than in any other state,” Laramie said. “I think it has to do with the relationship between law enforcement and federal prosecutors. I think that we're lucky to have federal prosecutors in St. Louis and Kansas City who are dedicated to prosecuting these kinds of crimes. There also is some really good police work being done.”

Laramie’s group focuses on educating parents and children about child pornographers to help prevent future victims. He spoke here last year at Mineral Area College.

In Clayton, the ICAC investigators work side by side with members of RCCEEG, which performs computer forensics for law enforcement agencies throughout the eastern half of the state. Similar groups in the Kansas City area investigate computer and child exploitation crimes in the western part of the state.

One of the computers the forensics investigators worked on last year was Michael Devlin’s. The group’s work led to a federal plea agreement for the Kirkwood man. Devlin was sentenced to 170 years in prison, for production of child pornography and transportation of a minor for a criminal sex act. His federal sentence will run consecutive to his state sentences, which totaled more than 70 life terms.

RCCEEG focuses on all cyber crimes, while ICAC focuses on crimes against children. Members of both groups have been specially deputized by the FBI so they are also able to arrest suspects on a federal level.

Most people believe that there is anonymity on the Internet, because they can post comments, chat or send files under a false name or no name at all. But almost always, work on a computer leaves a trail, said Clayton police detective Kenneth Nix, who supervises operation of the RCCEEG.

“Criminals might think they hide every identifier when they use a computer in their crimes, but there almost always is a trace, Nix said.  “Only people who really know what to do are truly anonymous. Normally, when you log onto a Web site to post something, some type of identification will be trapped.”

Part of Nix’s job is to find that identifying information and track it to the source. He and the other four members of his task force use cutting edge technology to help federal, state and local law enforcement. Most agencies cannot afford their own computer forensics investigator, so they bring the computers they seize to the RCCEEG lab.

The groups often handle reports called into the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s Cyber Tip Line, 800-843-5678. Reports may be made 24-hours per day, seven days per week on the Tip Line or online at http://www.cybertipline.com.

The close collaboration among ICAC, RCCEEG, the U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI have made it easier to catch cyber criminals, Laramie said.

“Our numbers (of arrests and convictions) are growing because we have more people working on this,” Laramie explained. “It’s a dramatic increase in investigation as opposed to a dramatic increase in cases. We work together, that’s why it is so successful.”

FBI

The FBI has taken a proactive role in combating child pornography and child sexual exploitation over the Internet through its Innocent Images National Initiative (IINI). The IINI is a division of the FBI’s Cyber Crimes Program.

It began in 1995, two years after an investigation of a missing juvenile revealed that adults were regularly using computers to transmit sexually explicit images to minors and, in some instances, to lure minors into engaging in illicit sexual activity.

Supervisory Special Agent Zachary Lowe specializes in catching online predators from the FBI’s St. Louis office. He is the supervisor of the St. Louis FBI’s cyber squad.

“Offenders go to areas of the Internet where they know there are other people like them,” Lowe said. “Parents wrestle with what sites to allow their children to go to. The fact is the same sites that parents feel are great for their kids are the same sites offenders will try to exploit.”

He added that children should avoid areas of the Internet that are designed for adults.

“It’s a little more difficult for an adult predator to infiltrate a child’s Web site,” Lowe said. “Children should avoid going to sites where there is mature content.”

Catching online sexual predators is one of the FBI’s top priorities.

“We work proactive daily to catch online predators,” Lowe said. “We follow up on tips we receive from the community. We also go to different online social networks. Investigations are conducted daily.”

U.S. Postal Inspectors

For the past 100 years, the U.S. Postal Inspectors have participated in enforcement of obscenity laws, including child pornography, said Postal Inspector Dan Taylor of St. Louis.

In the 1980s, most child pornography was transported through the U.S. mail. The Child Protection Act of 1984 expanded the Postal Inspectors’ role in those investigations.

“For 10 or 15 years, we were the only federal agency working these cases,” Taylor said.

In the 1990s, the Postal Inspectors’ focus shifted to child pornography on the Internet. They continue to be involved because conversations that start on the Internet often involve sending gifts, photos, videos and other pornographic materials through the mail, Taylor explained.

Since the Postal Service began tracking child pornography cases in the mid 1980s, inspectors have made about 5,000 arrests for possession of child pornography, Taylor said. Those arrests revealed additional criminal acts.

“Roughly one out of three people who possessed child pornography had molested a child, he explained. “Usually, the people we arrested had thousands of images.”

A crackdown by the Postal Service on pornography about 10 years ago led to the arrest of 832 molesters and the rescue of 1,078 children who were victims of child pornographers, Taylor said.

“Every image of child pornography is documentation of abuse happening,” Taylor added. “Every time an image changes hands, that child is victimized again.”

INOBTER

Members of the Project Safe Childhood partnership also work with Missouri’s INOBTR (I Know Better) Web site, http://www.inobtr.org. The site provides information and tips to children, teenagers, parents, educators and others who are concerned about online safety.

According to the INOBTR Web site, St. Louis-based business leader and philanthropist Steven Schankman donated $100,000 to start the INOBTR campaign and has been the driving force behind its completion. Development of the site began in early 2006.

INOBTR works with experts in law enforcement, child services, education and other interested agencies and organizations to help define the risks children face online and provide tips for handling those situations.

INOBTR partners include the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which has a similar Web site at http://www.netsmartz.org.

Teens most at risk

In 2006, the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire published a five-year study, “Online Victimization of Youth.” The study contradicted some of the information law enforcement provides about Internet predators.

For example, research indicates that most predators do not hide their age and the children they seek are almost always teenagers, said Dr. David Finkelhor, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory.

“Only five percent of the offenders concealed the fact that they were adults from their victims,” Finkelhor reported. “Eighty percent were quite explicit about their sexual intentions with the youth that they were communicating with.

“They play on teens’ desires for romance, adventure, sexual information, understanding, and they lure them to encounters that the teens know are sexual in nature with people who are considerably older than themselves.”

 He agrees with investigators, prosecutors and others who want to protect children from Internet predators and child pornographers, who say the most important tool parents have is communication with their children. Parents, grandparents and others should focus on messages to children that trying to have a romantic, sexual relationship with an adult is not going to work out and that sending erotic pictures of themselves is a bad idea. They won’t be able to control where those photos go.”

“The kids who are getting victimized tend to be risk takers who are having problems with their families, Finkelhor said. “I’m not sure we know what the best messages are yet, because this is a tricky issue and there are no evaluation studies on what works.

“But saying ‘Don’t give out personal information online’ is not enough. Revealing personal information does not put children at risk as much as the youths’ willingness to talk about sex with someone they don’t know, and their willingness to enter sex chat rooms.”

Paula Barr is a reporter for the Daily Journal and can be reached at 573-431-2010, ext. 172 or at pbarr@dailyjournalonline.com.

Chris Cline is a reporter for the Daily Journal. Contact him at 573-431-2010, ext. 114 or at ccline@dailyjournalonline.com.