Wise parents instruct their children to tell them about any such encounters. Yet the same parents rarely educate their children about the dangers of exchanges with strangers on the Internet, often because they are unaware of the risk to their children or of measures to protect them. Because of its anonymity, rapid transmission, and unsupervised nature, the Internet has become the venue of choice for predators who transmit and receive child pornography. Before the Internet, pedophiles and child predators targeted children in parks and playgrounds, offering ice cream or candy to gain the child's trust. Today, the virtual playground of cyberspace affords these child sexual predators 1 the opportunity to engage children in anonymous exchanges that often lead to personal questions designed to assess whether the child can be lured into sexual conversations and sexual contact.
Online predators use an escalating pattern of questions once contact with a child is made.
Then they want you to describe your underwear. The pattern intensifies when the child predator asks for photographs of the child or begins to send photos via e-mail showing various forms of pornography, usually involving child pornography or cartoon characters familiar to the child which have been altered to depict sexual activity. When the child predator thinks the time is right, he will suggest a face to face meeting. Regardless of law enforcement's ability to detect and arrest child sexual predators using the Internet, the most effective protection against child victimization is an involved and educated parent. If parents are to protect their children against cyberpredators, they must understand the rationale and methodology in using the Internet to approach potential victims.