That year, he also made the first arrest in Pinellas County in an online sex case. Now, there are more children online, which means more potential victims. And more adults online, some looking to lure children into sexual encounters. Exploited Children estimates there are 10,000 Web sites maintained by pedophiles. But chat rooms are where Esposito hangs out Chat rooms are offered by online services to bring together people with similar interests.
Topics can range from cars to jobs to religion to sex.
The rooms are particularly popular with preteens and teenagers, and some services offer special chat rooms specifically for children in hopes of sheltering them from online predators. When a lot of people are participating in a busy chat room, conversations are chaotic and hard to follow. But pedophiles can use software to scan the screen names of those in chat rooms and look up the user profiles they fill out for online services such as America Online. When they find a child, they can try to arrange a private chat that others can't see or take part in. Even with a steady stream of warnings from parents, school officials, law enforcement and others telling children not to give out personal information online, it doesn't take much to find out a child's identity, home address and other information, Esposito said.