Increasingly, online predation also is being detected through electronic undercover police operations. Most recently, on Sept. 14, police arrested a Portland man on charges of distributing child pornography to an undercover police detective in New Hampshire. Children also are threatened by the online communities that sexual predators are building on the Internet. These burgeoning online pedophile networks indirectly threaten all children, not just those who use computers, said many advocates for children, federal police and social scientists. Historically, shame and public condemnation have kept many pedophiles from assaulting children.
Society uniformly condemns adult-child sex.
Pedophiles seldom encounter other people who admit to a sexual desire for children, much less the illegal acts of raping, molesting or exploiting them. This has to be the most condemned form of human sexual behavior that there is. The mainstream online community also condemns child molestation. Thousands of Web sites and forums have been established to fight the problem. Offenders' names are even being published on Web sites such as the one run by the Bangor Police Department.