Pedophilia

[SLIMES]

Ok, I'll try not to ramble on for too long.

I was on MSN camming with some other guys as I often do :tong: . As I was performing for more than one guy I couldn't really communicate with all of them effectively. So when one of them offered me porn, I didn't get what I wanted. He asked me what kind of porn I liked and I said 'younger boys'. I said: "could u send me that pic" (the one in his personal display picture box) but when I recieved it I realised that he had taken 'younger boys' to mean kids.

It really was nasty. I'm not talking about someone sending me a pic of their underage teenage bf, I'm talking about a hideous picture of 2 boys who were well under ten and looked very unhappy.

I'm posting this because I need advice on what to do. As someone who has come into contact with victims of child abuse, I really want to get this S&%T into deep trouble. But to whom do I report it? I've searched online to try and work out what to do. I'm in the closet so I can't just say to my friends: 'yeah i was trading gay porn online the other day and someone sent me child porn'. I'm worried about the fact that that image is on my hard drive and I feel uncomfortable seeing something like that and not reporting it.

What should I do? MSN's pretty unhelpful on this.

[canuckotter]

Report it to your local police. They'll probably know what to do about it.

[bearisbare]

I agree with canuckotter, with the added thought that if I were you, I would mention "younger men" in a similar future conversation.

I've noticed in some chat spaces that many people in their 20's and 30's refer to themselves as 'boys' or 'girls', or they are looking for someone using those words. I can tell you know what you meant when you typed those words, but unfortunately some people have a very different interpretation.

[izzfan]

Yeah, probs a good idea to report it. However, you may be considered to be in posession of the image too if it has been sent to you at your request (the term 'younger boys' can be quite ambiguous and it could be difficult to prove in court that you were interested in pictures of 'boys' aged 18 or over rahter than underage ones... it could be hard to prove that the image was unsolicited)... more to the point if this bloke has a picture of child abuse as his MSN display pic, I'm quite surprised that the powers that be at MSN haven't picked it up yet! Also, if he is from another country, the UK police may not have any jusrisdiction over it - though they could probably report it to the police in the sender's country.
It is clear that you (rightfully) find the image disgusting and as such I think you are interested in doing the right thing. As I said earlier, it is probably a good idea to report it but you could end up incriminating yourself or at least being part of a police investigation. Have you considered reporting the matter to MSN (however they probably have chat transcripts and your request, made in complete ignorance of the exact nature of the image, could be a bit suspect) as they could probably report the sender directly to the police in his area. In the end, the decison is yours however beware that under the current law (and media hysteria) unintentional posession of these images probably counts as posesson but from the sound of things however, given the circumstances it is (morally at least) clear that you are not in the wrong.

Izzfan

[bearisbare]

Also, if he is from another country, the UK police may not have any jusrisdiction over it - though they could probably report it to the police in the sender's country.

Izzfan

When I hear about seizures of child porn locally (I'm in Toronto), I understand that there is a lot of sharing of information between police forces, so I sense there could be sharing between UK police and those in another country.

[JrzGuy3]

Just reiterating what everyone else said: police.

Even if you don't want to get involved, you need to get on the record you were NOT happy to have received this. One thing you need to learn about the internet is that no matter what information you send or receive, there will always be a record of it kept somewhere. This is a record that could come back to haunt you one day. Even just filing a police report will establish you didn't solicit this.

[JrzGuy3]

I said: "could u send me that pic" (the one in his personal display picture box) but when I recieved it I realised that he had taken 'younger boys' to mean kids.

Just a thought. If you have kiddy porn, why the hell are you giving it out to anyone who asks? Doesn't doing illegal shit successfully require a good sense of, idk, self preservation?

[wss30152]

Dont get me wrong i am totaly against child porn. But i dont like dealing with the police either. Think of all the questions the police would ask. I think if this happened to me i would forget about it and try and make sure it does not happen again.

[canuckotter]

Just a thought. If you have kiddy porn, why the hell are you giving it out to anyone who asks? Doesn't doing illegal shit successfully require a good sense of, idk, self preservation?
Hence why police are successful as often as they are. ;)

And yeah, I understand not wanting to go to the cops, I really do, but... Well, a friend of mine works with the RCMP and has dealt with that kind of issue in the past, and one of the biggest busts of all time came as a result of a single guy who was sent a single image by accident and went to the cops and said "I got this pic, I don't want it, what the hell do I do with it?"

[SLIMES]

Dont get me wrong i am totaly against child porn. But i dont like dealing with the police either. Think of all the questions the police would ask. I think if this happened to me i would forget about it and try and make sure it does not happen again.

This is what worries me. How do I keep it quiet and report it? What if the police want to examine my laptop? How do I explain it's seizure to my friends? I also don't really want them looking at my hard drive anyway. there's nothing wrong with what I've been doing (excluding a few technical breaches of the law) but it would be awkward all the same. Actually I haven't been 100% legal (nothing umpleasent, the kind of thing that would depend on which EU country I was in)and I'm also worried about the fact that in hindsight it looks dodgy. It was like this Him (H) and me (M)

H: u like boys
M: yeah
H: older or younger
M: younger
H: How young?
M: yung

You have to realise that I was chatting with four or five others and only had 1 hand free. So I was writing an answer to one person then another and another etc. So when I saw 'how young?', I just anwered that question as an isolated question with the naive assumption that we were talking in terms of legal porn. What you can see there is just that one conversation, but I was answering a string of questions and requests from different ppl in isolation.

Another problem is repairs. Often I get my laptop repaired at a local computer store and I don't want this to be found in some dark corner of my hard drive.

As I've typed this, I've realised that I really am going to have to report this. And can I say at this point that you lot have given me better advice in the space of a few posts than I've recieved anywhere online.

The main question is how? Should I phone them or visit or even e-mail. I'm sorry to ask such stupid questions I just never thought that I would have do do something like this; but I want to get this off my chest because right now the laptop that I'm typing this on feels dirty and infected. I'm even sick of the sight of it.

I now realise what I must do. Now it's a case of 'how?'

[meta23]

I now realise what I must do. Now it's a case of 'how?'
Here's my advice: Find out as much info as you can about the guy without asking him anything. Write a letter to the police describing what happened, telling them what you know about who he is, and explaining that you would like them to investigate.

Do not put your name, address, phone number, or anything else that would identify you on the letter. Print it, don't write it by hand. Preferably use someone else's printer, or send a photocopy rather than the original--most printers now have secret ink patterns (http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/) that can be used to trace which individual printer was used to print something. Use a common program like Microsoft Word, or even Notepad.exe, and a font everyone has like Times Roman or Courier New or Arial. Take a drive and mail it from a different zip code. Really.

You may think that I'm being overly paranoid, but here's the thing: the way the law is, the police have the right to walk into your house, seize all your computer equipment, and keep it indefinitely, if they so much as suspect that you might have some kiddy porn. And from the letter, they might readily suspect that you're a member of the pedophile community trying to get back at someone you've had a disagreement with. I mean, isn't that more plausible than the story that someone sent child porn to a total stranger? And if they want to get their arrest rates up to look good, you'll be a convenient statistic.

Also, consider the porn you do have, not to mention non-porn photos. People have been arrested on child porn charges for having photos of their own kids naked in the bath. One girl was even arrested and charged with possession of child porn because she took naked photos of herself (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/internetlife/2004-03-29-child-self-porn_x.htm). Remember that if convicted of possessing child porn photos, you will end up on a sex offenders registry which will ruin your employment prospects for the rest of your life, because the registries make no distinction between different severities of crime. The kid who took a picture of herself will be on the same list as the unrepentant rapists.

So my feeling is, it's just not worth the risk. It's unfortunate that the law prohibits cooperating more fully with the police, but if lawmakers choose to ignore the warnings of civil libertarians, that's the result. You might like to explain this to the police in the letter.

I had a similar kind of experience. I found a clear zip-lock bag of white powder on the sidewalk. I considered taking it to the police station, handing it in, and describing where I found it in case they wanted to investigate--but then sanity prevailed. Walk into a police station with a bag of what might be cocaine, with drug traces on my hands from handling the bag, and trust the police to believe my story and behave with integrity? I think not. I walked away and left it for someone else to deal with.

[Brian]

I'm going to close this thread off after this post because:
1. The advice given so far is sound and complete. Child porn should always be reported when it can! A serious crime has been committed and it should be reported.
2. The topic gives me the willies. I wouldn't want anyone advocating child pornography to come along and turn this thread into a debate, and then bisexual.com to start to show up on Google for the search term "child pornography".

Before I close the thread, I will add this important info:

To report child porn if you are in the UK, you have these options:
CrimeStoppers
Freephone: 0800 555 111

Internet Watch Fundation
www.iwf.org.uk
Form for reporting child pornography throughout the U.K. available on-site.

New Scotland Yard Child Pornography Division
Freephone: 0808 100 0040
www.met.police.uk/childporn/

In Canada:
English language: https://www.cybertip.ca/en/cybertip/report_form/
en francais: https://www.cybertip.ca/fr/cybertip/report_form/

In the US:
Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section
Criminal Division
U.S. Department of Justice
1331 F Street NW, 6th Floor
Washington DC 20004
Phone: 202-514-5780
www.usdoj.gov/criminal/ceos/
The Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) of the Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice, has supervisory responsibility for Federal statutes covering obscenity, child exploitation, child sexual abuse, activities under the Mann Act, sex tourism, missing and abducted children, and child support recovery.

ICE Cyber Crimes Center
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Toll-free: 1-866-DHS-2ICE
/www.ice.gov/graphics/investigations/services/cyberbranch.htm

Other countries: (I think some of the links are out of date)
http://www.vachss.com/help_text/report_child_porn_intl.html

I think we'll leave it up to you SLIMES if you want to use one of those official websites or use the method meta123 described which involves trying to preserve your anonimity. Personally, because you are in the UK, I don't think you have anything to worry about by reporting it online. But, definitely, I agree with the conclusion you have come to, that you have an responsibility to report it.

I hope this info helps.

- Drew :paw: