This came from Yahoo/ZDNet. Mr. Pappas suggests that we just ban anonymity and privacy to "protect the children." Now where have I heard that before? And yet again, the "Ethical Hackers Against Pedophilia" raise their heads, no pun intended.

Banning privacy: A radical proposal

By Charles Pappas June 22, 1998 Yahoo! Internet Life

Copyright (c) 1998 ZDNet

Privacy and anonymity are our most cherished tenets of online life. A need so immense that Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center declared that we might need a kind of Department of Privacy. He's not alone: 72 percent of surfers think there should be new laws to protect their privacy.

It's a radical, 180-degree turn to take, but...what if we're all wrong? What if this belief that privacy + anonymity = social good has become as self-destructive and delusional as a drunk who thinks one more scotch will make him feel better?

Like Marley's ghost, privacy may be coming back to haunt us. And that ghost's name is pedophilia. How bad is it? Disguised as a 13-year-old, I was directly propositioned on AOL in fewer than 10 minutes on each of six separate attempts. I entered a chat room--usually called something like "x9x10x11" or even "JonBenet Ramsey" (code words that alert pedophiles where to swarm)--and waited for the assaults to start.

Even when I didn't enter a chat room, the offers kept coming in from pedophiles prowling for victims. One wanted to send me pictures of himself. Another asked for a phone number. "I want to do my daughter," one confessed to me. Later, when I searched for their screen names, they had all disappeared into the anonymous electronic mist.

AOL monitors kids' chat rooms continuously. (Parents can also set the AOL software so their children can't use chat rooms.) "We have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to anything illegal," assures AOL spokeswoman Tricia Primrose. "We have about 8,000 monitors scanning up to 19,000 chat rooms, message boards, member profiles, and other areas. When we get any kind of complaint, we immediately check it out. And we're working with the FBI, customs, and other officials."

It's not just AOL, of course. Child molesters "operate on every avenue of the Net," says PhotonRain (not his real name) of Ethical Hackers Against Pedophilia, a group that aids law enforcement in combating child pornography. "WWW, newsgroups, IRC, ICQ, FTP servers..."

We already know it's widespread and easy to encounter. But how often have we heard--and parroted--the party line that problems on the Net just reflect real-world problems, no more and no less? Holland slays that sacred lamb: "The amount of pedophilia on the Net is extremely disproportional to...society as a whole. They hide behind the anonymity the Net offers. And they are aware of the small odds against being caught."

Ruben Rodriguez, director of the Exploited Child unit for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), concurs: "The Net is so anonymous that molesters are very comfortable on it. They can go in and hunt kids down, and attempt five or six seductions at the same time."

"Let's face it," says a New York State investigator who requests anonymity, "the Net's anonymity enables the sickness. In a couple of hours I could easily get 2,000 pictures if I wanted, including the Baby Rape series," a popular collection of pedophilia photos whose name is horrifyingly self-explanatory.

In recent weeks, U.S. authorities have helped nab 60 online molesters, while the FBI reports that its 3-year-old Innocent Images investigation--an online task force identifying predators--has resulted in 184 convictions. An impressive stat, but less than confidence inspiring when research suggests the average child molester will have more than 70 victims throughout his lifetime.

At the same time we splash sex offenders' names online, our lawmakers weigh in with proposed privacy law after privacy law. "No one wants to give up privacy," says NCMEC's Rodriguez, whose organization now runs a CyberTipline for leads on the sexual exploitation of children. "But what do you do when your laws and protections are turned against you? Something's got to give."

But what? Our conventional wisdom that privacy is worth any risks? Just touching this petrified opinion will get me slapped with a swastika--but as philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said, "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

To be continued--that's for certain.

Copyright (c) 1998 ZDNet. All rights reserved.