The Internet is the perfect hunting ground for sickos. Its shield of anonymity allows paedophile and other weirdoes to not only hide who they are, but what they are, pretending to children that they are other children and so forth.
IRC, IM and other forms of chat quickly became the subject of worry among anti-paedophile groups, who believed that these environments held great potential for paedophiles to find children to groom. But today, popular teenage networking Web sites like MySpace, Facebook and bebo are the new thing that such groups are worrying about.
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) centre is currently examining the potential of this problem. Chatting with strangers and giving out personal details without pretty much thought is common in such environments, making them a perfect place for grooming.
Yet despite the alert from Tunbridge Wells Girls Grammar School in Kent, pupils from the school were still last night showing inappropriate pictures of themselves online.
In moments our reporter found pictures of one 16-year-old girl at the school posing in a swimsuit and on her bed, and she had given enough details for her address and phone number to be discovered minutes later.