As technology improves, paedophiles are developing increasingly sophisticated methods of grooming their victims, networking with other offenders and hiding their activities.
Chat rooms are the obvious example, where the distance and impersonality of a computer keyboard lull victims into a false sense of security, and aids the paedophile in what is known as the 'grooming' process. But chat rooms also provide a means of networking for offenders – often on a worldwide scale – with little risk of being caught.
According to the report, "On-line guides to all aspects of child sex are available. Some have hyperlinks to bulletin boards, information about chat rooms, where IT expertise and access or grooming techniques are shared, and passwords or pass-phrases given to access pornography."
The offender is more likely to be caught out by members of his network than the police. The report reveals: "If an offender puts members of the network at risk, perhaps by the unauthorised passing on of images, he is likely to have his computer targeted with viruses or denial of service attacks."
The growth of the internet has resulted in a proliferation of sites containing pornographic images of children. The report refers to the work of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) – a body that receives complaints about web sites and, if shown to contain illegal images, transfers the details to police and ISPs.
The IWF has seen a 64% increase in the number of complaints in 2002, and its work shows that over half of the reported sites are hosted in the US. The number of sites hosted in Russia has more than doubled in the same period – from 286 to 706. However, it is quite common for sites to be hosted in one country and run from another, substantially reducing the risk of being caught.