textfiles/bbs/danger1.txt

  Area: ASKACOP
  Msg#: 582             Rec'd                        Date: 10/29/93  22:37
  From: Bob Eden                                     Read: Yes    Replied: No
    To: All                                          Mark:
  Subj: Info To Parents #1

The following letter is copied verbatim, from the works of Chief Alfred
Olsen, of the Warwick Township Police Department, in Lititz, Lancaster
County, Pa. Chief Olsen's comments are of special interest to parents
who have children involved in modeming and Bulletin Boards.  Following
the letter will be child behavioral warning signs and comments from
Chief Olsen and myself.

                THE DANGER OF COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARDS
                        by Chief Alfred Olsen
                   Warwick Township Police Department
                 315 Clay Road, Box 308, Lititz, Lancaster
                         County, Pa.     (717) 626-3162

        Over the years, as more and more pressure is applied, pornography
(especially that involving children) is being driven further and further
underground.  Resourceful pornographers and suppliers have employed a
variety of methods for sneaking their goods into the country and then
distributing the product to their customers.  Of all these techniques,
none has been more successful than the worldwide use of computer bulletin
board networks.

        To briefly explain, there are literally tens of thousands of
computer bulletin boards around the world and millions of actual users
(subscribers).  In central Pennsylvania alone, there are at least 500
known boards currently in operation.  For the uninitiated, these bulletin
boards are capable of connecting any home computer (with a modem - cost,
approximately $50.00) to almost any place in the world.  Now, bulletin
boards (which are very much like electronic magazines or clubs) come in
every range of interest.  If you were interested, you could find bulletin
boards with themes that range from cooking to dogs, to baseball cards, to
religion, to sex, to satanism, to the KKK, to drugs, to murder and every
other topic in between.  Wandering through a bulletin board (BBS) is very
much like reading a club newsletter and attending a meeting at the same
time.  Some of the information can be found in files areas (and copied to
your home computer - including graphic photographs and full action movies),
some of it is in message bases and the rest is exchanged during "live"
chat sessions (one computer to another).

        I realize, that this is at once amazing and infinitely
confusing, but bear with me just one moment.  For the time being, simply
keep in mind that a computer in central Pennsylvania, can connect itself
to a computer in the Far East in about thirty seconds.  Once that
connection is made, whatever goes on in the Orient is now going on here.
For example, if you had an interest in obtaining sexual materials
featuring young boys (something that is clearly illegal in the United
States), all you need do is select that topic from a menu (a bill of
fare, so to speak) and see what they have to offer.  Typically, you
would be able to find stories depicting child sex (including a wide
variety of rape fantasies), a list of still photographs that can be
viewed on your screen and copied to your home computer and a selection
of short films which can also be viewed on your screen.  If you would
like to order full length films or actual photographic prints, that
service is available as well.  And, as if that is not enough, if you
would like to have an actual child-sex encounter, you may also find a
listing of contacts who can make that arrangement for you.  Are you
shocked?  Well don't be, because this is only the beginning.

        You may have come to expect that an enterprise of that sort
might exist in the Far East, and you might even reluctantly concede the
fact that modern technology is capable of connecting the criminal
element all over the world.  But, what if I told you that this very same
thing is happening all across the United States.  The fact of the matter
is that in this country anyone with a personal computer can connect
himself to any vile activity he or she can think of.  If the computer
operator happened to be a thirteen year old boy, for example, he could
make contact with a sexual network (in the privacy of his own bedroom,
without anyone's knowledge) and obtain virtually any material his little
heart desires.

        Okay, now hang on, because it gets worse from here on in.  In
many cases, while collecting these sexual materials, the youth may also
be invited to attend a "social gathering" or perhaps make arrangements
for a "private encounter" with someone he has never met before.  I'm
sure you can guess the purpose of these meetings, so I won't elaborate.

        On the other hand, our 13 year old may not be all that
interested in sex, so he finds something a little different.  Perhaps he
wants to buy a stereo system that his parents can not afford, so he
calls a bulletin board that broadcasts stolen credit card numbers, or
maybe he hates his parents and logs onto a board that will teach him how
to steal from his father without getting caught or how to blow up the
family car.  Does this seem far fetched?  Well it's not!  Along the same
lines, a child may log onto a seemingly innocent Star Trek Fan Club
Bulletin Board and suddenly find himself invited to a satanic mass,
might be offered drugs through the mail or might meet some new friends
who want to help him to kill his parents.