Catch a Predator

[Bunkermagnet]

But on the spin of that, social media has made it easier for young people to become more aware of the dangers of these creatures, whereas before, it was just the word of your parents, who you didn't listen to much, well I didn't!

Social media can reach out to the quieter vulnerable children hopefully and educate them of these dangers if they're not in friendly circles, if you know what I mean.

I can see your point, and have plenty of sympathy for it. However I would say that kids will always do what you say not to to one degree or another, and peer pressure can be even worse now with the instant out there of social media than when we were all growing up when social media was first class post.

An example of my first point is my youngest daughter when she was late teens. She had a boyfriend who was in my eyes very unpleasant, I didnt like him or trust him. What I didnt do was say anything to her about him that let her know my dislike of this lad. She always said he was pushy, and not long after she finished with him he raped a girl in an alley one night.
He duly got sent down, and when my daughter asked why I hadnt said anything about my dislike of him, I told her that I felt she would then probably have stuck with him longer and who knows what would have happened. She agreed that probably she would have done, just to go against what I said. She did feel very lucky though that she wasn't with him longer than she was.
I also consider her lucky too.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Not sure I'm totally in favour of these vigilante groups following and detaining people. Surely that is for the police to be doing and while they may have evidence, would there, or has there ever been an argument of entrapment? Yes I accept there is usually no smoke without fire but is this really the way forward. I do agree with the comment about what sort of country are the kids of today going to have. I remember being out all day, being allowed up to the golf club aged 10 across Wimbledon Common and going to London and football without a care or fear either from me or my parents. Those days are long gone

 

[FairwayDodger]

I remember being out all day, being allowed up to the golf club aged 10 across Wimbledon Common and going to London and football without a care or fear either from me or my parents. Those days are long gone

Do your folks have to take you nowadays?

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Do your folks have to take you nowadays?

Both parents long dead

 

[FairwayDodger]

Both parents long dead

'twas a joke Homer.

 

[MadAdey]

Vigilante groups need to keep their nose out of Police business. They should just gather what evidence they can then hand it on to the authorities. They have teams of people that are employed to catch these people in the correct way. I've read articles on how some of these vigilante groups have helped people get away with what they are doing because of the way they have collected evidence.

The other thing is they give these people chance to destroy evidence too. As has already been said, he was sat there wiping his phone and if you set up a remote terminal you could also have access to your PC at home and the ability to totally wipe it clean and restore it to original factory settings.

 

[harpo_72]

Vigilante groups need to keep their nose out of Police business. They should just gather what evidence they can then hand it on to the authorities. They have teams of people that are employed to catch these people in the correct way. I've read articles on how some of these vigilante groups have helped people get away with what they are doing because of the way they have collected evidence.

The other thing is they give these people chance to destroy evidence too. As has already been said, he was sat there wiping his phone and if you set up a remote terminal you could also have access to your PC at home and the ability to totally wipe it clean and restore it to original factory settings.

Dont think you can wipe a PC completely clean, without actually physically breaking the hard drive. Info or traces are always left. I had some IP data on a team lap top, thought they were going to use it, so I replaced the hard drive ....

 

[MadAdey]

Dont think you can wipe a PC completely clean, without actually physically breaking the hard drive. Info or traces are always left. I had some IP data on a team lap top, thought they were going to use it, so I replaced the hard drive ....

These people are using software that can mask your internet traffic and also jump around proxy servers. So all they need to do is then wipe the hard drive by initiating a total system restore which wipes the hard drive of all of their stuff they shouldn’t have.

I’m just saying that these vigilante groups should do everything they can to find these people then let the police deal with it. The police will get a warrant and turn up at 5 in the morning when he is asleep and take all his electronic devices before he can wipe any of them.

Read some articles on it, catching pedos and making a conviction stick takes time and evidence. Sending emails to one offering sexual acts goes into the realms of entrapment.

 

[Lazkir]

These people are using software that can mask your internet traffic and also jump around proxy servers. So all they need to do is then wipe the hard drive by initiating a total system restore which wipes the hard drive of all of their stuff they shouldn’t have.

Not really, it just wipes the headers that tell the system where everything is. All of the info is still there.
What you really need to wipe the info is an eraser program, this writes zero's and one's (the binary info) over the same place as existing information multiple times. This pretty much clears it.
But I have heard that in certain circumstances, this can still be countered by a forensic digital analyst.

Take a hammer to it if it's really important, but in most cases an eraser program will be enough.

 

[Rooter]

Dont think you can wipe a PC completely clean, without actually physically breaking the hard drive. Info or traces are always left. I had some IP data on a team lap top, thought they were going to use it, so I replaced the hard drive ....

Correct, I met a guy when i was selling kit to the police, he worked in the cyber/tech team and his job was to 'revive' hard drives that had been wiped. I felt for him, said he has to have counselling every 6 weeks due to the nature of the stuff he finds..

On a side of not knowing people, i worked with a chap whom i have know for over ten years. Earlier this year he was caught with over 10,000 grade A and B images on his laptop. Didn't go to prison either! I imagine he has moved house now as it was plastered over the local papers.