More Negative Views of Role-Playing

Anna Gregoline | April 28, 2005
Uh, I don't really believe this statement about sex offenders in the L.A. area:

"On one wall is a "Star Trek" poster with investigators' faces substituted for the Starship Enterprise crew. But even that alludes to a dark fact of their work: All but one of the offenders they have arrested in the last four years was a hard-core Trekkie."

(link)

How on earth could that be possible? They said something like 500 offenders. I don't think so.

John E Gunter | April 28, 2005
I saw this on the news last night. It's 50,000 children in 2003 with fewer than 500 being identified so far. Not very good odds, but considering how difficult it is to track that stuff down.

Plus, international laws can get in the way. But it looks like hte police worldwide are starting to cooperate. That's a good sign!

John

Anna Gregoline | April 28, 2005
But considering how difficult it is to track that stuff down, what?

That it's remarkable that they found that many? I think it is pretty remarkable. I wonder what else they could do to make the numbers better, though?

John E Gunter | April 28, 2005
With the proliferation of how wide spread file sharing is on the internet, how do you really know where that file came from? I know that they have file signatures, but depending on whether the file was ever signed, how do you tell who dropped it into the internet first?

One thing in the police's favor is that they get cooperation from those companies that actually own the hardware that runs the net, so it's easier for them to do the tracking. But still, the server where the picture originally was put on the internet could be in a country half the world away!

Imagine that server being in a country where the government doesn't want to deal with anyone else but their own government. Imagine how hard it's going to be to get at the person responsible for that child abuse? I get email spam sometimes that from the title, you can't tell that it contains child pornography. I've never seen any of the violent stuff they are talking about, but those emails have pretty disturbing pictures.

Fortunately, there are child protection sites out there where you can post the url of the offending sites and they work with the ISPs to shut down the site.

Now for making the numbers better, I have no idea what they could do. But I'm sure people reporting abuse will help them increase those numbers.

John

Anna Gregoline | April 28, 2005
That's why they're looking at the background in pictures, to try and find the original crime perpetrators and not the people who distribute it. In the article, one officer passes over a man offering him porn because it's not stuff he made himself.

The Star Trek thing is wrong at least, thank goodness, but I find it sad the paper made it up or repeated wrong information.

(link)

Scott Hardie | April 29, 2005
John, I don't know about you, but after a long Saturday night game session, there's nothing I want to do more than sodomize an infant with romantic music playing in the background. Then apply for the Israeli army.

Erik Bates | April 29, 2005
[hidden by request]

John E Gunter | April 29, 2005
And email addresses!

John

Amy Austin | April 29, 2005
Pervs.

John E Gunter | April 29, 2005
Mmmm, what does Doctor Smith say in the new Lost In Space, "Evil knows evil, Major West!" :-D

John

Amy Austin | April 29, 2005
I don't KNOW you!!! ;-D

John E Gunter | April 29, 2005
KNOW is such a complex word, and can be defined on so many levels! :-P

John

Aaron Shurtleff | April 29, 2005
Am I too late for the baby sodomy?!?!? Damn my workplace!!

Amy Austin | April 30, 2005
Sickos.

Kris Weberg | May 2, 2005
Oh, it's just harmless fun....no, wait....

Jackie Mason | September 14, 2006
[hidden by request]

Scott Hardie | September 15, 2006
Wait a minute! I dress in all black every day, I play violent video games and role-playing games, I keep a blog about the things that piss me off, and I like heavy metal music... And thousands of other men with no taste across this continent also match that description. Obviously, this tragedy wouldn't have happened if someone had noticed all of these warning signs and turned that young man around.