Incidents of adults exploiting children on the Internet has risen dramatically in recent years.

The vast online network has proved irresistible for pedophiles and sexual predators.

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Source Time Herald

Increasingly, pedophiles are trying to arrange meetings with minors for sexual encounters, and are taking full advantage of computer networks to exchange child pornography.
The FBI's Innocent Images National Initiative works to combat sexual exploitation and child pornography.
According to the federal law enforcement agency, between 1996 and 2002 the number of child exploitation cases it opened jumped from 113 to 2,370. By 2003, the open cases rose to 9,366; there were 2,569 criminal convictions.
And though the vast online network has proved irresistible for pedophiles and sexual predators, their computer hard drives are providing fresh opportunities for Montgomery County law enforcement to catch them.
In the county's computer forensic department, Det. Ray Kuter's workload has grown steadily during the past four years. Kuter heads the forensic laboratory.
A few days before Thanksgiving, he was investigating four active cases of child pornography from his Norristown office.
In the main office adjoining the computer lab, a beige computer sat perched on a long table. The detective suspected the personal computer would reveal interesting things about its owner.
"You can learn a lot about people by looking at their computer (hard drives)," Kuter said.
His forensic unit provides computer analysis for police departments across the county. Currently, the department has a three-month backlog of casework.
"There's always one (computer) sitting there to be processed," he said.
The detective held up a photograph of a mangled computer CPU with an axe wedged in its casing. It was one suspect's crude attempt to "delete" damning pictures of his stepdaughter he had stored on the machine.
"We were able to collect enough pictures that he pleaded guilty," he said.
Forensic files
Computer forensic analysis has come of age in recent years and is now routinely performed to gather evidence on suspects in all types of criminal cases.
In the past two year, Kuter's forensic exams showed a defendant had used instant messaging to intimidate a witness set to testify in her trial, uncovered another woman's fraudulent online purchases of prescription drugs, and revealed some online habits of a man convicted of murdering an East Norriton woman.
In the forensic lab next to Kuter's office, a half-dozen flat- screen computer monitors sit atop tables; customized central processing units, or CPUs, rest on the floor underneath.
The detective sat down at a monitor and began cataloging thumbnail images of prepubescent girls retrieved from the personal computer of an Upper Providence man.
A vintage picture depicted a scantily clad girl who looked 12 years old, what investigators call "Lolita art." The photo was mild compared to others in the extensive collection: Some children are shown posing nude; others are pictured performing sexual acts with adults.
Vicky Hunter, a forensic nurse who works in the county coroner's office, will analyze the images and estimate the girls' ages as the case is prepared.
The computer's hard drive contains more than 95,000 digital pictures of children and 491 video clips. A tipster led police to the suspect.
But the detectives are not in a hurry to make an arrest. For now, Kuter and his younger investigative partner, Scott Schillinger, were content to sift methodically through the virtual evidence.
Schillinger, a computer expert who Kuter recruited, is now training to become a police officer.
The county department is part of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force funded by a grant through the Delaware County District Attorney's Office.
County detectives also collaborate with the FBI's undercover online operation. According to an FBI agent in Philadelphia, even surfing child pornography sites out of curiosity is technically a crime.
"If you're on a Web site, you are possessing child pornography," FBI Special Agent Chris Wilk said. "People have no idea they're breaking the law."
Kuter and Schillinger use great care in examining the computer, so as not to taint the evidence. If the suspect's computer system looks as if it's start-up times or access dates have been altered, the evidence could be challenged in court.
Kuter learned that lesson the hard way during a case against former Rev. Robert Orr, a Cheltenham Episcopal minister convicted of child abuse.
"I made a lot of mistakes," he said. "After that case, I got trained."
In each case, investigators make a copy of a suspect's hard drive to work with and store the original drive in an evidence locker.
The hard drive copy and operating system are scanned for telltale signs that the user visited suspicious news groups or known child pornography Web sites. If a familiar file is found, a forensic software tool is used to flag it.
"A lot of child pornography is coming out of the Eastern Europe," Kuter said. "But we're getting more and more from the (United States) as digital cameras become cheaper and cheaper."
Green-colored coolant and hoses can be seen inside the clear plastic shell of one modified CPU. This allows the detectives to push the device to run faster than it's normal computing capacity.
Kuter is a former narcotics detective, but he's been detailed to the computer crimes lab full time since 2001.
In the past, sexually explicit pictures might have remained hidden away for years, but pornography making the rounds on the Internet has the potential of popping up on a computer screen in the future to humiliate a victim.
"I've talked to kids who posed, and they cringe when they think of people looking at their pictures," Kuter said.
Sexy chit chat
At the other end of the computer lab, two county detectives, Mary Anders and Kathy Hart, sent instant messages to America Online chat room participants.
In chat rooms people send message to each other in real time, and the forums are popular with preteens and teenagers after they get home from school.
For the chat session, the detectives posed as 12-year-old latch-key kids - both girls and boys - to see if they could chat up an adult to arrange a rendezvous with a minor.
"We're the only ones in the county (detective unit) who are allowed to do it," Anders said.
According to "Highlights of the Youth Internet Safety Survey" conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, one in five children 10 to 17 years old receives unwanted sexual solicitations online.
A regular on the chat room circuit, Anders said she doubted America Online's claim that it monitors its chat room activity.
"AOL says they patrol the chat rooms, but there's no way anyone's patrolling these," she said.
For the next 90 minutes, she jockeyed back and forth between six chat message boxes as she conversed with participants in different chat rooms.
The detective routinely encountered people online who identified themselves as middle-aged adult men and women - some with suggestive screen names.
The chat was full of sexual innuendo, but no one suggested a meeting. Any promising "leads" got their screen names saved on computer clipboards.
In October 2003, Anders began communicating with a man who eventually agreed to meet her at an Acme in King of Prussia last January.
When 48-year-old Ernest Gudzyk, of Carbon County, showed up, he was confronted by police and attempted to flee in his vehicle. A police officer fired at Gudzyk when he attempted to run the officer down.
When Gudzyk was arrested he was carrying a loaded pistol, a box of condoms and marijuana.
He was charged with attempted rape, indecent deviate sexual intercourse and 15 counts of criminal attempt at unlawful communication with a minor, among other charges related to his attempt to flee. He is scheduled to be sentenced for the crimes today, according to Anders.
To date the women's chatting has netted 42 arrests, including 38 adults, dubbed "travelers," who traveled to meet minors for sex.
Those convicted of traveling to meet minors typically are sentenced to three to six years; those who have child pornography, from two months to two years.
Anders said she and Hart have to be careful not to lead chatters on, or the court might find a suspect was entrapped.
The detectives stay in character right up until the end of their online sessions each day.
"To sign off, I say my parents are coming home," Hart said.
Tuesday: Identity theft and fraud are on the rise and the Internet plays a key role in their increasing occurrence.
Keith Phucas can be reached at kphucas@timesherald.com or 610-272-2500, ext. 211.