Paedophile in forum

Former Member

I moderate a forum and a user on there has admitted to liking children sexually. The users IP adresses appear to be from all over the world and i've been told it could be something called "IP spoofing". We've decided to ban her from the site, but where do we stand legally? Do we have an obligation to tell the police? Is there any real evidence?

Former Member

You could report the IP to the police, but it will probably just be some dickhead twatting around.

I wouldn't bother.

Former Member

It was a woman, she posted a picture and all other posts seemed sincere.

Former Member

Depends how they expressed it really, were they being deliberatly offensive. Do you have reason to believe they are trolling.
Why are they using a Proxy IP?
Id be suspicious.
What do the other mods think?

Former Member

She said that when she was a child she was abused and that as a result she finds children sexually attractive now. She wants to know if we can help.

We're not that kind of site and we have many mothers there, who post pictures of their children!

The other mods want her banned, but were all very unclear about where we stand with telling the police.

Former Member

I don't think it's illegal to be a paedo, so unless she expressed that she was planning on doing something bad, I'd just tell her she's not welcome for obvious reasons and ban her.

Former Member

SuzyCreamcheese wrote:

Why are they using a Proxy IP?

IIRC, the IP address changes with proxy IP whenever someone logs on.(so that if I had one, my IP address would be different to tomorrow to what it is now) She would do this so that she can't be traced and it's alot harder to ban her.

The problem here of is that, by the sound of it, you don't actually have that much evidence so that going to the police would possibly not do anything.

Sounds strange, but where it's someone behind a computer screen, you don't actually know whether they're doing this for attention (which would be very extreme, imo) or whether she has done/is doing what she posts on the board.

Former Member

oops. ignore me.

Former Member

I would definitely deny her access to the pics of children, but maybe delve deeper into what shes actually asking of you. How on earth does she expect you to help her?
There is a bit of a problem with it in that if shes banned for asking for help, then it kind of drives people to seek company with likeminded people who are the only ones whod be ok with it, and then you get groups forming, and can all imagine the bad news that follows.
That said, its not really your responsibility, and if shes making you and your other members feel uncomfortable, then youre within your right to ban her.

Former Member

To be honest if all she's said is that she finds children attractive I doubt there will be a lot anyone could do anyway.

I expect lots of people find children attractive. It's acting on that impulse that is the problem.

Former Member

Are the first bits of the IP the same? Because there's a chance that everytime she reconnects to the internet she gets a different IP. But the first three digits are the country he/she comes from, then it is tiered from primary isp sub isp and local or something like that .

Anyway, unless she's quite clever you can trace IPs. The thing is though, she's asking for help, she hasn't said she's done anything wrong. If it's not appropriate on the website then explain this to her but maybe suggest somewhere where she can get advice.

Maybe even askTheSite... they've got experts on hand who probably know more about this than all of us put together.

Former Member

Really I don't think it's a good idea to start trying to track this person down. Aside from her not actually having done anything wrong, its not your place. And tracking IPs etc could even get you into trouble, or you could trace wrongly and give a pile of shite to some innocent person to deal with.


If you're that bothered, report the person to the police, and the police can trace her, if they think it's worth doing. If not, ban her, and/or leave it.