Online sex predators on the rise

More here
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-...edators-on-rise

The gov't and other systems are able to set up a system to triangulate a lightning strike and show where it hit, surely they can do the same with the signature of a computer through the technology they have today and catch these mongrels.

@ King Llyr...

The government does not have the ability to do all of these things. Even if the technology is available for it to do so, programs such as this would require money and labour.

In the long run it would be more cost-effective to ensure that our children were properly educated in the dangers of online predators and equipped with the tools to ensure that they did not fall victim to one.

In part that may be so, but in reality today, how many children do you think actually listen to thier parents and adults in general?
The Youth today say they know more.

What we need, well - ONE of the things we need - is for police departments in each state to run constant sting operations, going into chatrooms and onto the sort of sites that attract pedophiles, and running stings to catch them. And make the captures and court cases as public as possible. Make the bastards scared, instead of feeling like they've got their own special playground.

Not the only solution, but one good step.

Predators have always been around it's just another way for them to get at the innocent it all comes down to education they have to be kept informed of the dangers we and the authorities have to keep ahead of the game technology has sped up that much there is people around that will use any means to get what they want if we want to protect our kids we have to learn about the internet and keep up with what is going on no sticking our head in the sand till it's too late.

Constant stings...is still a matter of resources.

The only way the government or law enforcement would be doing constant sting operations is if the community demands it and makes it an issue that will make or break a government. I do not see this happening.

It is a serious problem but it is not one that is seemingly a constant priority for either government or law enforcement.

I am not arguing anything other than my perception. I do not see this issue as one the government or law enforcement considers to be of the highest priority (as sad as that is). That is not to say that there are not politicians or law enforcement people who advocate a much more constant surveillance of social networking sites in order to catch out pedophiles and other bad people trawling for victims. But, they are not winning this policy battle...yet!

I don't think police or authorities will ever be able to get on top of the sex predator problem. There just seems to be so much of it it's really no surprise that a lot of them believe it's normal behaviour.
Even if we had all the resources in the world to man a task force, I'd bet there'd be a percentage of them who were, themselves, predators. If we can't trust legal people, police, teachers, doctors or clergy to leave our kids alone, we really have no hope of protecting them.
It does boil down to education and giving our children as much information as possilbe on what to look out for and how to deal with it. Even if they give a bit of attitude, KL, most kids do take some note if they know you're not just trying to give them a hard time.

In the US a while ago a TV station ran internet stings to catch predators, then filmed the jerks who showed up (naked, with beer) to meet the 14 year old boy or 12 year old girl who was at home all alone. Made for great TV. Especially the guy who'd never done it before (all of them had never done it before) and who was caught twice.

Maybe the police don't have the resources, but I bet a TV station does. Now THAT would be a reality show I'd watch.