Posted: 7/18/2004 5:26:10 PM EDT
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My 15 year old sister has been acting kinda strange lately and spending a lot of time on the computer. She has an email account through my domain and I changed her password and snooped to see what is up. I felt bad about doing it, but knew she was up to something bad. Anyway I found some strange email conversations she had with a 24 year old dude! Here are a couple excerpts: from the 24 y/o: "hey, what makes you think I didnt come? if you know what I mean" "well, I always have questions...but I dont want to cross a line here. If you think hard you can guess what I am talking about. Anyway, I really really do like you." "for the record...I dont say that to all the girls. It pain me that you would think that I do. I love talking to you. But if you cant or dont want to talk to me anymore I understand. I love you too. Scott" "hey, I am only 24 I will trun 25 in May. I am not 30 or 50 or some creep (at least I dont think so.) I really like talking to you. you can say anything to me. Nothing you say will ever turn me off, unless you tell me that you dont want to talk to me. I would love to see you too bad I cant :( talk to you later love Scott" The conversations went on from April until early June. Most of the stuff is hit and miss, the above is all I can really find but sounds suspicous enough to me. He supposedly lives 7+ hours away so I am 99% confident that they never met. I don't want to confront my sister or parents yet. I am afraid that I will scare her off from using the email since it is a good intel source. I think I am going to try to bust this dude that was emailing her, but not sure what to do. I need the almighty ARFCOM advice. |
| Damn, this is a tough one. I say you send this guy an email from an anonymous email account you set up for yourself on hotmail. In the email tell him that you are an "internet investigator" and you have reason to believe he has been preying on under aged girls. Let him know he is under "investigation" and if he has any information he might like to share it will only help his case. This will most likely scare this creep off and your sister will never even know you got involved. |
+1 Great idea! |
with him somewhere private that you can have a |
The hell with the guy!! Talk to your damn sister! Explain to her in no uncertain terms that this guy and most other guys have only one thing one there mind and that is SEX! All this love talk is just to get in her pants....PERIOD. Expain that to her that she is being PLAYED. Period...end of fucking story! And then tell her that she can no longer use your computer. And then tell your parents and ask them why the fuck they are not paying enough attention to your sister??? This guy is stalking her plain and simple. But until her behaviour is FORCED to change then she will find herself abnother stalker soon enought. Sgtar15 PS Good luck |
Well, then she will never trust him again because he "snooped" through her "private" email. He will be the bad guy and she will want to meet this pedophile even worse. Post his email here on the board. Lets all send this guy just wierd assed emails and we can even sign him up for some spam email!!  Between the investigator bit and getting hammered with emails, he will be toast. |
| It might help if you 'happen to run across' a story about a young woman in her age range that had events like this go wrong after talking with and potentially meeting with someone from the internet. Then tell her that because she is about the same age that it reminded you of her and explain how would hate to see anything bad happen to her and that's why you brought it up. |
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I think people have addressed 2 issues (correctly). The first is with your sister. She needs to understand just how dangerous this situation is. I'll be damned if I know how to get that across to a teenage girl. The second is with the SOB on the other end of the computer. I second the idea of meeting with him and explaining life to him. Make him realize just how dangerous the situation is for him. Don't give him any identifying information (license plate, etc) in case he decides to be a whiny little bitch and call the cops on you. Remember that you don't know exactly how dangerous he is; be a good boy scout and be prepared. |
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It may be worth posting this in the LEO forum for any ideas from that angle. You have a lot of options here. You could send him an email pretending to be your sister. Then get as much information from him. Tell him you want to mail him some pictures to get his address, etc. Like sgtar15 points out, you've got a much broader problem to deal with as well. Good luck. |
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It is her parent's computer that I am fixing. The guy has an AOL address and I don't want to reveal his address yet, but it is on my "To Do" list. I thought about the hypothetical speach about "another girl" but think it will fall on deaf ears. I will try it though. I remember when I was her age and I don't want to push her away. I have a good source of info and don't want to lose it. She is without a computer for about a week and I can intercept whatever goes on. I salvaged their hard drive and have it as a slave on my PC. I know she uses AIM and I am trying to figure out if there are logs. I think I am going to install a IM logging program that stores chat sessions on the HDD for review later. I appreciate all the advice and the advice sgtar15 gave has gone thgough my mind. However I feel my sister and I have a relationship that has a great potential for trust and shared info. She knows I don't go to mom. I don't want to ruin that channel. I have a plan to talk to my sister and tell her I was confronted by the authorites and they suspect a known pediphile has been communicating with someone on my domain. I'll tell her I need to know everything and that if she cooperates I can take care of this without mom and dad knowing. This way I act concerned, she 'fesses up, and it doesn't look like I snooped. What do you think? |
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Uh, your advice suxs. They are having internet sex. Is it normal?? That's a thin line in the information age. Is she in danger? Not really, unless she actually has the ability to meet this person. Respect her privacy, which teenagers are brainwahsed into believing they have, and snoop from a distance. If/when it becomes certain they will meet, arrange for a posse to intercept the gentleman in question and prepare great justice. On a side note: Get a key tracker and a logger for AIM/YAHOO text messaging that takes place on your computer. If you do not have the funds availble to purchase that type of software, go to mom and dad and ask for a loan. Then, you can read her IMS and really peg these two going at it, uh, internet-style. |
As a father of a 15 yr old daughter this is what i would do. There are times when you have to do things they don't like to protect them. Sure she will get pissed but in 2 weeks she will be a different person anyway and it will be forgotten. mike |
Nah, get the Im logger and see what they are really up to(Internet sex/Sexual Questions). Your sister is talking about sex with this guy, but you really need to peg this asshole with hardcore proof before you confront your sister or him. Preferably him. Kick his ass. |
I like that idea. But please still explain that men like this only want sex from her. Good luck. SGtar15 |
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i thought it interesting that everyone pegged the guy as a pedophile. is it possible your sister misrepresented her age? to 18+? granted, i thought it odd that there was any talk of "love", but who knows what those two talk about in their chats. email is probably only a small part of it...especially if they both have aol accounts. you could try setting up a screen name just for this issue. add the 24yr old to your buddy list and try talking to him. you could even say you are some random girl that heard he was cool talk to. with a few conversations, you should be able to get an idea of his character. could also do the same with your sister...if you can aol from work or a differnt computer. keep in mind, whenever you start playing around with such ideas, you may learn somethings you wish you hadn't. in this day and age, a lot of wacked out stuff happens on the computer. but that doesn't mean that every person involved is a serial killer or a victim. overall, very tough situation though. especailly with family involved. you ultimiately know her personality best and are best able to judge if she might unknowingly put herself in danger. from what you've said though, it sounds as if you think her as somewhat vulnerable. and personally, i could never allow my self to invade the privacy of a close freind or family member with logreading and keystroke capturing. if you can't talk about such things with her without having to snoop, you need to work of your communications skills. |
| Okay, I am speaking as the mother of three girls. You are going to have to confront your sister. If her behavior is not changed, she is going to get into serious trouble. Unless snooping through your sister's private things is a common occurance, you should be able to explain to her why you did so this time. I never went through my kids things unless I had reason to and they understood that. Once they got over getting in trouble, they actually appreciated the concern. I am not saying that you should not confront the guy also but it is more important for your sister to understand the dangers she could be putting herself into. Most kids that age think the world is perfect and nothing bad will happen to them - only other people. Hope things work out. |
| How about this option. Tell your parents and let them handle the dirty work. Your responsibility as a brother is to protect your sister. Forget all of this stuff about aranging a meeting with this guy. This just makes you a vigalante and you never know who is going to get the drop on whom. Local law inforcement needs to get involved as well. Any guy at that age who is talking to a young girl in that manner deserves to be investigated closer. |
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This is the first time I snooped. She has been withdrawn and extremely posessive and protective of the computer. This all started when the computer broke and she went on and on about how she needed it. The way she expressed it wasn't the normal "I need it to do my homework" or "I need it to keep in touch with friends". It was almost desperate. That concerned me. She has also been having problems recently with obeying my parents and being extremely rebelious. More than the usual 15 year old rebellion. I will have a talk with her, straight forward, and for now without my parents knowledge. I didn't snoop to just for entertainment, but because i know how I was when I was 15. My wife offered to talk to her, but as her brother I am going to confront her and be straight with her. |
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Get a key and IM logger. Search all the temporary internet files and history. The internet investigator thing sounds good. If that dosn't work talk to your sister. If that dosn't work pretend to be your sister and email him a trojan virus and say it is "pictures". If she gets involved with another guy you might want to consider sending a virus to her, its better then her getting hurt. Hope it all works out. |
Good decision - imo. |
| Personally I don't see the point in trying to obtain more info from key trackers or loggers. The info you have is all ready enough to be concerned. I see that you are concerned about the relationship with your sister and afraid on what may happen if you bring up the subject. The best resposne to this is to tell your parents and let them bring it up with her, thats their responsibility and they should be made aware of it anyway. The guy she is communicating with is a secondary problem, if it was not him it could be any other person she happened to meet on the net. |
Agreed on all points. |
| I really don't think you should let this go or hold off. She may not be able to travel 7 hours, but he sure in the hell can. He may be a real sicko (he's already got an obvious problem if he is picking up minors on the internet and using words like love). Your sister could wind up getting hurt (physically). It sounds terrible to scare her off by letting her know what you've read, and it sounds purely evil to tell your parents, but it would be a life altering tragedy if this guy got to her, and she was found months later lying dead in a field somewhere. Sometimes you've just got to be a jerk. It's not fun, I know. I have a younger brother and have made enough mistakes in my life to notice when he is about to do something stupid, and yes I make sure he knows what I think, and what I've learned from doing the same things when I was his age. |