On 2/6/06, Fred Bauder fredbaud@ctelco.net wrote:
How much truth is there to this:
The Parents for the Online Safety of Children (POSC) organization is worried about parents letting their children into a website that is a known gathering for pedophiles. Any pedophile can easily obtain a child's IP address and use it to locate the child's place of residence outside of the internet.
No, they can't IP addresses are only available for not logged in users, and for people with CheckUser access.
Pedophiles may also solicit
children for sex or attempt to contact them through using WikiPedia as a medium, or even find out their e-mail address or instant messenger screen name.
Parents should tell their children to never share personal details online. Anyone using Wikipedia to initiate sexual contacts through Wikipedia will get a very permanent ban on their person.
Since WikiPedia allows pedophiles to edit WikiPedia pages and view
the IP addresses of children freely, we recommend that you use filtering software to block WikiPedia from access in your household or school.
We don't. Simply make an account, and their IP won't show up, or simply don't announce your personal details when you're not logged on.
The internet is already a dangerous lurking ground for pedophiles;
statistics show that about 1 in 5 children are solicited for sex online, and with the growth of the unregulated WikiPedia, that number can only skyrocket.
The internet is also used by murderers, and crackpot theorists...
Since WikiPedia refuses to address the issue of pedophiles within its
ranks and the allowance of random editing to pages, we can only recommend parents to withhold access to WikiPedia.org for the time being.
Excerpts from http://news.baou.com/main.php? action=recent&msg_recent=&rid=20679
What can we practically do that would reduce any real risk? (I exclude fighting among ourselves in a destructive way)
Encourage anyone who is worried about their security to surf safely http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_1600000/newsid_1607200/1607213.stm
Fred
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