Well RGHRGH (Roger Roger)

Sleepless has answered your question about your posting difficulty and gone some way to deal with your IP question, however I will go into a bit more detail but first answer your questions in the order they were written.

OK, first you asked:You have partially answered your own question when you said:Legally, both in the US and UK, someone under the age a 16 cannot consent to any kind of sexual activity regardless of whether that child is sexually promiscuous or not. It will be for a court, i.e. a judge, to decide what weight to give to the child's activity when mitigating the offender's sentence.

You also asked:Here we go, whenever you log onto the Internet your ISP allocates you an IP address, logs the time and duration you are on the Internet and keeps that record for, I believe, two years (it might be longer in the US).

When you surf the web, when you send an email or whatever you do on-line you leave your IP address behind and it is logged by the server you browsed, the PC you are using and the PC (or whatever computer) you are communicating with. You cannot change or delete your IP address once it has been logged by another computer, e.g. the IP addresses in the properties of the emails I receive cannot be deleted by the senders just like I cannot delete my IP address recorded by the server hosting this forum.

Next, there is sufficient information within your IP address to immediately identify your ISP and therefore, via your ISP, you.

Using a laptop or changing locations to access the internet makes no real difference as long as you are using the same ISP.

However, logging onto the Internet via wi-fi as a guest at an Internet café, educational institution or office complex may delay being caught but it is unlikely that a pervert can groom a child out in the open, grooming is usually done in private.

Please note, there are some extremely clever people out there that can circumvent their way around the IP system and how it works, e.g. groups such as "lulz" and "anonymous", but your common or garden pervert usually does not have that level of knowledge or expertise to find ways around the IP-ISP set up.

Finally, you asked:As far as I know, when you register with an ISP you have to have sufficient financial information to prove that they will receive payment on a regular basis. So unless the person is a professional criminal with false or stolen IDs it is unlikely that he can give a false name, false address and false working payment details all at the same time.



UK Bob

For what it's worth, the person might be sharing accommodation and the internet service is registered under a housemate, friend, parent or relative's name, etc. The internet service might even be provided by a rental service of the premises and be under the rental agent's name and not the user's name.

Well LOTR

You are probably right because I have no direct experience of those models of Internet provision you have mentioned. However, that will not prevent the relevant authorities from tracking down someone that is potentially grooming an under age child, it will just take a little longer.

The authorities, if they take this matter seriously enough, could find the culprit very quickly but if they drag their feet then the evidence could naturally expire.



UK Bob