Last week, a fifteen year old girl who befriended a couple on the Internet flew from her home in Massachusetts to meet them in Long Island, New York – and was brutally tortured, raped and sodomized for an entire week. Besides being one of the most brutal cases of sexual assault I have ever heard of – the girl’s terrible ordeal proved a very important point – when you are chatting on line – do you really know who you are talking to?

These days, almost everyone that is on-line is Instant Messaging – or “IMimg” someone, or is a frequent visitor to chat rooms. The frightening thing is that when you are chatting with someone, there is no way that you can know that the person you are talking to is who they say they are. No matter the screen name they use, the text they type – or even the profile they place on the web – it can all be a lie.

People falling victim to Internet predators is unfortunately a common thing today. From the fifteen year old girl that was subject to horrific sexual acts last week, to fourteen year old Katie, who is the author of Katie.com – an autobiography about how she fell in love with a man over the Internet and lured to a meeting – only to find out that their love was a ruse when he tried to rape her the night they met – to the hundreds of other people that have put their lives at risk by logging on – chatting can sometimes be a dangerous thing.

Even my mother was worried when I was going to see Montel in Alaska. The fact that her only son was traveling four thousand miles away from home to meet a girl that he spoke to on-line but never met before terrified her. She was so worried in fact – that I could not leave without first giving her Montel’s full name, address, telephone number and e-mail address. To be honest – I don’t fault my mother one bit for worrying about me the way she did. If I was a parent – I would never let my child even go on the trip I went on myself – because no matter how much you enjoy chatting with the person you chat with – a keyboard is not a person.

Don’t get me wrong – I chat with dozens of people. The difference is that the only people I chat with are people I know or people I met at the South Park Convention. And when I started to chat with them, I made sure they were people that I knew well.

I know I sound like a hypocrite because just this year – I went on two different vacations to meet friends I met on-line. The difference between myself and the unfortunate victims like the fifteen year old girl that fell prey to Internet sharks last week is that I am older and have the knowledge to ensure that the person I am going to meet is who they say they are.

I feel that parents of children who surf the web should take notice of what chat rooms and “buddies” their children are communicating with, and talk to them about the dangers of Internet sickos – because no parent would want to go through what that fifteen year old girl’s parents are going through right now.