Smash hit

Justin registered with spotlife.com, a respectable internet directory of webcam users, and his photo and contact information were posted on the site. Then he waited to hear from other teenagers. No one Justin’s age ever contacted him from that listing. But within minutes he heard from his first online predator. That man was soon followed by another, then another.

Justin remembers his earliest communications with these men as non-threatening, pleasant encounters. And his new friends were generous. One explained how to put together a wish-list on Amazon.com, where Justin could ask for anything, including computer equipment, toys, music CDs or movies. Amazon delivered the gifts without revealing his address to the buyers.

The men also filled an emotional void in Justin’s life. His parents divorced when he was young; afterwards there were instances of reported abuse. On one occasion his father, Knute Berry, was arrested and charged with slamming Justin’s head into a wall, causing an injury that required seven staples in his scalp. Although Justin gave evidence against him, Berry said the injury was an accident and he was acquitted.

The emotional turmoil left Justin longing for paternal affection, and the adult males he met online offered just that. ”They told me I was smart, they told me I was handsome,” he says.

Justin’s mother, Karen Page, sensed nothing out of the ordinary. Her son seemed to be just a boy talented with computers who enjoyed speaking to friends online. She never guessed that adults would pay him just to take a few clothes off. Gradually the requests became bolder, the cash offers larger: more than $100 for Justin to pose in his underwear. Even more if the boxers came down. The latest request was always just slightly beyond the last, so that each new step never struck him as considerably different. Unknown to Justin, the adults honed their persuasive skills by discussing strategy online, sharing advice on how to induce their young targets to go further at each stage. In its investigation, The New York Times obtained names and credit card information for the 1,500 people who paid Justin to perform on camera, and analysed the backgrounds of 300 of them. Most were doctors and lawyers, businessmen and teachers, many of whom work with children.

“The world will want to blame the kids, but they are the victims here,” Ernest Allen says.

But there is no doubt that some young people cash in on their own exploitation. When Justin’s growing legion of fans complained about the quality of his webcam, he put top-rated cameras and computer gear on his Amazon wish-list, and his fans bought him all of it. Justin’s desk became a high-tech playhouse. When his mother asked about his new technology and money, Justin told her they were the fruits of his website development business.

His mother saw little evidence of a boy in trouble. Justin’s grades stayed good — mostly As and Bs, although his school attendance declined as he faked illness to spend time with his webcam.

As he grew familiar with the online underground, Justin learnt that he was not alone in the business. Other teenagers were doing the same things, taking advantage of an internet infrastructure of support that was perfectly suited to illicit business. While it helped to have Justin’s computer skills, even minors who fumbled with technology could operate successful pornography businesses. Yahoo!, America Online and MSN were starting to offer free instant message services that were able to transmit video, with no expertise required and no parental controls. No telltale credit card numbers or other identifying information was necessary. In minutes, any adolescent could have a video and text system up and running, without anyone knowing.

There were also credit card processing services that handled payments without requiring tax identification numbers. There were companies that helped to stream live video on the internet, and there were sites that took paid advertising from teenage webcam addresses and allowed fans to vote for their favourites.

Justin began to feel that he belonged to something important, a broad community of teenagers with their own businesses. Some he knew by their real names, others by screen names. Collectively they were known by a name now commonplace in this internet subculture: camwhores.

Justin chatted with the boys online, and sometimes persuaded the girls to masturbate on camera while he did the same. Other young people with paid-for sites admitted to Justin that some fans scared them. This year a teenage girl in Alabama posed semi-nude on her webcam in a sexually charged conversation with someone she thought was another teenage girl. But her new confidant was an adult named Julio Bardales, from Napa, California. When the girl stopped complying, Bardales sent her an e-mail containing a montage of her images. Across them was a threat in red letters that the images would be revealed unless she showed a frontal nude shot over the webcam. Bardales was arrested.