Ethical hacker catches '56-year-old predator' live on stream
One ethical hacker showed how easy it is for children to become at risk online.
In a livestream hosted by Adin Ross, a professional hacker called Ryan Montgomery demonstrated how he exposes online predators.
The video, shared by best twitch plug on YouTube showed just how quickly and easily predators can find potential victims online.
Montgomery started by typing 'teen chat' into Google to mimic the steps that young teens might take to chat with others online.
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He created a simple username, 'Ashley13fTX' on the first chat site that popped up. Almost immediately, he began receiving messages from predators.
After posting 'Hi, anyone want to chat?' in the main chat group, it wasn't long until his DM box was flooded with creepy messages from accounts he believed were used by adults.
Using typical slang like 'asl' (age, sex, location), he posed as a vulnerable child - and the replies were utterly disturbing.
After some back-and-forth messages with one account, one user claimed to be 56 and 'not married'. When Ryan asked, posing as the 13-year-old girl, if the man cared about her age, he responded 'If you don't care about mine, I don't care about yours'.
Montgomery tried asking them to move the chat to another platform like Snapchat in which the predator offered Kik.
And that was just one of many interactions that could potentially lead to something dangerous.
The fact that there are so many of these websites are easily accessible with no restrictions is honestly quite sickening.
'absolutely disgusting how those websites exist,' one YouTuber commented.
'My respect for Ryan,' another wrote, praising the hacker for his dedicated work.
Ryan Montgomery has built an online reputation for sharing cybersecurity advice on how to stay safe online, particularly for younger and more vulnerable audiences.
He shares his knowledge on how the video game Roblox could be used to exploit children in that he found certain in-game content where only over 18s would be allowed to enter and unfiltered conversations could be had. However, the over-18 limit is pretty easy to bypass.
Identifying on his Instagram as a 'Child Safety Warrior', he stresses the importance of online safety for children and parents to do their due diligence by monitoring and restricting certain messages and content.
He has also been a guest on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast where he's discussed the dangers of the deep web and the types of things people may come across.