Whenever you go on the internet, your IP number travels with you. You see it as a series of four numbers, three of which belong to your ISP, and one which identifies your computer (or the port that you called in to) so that the sites you deal with can send you things (pages, graphics, downloads). For most of you, your IP number changes each time you call in to your internet provider (ISP). With larger schools, universities, and corporate systems this is not true...one particular number identifies you right down to the computer you are using. For most of us, anyone with our IP number can easily find out who our ISP is, and where he is located. If they can convine our ISP to cooperate, they can even get him to match the port number to a log of who called in when. Luckily, many ISP's can't be bothered, but this is a reasonable situation.
Web sites can log the IP number of all visitors, but are seldom interested. Simply surfing in to some web site is not an indication of your interest in the theme dealt with on the site. However recently the moralistic right-wing fundamentalist kooks that have been making such a noise in BL-friendly forums have gone beyond their usual ranting to personal attacks on anyone they think may be friendly to the cause of BL support and education. They have set up web sites, supposedly with suggestive themes, and advertised them on BL forums, and nowhere else. They immediately get a large number of "hits" on their site, and a large number of IP numbers, and they use these to harass these individuals any way they can think of.
Visiting or posting on BoyChat (or any other BL chatboard or resource listed here on my site, is safe. Be sure to read the BoyChat Read Me First! page, and perhaps the Frequently Asked Questions if you are new to the BoyChat forum. Well, safe from the standpoint of you being identified and located from reading or posting. What you choose to reveal about yourself is another matter.
Our community is not without tragedies from posters telling a little here and some more there. There absolutely are some who collect information from Boy Chat, web pages, newsgroups, and chat rooms in order to alert local authorities that a dangerous pervert is living in their midst. It does happen. There have been investigations (and fake charges) against boylovers only because they identified themselves publicly online, little by little. Boys have also had their world almost destroyed because of things they revealed on Boy Chat. Some of these abusers (either religious or government) participate in Boy Chat, hoping to get others (especially new or young readers) to e-mail them, visit their web site, visit a special sting web site set up to grab your IP numbers, or reveal more details about themselves online. Others are completely silent. Just be aware that they are always there, and act accordingly.
Assuming you are careful what you reveal, posting is safe. The deal is that only Jimf3 or a few trusted alternates has access to the communications logs (the server administrators do not, by contract). These are not kept, but destroyed. And with dozens of folks calling for messages at any given time, especially during busy periods, tracing would be futile anyway. Again, BoyChat is safe. As other chatboards spring up, reflecting the ever increaing growth of the BL community and the internet in general, you should determine whether they are affiliated with Free Spirits, whether they are operated and frequested by people you know and trust, and what their stated security policy is. If anything comes online that is questionable (there is one paid-membership picture service that is currently under some criticism) you can be sure that warnings will be everywhere (including here on this page) about what the weaknesses are and what to do about it. Get to know who the Free Spirits committee is. Look to BoyChat for information on what is safe and what is not. Trust them. And learn to be a little careful elsewhere. You may also want to consider what information you release in your BoyChat posts, as there are those who would attack us.
It is natural to want to get involved in e-mail exchanges with others. There is a lot to be gained from close personal relationships with like-minded folks over the internet. You are free from the limitations of a public forum. You can get into background material on anything you see that interests you. E-mail is a very old and secure protocol on the internet, much more private than the WWW. The dangers of e-mail are a little different. The person you are writing to could be someone different than who he says he is. His motives may be playful, or they may be quite sinister. Bored employees at your ISP, or his ISP, where the mail is stored, could be reading mail. Others who have access to your computer, or his computer (including police during a raid) could read your mail if it is not deleted immediately (or with the "unerase" command, even if it is deleted). Certainly your/his family or co-workers may pose a threat of some type. Remember that many in our society are taught that "the end justifies the means", that it is their duty to report anything they see to "Big Brother". If you fit their stereotype of someone who might hurt a child, then you are in trouble.
Aside from harassment by religious radicals, the real danger in e-mail is not is discussing ideas (except in Canada, where discussions are illegal), but in trading porn, posting porn to newsgroups, or in meeting someone underage in real life. Viewing pictures that might be pornographic (Calvin Klein?) is not a problem, you have to get them and view them before you know if they are porn or not. Collecting them would certainly aggravate your position should you be investigated locally for some other offense. And uploading, posting, or mailing porn is most certainly dangerous. An easy conviction. Most police sting operations (yes, they exist) concentrate on posing as a minor, and getting someone to agree to a face-to-face social situation, with only a vague hint of anything illegal. Even without this threat, real life meetings, especially with minors, should be viewed with suspicion. Things are seldom as wonderful as you imagine, and you bring a number of other people into the mix when you deal with a minor in real life. Such behaviour also endangers him.
On top of everything else, each e-mail message we send out contains headers (invisible on most mail readers) that carry your IP number! Perhaps you can change the "From: " header when you compose a message, but you can't prevent your ISP from adding your IP number as the message goes out. More and more ISP's are in small towns, and anyone can find this information easily.
The practical solution to most of these problems is to send out mail that does not identify you, your ISP, or your home town. Mail that cannot be traced back to you even by professional snoops or investigators. This is the matter of anonymity. It is closely tied to the issues of internet freedom, privacy, and encryption, although a little more specific.