This article: Massive online pedophile ring busted by cops was published at nbc.com.

Of particular note may be these paragraphs:

An Internet pedophile ring with up to 70,000 members — thought to be the world's largest —has been uncovered by police, a security official said Wednesday.

"It attempted to operate as a 'discussion–only' forum where people could share their sexual interest in young boys without committing any specific offences, thus operating 'below the radar' of police attention," Europol said.

Wainwright said he was proud of the "exceptional work of our experts in helping police authorities around the world to record these groundbreaking results."

"The safeguarding of so many vulnerable children is particularly rewarding and demonstrates the commitment of our agency to make Europe a safer place for its citizens," he added.

"Those who have been members of the site can expect a knock on the door in the very near future," he said.

It seems that as a result of some activities of some of the members, every other member of the site can expect to be a target. I guess it pays to be careful what you do outside of the discussion forums as well as inside them. Also:

The Europol statement said U.K. and Australian police infiltrated the site to identify the members who posed the greatest danger to children. Police also sometimes posed as children online as part of the investigation.

I guess that it was probably obvious that they would do that.

The statement said Europol analysts had cracked the security features of a key computer server at the center of the network which uncovered the identities of suspected child sex offenders.

And:

And, after his arrest, the forum's Dutch administrator helped police break encryption measures that shielded users' identities, allowing police to begin their covert investigations.

So I guess you can't be too careful. I wonder how many of the members were non-offending CLs who were looking for a bit of support which they were unable to find elsewhere. I wonder how many of them will be swept up in mass arrests for doing nothing other than logging in to the site. On the other hand, perhaps I should have more faith that the cops would make sure that they only had the true abusers, but I am aware that the investigation can sometimes be enough of a punishment, even if no charges are brought.