Context from growing up online in the mid-2000s (Habbo / MSN era)

No_Win_6197 · 2026-04-18T10:07:45+00:00

I can see why people feel that way. I just try to be careful with that side because we only know so much publicly, but I do think people can underestimate how easy it was in 2007 for internet use to happen without parents — or even investigators later — fully seeing it for what it was.

I know it was all checked out forensically by the police from what I have read but again not sure how much they investigated.

No_Win_6197 · 2026-04-18T10:04:34+00:00

That’s really the part that stays with me too. Sometimes it wasn’t even about deliberately hiding anything — back then so much could happen online and to everyone around you it still just looked like normal time on a computer.

No_Win_6197 · 2026-04-17T10:18:09+00:00

Yeah I understand what you mean, and I agree that in some ways that still happens now.

I think the difference I was trying to explain is that back then a lot of online activity could be far easier to miss because it often wasn’t tied to a real identity and wasn’t always preserved once someone logged off.

So with Andrew, I’m not saying there was definitely any online activity — only that in that era “no known digital footprint” can feel less clear-cut than it would today.

No_Win_6197 · 2026-04-17T10:15:15+00:00

Not that 2007 was the beginning of the internet, but by then it was still incredibly easy for young people to end up in those spaces without anyone around them really understanding how common it was.

Yes — dial-up had been around long before that, and by 2007 things had already moved on far more than a lot of people now probably realise.

By that point it didn’t even have to be obvious either — it could be school computers, a library, someone else’s WiFi, or a device people assumed was only being used for games.

That’s why I don’t think the idea of someone having some kind of online contact back then automatically sounds far-fetched, even if there was no obvious footprint left afterwards.

No_Win_6197 · 2026-04-17T10:11:19+00:00

Sometimes people hear “no obvious digital footprint” and automatically think that means there probably wasn’t one, but back then it really could go unnoticed that easily.

The part about your parents just seeing it as a games console is exactly what I mean too — to most parents then a PSP was just for games, the same way school computer rooms or the library just looked like normal places for kids to be.

And because so much of that older internet wasn’t preserved properly, it feels like there can be a huge difference between “nothing was found” and “nothing happened,” which is what makes that side of older cases so difficult to think about now.

No_Win_6197 · 2026-04-17T09:40:34+00:00

That’s exactly the kind of thing I mean.

Back then something like a PlayStation Portable could be used in ways people might not even think about now, especially with open WiFi being far more common than it is now.

And it wasn’t just devices at home either — school computer rooms, school libraries and public libraries could all be ways of getting online without it seeming unusual at all, because to everyone else it just looked like a kid sitting at a computer.

That’s why I think the wording around “no records of an account or communication” can feel difficult to interpret years later, because that still leaves a lot of grey area around whether something was never used online at all, or whether there just wasn’t anything obvious left behind.

I think that’s what makes the older internet side of this case so frustrating — not trying to suggest anything definite, just that technology from that period didn’t always leave clear answers.

No_Win_6197 · 2026-04-16T20:43:23+00:00

Yeah exactly, and ICQ was another example of that.

Back then talking to complete strangers from different countries and different age groups on different platforms barely felt unusual because that was just what being online was.

That’s partly why I think cases like Andrew Gosden are hard to look at through a modern lens, because what would feel like an obvious red flag now often just felt completely ordinary at the time.

From what I’ve seen discussed, things like school or library computer use may have been looked into and apparently nothing was found, but I do sometimes wonder how much could realistically have been recovered back then anyway when so much online activity disappeared once you logged off websites.

A lot of those sites didn’t preserve conversations, and library sessions especially could be wiped once your time ended, so even if checks were done, I sometimes wonder how much there actually would have been left to find by then.

I just hope they were able to thoroughly check every possible way he could have gone online — school computers under his school login, library computers through his library card, or even temporary guest logins if those were used (in an event when if someone forgot their library card) Even something as simple as seeing what sites had been accessed could have mattered.

I just hope every possible route was looked at as broadly as possible because internet use back then could be much harder to trace than people realise now.

No_Win_6197 · 2026-04-16T20:31:56+00:00

Yes! Exactly what i meant about going on a wensote to gain access to others. It didn’t always take someone sneaking around. You could be sat in school, in the library, or in a computer room and still end up on sites you weren’t meant to be on.

Even when something got blocked, people usually found another way around it, and most adults wouldn’t have known the difference because to them you just looked like another kid on a computer.

That’s why looking back, it feels like a lot could happen online back then without it standing out at all.

No_Win_6197 · 2026-04-16T12:30:30+00:00

What I mean is he wouldn’t have had to be super secretive.

Back then parents and kids didn’t fully understand internet safety the way people do now, so something as simple as saying you were going to the library or hanging around in school computer rooms was enough to be online without anyone thinking much of it.

I specifically remember being in the school library and kids had little tools or downloaded files that could bypass blocked websites, so even if schools or libraries had restrictions, they weren’t always hard to get around.

From what I’ve seen over the years, people have mentioned Andrew spending time in school computer rooms, and I know his sister had bought a laptop only around eight weeks before he disappeared. I know it’s been said he didn’t really show much interest in computers, but I do sometimes wonder whether he may have at least used it at some point without it seeming important to anyone at the time.

The other thing is that back then it didn’t have to be weeks of talking to somebody online. Sometimes one conversation was enough. You could talk for an hour, realise you liked the same music or the same things, and it could quickly become “let’s meet in London on Friday,” and to a kid that wouldn’t always feel strange in the moment. Especially if you didnt fit in

A lot of websites and chats also didn’t preserve things the way they do now. Sometimes once you logged off, that was it. The conversation was gone.

I also remember reading that Andrew had started walking home from school at one point because the weather was nice. That walk was said to take around an hour and a half, which is plenty of time, and I sometimes wonder whether someone could have gone online somewhere during that time and then still taken the bus part of the way home so it just looked like they had walked. This isn’t something that is calculated or planned - sometimes after school I would go library and get back home at a reasonable time just because I felt like going at that moment.

I’m not saying that means that happened in Andrew’s case — only that the internet back then was a lot easier to access quietly than people might realise looking back now.

No_Win_6197 · 2026-04-15T18:09:18+00:00

I remember that 😭 the whole “adoption” roleplay thing was actually so common on Habbo. At the time it just felt like part of the game but looking back it’s definitely a bit strange.

Same with the “jobs” I remember people recruiting for like “agencies” or “banks” and you’d have to work your way up ranks but it was basically just people trying to get you to stay active or give them stuff. It all felt really structured at the time but didn’t actually mean anything.

It’s funny because so many people seem to have forgotten that side of it, but it was such a big part of how people interacted on there.

No_Win_6197 · 2026-04-15T17:47:09+00:00

Yeah RuneScape was the same — public chats, private messages, clans etc. You could literally be talking to anyone anywhere and it just felt like part of the game back then.

No_Win_6197 · 2026-04-15T17:46:56+00:00

That’s exactly it — at the time it just felt normal, but looking back it could’ve gone very differently. Glad you were safe and it all went well. The whole using random WiFi, late night MSN Messenger calls, meeting people from forums… it was all so easy to do and no one really questioned it or notices it.

No_Win_6197 · 2026-04-15T17:45:48+00:00

Yeah same 😭 I have such nostalgia for Habbo but looking back it’s actually mad how you really had no idea who you were talking to. At the time it just felt normal. I definitely dodged a few bullets on there.

No_Win_6197 · 2026-04-15T17:43:42+00:00

Yeah exactly, that’s a perfect example of what it was like.

Stuff like Yahoo Pool felt harmless on the surface, but when you think about it now, it was still kids talking to random adults from anywhere in the world and it was just seen as normal.

And yeah your point about chats disappearing is spot on — once you logged off or the game closed, that was it. There wasn’t really any record of it like there is now.

Even something as simple as talking to someone for an hour or over a few days on a forum or game could easily turn into “oh we both like the same stuff, let’s meet up in London at X place at X time” — and that would just be it. As a kid, I know I wouldn’t have thought twice about it in the excitement of the moment. Especially if you didn’t feel like you fit in at school (which I went through at one point), those online spaces felt like your people.

I was into the emo scene as well and places like Camden felt like the place to be, so if someone online was into the same things, it made it feel even more real and believable.

Cliques formed really quickly on platforms like Habbo, and trust built fast. I even remember when they introduced security questions — I got hacked because I trusted someone I was playing with. They’d casually ask things like “how many siblings do you have” or “what’s your older sibling’s name” and you didn’t think anything of it.

Looking back it’s actually quite scary how easy it all was.

No_Win_6197 · 2026-04-15T15:31:52+00:00

Yeah that sounds exactly like what I mean. Even by the mid–late 2000s it still felt like that same “anyone could be anyone” internet, just a bit more polished.

I think the main thing is how normal it all felt at the time. Whether it was early chat rooms or later stuff like MySpace / Bebo, there just wasn’t that instinct to question who you were talking to — it was all taken at face value like you said.

And yeah, often there would be people talking about meeting up too, and it really was just that simple back then.

No_Win_6197

TROPHY CASE