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"In 2005, Ms. Brainard-Barnes was a 22-year-old single mother who had difficulty holding down a steady job. She never could afford her own place, staying with her sister for long stretches and occasionally with a boyfriend. As soon as she enrolled on a site called ModelMayhem.com, that, after a few clicks, turned out to mean nude modeling and sometimes working as an escort. Within a few months, Ms. Brainard-Barnes was making up to $2,000 a day on trips to New York City. Online, she could be her own boss and not share what she made with anyone - not a pimp, not an escort service, not a boyfriend. In 2010, Maureen Brainard-Barnes's body was one of four uncovered close by one another in the sand dunes of Gilgo Beach, Long Island, wrapped in burlap.... The Web enables some people to take risks they never would have imagined. In this way, the women of Gilgo Beach still have something to teach us. The Internet might have made pimps less necessary, but today's escorts are as marginalized as ever, and every bit as vulnerable. The police rarely help them when they are at risk, and they rarely take their disappearances seriously. As far as the authorities are concerned, their profession still seals their fate."