Craft offers safety tips for Internet use
Leesville Daily Leader
Mon Apr 27, 2009, 08:05 AM CDT
Leesville, La. – From Staff Reports
During the past five years the use of social networking Web sites has become a part of everyday life for many people including children. Sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter allow people to form online communities where they can create networks of people with similar interests to more easily communicate and share information with others.
According to a recent study, 87 percent of children between 12 and 17 years of age use the internet. Of those, 55 percent use social networking sites and almost half of them visit social networking sites once a day or more. Unfortunately, these same sites have also become havens for child predators.
This past February, MySpace reported that during a two-year time period they have turned over the names of 90,000 sex offenders banned from Read more
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Parents learn of Internet dangers
Police discuss Internet safety for kids during Tuesday’s seminar at Emory H. Markle Intermediate School.
By HEATHER FAULHEFER
The Evening Sun
Posted: 04/22/2009 01:00:00 AM EDT
Penn Township Police Sgt. Guy Hettinger looked at the small group of parents gathered at Emory H. Markle Intermediate School on Tuesday night and told them the hard truth about the Internet.
“The most important thing to know is that anyone can post anything, anywhere at any time,” Hettinger said. “I’m not trying to scare you, but I know I am.”
But along with scary truths about the Internet, Hettinger and Penn Township Police Officer John Carbaugh provided parents with information and tips on Internet safety during Tuesday’s seminar. The seminar was sponsored by the school’s Parent Teacher Organization and was open to the public.
Hettinger told parents that 34 percent of the unsolicited sexual material children are exposed to Read more
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AG Announces Child Predator Arrests
HARRISBURG – Attorney General Tom Corbett announced that agents from the Attorney General’s Child Predator Unit have recently arrested men from the Pittsburgh and Harrisburg areas who are accused of using the Internet to sexually proposition what they believed were young girls, including a central Pennsylvania man accused of traveling to have sex with a 13-year girl during the Easter holiday.
Corbett identified the defendants as William J. Bussard, 38, North Huntingdon, Westmoreland County and Donald D. Miller, 41, Dover, York County.
Corbett said that Bussard and Miller are both accused of using Internet chat rooms to sexually solicit undercover agents who were using the online profiles of 13-year old girls and sending nude photos to the “girls.” Additionally, Corbett said that Miller allegedly arranged to travel to Harrisburg on April 10, (Good Friday) in order to have sex with Read more
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Rules to Set for Online Message Boards and Chat Rooms
Internet Safety for Kids: Rules to Set for Online Message Boards and Chat Rooms
Is your child or teenager interested in meeting new people online? At this age, they aren’t very likely to meet the person in real life, but communicate through way of the internet instead. As nice as this sounds, it is important to remember that it can still be dangerous. Just because your child is talking to someone who claims to be another teenager, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are.
Since it is relatively easy for false identities to be created online, especially for internet and child predators, you will want to set strict rules if you intend to let your child use online message boards and internet chat rooms to do this communicating. As for what you rules you should set, it will honestly depend on your child’s age. Teenagers may have a little bit more freedom, but still don’t let them use online chat rooms, online message boards, or the internet in general without at least a few rules.
One of the many rules that you may want to impose, concerning internet chat rooms and online message boards is Read more
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Parents can monitor their kids’ messages
Friday, April 3, 2009 11:19 PM
By ELIZABETH GIBSON
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Teenagers think twice now before they send a gossipy text message or profane e-mail to Deb Goldach’s children.
For the past two weeks, the Goldach family in Bexley has been testing a subscription service that allows parents to monitor how their children use their cell phones.
With Columbus-based SMobile Systems’ parental-control dashboard, Goldach can read every text sent or received on her three children’s phones.
“It’s not a matter of trust; I have three great kids,” she said. “But there’s a lot of mean-girl-type stuff and catty texting and pictures that goes on, and I don’t want my kids to be part of it.”
For $29.99 a year, the application works on Web-enabled smart phones, although it has yet to be approved for the iPhone.
The dashboard allows parents to review their child’s text messages or map the location of their phone from a computer or their own Blackberry or other phone. If they don’t approve of a daughter’s boyfriend, they could block all messages from him.
Parents also can set up automated alerts if someone sends their child a message with words like “sex,” “beer” or “party.”
The goal is to help parents watch out for sexual predators, bullies, drugs and spyware, spokeswoman Joy Nebel said.
Goldach said it also helps track down lost phones, or, in the case of her 13-year-old daughter, a phone that a friend hid as a joke.
“Anything that helps parents make sure their children aren’t doing anything illegal is a good thing,” said Lt. Heinz von Eckartsberg of the Dublin police.
He said police are starting to see cases of sexting – sending sexual photos in text messages – at schools, and not just among the older students.
Whitehall psychologist William Friday said children are using technology to escape from their parents.
“Kids like to be able to engage in their own private fantasy worlds and they use technology as a privacy barrier,” he said. “But it allows them to access inappropriate imagery and story lines.”
Monitoring tools could help, he said, but there needs to be a balance of privacy and parental authority.
If a parent snoops too much, it might drive the child to be more secretive and deprive the child of opportunities to learn about making healthy choices, Friday said. Parents might also use it as a crutch instead of developing trust and personal relationships with their children.
The service was launched Wednesday, but parental controls for phones have the potential to be big business, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the California research company Enderle Group.
The average U.S. teenager sends 1,700 text messages a month, and 10 to 11 years old is now the average age at which a child receives his first cell phone, according to Neilson Mobile research.
Cell phone providers already market a variety of ways to take away a child’s texting privileges, restrict texting hours and keep teenagers from buying expensive phone applications.
Programs for monitoring computers have been on the market for about five years, but Enderle said systems like the dashboard are just taking off.
“It’s a bit unreal what you can see,” Goldach said. “I’m going to keep it.”
egibson@dispatch.com
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April is Internet Safety Month
Posted: April 1, 2009 04:03 PM
Updated: April 1, 2009 04:03 PM
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(Lincoln, Neb.) Attorney General Jon Bruning today announced that April is Internet Safety Month. Bruning is kicking off the month with Internet safety presentations to students in Sidney and Arcadia.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, one in seven children who regularly use the Internet is sexually solicited. One in 11 is harassed or threatened and almost 80 percent of solicitations happen at a home computer. Social-networking sites are one tool that predators continue to use to contact children.
“Kids in Nebraska use these sites as a way to connect with friends,” Attorney General Jon Bruning said, “They post photos and personal information without understanding the implications. For an online sex predator, that’s like hitting the jackpot. They’ll use that information to strike up a conversation, become a child’s friend and then ask to meet in person.”
The Attorney General’s Office also warns that more sex predators are using cell phones to communicate with potential victims through texting, instant messaging and picture sharing. Remember many cell phones are basically pocket-sized computers.
Here are some things parents can do to help protect their children:
* Use parental controls and filtering tools that can block harmful content from the Internet and limit who and when your child can call or text from a cell phone.
* Select a cell phone without Internet access or text messaging features.
* Take the time to read through your children’s text messages and networking site homepages.
* Remind children to never post personal information such as phone number, address or age on the Internet.
* Encourage your kids to talk to you if they receive threatening or uncomfortable messages.
* Warn children against meeting with someone they’ve met online.
The Attorney General’s Office is partnering with Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh and Sen. Tom White on the Child Protection Bill. This bill expands the crime of online enticement to include communications through electronic devices other than computers, like cell phones. Under this legislation, it’s also illegal for the most heinous registered sex-offenders to access social-networking sites.
For more information on Internet safety, visit www.safekids.ne.gov.
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