Online Safety Resource
We deliver reasons and resources to help keep your family safe online.
…He Was Stopped Short of an Actual Meeting But…
I found this story at the DelmarVa.com site. “ Dover man pleads guilty in Internet child-luring case”. According to prosecutors, the man posed as a 15-year-old on the social networking site popteen.us.com, which caters to teenage girls, and in February made contact with three minors – a 12-year-old from Reston, Va., a 13-year-old from New Jersey and a 15-year-old from Indiana.
Over several months, according to court papers, the man made hundreds of cell phone calls and sent hundreds of emails and text messages to the teens, and in the case of the girl in Virginia, sent a naked photo of himself. According to court papers, in the e-mail exchanges the two had explicit conversations about sex and talked about meeting in order to follow through on what they discussed.
The Virginia girl's mother discovered the messages and contacted police who took over the child's account and continued communicating with Wilson. At that point, he had no choice but to plead guilty.
I could not find out how the mother found the messages but I am glad she found them. She could have found them sooner and put a stop to the “hundreds of email and text messages” sooner if the computer were being monitored a bit closer.
This one was luckily stopped before too much harm came to the 12-year-old. The police also found printed child pornography and stories concerning rape, torture and murder of children. It sickens me to think what could have happened to this girl…
…No - The Cops Can Not Always Be Trusted…
The headline in the WBBM News Radio web site was “Cop Pleads Guilty to Sex With 13-Year-Old Boy”.
The 40-year-old cop pleaded guilty Friday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to having sex with a 13-year-old boy in Dubuque. It is no surprise that the court found they met through an Internet Chat room.
The officer spent 20 years in law enforcement. Until 2005, he provided security to Grayslake Central High School District 127, Grayslake Police Chief Larry Herzog told the Chicago Tribune. He most recently was a part-time officer in Oakwood Hills, Ill.
I always thought that the police were here to protect the kids. This happens too much from the people we are supposed to trust. If it is not a cop, it is a teacher or a coach. You cannot trust anybody on the Internet. Especially when it comes the safety of your kids….
Keeping the Kids Safe
Any computer monitoring program available could have halted these two mishaps. The 12-year-old girl received hundreds of emails and text messages. Somebody could have just checked her email once in awhile and this could have been stopped without even using a computer monitor program.
Internet Predators are a very real danger, a danger that parents need to realize. If you figure that your kids are safe because they are in their bedroom on the computer and not out in the real world, you may be in for a rude awakening. The only way to protect them is to know what they are doing on the computer at all times. Parents should consider using a computer monitoring program. The Predators are out there and they are chatting with your kids.
Online Safety Tips
- Get the computer out of the bedroom. If that is not feasible, check on them frequently. Walk right up to your child and ask them to show you what they are doing. Do not forget to check the taskbar because they probably heard you coming and minimized a few windows.
- Check their browsing history often. If the history folder is empty, they are hiding something.
Online Safety Resource recommended Monitoring Program:
Spector and Spector Pro - Combine seven recording tools with Internet access blocking and intelligent and instant alert notification when content you specify is encountered and you have one of the most powerful Internet monitoring and surveillance software you can buy anywhere. Keep your kids safe from internet Predators with Spector.
Sign up for the Online Safety Resource Newsletter