Parent’s Guide to Internet Safety Seminar “For Parents Only”
And
MySpace.com Workshop
2/21/07 6-7:45 PM
Presented by FBI Special Task Force Agent Scott Earl – Tampa Field Office
Presentation started with Man/Girl Web Site which included manifesto and twisted logic of child molesters. Web site had no illegal images and was protected by 1st amendment. Parents were told by agent to check the web site to understand the thinking of predators and pay special attention to the logos, symbols and jewelry. Look for tattoos and graffiti to be alerted to potential threats.
Predators groom their potential victims – They look for the curious posters in chat rooms. It may start as simple as a question from the predator regarding kissing. If they can find a curious target, they will pursue, however, if the child shuts them down and says they won’t talk about sexual things, the predator always moves on. They have millions of potential targets and will not waste time on someone that is not curious. This is the same type of curiosity that gets kids involved with drugs and alcohol… which also leads to sex crimes and can be used by predators.
Boys rarely report abuse because of embarrassment and stigma attached to Man/Boy abuse. Girls often “fall in love” with the offender.
Children should NEVER be allowed unsupervised online computer use.
VIDEO: 13 year old girl describing her online chat experience leading to her rape:
Typical young female going through hormonal changes. Curious about her body and dealing with self esteem issues and lacking confidence in relationships with boys. Started using chat rooms, older guy starts paying attention to her, complementing her, understanding her situation, boosting her self esteem, grooming her. Predator made her feel “special” and she looked forward to getting online to chat with him. She was thirteen and he was “21”. Had many same problems when he was her age and could “relate” to her. He was a really “good guy”. 3 months into chat relationship, he wants to meet her, lived on the other side of the country and waited until she had a school trip, flew to Dallas to meet with her 6 months after online relationship started. All of his pictures he would send her where from a distance providing an image, but not detail. When she met him, she realize he was much older than her, (he was really 41), however, she never felt in any danger. She felt a strong attraction to him as they had a long relationship online, and she never felt in any danger. She entered his motel room just to continue their online conversations, but in person. He complimented her appearance, shoes, clothes, jewelry, and make-up. He wanted to read her palm and that allowed him physical contact and got her hand into his. Told her how successful, rich and beautiful she was going to be later in life, then started with how he was thinking about her all the way to Dallas… kissing, groping, fondling… she felt she owed it to him to have sex since he traveled that far… The girl’s mother was on the trip and started looking for her. She had confided in a friend before she went to the predator’s hotel, the friend cracked and told the mother, she got security and cops and they caught the perp in act. The 13 year old victim denied any sex had taken place and tried to protect the offender until they finally showed her that he was a 41 year old sexual predator. She made the video to help other children understand how they operate.
This predator had convinced this girl he was her friend and she had supplied him with many personal details about her life. Her real name, where she went to school, after school activities. He could have located her and kidnapped her with ease. She told him all these details because he had spent months building a relationship of trust. They “groom” their victims.
The FBI agent told us that many times after they finally have sex with the victim, the “OH CRAP” factor kicks in and they realize they are going to get into trouble, so they get rid of the only witness… by killing the victim.
Video from Convicted Predator:
Pretty much the same info from the girl’s video, however, he said that he knew it was wrong, and couldn’t stop. He tried many times but just couldn’t stop trying to have sex with children. It made him feel powerful. He fit the typical profile for online sexual predators… white male, 25-45 years old, professional, educated. He said if he was on the other side of the table and his child was being victimized, he would want the book thrown at himself. He knew he was sick and there was no helping himself. He was very articulate and educated, but small and wiry and probably had trouble having a relationship with women his own age. It was a power trip and he enjoyed the online manipulation of young girl’s feelings. I got the feeling that he considered his depravity some type of art and he would mold his subject like a sculpture with clay… just my thoughts. He said if he ever got out, he would offend again.
Then the agent began the MySpace workshop. He went online in front of all these local parents and did a google search on “(my town) girls”. Insert the name of your town. Pages of hits came up, he started with the first page which included the name of the high school we were at… specifically their mascot name followed by “bitches”. I won’t use the name of my local high school mascot, but let’s use it was “Blackhawks”. On the first page, there were the “Blackhawk Bitches” and the “Blackhawk Bad-Asses”. He simply clicked on the “Bad-Asses” and there were one hundred and sixty individual MySpace pictures of local kids that belonged to that “group”. The Agent started clicking some of the individual pics and the gasps started across the room. Many of the parents knew these kids and some of the comments I heard were, “Oh my God, wait till her mom finds out… She is in my 3rd period class… That’s so-and-so’s son!”. The agent just looked calmly across the room at the shocked parents and said, “don’t be embarrassed, these are the same comments I hear everywhere I give this seminar”.
Many of the kids MySpace accounts are marked private, so the agent could not get into them to view comments and details, however, many of the pictures were sexually provocative, (young girls sticking their butts out, or sticking their tongues out), many had vulgarity, (giving the finger), or kids acting like they were smoking dope or drinking beer/hard liquor and most were throwing gang signs. Finally the Agent hit a couple of sites without privacy settings and started viewing the contents and online info about the kid. The Agent said it was “one stop shopping for pedophiles” and it was obvious he was right.
As this is a public site, I will refrain from repeating the methods he showed us to circumvent the privacy settings and get into MySpace accounts which were not accessible, but it isn’t hard. He also said that many kids have two MySpace accounts. One is sterile and they can show their parents, the other is the one the kids use and they get nasty with.
The Agent then touched on Parental controls and the good ones cost a few bucks. He could not recommend one as a representitive of the FBI, however, some sites and software he mentioned were:
netsmartz.org
stysafeonline.org
wiredsafety.org
ncmec.org
FBI.gov (for liks and info)
-Filtering services-
cleansurf.com
netnanny.com
-monitoring software-
spectorsoft.com (Sounds like the best and expensive... he mentioned spectorpro and eblaster)
benetsafe.com
Then he told us of one of the latest method of offenders… actually he showed us. He took a cute girls online photo, used a crude photo editor, cropped her head and pasted it on a funny picture. It only took him a few seconds. Then he said that many predators are using photoshop, capturing our kids photos and photoshopping porn with the child’s face or head in the image. Then sending the kid the photo and extorting real nude pics or they will send the compromising photo to all the kids at their school. They are now blackmailing their potential victims into sending real nude pics.
Tell your kids that offenders start looking for multiple potential victims and keep files with all the info they ever post on their MySpace accounts. They just copy and paste it into files that they can study at their leisure. They look for any potential information that they can use to “groom” your child into a trusting relationship. He showed us how easy it was to use public records to find your actual address and how kids put themselves in physical danger without realizing it. The predators get to know their targets “likes and dislikes” so they can “groom” them in the future.
The Special Agent repeated over and over that anything you ever post on the net is permanent. One you post it, you can never get it back, even if you delete it quickly, it is cached somewhere. Employers and collages are starting to screen MySpace accounts for potential employees and students. There are a lot of want to be “gang bangers” showing guns, drugs or stolen loot that will ruin their chances at a descent job… and LOL, he even said potential political careers. So kids need to think ahead and not get a picture of them funneling beer at a “kegger”. (I swear, he really said that!)
We were informed that you are supposed to be 14 years old to have a MySpace account, however, there are over 160 million members… the predators do the math and know that many of these members are under 14. The main target group of predators is middle school age… 7th and 8th graders. These are curious kids. Older kids already have physically changed and are not as curious.
Online gamers are now being targeted through in-game chat. PC gamers, Wii, X-Box live and even cell phone text messaging. They are already prosecuting offenders caught though in-game chat.
Potential warning signs and dangers to look for:
Your kid wants to be unsupervised online or reduces windows when you walk up to them. Open the reduced window and see what they are doing.
Finding porn on your hard drive.
Your child is becoming more secretive about their online activities.
You receive a call wanting to speak with your child. Many offenders know that there are numerous sting operations and they will ask for a phone number after a while to make sure they are really speaking with a kid, not a cop.
Packages arriving for your child. Many predators will send kids a web cam or lingerie.
If you pull your web account, modem or change your password to allow your child online, they start to visit friends a lot. These friends usually have internet access and your child goes there to continue their online habits.
The FBI, with a parent’s consent, can assume your child’s online identity to check out potential threats. They specifically asked that if you find a threat online with your kid, don’t type in…”This is so-and-so’s dad. Don’t ever chat with my kid again or I’ll call the cops!” They simply move on to the next target, and the next until they finally victimize a child. They need our help to catch them.
Here is what he said to do if you identify a threat to your child:
Don’t panic if you find offensive images or data
Don’t delete anything – they can tell anyway, but it helps to speed the process if they don’t have to recover the data from your hard drive
Preserve your computer and call the FBI and tell them the situation
That was the end of the presentation except for the details we were asked not to share outside of that room. But during the questions and answers, we were told that many kids have started making fake MySpace accounts to make teachers, preachers or other students look bad. They can be sued for this and there are several suits already for slander and liable. Tell you kids to be careful not to think a simple prank cannot have life long consequences. When it comes to peer pressure, I have always told my kids to let your friends know, “I don’t want any part of this and I will not lie for you.” That usually covers them in case they are asked questions and they will not ruin their future. Peer pressure is a killer on our kids these days.
I hope and pray these disconnected notes may help some parent/grandparent head off a potential disaster.
FReegards,
DocRock