I just read this article by James Coates of the Chicago Tribune and thought many of you would find it to be very useful. Understanding what your child is doing at MySpace can be very effective in curbing them from getting into some types of trouble down the road, and more than anything give you peace of mind.

A. Overnight, MySpace replaced the convenience store parking lot or mall fountain as a gathering place for kids starting in junior high school or earlier and going pretty much all the way through high school and well beyond.

As you indicate, each young user gets a home page containing a personal photo and a self-composed profile, as well as a message board to exchange info with friends and a blog spot to post thoughts with friends and others.

MySpace thus is doing stuff on the Web that people used to do on the streets. So, your real fix is to use the same parental powers and tactics that work for other hangouts and batten down for youthful howls of protest.

Put down your foot and demand they give you the same access they give to their friends and other MySpace members. Then, add that MySpace page to the Favorites in your own browser and make a daily practice of checking things out.

Better yet, take a couple of minutes and set up your own MySpace account so you can watch your children’s MySpace space as a logged-in user. Signup is quick and simple.

Because I report about it, I may be the oldest person with a MySpace account, but if you just go to www.myspace.com and browse the postings, you will find a range of age groups where kids registered as being ages 14 and 15 are communicating with 30- and 35-year-old men and women and where few holds seem to be barred. MySpace operators post warnings that children must be 14 and must not lie about their age, but there is nothing to stop a much younger child from joining.

Depending upon the age of your children, you should consider intervening in how they set up their MySpace accounts to minimize the potential for what I consider hurtful and outrageous overtures from stalkers, general creepy people and high-pressure sales gimmicks.

When a person signs up for a MySpace account, many privacy and security options can be set to minimize the downside on this Internet phenomenon that brings huge upside socializing for its audience.

For example, you can discourage unknown people from getting through to your kid by requiring that a valid e-mail address be provided before that person can be added to the Friends list that is the heart and soul of this Web service designed to foster socializing.

Likewise, you can set the account to hide your kids from being listed to all comers when they go online; you can stop others from passing along e-mail links to download your kid’s photo and restrict blog posts to only people you know. You can even block the feature where music from a favorite band gets played when your kid visits somebody else’s area on MySpace, which will guard against sexually and racially offensive lyrics.

As a parent, you even can order your children’s accounts closed by going to www.myspace.com and clicking on the Safety item at the bottom of the page.

You also can find links in a special parents’ area that point to software that can be installed on a computer to let you monitor every keystroke the kids make and to otherwise watch and censor their access.

How do you control a child’s MySpace account?
BY JAMES COATES
Chicago Tribune
A. Overnight, MySpace replaced the convenience store parking lot or mall fountain as a gathering place for kids starting in junior high school or earlier and going pretty much all the way through high school and well beyond.

As you indicate, each young user gets a home page containing a personal photo and a self-composed profile, as well as a message board to exchange info with friends and a blog spot to post thoughts with friends and others.

MySpace thus is doing stuff on the Web that people used to do on the streets. So, your real fix is to use the same parental powers and tactics that work for other hangouts and batten down for youthful howls of protest.

Put down your foot and demand they give you the same access they give to their friends and other MySpace members. Then, add that MySpace page to the Favorites in your own browser and make a daily practice of checking things out.

Better yet, take a couple of minutes and set up your own MySpace account so you can watch your children’s MySpace space as a logged-in user. Signup is quick and simple.

Because I report about it, I may be the oldest person with a MySpace account, but if you just go to www.myspace.com and browse the postings, you will find a range of age groups where kids registered as being ages 14 and 15 are communicating with 30- and 35-year-old men and women and where few holds seem to be barred. MySpace operators post warnings that children must be 14 and must not lie about their age, but there is nothing to stop a much younger child from joining.

Depending upon the age of your children, you should consider intervening in how they set up their MySpace accounts to minimize the potential for what I consider hurtful and outrageous overtures from stalkers, general creepy people and high-pressure sales gimmicks.

When a person signs up for a MySpace account, many privacy and security options can be set to minimize the downside on this Internet phenomenon that brings huge upside socializing for its audience.

For example, you can discourage unknown people from getting through to your kid by requiring that a valid e-mail address be provided before that person can be added to the Friends list that is the heart and soul of this Web service designed to foster socializing.

Likewise, you can set the account to hide your kids from being listed to all comers when they go online; you can stop others from passing along e-mail links to download your kid’s photo and restrict blog posts to only people you know. You can even block the feature where music from a favorite band gets played when your kid visits somebody else’s area on MySpace, which will guard against sexually and racially offensive lyrics.

As a parent, you even can order your children’s accounts closed by going to www.myspace.com and clicking on the Safety item at the bottom of the page.

You also can find links in a special parents’ area that point to software that can be installed on a computer to let you monitor every keystroke the kids make and to otherwise watch and censor their access.

Source Article can be found here

I ran across this article after I saw this on the evening news

She is an honor student from a small town in Michigan. He calls himself Abdullah Psycho.

They found love on the Internet and it became an international incident — a spectacular example of what experts say is fast becoming a modern twist to an age-old problem of young girls, older men and bad decisions. Nationwide, Web enticement cases have quadrupled in recent months, according to a national group that tracks such incidents.

Katherine Lester, 16, is in hiding today after creating a global stir by leaving her mother’s home last week in the farming town of Gilford, population 833, and boarding a series of planes en route to Israel’s West Bank.

She wanted to meet a man with the ominous nickname, believed to be 25, whom she met on the popular Web site MySpace.com. Instead, FBI agents tracked her down Thursday during a layover in Amman, Jordan, and persuaded her to return to her bewildered family.

"Evidently, she’s in love with this man. That’s what she said," said family attorney Renee Wood, during a press conference Monday on the steps of the Tuscola County Courthouse in Michigan’s Thumb.

"She’s never been away before. She’s a straight-A student, National Honor Society member. She gets along with Mom. She gets along with Dad. There are a lot of questions," Wood said.

FBI agents have plenty, but the anonymous man who calls himself Abdullah Psycho isn’t providing them. The self-proclaimed "industrial/trip-hop/electronica" musician’s MySpace page features a cartoon with the caption "I Give You My Heart, Kath."

Authorities believe he paid for the plane ticket for the girl who turns 17 next week.

"I’m not what they think," he wrote in an e-mail to The Detroit News before declining further comment.

The incident is the third in a month involving Michigan teenage girls leaving home to find older men they met on MySpace, a site that allows its 72 million users to post photos, swap comments and link up as friends.

In May, Macomb County deputies stopped a 25-year-old Hammond, Ind., man who drove to Harrison Township to meet a 13-year-old girl he met on the site. Earlier this month, a 17-year-old from Wyoming drove to West Branch to pick up a 12-year-old girl.

"It’s just taking off on us," said Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel, who drove to Jackson to intercept the car with the Indiana man and Macomb County teen.

"We get more complaints from parents than are ever exposed by the media. It’s an everyday occurrence, and it’s almost impossible to keep track of. Kids know the dangers. They get more intrigued by these sites because of the dangers."

Read the source article here

A clip from dateline nbc to catch a predator.  This is an absolutley disturbing clip of a child predator being caught in the act – the worst part is that he brings his own child into it!

Thank You Break.com

Parents once saw television as the big, bad wolf of media, but now the Internet bears bigger teeth for moms and dads concerned with their kids’ safety.

The World Wide Web is the No. 1 media concern for 85 percent of parents, compared to 13 percent who said the same of TV, according to a national poll recently released by Common Sense Media, a nonpartisan organization formed to improve the media lives of children and families.

Parents are fearful of the Internet but also see the softer side of this digital animal that’s taken over the information world.

Most parents realize the Internet is an important learning tool for kids and believe that, despite its dangers, children should have some kind of access to it.

More than 90 percent of parents said the Internet helps their kids explore their passions, but 80 percent fear online predators and 70 percent worry their children will see inappropriate things online.

"I think that is the underlying message (of this poll). The Internet is a double-edged sword for parents," said James Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media and father of four children ages 2 to 13.

Andrea

Slater juggles a love-almost-hate relationship with the Net in her family’s home where five children share three computers. Each PC has Web access but stays in the family’s communal rooms, never in the kids’.

She and her husband laid down strict rules when their kids, ages 8 to 17, go online. Never give out or post personal information or pictures. No passwords allowed so parents can access any e-mails or messages. No instant messaging during homework without special permission.

"It takes a lot. Especially with five kids," Slater said. "But they enjoy it so much, and I like the Internet. It becomes a way of life, whether you want to check the weather or see what’s on TV. It’s a fact of their life. It’s what they’re growing up with."

But Slater said it shouldn’t encompass her children’s lives, and she makes sure the kids don’t spend too much time online or even watching TV.

The Common Sense poll was given last month to a diverse population of parents with Internet access who have kids ages 11 to 16 who go online at least once a week.

The results preface a widespread education campaign Common Sense plans to launch in the next few weeks to help parents finagle the Internet.

Read the rest of this article <a href="http://www.tulsaworld.com/FamilySceneStory.asp?ID=060612_Fa_D1_cyber" target="_blank">here</a>

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<div align="left">Battling perceptions that it’s an unsavory online hangout for sexual predators, social-networking giant MySpace.com has hired a former federal prosecutor to patrol the site and has launched a series of ads warning kids about the dangers of the Internet.

Fox Interactive Media (FIM), the parent company of Santa Monica-based MySpace.com, announced Tuesday the appointment of Internet safety expert and former Justice Department porn prosecutor Hemanshu Nigam, the company’s first chief security officer. Nigam, an advisor to the White House on cyberstalking, will oversee all safety, education and privacy programs and law enforcement affairs for the Web site, as well as the growing network of FIM properties. His appointment becomes effective May 1.

The announcement came just a day after News Corp., which owns FIM, began running public-service announcements by the Advertising Council — the nonprofit behind “A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste” and other campaigns — on MySpace, News Corp.’s other Web sites, and its television channels, including Fox Broadcasting, FX and Fox Sports Net. The spots caution children to “not believe the hype,” meaning don’t trust anyone who approaches them online, even if they think it could be someone they know.

“We think education is the single most important tool to help kids become aware of the dangers on the Internet, and that is why we have partnered with the Advertising Council and why for a long time we’ve had safety tips posted on the bottom of our (Web) pages,” said Matthew Grossman, a spokesman for MySpace. “We are helping people to learn the basic rules of the road to help kids and their parents mitigate some of the risks.”

The road has been bumpy for MySpace since July 2005, when it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. as part of a $580-million deal for Intermix Media Inc. The Web site, which now has more than 68 million members worldwide, suddenly fell under greater scrutiny as its membership and advertising budget grew. Instead of operating under the radar, MySpace became front-page news, particularly after pedophiles were caught on the site trying to arrange sexual encounters with underage boys and girls.

Parents also complained about the posting of racy images and vulgar language on the site, leading many to pull their children’s membership.

Schools in Orange, Monterey and Los Angeles counties have responded to parental concerns and have banned access to the site from school computers. Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District has done the same.

“The school computers have a filtering system that blocks a number of Web sites, including MySpace, (video) gaming pages, (and) pages where purchases can be made,” said Amy Fowler, the school district’s liaison for the District Advisory Committee on Technology.

For those unfamiliar with the wildly popular MySpace, the site offers its members the ability to design detailed profiles online. These profiles feature photos, music, videos and daily diaries, where members express some of their most intimate thoughts. Users are able to easily communicate with friends for free and reach across continents to make new acquaintances.

That has made MySpace and other sites like it some of the fastest growing on the Internet. MySpace is currently the second most viewed site on the Internet behind Yahoo.com, Grossman said.

The hiring of Nigam and the ad campaign are coincidental and are not in response to the negative publicity MySpace has received recently, Grossman said.

“A lot of those issues are endemic of the Internet and not particular to MySpace,” Grossman said. “But we do recognize concerns, and that is why we have had security instituted since inception.”

Security measures include limiting the use of the site to members who are at least 14 years old; providing special protection to members who are under 16 so their personal information can’t be accessed by other users they don’t know; requiring all members under age 18 to review safety tips prior to signing-up; deleting profiles of under-age members; reviewing every image posted to a profile; providing parents free filtering software; and limiting access to certain groups on the site that deal in adult content.

MySpace has deleted more than 250,000 under-age profiles and scans roughly 2 million images a day, Grossman said.

Ellen Seiter, Ph.D., a professor at University of Southern California specializing in children and the Internet, said MySpace’s recent moves are “pretty much a publicity stunt, a public relations patch-up job.” But she applauds any effort that increases security for youth on the Internet — particularly protection from online advertisers.

“This sexual predator issues is something of a red herring,” Seiter said. “In terms of probability, it is more likely for your child to be molested by someone they know in real life … than on the Internet, but we don’t stop our children from playing sports or taking music lessons or going to church. Children need to be protected, but banning them from the Internet is not the option.”

Seiter said parents need to be more involved in their children’s lives and monitor their Internet use. By doing so, parents can protect their children from sexual predators, as well as from aggressive advertisers and those looking to steal intellectual property.

“Kids have been taught that the Internet is this wonderful medium that is free for all, but it really has become big business, and kids need to learn about this aspect as well as how to increase their access to education,” Seiter said. “I’m sure most kids don’t know that when they put up a picture or post a poem on MySpace that MySpace owns that. Children are giving up their rights to ownership without even knowing it. Now that’s scary.”</div>
Source Article Found <a href="http://www.smdp.com/article/articles/1018/1/MySpace-recruits-security-leader">Here</a>.

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I came across this interesting article today that I think you should all read:

There’s much that remains murky about a Justice Department proposal to require Internet companies to retain records detailing their users’ online activities for up to two years. But anyone who uses the Internet — and that’s just about everyone in America — ought to be concerned.

The plan was pushed by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, FBI Director Robert Mueller and other government officials at a recent meeting with executives from AOL, Google, Microsoft and other Internet firms. It would require companies to keep data on searches, e-mail traffic and unspecified details about users’ Web habits for possible use in terrorism and child pornography investigations. It could apply to Internet firms large and small, as well as providers of Internet access, including private employers, hotels, libraries, universities and operators of wireless hotspots.

Any plan would presumably have to be approved by Congress. To date, the Justice Department has not put forward a concrete plan or draft legislation.

Making it easier for law enforcement to catch terrorists and pedophiles is a good thing. But the government’s proposal poses security risks that could outweigh benefits. And it raises serious concerns about privacy, cost and usefulness.

The proposal would require companies to store and make searchable terabytes upon terabytes of data at a cost that no one is able to forecast but that is certain to be huge. How many additional servers would a Yahoo or an AT&T have to keep? What about a mom-and-pop ISP? And who will pay for all of it?

What’s more, these large data troves are certain to become targets of hackers, identity thieves and unscrupulous insiders. As the raft of recent data breaches has shown, there are plenty of companies, organizations and government agencies that do a lousy job at securing data. Forcing them to keep more of it would put everyone at risk.

Perhaps worst of all, the proposal would create a Big Brotherish Internet where everyone’s activities are recorded for future review. Initially, only those investigating terror and child pornography cases would be able to access the data. If history is any guide, other types of crimes would eventually be added. Private litigants in divorce and other civil cases would demand access too. Before long, users could lose trust in the Internet and begin to curtail their online activities.

The government already has the authority to demand that Internet companies keep records on individuals in connection with specific investigations. And so far, law enforcement officials have not made the case why that authority is insufficient. Perhaps they should start there, before trapping all of cyberspace inside a giant net of suspicion.

The government didn’t invent the idea of data retention. Many Internet companies have been tracking and storing the activities of their users for years, giving rise to many of the same privacy concerns, security risks and consumer fears. The government’s data-retention proposal would merely exacerbate them.

To bolster privacy and public trust on the Internet, online firms should consider being much more forthcoming about what personal information they collect and store and how they use it. And as they lobby to deflect new government data-retention mandates, they should also lobby for stronger laws to protect the data they already hold.

The source of this article is: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/14759508.htm