FBI Warns Kids Throughout The Country About Online Safety

In honor of National Missing Children’s Day, the FBI recently held events at elementary and middle schools throughout the country about Internet safety.

According to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, the FBI fingerprinted and photographed students to help protect them from predators.

Special Agent Peter Brust told the Tribune that “on any given day statistics show about 2,200 children are reported missing, some of them are found and some are not.”  Brust said that “it’s important we have updated photos and things in the event that a child goes missing.”

Seventh- and eighth-grade students were given DNA swab kits and safety booklets.

Agent Brust noted that this was the first time the FBI held the event and stressed that the Internet poses a terrible threat to today’s kids.

“The Internet is the Industrial Revolution for pedophiles,” Brust said. “At any given time there are something like 30 million kids online at a time. Predators go where the prey is.”

Parents can help protect their kids online by using SnoopStick. To learn more about Snoop Stick, click here.

The Myth and The Reality About Online Crime

The public impression about Internet crime is wrong. That’s what experts on Internet safety recently told a commitee that advises the U.S. Congress.

According to the experts, the public generally believes that predators go on the net and pretend to be kids. The public believes predators target young children by lying about their ages, motives, and identities, and then trick kids into disclosing personal information about themselves, and then stalk them.

In reality, the predominate online victim is not a young child, but a teenager. And deception does not generally play a significant role. Most predators do not conceal that they are adults and do not conceal that they are interested in sex. Instead, they take advantage of common teenage vulnerabilities and lure their victims into actually meeting with them.

To read the full presentation made to the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee, click here. It is disturbing, but essential, reading for any parent.

Verizon Comes Out Against Online Safety Law

The Delaware Online Predator Act of 2007 was designed to protect kids online. Verizon came out against the Act and it has now been put on hold.

The Act would have required Internet service providers to establish “comprehensive online” tools to help parents monitor their children online. The required tools would:

- record visits by kids to inappropriate websites

- monitor and scan a kid’s MySpace pages for unsuitable content

- enable parents to see on their computer screens exactly what their children were seeing on their home screens and allow parents to intervene if necessary

The Act was shelved after Verizon came out against it. According to the president of Verizon Delaware, the Act is not “the most effective way to combat predators.” But in the future, said Verizon’s president, “we will be working with the House committee to better understand the proposed bill and how it can best protect our children.”

Parents, unfortunately, do not have the luxury to wait for the future.

What parents can do now is take action themselves, such as putting a computer used by their kids in the living room or den and allowing them to use the computer only when the parents are there.  Parents can also buy monitoring software that is already on the market.  SnoopStick is one such product and it might help parents accomplish, right now, what the law cannot.

Miss America Promises To Help Promote Internet Safety

Lauren Nelson is Miss America 2007. When Ms. Nelson was a teeneager, she had a bad experience online.

“When I was 13,” said Ms. Nelson in a recent statement in Business Wire, “I experienced first-hand the potential dangers of unsafe Internet use. Some friends and I made the mistake of giving our names, ages and locations to someone online who we later discovered was a sexual predator. After we received inappropriate photographs from this person, we immediately told our parents, and the situation was defused without incident. Unfortunately, not all kids are as lucky as my friends and I were.”

Because of her experience, Ms. Nelson has promised to appear in public service announcements on how to avoid dangerous situations on the net. She will aslo make local appearances to educate people about how to stay safe online.

Excellent work, Miss America 2007! …Were hoping to ger her to help us promote our Kid Safe Browser called TUKI.  See www.TUKI.com for more info.