In the 3 1/2 years this column has run, Mike Sullivan is the first person to be profiled twice.
When I wrote about him three years ago, Sullivan was the detective in charge of the Naperville Police Department’s Internet crimes unit. Today, he helps run the high-tech crimes bureau for the Illinois attorney general’s office, concentrating 100 percent of his time on Internet child exploitation.
This means that every day, Sullivan works on these horrors: “Child pornography, solicitation for sex, performing sexual acts with a child, videotaping or engaging a child to videotape himself during sex,” he listed. “Also, harassment, stalking and cyber-bullying.”
In three years, the technology sexual predators have at their disposal has advanced dramatically.
Community sites like MySpace.com, Xenga.com and Tagged.com are popular among kids and serve as a detailed menu for predators.
“It’s not anonymous chat anymore like it was three years ago,” Sullivan explained. “These sites have documentation of maybe a year of a child’s life. There are pictures, hobbies, likes and dislikes.”
Also, the price of hardware commonly used for child exploitation has plummeted.
“Three years ago, Web cameras cost $100, today they’re $10,” he said about the small, stationary video cameras that connect to PCs. “Camera-enabled cell phones weren’t around three years ago. Digital cameras cost a lot more.”
Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan compares today’s technology with an even earlier era:
“When I was growing up, you always had Officer Friendly come talking about Stranger Danger and the guy that was going to flash you in the park,” Madigan recalled. “Now all these predators are on the Internet. Kids are being abducted. Kids are being raped. Technology has allowed criminals to do unthinkable things.”
Thankfully, the technology used capture these criminals has progressed equally dramatically.
Consider the story of Taylor March, who ran a day-care center in her Minonk, Ill., home.
Last year, March boasted in a Yahoo chat room that she was going to broadcast herself molesting a toddler through her Web camera. There were six children in her home at the time.
An Ohio police officer was in the chat room. From the offender’s Internet protocol address, he knew she was in Illinois. The officer called Sullivan’s office.
“Within 10-15 minutes, we were able to ID her and actually capture an image of the woman via her own Web cam,” Sullivan said. “We then sent it to the Minonk police chief.”
Total time elapsed between Taylor’s boast and police walking into her house: a couple of hours.
“It should have been quicker,” said Sullivan. “Unfortunately, even with us being that quick with it, she was able to molest one child.”
The fast communication between the police agencies is a result of the Internet Crimes Against Children task force, to which the Ohio officer belonged. The task force operates in 46 states.
In Illinois, 50 federal, state and local agencies are members (www.illinoisicac.org). The coordinator: Michael Sullivan.
What can parents do to keep their children safe?
“The No. 1 thing I would tell parents is that a sexual predator’s strongest weapon online is secrecy,” said Sullivan. “And a parents’ strongest weapon against sexual predators is communication.”
There’s a “grooming” that takes place when a predator prepares a child for exploitation.
“It’s the same grooming sex predators have used for decades. What they want to do is create a friendship with a child.” And, with it, the secrecy.
“He’ll say things like, `This is our secret. You can trust me. You don’t tell anyone. I won’t tell anyone.’”
The best thing parents can do, Sullivan said, is a decidedly low-tech activity: talk to your kids.
“Sit down with them. Let them show you how they search. Ask them what sites they have created. But keep in mind while you’re doing this: do not overreact. The worst thing you can do is put it into their minds that you’re going to be mad at them, punish them, or you’re going to take the computer away.”
Also, look at what they use for their screen name. See if they’re using their home address. “Explain to them how this might be harmful,” Sullivan said.
And if the kids insist on privacy and refuse to share the information?
“Kids aren’t as slick as they think they are,” Sullivan replied seriously.
“Search the community sites for them yourself. So if you search for `Emily’ on MySpace, you might not find your daughter. But if you search for 14-year-olds in the junior high your daughter currently attends, you may find her. Kids tend to list their school and their home town on these sites.”
Also, you can check their instant-messaging programs, which usually open with the user name already entered. Sullivan finds that kids usually use the same screen name on IM applications as they do on community Web sites.
Another trick: Go to MySpace and start by typing a single letter in the log-in name field. If your child uses the site, the Web browser will auto-complete the name, which you can then search for.
Finally, check out your own computer’s hard drive: Look for temporary Internet files and, especially, cookies. All of the popular social networking sites use cookies.
In addition to open communication, Madigan plans to use a low-tech approach when her 17-month-old daughter is of “Internet age.”
“We’re going to keep the computer that has Internet access in a public part of the house,” Madigan said. “It will be where I and my husband are walking around. Almost 100 percent of the kids that get into trouble have Internet access in their room behind a closed door.”
She added: “It’s OK to have a computer in their bedroom. Just not a computer connected to the Internet.”
Which makes centuries-old, common sense parenting techniques the best preventative measures against high-tech crimes against children.
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