MySpace Scams

The House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed the Deleting Online Predators Act, which would require public schools and libraries to block student access to commercial social-networking sites such as MySpace.com.

The measure passed 410-15 on July 26.

DOPA would require public schools and libraries receiving federal funds for Internet access to provide a “technology protection measure” for minors to protect them from harmful material on the Internet, including child pornography, material that is obscene or harmful to minors, or “commercial social networking website(s) or chat room(s) unless used for an educational purpose with adult supervision.”

As applied to libraries, the measure provides that the “technology protection measure” must protect “against access by minors without parental authorization to a commercial social networking website or chat room, and informs parents that sexual predators can use these websites and chatrooms to prey on children.”

According to the factual findings in the bill, sexual predators often “approach minors on the Internet using chat rooms and social networking websites” and that “one in five children has been approached sexually on the Internet.”

“I am extremely pleased that the House moved so quickly to pass this important legislation,” said the measure’s chief sponsor, Rep. Michael G. Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., in a press release. “This legislation is the first of its kind to address the growing use of social networking sites by sexual predators. Passage of the “Deleting Online Predators Act” demonstrates Congress’ commitment to safeguarding America’s families.”

Not everyone supports the proposed legislation. The American Library Association expressed disappointment July 26 at the House action.

“This unnecessary and overly broad legislation will hinder students’ ability to engage in distance learning and block library computer users from accessing a wide array of essential Internet applications including instant messaging, email, wikis and blogs,” said ALA president Leslie Burger in a news release.

“Under DOPA, people who use library and school computers as their primary conduits to the Internet will be unfairly blocked from accessing some of the web’s most powerful emerging technologies and learning applications,” Burger said. “As libraries are already required to block content that is “harmful to minors” under the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), DOPA is redundant and unnecessary legislation.”

Mark Uncapher, senior vice president and counsel for the Information Technology Association of America, also expressed opposition to DOPA.

“We have concerns that the legislation moved quickly without thorough committee review, particularly given existing law such as the Children’s Internet Protection Act,” Uncapher said.

CIPA, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld from First Amendment challenge in United States v. American Library Association (2003), requires public schools and libraries to adopt an Internet safety policy that protects minors from online obscenity, child pornography and other material harmful to minors.

ITAA’s position is that DOPA provides less flexibility than CIPA and is redundant.

“We are concerned that DOPA would micromanage schools and libraries (in their) management of their E-Rate funded systems,” Uncapher added. E-Rate is a federal program that makes some technologies more affordable for eligible schools and libraries.

The question now is whether a similar measure will be introduced for similarly quick passage in the Senate. Jeff Urbanchuk, Fitzpatrick’s press secretary, said House supporters were waiting for a companion bill to be introduced in the Senate. “We do think it will happen,” he said.

MySpace.com is planning new restrictions on how adults may contact its younger users in response to growing concerns about the safety of teenagers who frequent the popular online social networking site.

The site already prohibits kids 13 and under from setting up accounts and displays only partial profiles for those registered as 14- or 15-years-old unless the person viewing the profile is already on the teen’s list of friends.

Under the changes, announced Wednesday and taking effect next week, MySpace users who are 18 or over could no longer request to be on a 14- or 15-year-old’s friends’ list unless they already know either the youth’s e-mail address or full name.

Any user will still be able to get a partial profile of younger users by searching for other attributes, such as display name. The difference is that currently, adults can then request to be added to a youth’s list to view the full profile; that option will disappear for adults registered as 18 and over. 

The partial profiles display gender, age and city. Full profiles describe hobbies, schools and any other personal details a user may provide.

But MySpace doesn’t check the truth in the profiles.

“A 12-year-old who uses MySpace told me on Friday you can always tell if someone’s older than they say they are because the first thing they ask you is your bra size,” Parry Aftab, executive director of Wiredsafety.org, said on CBS News’ The Early Show

Aftab told co-anchor Hannah Storm MySpace isn’t making enough of an effort to protect children online.

“I’m holding a summit in White Plains, N.Y., today where everybody but MySpace is coming to sit down and figure out what the we can all do, Parents, Xanga, Facebook, Bebo, [other online sites catering to teens], all of the other sites are sitting in a room with regulators and the FTC and everyone else to see what we can do to keep kids safer,” Aftab said.

Driven largely by word of mouth, MySpace has grown astronomically since its launch in January 2004 and is now second in the United States among all Web sites by total page views, behind only Yahoo Inc., according to comScore Media Metrix. The site currently has some 87 million users, about a quarter registered as minors, according to the company.

At MySpace, which was bought last year by News Corp. for $580 million, users can expand their circles of friends by exploiting existing connections, rather than meeting randomly or by keyword matches alone.

It offers a mix of features — message boards, games, Web journals — designed to keep its youth-oriented visitors clicking on its advertising-supported pages.

MySpace has recently become a target of parents, schools and law enforcement officials concerned that teens who hang out at MySpace can fall victim to sexual predators.

“MySpace has been under enormous pressure for months and the pressure is growing now that it’s being sued for by 14-year-old who was allegedly sexually assaulted by an adult who misrepresented his age,” says Magid.

The girl, in the suit filed this week, is seeking $30 million in damages. And earlier this month, a 16-year-old girl who tricked her parents into getting her a passport flew to the Mideast to be with a 20-year-old man she met through MySpace. U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded the teen to turn around and go home.

MySpace officials say the new restrictions have been long planned and are unrelated to recent events.

Besides the contact restrictions, all users — not just those 14 and 15 — will have the option to make only partial profiles available to those not already on their friends list.

All users also will get an option to prevent contact from people outside their age group. Currently, they may only choose to require that a person know their e-mail or last name first; that will remain an option to those 16 and over, even as it becomes mandatory for those younger.

MySpace also will beef up its ad-targeting technology, so that it can avoid displaying gambling and other adult-themed sites on minors’ profile pages and target special public-service announcements to them.

The changes follow a number of safety-related measures that includes the hiring of a former federal prosecutor and Microsoft Corp. executive as its online safety chief. MySpace already has developed safety tips for parents and children and devotes scores of employees to monitoring the site around the clock.

Children’s safety online shouldn’t be left solely to services like MySpace, says Aftab, who offered tips earlier this year on The Early Show.

“Parents have to be involved. Ask their kids if they have a MySpace or other social networking page, tell them you want to look at it tomorrow, giving them a chance to clean it up,” Aftab told Storm Wednesday. “If your kids aren’t listening to you, and you’ve set rules that you like, it’s time to unplug the computer.”

“I need somebody to be the parent in the house.”

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.

PALMDALE, Calif. — Postings on the popular Web site Myspace.com have led the parents of a missing Illinois girl and a private investigator to believe that she may be in Southern California. 

Jessica Liccar, 16, of Crete, Ill., has been missing since June 2 when she crashed the family car. 

The girl was taken to a hospital but released before her parents arrived and hasn’t been seen since. 

Liccar’s parents believe she is traveling with 17-year-old Simon Sotheras, and postings on the social networking site revealed information that the pair may be in the Palmdale-Lancaster, Calif., area. 

Liccar is 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighs 140 pounds. She has reddish-brown hair and braces. Her possible companion is 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 170 pounds. 

Anyone with information is asked to call 800-487-0947, ext. 9.

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.

A 16-year-old girl from Detroit, who tricked her parents into getting her a passport and then flew to the Mideast to be with a man she met on MySpace.com has returned to Michigan.

U.S. officials in Jordan persuaded Katherine R. Lester to turn around and go home before she reached the West Bank. Lester arrived at Bishop International Airport in Flint late Friday and was taken to a private area to be reunited with her family.

She disappeared Monday after talking her parents into getting her a passport by saying she was going to Canada with friends, sheriff’s officials said.

She apparently planned to visit a man whose MySpace account describes him as a 25-year-old from Jericho, Undersheriff James Jashinske said.

MySpace.com is a social networking Web site with more than 72 million members that lets users post photos, blogs and journals. It is owned by the same parent company, News Corp., that owns FOX News. There have been scattered accounts of sexual predators targeting minors they met through the site.

Lester apparently contacted the man from Jericho about three months ago, Jashinske said. Jericho, a city of 17,000, is a relatively calm area of the volatile West Bank.

The FBI traced the teenager to a Wednesday flight from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Tel Aviv, Israel. At a scheduled stop in Amman, Jordan, U.S. officials persuaded her to return home, FBI agent Robert Beeckman said.

“Thank God she was returned safely,” Lester’s father said Friday afternoon while awaiting her arrival.

Terry Lester said his daughter is a straight-A student and student council member. “She’s a good girl. Never had a problem with her,” he said.

MySpace forbids youngsters 13 and under from joining and provides special protections for those 14 and 15 — only people on their list of friends can view their profiles. Older users also have the option of restricting certain personal data so it can be seen only by people they have identified as friends.

Shawn Lester told The Saginaw News that her daughter has “never given me a day’s trouble. … I just don’t understand with all these new laws protecting America how a 16-year-old kid could get out of the country.” She said her daughter never had a boyfriend and seemed to be content with that.

Katherine and her mother live in Gilford, a village about 80 miles north of Detroit in Michigan’s agricultural Thumb region. Her father lives in Grand Blanc Township.

Jashinske said deputies confiscated the family’s home computer and were taking it to the FBI’s Bay City office for analysis. He said it remained unclear whether any laws had been violated because of Lester’s age. The age of sexual consent in Michigan is 16; Katherine turns 17 on June 21.

“I’ll be honest with you, we don’t know if a crime’s been committed,” Jashinske said.

The Grand Forks School District has blocked the popular MySpace.com Web site on its computers, citing safety concerns and negative behavior nationwide linked to the site, including bullying and stalking.

“Outside of our schools, adults posing as youth have gained access to student chat rooms, which has led to tragedy in some cases,” said an April letter to parents signed by Ron Gruwell, assistant superintendent for secondary education, and Jody Thompson, assistant superintendent for elementary education, for the Grand Forks schools.

“Unsuspecting students have posted enough personal information that predators are able to locate their home or school address, thus becoming easy targets for predators.”

The Web site has become a favorite of child predators, cyber bullies and con artists, the letter said. Also, children, mostly ages 9 to 14, use the anonymity of the Web to post messages about others that would not be said face-to-face, the letter said. It went on to urge parents to talk to their children about MySpace, and to go to the site and register.

“Parents should be aware of what their children are writing and what others are posting on their Web sites,” the letter said.