By Jenna Mink, Daily News, Bowling Green, Ky.
McClatchy-Tribune Regional News
When parents and students were told Tuesday that most online predators are caught after they’ve harmed or contacted 30 children, some thought that number seemed high.
In fact, “30 sounds very low,” said Officer Barry Pruitt, spokesman for the Bowling Green Police Department.
Pruitt and other guests spoke to parents about Internet safety at the Bowling Green Junior High School auditorium. It’s part of Internet Safety Week for Bowling Green Independent Schools. Officials are highlighting online issues, such as social networking and online predators, for students and parents. Read more +
Kimberly Gray Special
Abilene Reporter-News
The number of online users of social networking sites has grown astronomically in the last several years.
Although the largest demographic of users is 18- to 25-year-olds, those ages 13 to 17 make up a significant enough number to raise issues of Internet safety with their parents. Read more +
Office of Attorney General Greg Abbott – An increasingly popular Web site poses a threat to Texas children by giving users – including dangerous sex offenders — an opportunity to conduct live video chats with randomly selected participants.
Armed with only a Web camera and Internet access, www.chatroulette.com users are paired with a random stranger for a video chat. Neither a login nor registration is required before young users can be face-to-face with a total stranger. Worse, users who simply click “next” are shuffled to a new video chat partner. Read more +
San Francisco Chronicle – Tens of millions of Web users in North America and Western Europe have clicked on spam at least once – and many of them did it on purpose – according to preliminary results of an online survey that are indicative of the widespread lack of consumer awareness of e-mail threats.
Read more.
Forbes – Being the chief executive has its privileges. And one of them may be a blissful ignorance of your company’s data breach risks. According to a study to be released Tuesday by the privacy-focused Ponemon Institute, companies’ chief executives tend to value cybersecurity just as–if not more–highly than their executive colleagues. But compared to lower-level execs, CEOs also tend to underestimate the frequency of cyberthreats their organization faces.
Read more.
Childnet
www.childnet-int.org
Childnet is a non-profit organization working around the world to help make the internet a great place for children. They run projects in 4 key areas of Access, Awareness, Protection and Policy.
Childnet’s Know It All
Childnet’s Know It All guide will help you to understand the risks as well as giving you the practical advice and help you need to talk to your children and support them so they can use these new communication tools safely and responsibly.
Insafe
www.saferinternet.org
Delivers a rich assortment of internet safety-related information and serves as a coordination point for relevant activities in 16 countries.
Cybersmart Kids
www.cybersmartkids.com.au
A young person’s guide to surfing the Net, using e-mail and chatrooms, the smart way. Have fun on the Internet and explore cool sites, but remember to always be cybersmart.
Susi: Safer Use of Services on the Internet
www.besafeonline.org
Advice and information about Internet safety for parents and teachers, plus opportunities to discuss problems and share solutions.
Internet News – Identity thefts soared in 2008, and now 2009 is shaping up to be another banner year for phishers, hackers and other ID thieves.
That’s what Irving resident Debbie Browning apparently landed when she received a call from someone who spotted her résumé.
Read more.
Fortune Magazine – Facebook held no appeal for Peter Lichtenstein. The New Paltz, N.Y., resident had checked out so-called social networking sites before, and he wasn’t impressed. (“MySpace,” he recalls, “was ridiculous.”)
A chiropractor and acupuncturist, Lichtenstein was already a member of a few professional web-based user groups. The last thing he needed was another message box to check. Then a buddy posted a link to photos from a trip to Thailand and India on his Facebook page and flatly refused to distribute them any other way. The friend’s assumption: Duh – everyone’s on Facebook.
Read more.
Wall Street Journal – There is no simple technology solution to protect children from bullying, pornography, sexual predation and other online threats, a new study says.
The highly anticipated report — results of a year-long study ordered by 49 state attorneys general — found that “a combination of technologies, in concert with parental oversight, education, social services, law enforcement, and sound policies by social-network sites and service providers, may assist in addressing specific problems that minors face online,” according to a draft of the report reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The report also found that the risks that minors face on the Web — notably bullying and harassment by peers — aren’t very different from those they face in the real world.
Read more.
