In Wisconsin a darker side of Facebook was revealed last December when Anthony Stanci plead no contest to two felonies. It must have been a plea bargain, because the 19 year old had blackmailed at least seven of his fellow students for sex. Between 2007 and 2008 he had a Facebook page that he used to trick male classmates into sending him nude pictures of themselves. He pretended to be a girl, and after classmates exchanged pictures with him (it's not hard to find nude pictures of girls on the internet), he threatened to post the boys pictures online unless they had sex with him.
Stanci might still be blackmailing teens for sex, if he hadn't been greedy. One of his victims had been unwilling to speak up to protect himself, but when Stanci wanted pictures of the young mans brother that was too much. He went to his parents, and the police were called.
Last week Stanci was sentenced to 15 years in prison. According to his lawyer, that is a fair sentence, and will give him time to rebuild his life after he gets out. That's really great, but I wonder who is making sure the youngsters who were victimized by Stanci get their lives rebuilt?
It's important we make sure our children know that they cannot assume that they know someone online. And that we remember it ourselves. Otherwise we make it too easy for predators to prey on us.
Showing posts with label Stalking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stalking. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
School administrations are not police
Just days after telling you about the student who successfully sued her school for violating her free speech rights when they punished her for her Facebook page we see a new lawsuit filed, this time alleging invasion of privacy by school officials. If true, it is truly a case of school officialdom run amok.
In the Lower Merion School District each high school student was issued a laptop to improve and engage the students more fully in their education. The laptops were equipped with webcams and had software installed on them that allowed the webcam on a stolen laptop to be activated remotely, sending a still picture of whoever was using the laptop back to the school.
That's all well and good, but the students and their parents were not informed of this feature. Even that might not have been a big deal, but in at least one instance a picture was taken of a student whose laptop had not been stolen. And the student (and his family) learned of this when an assistant principal called the boy into the office and informed him that he was engaged in inappropriate activity at home. For proof he produced the picture taken using the webcam.
One has to wonder how many photos were taken, and showing what. The school had no right to be taking pictures of the students. Even if they thought the student was involved in something illegal, they had no right to activate the camera. Even the police would have had to prove probable cause to a judge and gotten a warrant.
In the Lower Merion School District each high school student was issued a laptop to improve and engage the students more fully in their education. The laptops were equipped with webcams and had software installed on them that allowed the webcam on a stolen laptop to be activated remotely, sending a still picture of whoever was using the laptop back to the school.
That's all well and good, but the students and their parents were not informed of this feature. Even that might not have been a big deal, but in at least one instance a picture was taken of a student whose laptop had not been stolen. And the student (and his family) learned of this when an assistant principal called the boy into the office and informed him that he was engaged in inappropriate activity at home. For proof he produced the picture taken using the webcam.
One has to wonder how many photos were taken, and showing what. The school had no right to be taking pictures of the students. Even if they thought the student was involved in something illegal, they had no right to activate the camera. Even the police would have had to prove probable cause to a judge and gotten a warrant.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
http://pleaserobme.com/
It's not a joke. Do you use one of the numerous services that let you tweet or otherwise post your location for the world to see? pleaserobme.com searches twitter and posts the tweets that give away the tweeters location.
It's not as nefarious as it sounds (or as it could be). The site was developed by three guys to demonstrate that we have some very bad habits, security-wise. The actual address data appears to be substituted with data from lands far away from the original poster. But that doesn't change the fact that large numbers of people are making their locations known. And part of knowing where you are is knowing where you're not. Which is exactly the information a burglar wants. Not to mention stalkers, psycho exes and assorted crazies.
Do you tweet your location? How often have you said something like, "Going to the game, hope we win. Go Tech!" How many hours would that give a crook to burglarize your home?
It's not as nefarious as it sounds (or as it could be). The site was developed by three guys to demonstrate that we have some very bad habits, security-wise. The actual address data appears to be substituted with data from lands far away from the original poster. But that doesn't change the fact that large numbers of people are making their locations known. And part of knowing where you are is knowing where you're not. Which is exactly the information a burglar wants. Not to mention stalkers, psycho exes and assorted crazies.
Do you tweet your location? How often have you said something like, "Going to the game, hope we win. Go Tech!" How many hours would that give a crook to burglarize your home?
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Just a quick Google Buzz observation
A coworker of mine received a buzz on his cell phone, It was a comment by a guy he didn't know. Ok, that's what Google Buzz does. The neat (or scary if it was unintentional) thing is that along with his buzz was his location overlaying Google Maps. And it actually gave the name and address of his apartment complex! It's really neat, but if you read my old blog you may recall my concern about similar fun things in the past that used Twitter and Facebook to allow friends (and others) to track your whereabouts. Great stuff for stalkers. Enjoy your social internet, but be careful what you're letting people know.
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