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Internet Predators May Know Too Much About Your Kids
   posted 9:42 am Wed November 12, 2008
   reporter: Cindy Morrison      posted by: Kevin King
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Tulsa - With a few clicks of the mouse, an Internet predator can be looking at a picture of your home. Unfortunately, your child can accidentally give a cyber stalker all they need.

Even the most cautious child can give out too much information. MySpace, Facebook and other social networking websites allow teens to meet, chat and share pictures. The problem is, your kids can unknowingly give what could be dangerous information.

Even if your child doesn't use a last name online, and never lists your address, they still leave clues to who they are, what they look like and how to find them.

We asked Tulsa Police Sergeant Tim Stadler to show us just how easy it is to track someone in cyberspace. Without using any fancy police software, we asked him to find out all the information he could by simply starting with a Facebook profile.

"Google is so nice to the Internet predators right now that they actually put the pictures of the streets on there," Stadler says.

Fifteen-year-old Moriah agreed to be part of our experiment.

"Depending on how much information I put on there is how safe I am," she says.

Moriah and her mom Carol have had long talks about Internet safety.

"I think we're safe," Carol says. "But, staying one step ahead of the thug is probably more difficult than we realize."

They found out just how difficult when they sat down with Sergeant Stadler.

"How does that street look familiar?"

"It's where I live."

Within twenty minutes, Sergeant Stadler knew Moriah's activities and where she goes to school, all things she listed. But, because of clues she left behind, he was also able to figure out her last name, which she didn't list on Facebook.

Using other free sites out there, he was able to find her house.

Her pictures were just as telling.

"I know exactly probably which bedroom is yours in your house."

There were even pictures of her posted by others.

"A pedophile would be looking for you, I promise you. Nice swimsuit."

How did Sergeant Stadler find what was supposed to be a harmless picture? Her friend tagged Moriah in the picture, meaning if you roll your mouse over her face, you know exactly who it is.

You can't keep kids offline these days. So, what can you do? For one thing, always have three or more people in the picture and remove your name from any tagged photos, even those posted by others.

"Within your friends, everybody knows who they are, so why connect a link," Stadler says. "There's no reason to. Because of an Internet predator, it simply narrows down who is who."

This was a wakeup call for Moriah.

"How does this make you feel?"

"Different about Facebook. I'm ready to go change some stuff."

Moriah plans to make some major changes to her profile and she agrees other kids need to get the word so they don't become a target, either.

"I think that more kids should be exposed to this," Moriah says. "So they can take the precautions also. I'm even going to go home and tell my sister to take off some of the things she has on."

Remember, Moriah and her mom have talked about cyber safety in the past. So simply talking shouldn't be your only line of defense. Constantly monitor your child's social profiles to make sure there's not too much information that could leave your child vulnerable.

Thursday at 10, you'll see that those stalkers can be deadly. NewsChannel 8's Cindy Morrison talks with a father whose 13-year-old daughter was killed by a pedophile.

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8 Talkback: Internet Predators May Know Too Much About Your Kids
gilsnova
We saw this story and took particular interest due to knowing Moriah who used to go to school with our daughter in early grade school.

We would like to know if she had used the security settings available on Facebook to "prevent" people she doesn't know from accessing her pictures etc.  I think they call it privacy.

Our daughter was quick to dismiss this story saying that she probably had not utilized this feature.  However, we are thinking that these predators can easily bypass those features etc.

Can you shed any light on this for us?

Thanks,

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