10-15 years ago, I saw an article (it may have been like an open letter type of thing) about a man who became online friends with a young girl. She thought she was chatting with another pre-teen/teen her age but didn't give a lot of details about herself (like last name, town, school etc) but gave enough info that with a little persistance, he figured out what school she attended and since he knew her routine was able to follow her home from practice where he knew she would be alone for hours. Luckily he had no ill-intent and simply waited for her parents to get home and then spoke with all of them together. His goal was to warn kids of the dangers of online chatting with people you don't already know. He had lost his own child that way.
I am trying to find this article so I can print it for a co-worker. It would be helpful in their current situation especially since that was done so long ago and technology has since greatly advanced.
Does anyone have this article? If you have seen this and can locate it, please share it with me. Thanks!
DS S...that is exactly the one I was looking for. I had tried to find it and was not being succcessful. Thank you.
Thanks to everyone who responded too.
I totally remember this. I just tried to google a few things but can't find it. It was very interesting to see how the little, innocent comments led him right to her.
I've never heard of it but would love to get something like that to give my niece, Her daughter gives too much info online and on her facebook.
Last week I was reading an article about other ways people are able to follow kids. THe example was a minivan with those little stick figures of families. It also had a "my honor student at ..." bumper sticker and names under the stick figures. Plus it mentioned about how people put their names on the window, like "James -heart- LIly" etc. So now, someone watching knows your names, knows where you could most likely go to school, can follow you home to know where you live. And if you also have sports stickers, can guess that Billy plays soccer or other such game. I don;t have any of these things but I never thought about that. how much we put out there vs many years ago.
I couldn't find it either, but you might want to google for articles on how to catch a predator, or what kind of people a police sting (where they pretend to be young kids) dredges up.
Is this what you are looking for? I had never heard of it, but interesting story!
I don't know about this particular article but aren't there MANY examples of people pretending to be people they are not online? My kids are now 21, 19 and 15 and this has ALWAYS been a part of the dialogue around our home. They also talk about it in school, every year when they go over internet safety and have the kids and parents sign the school computer consent forms.
It just seems like this is common sense, like what's the point of looking for an article about how smoking is bad for you, doesn't everyone, even very young children, already know that?
be very careful what you post about your kids on line, if the kid has access to the internet, you need to supervise them, it only takes a few key strokes for a child predator to find out anything they want to find out about your child..where they live, how old are they, where do they go to school, are they at home by themselves for any amount of time before their parents get home, hobbies, interests..anything. take no chances..i think it was nbc that did an expose on online child predators, who thought they were going to this house in northern va. to meet and have sex with a child..nbc napped so many child predators, it took several precincts working over time to process them all..take no chances, your childs safety depends on it...K. h.
http://www.investigationdiscovery.com/tv-shows/web-of-lie...
http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2014/04/10/news/20loc...
http://www.fbi.gov/fun-games/kids/kids-safetyt
there is so much out there....police do it. She can contact her local police department and get cyber information, etc.
