Internet predators are out there. Period. They are lurking in the corners of the same spaces your loved ones are in. The Internet provides a shield for the growing number of predators out there. It allows for them to use fake aliases and photos in order to pretend they’re someone else.
Internet predators target both boys and girls of all ages. They lie and manipulate, try to come across as someone who “cares” or someone who “listens” to them, especially during a rough patch in teen years. They make friends with kids who seem emotionally vulnerable and typically respond to any complaints in a sympathetic, “understanding” sort of way.
McGruff Safeguard is here to help stop Internet predators by allowing parents to download software in order to monitor chats, emails, and social media networking activity that your child is involved with, such as Facebook or Myspace. It gives our experts the opportunity to monitor the conversations and look for such content that may be alarming and report it to the parents.
Here are some warning signs that we’ve come across that parents can look for if they suspect suspicious activity along with using McGruff Safeguard:
Predator Warning Signs
Child spends a lot of time online
You find porn on the computer
Receive phone calls, mail, or gifts from people you don’t know
Withdrawal from normal activity
Switches tabs quickly if you enter a room (this can be done by pressing Alt + Tab)
Uses other accounts for e-mail or Instant Messaging
McGruff Safeguard monitors for a variety of things outside of predators as well, such as depression, drug abuse, lying, sneaking around, acronyms, sexual abuse, suicide, etc. Our software enables us to detect that is going on with your loved ones to get you the information you need to facilitate conversation.It’s a fact that the Internet is a part of our everyday lives and the lives of our kids. By choosing McGruff Safeguard, you’re choosing to help protect your children.
Alicia’s Story: Tortured and raped by an Internet Predator
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The Internet can be a scary place for teenagers. Last April, Oprah did a story on Alicia. I wanted to share it with you because 1) even though we think our teens are responsible, sometimes they make decisions with out really thinking about the consequences and 2) internet predators LIE. They will say and do almost anything to get what they want. Here is her story as reported from Oprah :
When Alicia was 13 years old, she made headlines as the girl who was lured by an Internet predator—and survived.
Alicia was a shy girl from a close-knit family, but on New Year's Day in 2002, she did something completely out of character. She agreed to meet a friend she had been chatting with online for eight months.
Alicia says she hated the cold and never went outside alone after dark. "Yet it's the coldest, darkest iciest night of the year and I walk out my front door to meet a total stranger," she says. "That's something that's so out of my character and just shows you an example of how intense the brainwashing is."
"I can remember standing behind a tree and thinking, 'This is really stupid.' My senses came back to me for a second." At that moment, Alicia says she heard her name being called out and got into the car with 38-year-old Scott Tyree. "Once I got near him, something changed and I realized that this person's a monster," Alicia says.
Tyree drove Alicia to his home in Virginia. Over the next four days, Alicia says she was raped, bound in chains, shocked with volts of electricity and hung by her arms as her 13-year-old body was beaten.
"He tortured me," Alicia says. "He treated me like an animal—a dog. I basically did whatever I had to to survive. It's like I'm a whole entirely different person. That man did kill that little girl. He did. That girl's completely dead."
Tyree bragged to his friends about the girl held captive in his basement. He even videotaped her bound and chained and shared those images over the Internet.
One of the friends Tyree had been sharing his webcam videos with online saw Alicia's face in the newspaper and decided to turn Tyree in. "I suppose he got nervous that this was now going to be on his hands if [Tyree] murdered me," Alicia says.
After four days of sheer hell, Alicia was rescued by the FBI. She was found chained to the ground by lock and collar. "When I said he treated me like a dog, he did," Alicia says.
Alicia says she now realizes she was groomed by a child predator. "He groomed me, and in doing so, he brainwashed me. That sounds crazy, but he did. He took apart the 13-year-old girl that I was and created this creature that he wanted me to be."
To understand what it's like to be groomed, Alicia says to remember what it was like to be 13 years old. "There's days where the world's wonderful, and there's days where it seems like the world just hates you." The bad days are when Alicia says the predators step in. "There's somebody there, always there, to tell you that it's going to be okay."
Alicia says it was the simple things Tyree would say to gain her trust. "Like getting in a fight with your mom because you wouldn't clean your room. And he'd say: 'Oh, well, why would she treat you like that? You're an adult. It's her room, she'll clean it.' Or you get a bad grade in school and he'll look at the answer you gave and say: 'No, that's right. You're really smart. You think outside of the box. Your teacher is an absolute idiot.'
"After eight months of talking like that, it takes you apart," Alicia says. "It does. And he's always there, all the time."
When Alicia started her relationship with Tyree, social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook didn't exist yet. "That wasn't even around when this happened to me, so there's this whole other level of danger they need to be aware of, and it's sad. It's sad because it should be something wonderful connecting with your friends. That's something children should be able to do. But the world's so scary that they can't. There's so many bad people in it that they can't, and that's horribly sad."
Tyree pled guilty to charges of sexual exploitation of a minor and travel with intent to engage in sexual activity with a minor. He was sentenced to 19 years in federal prison.
Alicia is now fighting to keep predators like Tyree behind bars. A junior in college, she spends much of her time speaking at schools about her ordeal, and hopes to join the FBI so she can fight for other children.
When we hear of stories like these, it just goes to show how important it is to monitor your children's online interactions. You can never be too safe when it comes to your children. If you've not already, download McGruff Safeguard today. Help us help you keep your loved ones safe.
For those of you who aren’t a “techy” type like me and keep up with the news, Facebook just celebrated it’s 6th birthday. Along with that birthday came a new milestone as the popular social networking site just hit its 4 million member mark.
Two months ago the social network hit 350 million, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg reminds us that number was less than half of today’s 400 million mark a year ago. It took the site about three months to climb from 300 to 350 million users and only about two months to gain another 50 million, indicating Facebook’s explosive growth is actually still accelerating.
As great as this is for Facebook, this only ups the ante for internet predators to interact with kids and teens. This is why it is so important to incorporate McGruff Safeguard into an everyday habit. Parents can feel more at ease knowing their conversations are monitored to inform them of any suspicious activity. However, its not just about catching internet predators, it’s also about keeping kids and teens safe from themselves. In other words, if there is any sign of depression or suicidal thoughts, we inform the parents strait away. If we notice any suspicion of drug use, or sexual abuse, we let parents know.
Facebook has been a huge communication platform for people of all ages and it started with the Gen Y’ers. There have been many posts that cause concern, and some lives have been saved because of this social network. A few months back, I posted about how my friend had noticed her nephew’s posts were getting more and more disturbing to him. She ended up reaching out to him because of these posts. It ended up being a pivotal moment because he was sad and was contemplating suicide. He is doing much better now since his aunt reached out.
We’ve had parents share stories with us. We’ve heard stories of success, of deeper communication, and also stories where parents were just grateful to know a little better about what their kids were up to, good, bad and ugly.
As popular social sites grow, so does the need for more monitoring and more concern over who is on these site. Download McGruff Safeguard today. Join the force that is dedicated to knowing their children better.
The popular fashion magazine, Vanity Fair, published an amazing article this month,highlighting Detective Michele Deery. Deery spends her days hunting for Internet predators from her office, in Media, Pennsylvania.
Here is the beginning of the article:
Detective Michele Deery works in a cubicle in the basement of the Delaware County courthouse, in Media, Pennsylvania. The only window is high on the wall, over a tall filing cabinet, and opens into a well, below ground level. The space feels like a cave, which has always struck Deery as about right, because her job is to talk dirty online to strange men.
Deery seems altogether too wholesome for the work. She has athletic good looks, with tawny skin, big brown eyes, and long straight brown hair that falls over her shoulders. Her parents sent her to Catholic schools, and her mother, a retired district judge, now jokes that she wants her money back. Her daughter’s beat is in the vilest corners of cyberspace, in chat rooms indicating “fetish” or various subgenres of flagrant peccancy. One of the many false identities Deery has assumed online is something truly rare, even in this polluted pond—that of a middle-aged mother of two pre-pubescent girls who is offering them up for sex. Baiting her hook with this forbidden fruit, she would cast the line and wait to see who bit.
It usually didn’t take long. Men began vying for her attention the minute she logged on, night or day. Deery would begin a dialogue, dangling the illicit possibility, gauging how serious her mark was. There were “players,” those who were just horny and despicable, and there were doers, or at least potential doers, the true bad guys. The goal was to identify the latter, hook them, and then reel them in, turn them into “travelers.” Once a traveler took that all-important step out of fantasy and into the real world, his behavior went from the merely immoral to the overtly criminal. When they delivered themselves for the promised rendezvous, instead of meeting a mother and her young daughters they would find a team of well-armed, cheerfully disgusted Delaware County police officers. As a fantasy, her come-on seemed overbaked—not one daughter, but two! It is doubtful that such a woman exists anywhere, and yet men fell for it. Her unit had a near-100-percent conviction rate. The bulletin board over her desk displays mug shots of her catches, very ordinary-looking men, facing the camera wide-eyed with shock, staring at the fresh ruin of their lives
What Detective Deery does can’t be easy. To have to live in a dark cyber-world and converse with predators who want to hurt children is something not everyone could do. We’re thankful for people out there who do their part to put predators behind bars. Thank you, Detective Deery, and thank you, Vanity Fair, for putting out such a real story.
I ran away from home when I was 14 years-old. I had a family that loved me but I wanted no part of it because my parents were extremely controlling. I couldn’t do this. I wasn’t allowed to do that. Had the internet been readily available to me as it is today, they would have tried to control that as well. You see, my parents had wonderful intentions, but they were very authoritative. My dad was a control freak, but I believe they thought that if they controlled me, I would turn out “okay” without the “worldly” influence to take me away from God. I hated it, so I left. Thankfully, I only ran away to a friend’s home for two weeks. However, not everyone works that way. Some go to extremes. When kids put it out there online that they are unhappy and want to run away from home (and they do), that’s when it gets dangerous.
Just Friday morning of last week, a 32 year-old VA man was arrested getting off of a bus in Massachusetts, in route to “rescue” a 12-year old who wanted to run away. Here is an excerpt from the story:
After the girl posted plans on a website to leave home, O’Brien reached out to help her and the two began conversing regularly via e-mail, police said. He said he was 25; she told him she was 14.
“He told her he would come up and help her run away,” King said. “In October, he e-mailed her and said he had bought a bus ticket to come up.” O’Brien also purchased a return ticket with the girl’s first name and his last name, police said.
On Friday, the girl’s parents noticed a change in her behavior and discovered clothes and money in her backpack, police said. Worried, they checked her e-mail history while she was at school and then contacted police after discovering the e-mail messages.
Sometimes I sit back and wonder, “Does this really happen?” No matter how often we hear about it, it’s still shocking and disturbing that there are people out there who prey on young, confused kids. Thankfully, the girl’s parents were concerned enough to poke around and see her internet activity. This is the exact reason McGruff Safeguard is in existence today. This is the kind of activity you can monitor. Had the girl’s parents been able to see ahead of time what was happening, conversation could have taken place to get the relationship back on track. Not every story has a happier ending.
I encourage you to pay close attention to your family, especially if your kids are growing increasingly distant. Use McGruff Safeguard to help monitor. Help us help you keep your family safe because there are predators out there that could care less. If you have any questions or concerns at all, please let us know. We welcome your feedback.
I was thinking about something this morning. You know, this whole sexual internet predator thing is not just something we think about here in America. I think that it's sometimes easy to forget, since we live here, that this is a WORLDWIDE problem. I ran across an article by writer, Donna Rice, and wanted to share some of its content.
"Child sexual exploitation occurs in every economic, social, ethnic, and religious group. With the explosion of the Internet into a powerful, worldwide medium, the danger to children, whether they are from New York or New Zealand, has drastically increased. Pedophiles and other sexual predators can use the Internet, with no precautions, to exchange names and addresses of other pedophiles and of potential child victims. Hidden behind screen names that are pseudonyms, they gather online and swap child pornography with amazing speed and in amounts beyond our wildest imagination, which excites them to molest even more.
Offline, pedophiles typically operate in isolation. Never before have pedophiles had the opportunity to communicate so freely and directly with each other as they do online. Their communication on the Internet provides validation, or virtual validation, for their behavior. They share their conquests, real and imagined. They discuss ways to contact and lure children online and exchange tips on seduction techniques. They are using the technology of the Internet to train and encourage each other to act out sexually with children. The Internet also serves as a tool for predators to exchange tips on the avoidance of law enforcement detection.
The most common means by which sexual predators contact children over the Internet is through chat rooms, instant messages and email. In fact, 89% of sexual solicitations were made in either chat rooms or instant messages and 1 in 5 youth (ages 10-17 years) has been sexually solicited online (JAMA, 2001). Considering that 25% of kids online participate in real time chat and 13 million use instant messaging, the risks of such children, either knowingly or unknowingly, interacting with a predator is alarming."
Now think about this…these numbers were from 2001, and the rate has gone up since then! We absolutely MUST teach our children and teenagers how to be safe online. Monitoring their activity is a key way to stop any potential danger that your kids can't see. McGruff Safeguard was created for that reason. We know you can't be around your kids all the time. When you can't, you can rest assured that we can. Help us help you keep your children safe online.
I found this video I wanted to share with you. It tells a story. It actually tells a couple of stories. One of the first issues we presented to you when we began to blog was cyber-bullying. According to the web definition, cyber-bullying is bullying which is carried out through an internet service such as email, chat room, discussion group or instant messaging. It can also include bullying through mobile phone technologies such as short message services (SMS). It is a real issue. Please take a few minutes to view the video.
Cyber-bullying is a serious issue. Suicide is a serious issue. Can you imagine an entire audience watching as your child committed suicide online? Consider McGruff Safeguard today if you haven’t begun using it. There are a lot of scary things out there, and you can never be too careful. Help us help you protect your loved ones.
Law enforcement officers all over the country have been stepping in and taking a stand against online predators. I ran across an article the other day that I wanted to share with you. This is how it goes down, and this is why it is so important to be aware of what is happening with our kids online.
A 12-year-old girl enters an Internet chatroom. Before long, a boy about her age strikes up a conversation. He has many of the same interests, hobbies and problems with parents she does.
He suggests they talk in an instant-messaging session rather than the chatroom. She agrees, and the two exchange more messages before the boy tells her he's really a man. "I didn't want you to think I was a dork," he types.
But the girl trusts this boy-turned-man - he understands her problems, and they like the same things - so they keep trading messages. Eventually, the man's messages turn sexual, soliciting the girl….
BUILDING THE CASE
An estimated 14 million American children have access to the Internet, and of those, one in seven will be sexually solicited online, says Justin Fitzsimmons, senior attorney for the National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse. That's two million victims, many of whom are approached just like the 12-year-old girl, he said. Only this time, the deception went both ways. The girl is actually a police investigator who has been collecting the information from the messaging sessions to lead to the arrest and conviction of the man.
Such proactive investigation techniques were one aspect of the training sessions, said Elizabeth Cooke Cooley, a senior special agent with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division who spoke at the training. Investigators were briefed on how to set up online profiles posing as young children for services, such as American Online Instant Messenger, and how to sound the part. A binder given to all session attendees even included a cheat sheet of online-speak terms such as omg (oh, my god) and ttyl (talk to you later).
"You have to make the 50-year-old man sound like a 12-year-old girl," said Detective Micah Smith of the Linn County (Ore.) Sheriff's Office. But investigators don't seek out the predators; rather they just enter non-sexual, community chatrooms and wait for their profiles or screennames to catch the eye of a predator, Cooke Cooley said.
"You have to be innocent," she said. "You will be approached."
It all seems so innocent. At times, it can be. However, with the number of online predators on the rise, you can never be too safe. McGruff Safeguard is here to help ease your mind when you can’t be on the lookout 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Help join the fight against online predators.
Online pornography is easier to get than ever. It is a bit alarming exactly HOW easy it is and how ANYONE can access it. As a parent, it could be hard to imagine your kids actually going to search for it, but really, if they're interested in what it's about, all they have to do is type "porn sites" into any search engine, and there it is. It takes a matter of seconds.
Some people may say that pornography is harmless, or an "art-form," however, if it were that harmless, we would not have so many people addicted to it. I had a past family member who lost numerous jobs due to this "harmless" 'addiction,' then lost his family over it. Addiction to pornography sometimes takes over people's lives and destroys them. So how can we, as parents, protect our kids from seeing this at the touch of a button?
There are multiple reasons why this is an important subject to talk about with your kids. Here is one:
I have a close friend who has struggled with porn addiction. He has admitted that it has affected his relationships with women. He said he "desensitized" him. He is in a support group to help hold him accountable. He is young, unmarried, and is a very successful businessman. He also said that once you begin, it's very hard to stop. This began when he was a teenager.
One major advantage of McGruff Safeguard is that not only can you monitor what your children and teens are talking about; you can also guard what content they are able to access, therefore, we can protect them during this influential time.
I know that as a parent, it can be very uncomfortable to talk to your kids about pornography. However, if you do, at least you will have begun to open up some lines of communication on this serious matter. McGruff Safeguard is also there for you to gain awareness of potential sexual abuse problems. McGruff Safeguard can monitor any conversation about sexual addictions and report back to you. We care about the health and safety of your kids. Help us help you keep your children safe online.
When I was in middle school, chat rooms were the new thing. I had never heard of them before, but many of my friends talked about them like they were the coolest thing out there. We were just starting to use AOL for instant messaging around that time, and it was the "cool" way to talk back and forth to your friends after school.
What I didn't know was that there were hundreds, if not thousands of online chat rooms that anyone could get on and talk about a certain topic. You would just go on and randomly find interesting things, or places that your friends would be on. These weren't private rooms, anyone could join the conversation. It wasn't long before group chats turned into private instant messages from someone I didn't know in the group.
But, at the ripe old age of 14, I found out quickly how dangerous the Internet can be. Most of the people wanting to "instant message" with me, taking the conversation into a one-on-one setting, were not looking to just be friends. Inevitably, it turned sexual in nature within a few minutes. They would ask questions about what you look like, what you were into...etc. For someone who is in middle school it is hard to understand what these people were doing.
An increasing number of children are in danger of being targeted by pedophiles through chat rooms such as this, and newer venues like Social Media and even online gaming. It is a huge concern for parents with young children. Sexual predators, cyber bullies, and scammers all lurk on these sites. For young kids who are getting on the internet more and more, the chances of coming across a public chat is almost unavoidable. Some teenagers are naive to the dangers that are awaiting them in these chat rooms. They believe they are talking and interacting with other people their age. Pedophiles often lie about their age and even their motives. They want to make your child feel comfortable and even think of them as friends before beginning to see how receptive they are.
As parents we may feel overwhelmed, as if we cannot keep up with the trending technology that our children seem so skilled in. But parents can indeed be aware of the threats online and take some action to know what their children are doing online. McGruff SafeGuard simply monitors your child's conversations, allows you to see who they've been talking with, and even alerts you if the conversation turns sexual, illegal, or otherwise dangerous. Shouldn't you be informed?
When we talk about internet predators, what first comes to mind? Some creepy looking person that puts out the kind of vibe you just sense? Do you picture a monster who has had a horrible childhood? Some disfigured face that you may believe could hurt someone? I mean, really, what do you picture?
I am close friends with someone who grew up in an abusive home. She put her own father behind bars for a number of years. He was a preacher, a father, a husband, and a man who raped his daughter every night from the time she remembers…being eight years old and didn't stop until her 16th birthday.
Predators are not always what you expect. As a matter of fact, here is an excerpt from an internet predator who chose to speak anonymously to an organization called I-Safe
You've heard all the warnings about the dangers of the Internet. Your parents may have warned you not to chat with strangers and not to give out personal information online. But are the dangers real or just the paranoia of over-protective parents and adults?
Unfortunately, the dangers are more real than even the most protective adults realize. How do I know? I was an Internet predator. Six years ago, I was arrested and convicted of attempting to meet an underage girl on line. You're probably thinking, "Yeah but that wouldn't happen to me. No way would I meet some creepy old man online. Besides, I'm too smart to fall for that.
The first misconception of that thinking is that the men that are online doing this are not all creepy looking stereotypical perverts that you would recognize right away. Most of them, like myself, are successful, family oriented men that are well respected in their communities. I was a husband, father and church going member of my community. I was the last person anyone would have expected to be involved in something like this. But the Internet is changing society in ways that we have not begun to understand and is allowing people to behave in ways they never dreamed they would.
The most important thing you can do as a parent is to be aware that danger can sometimes lurk in the places we least expect it. Internet predators are very real and could manifest themselves anywhere. Often, they can be a master of disguise. That is why McGruff Safeguard can help monitor and keep their eyes open for any unusual behavior. Help us help you keep your kids safe.
I was reading this article from 2007 from BoingBoing.net by Cory Doctorow. He was discussing how most of the predators online weren’t necessarily targeting young children. They were targeting teenagers. Here is an excerpt from the article:
“… the research in the cases that we’ve gleaned from actual law enforcement files, for example, suggests a different reality for these crimes. So first fact is that the predominant online sex crime victims are not young children. They are teenagers. There’s almost no victims in the sample that we collected from – a representative sample of law enforcement cases that involved the child under the age of 13.
…So these are not mostly violence sex crimes, but they are criminal seductions that take advantage of teenage, common teenage vulnerabilities. The offenders lure teens after weeks of conversations with them, they play on teens’ desires for romance, adventure, sexual information, understanding, and they lure them to encounters that the teams know are sexual in nature with people who are considerably older than themselves.”
“The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's cyber tip line took 85,301 reports of child porn and 8,787 reports of online enticement last year. Investigations of Internet crimes against children resulted in 3,000 arrests nationwide in 2008, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The statistics show how an entire generation has moved online, seeking reinforcement from others with the same abhorrent sexual tastes, said Michelle Collins, executive director of the missing children center's exploited child division. Most disturbing is the correlation between child porn and enticement, said Wisconsin forensic computer analyst Dave Matthews. Viewing leads to doing, he said. "They're grooming themselves," Matthews said.”
These numbers are scary. What’s even scarier is the possibility of it being under our nose. It’s hard being a parent and trying to monitor everything our kids are doing, especially online. And if you’re like me, you don’t want to come off as a nosy parent. That’s why McGruff Safeguard is such an important factor in monitoring what our kids are doing and who they are talking to. Join the fight to keep your kids safe online. Visit GoMcGruff.com.
Recognizing Taney County's Battle Against Online Predators
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
I know the past couple of weeks, we have been discussing ways to monitor and protect our children’s online activities. There may be some parents out there freaked out about their kids being online. It can be easy to do. However, it’s important to keep in mind, that even though the internet can be used to lure the innocent unsuspecting, it is also being used to lure the predator.
This is exactly what the Taney County Sheriff’s Department in Missouri, did last week. Michael Sean Pruiett, 37, of Ava, was charged in an Internet crime sting, after allegedly exposing himself on a webcam in the belief that the person on the other end was a young girl. This man was found in an internet chat room.
"Welch's sole purpose is to chat everyday with possible predators, in web chat rooms, finding the best ways to act like a teen or child.She must be very careful not to entice them. Laws require that the predator must be the one to initiate inappropriate conduct.
Welch says as soon as she logs on she is approached by so many people she has to start ignoring them. And many, she says, are from the Ozarks. Russell says having a deputy dedicated to this type of crime is vital to public safety."
These are the type of people that sooner or later are very apt to progress on and go into rapes and other acts with children," Russell says.
Russell says parents may be surprised to see what is going on with children online, and there are people living in southwest Missouri who expose themselves to kids and try to lure them into face to face meetings."
I want to look at this twofold. Even though the internet is often used for bad, it is also being used to catch the bad. And it’s also great to know that there are folks out there dedicated to protecting our children from someplace other than our own home. If you are a law enforcement officer and are with us in our effort to keep children safe online, please join our Facebook group, Law Enforcement For Protecting Children Online.
