- Internet Social Networking Sites - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
- Internet Social Networking Sites - Dangers, Do's and Dont's
by Dr. Frank Kardasz, Updated July 13, 2007
Recent disturbing incidents involving Internet crimes against children have been prominent in the
media. In some incidents, the crimes have involved suspects and victims who met each other via
Internet social networking sites. Social networking sites are places on the Internet where people
can meet one another, communicate and interact.
Social networking and communication are normal parts of the human experience. The Internet
has become an important venue for people to network, communicate and interact. Young people
are naturally curious about themselves, about others, and about the world. The sites permit them
to reach out to others from around the globe, sometimes with tragic results.
Many social networking sites exist. Some of them are listed below:
Craigslist.org
Dittytalk.com
Facebook.com
Friendsfusion.com
Friendster.com
Hi5.com
Intellectconnect.com
Interracialsingles.net
Livejournal.com
Myspace.com
Myyearbook.com
Prisonpenpals.com
- Studybreakers.com
Tagged.com
Xanga.com
Zogo.com
Why are the sites popular?
Most of the social networking sites are free and supported by advertisers who hope users will buy
products or services advertised on the sites. Young people who are curious and seeking
relationships and new experiences visit the sites to find others.
How do the sites work?
Any computer with Internet access can be used to permit someone to join a site. Some sites
require only that the registrant provide an email address and often there is no verification process
to check the truthfulness of any of the information that a registrant provides. Most sites require
that users abide by conditions and terms of use meant to thwart improper conduct but
enforcement is often lax. Once a registrant becomes a member he or she can post personal
information, images or other information depending upon the features available at the site.
Unless a user chooses privacy options all the information posted may be visible to all other
users of a site.
What are the dangers?
Those who misuse the sites may do so in many ways including:
- Luring / enticement – Internet sexual predators and know sex offenders have used social
networking sites to locate and lure victims.
- Identity theft – Criminals steal the identities of those who post personal information.
- Cyberbullying / harassment – Agitators post derogatory, hurtful or threatening information
about others.
- Stalking – Stalkers can use personal information posted to the sites to locate and pursue
victims.
- Fraud schemes – Criminals who wish to defraud others of money or property can locate
victims, gain their trust and take advantage of that trust for criminal purposes.
- Inappropriate sexual content – Some users post sexually explicit information that is
inappropriate for young computer users.
Prevention
How can children, teens and adults protect themselves from those who misuse social
networking sites?
Do’s and Don’ts
Don’t -
- post personal images
- post your true full name
- post your home or cellular phone number
- post your true age or date of birth
- post your true home or business address
- post your school name or the grad that you are in
- post your calendar of upcoming events or information about your future activities
Do -
- discuss Internet risks with your child
- enter into a safe-computing contract with your child
- remember that every day is Halloween on the Internet. People on the Internet are not always
as they first appear
- enable computer Internet filtering features if they are available from your Internet service
- consider installing monitoring software or keystroke capture devices on your family computer
that will help monitor your child's Internet activity
- know each of your child's passwords, screen names and all account information
- put the computer in a family area of the household and do not permit private usage
- report all inappropriate non-criminal behavior to the site through their reporting procedures
- report criminal behavior to the appropriate law enforcement agency including the NCMEC
Cybertip line or the Internet Fraud Complaint Center
- contact your legislators and request stronger laws against Internet crime
- contact the corporations who place advertisements on the sites and let them know that their
advertising is helping to support inappropriate Internet behavior. Also, let the corporations
know that you intend to boycott or discontinue using their product or services because of the
behavior they are supporting.
- visit the NCMEC Netsmartz "Blog Beware" Workshop at http://www.netsmartz.
org/news/blogbeware.htm for more information.
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Making Social Networking Sites Law Enforcement Friendly
By Dr. Frank Kardasz, September 23, 2006
Social networking sites are very popular among people who wish to meet and communicate with
others. They are also the venues for some unlawful activity. The following suggestions would
make social networking sites a little safer for users and more law-enforcement friendly.
1. On every social networking site web page, display a link to information that describes to users
how they can report misconduct.
2. Require that all new users enter verifiable credit card information when first subscribing.
3. Require that all subscribers pay a nominal fee.
4. For new users of social networking sites, make the default settings for viewing and sharing all
account information ‘private’. This means that new accounts would be automatically set to
exclude others and to not share information. The new subscriber would have to actively choose
to share account information by checking the appropriate boxes in the account settings section.
5. For new account subscribers, remove the requirement that users complete the section
regarding the month and day of birth. Even though there is no requirement that users enter their
true date of birth, some users do enter their true date of birth, thus giving identity thieves
additional information.
6. Include an admonition on profile pages advising users that revealing personal information
could lead to identity theft or victimization by offenders who are intent upon harassment,
stalking, fraud or identity theft.
7. On every web page, display a link to the National Missing and Exploited Children's Cybertipline.
Their link is www.cybertipline.com
8. On every web page, display a link to the national sex offender registry.
9. On every web page, display a link to the Internet Crime Complaint Center for incidents of theft
or fraud. Their link is www.ic3.gov
10. Proprietors of social networking sites can install filtering software on servers to flag or
eliminate obscene words.
11. Include a provision in the terms of use that notifies users that they have no expectation of
privacy regarding the content that they post and that law enforcement may obtain all
of their postings through the use of a subpoena only - without a search warrant.
12. Remove the browse and search functions that permit users to locate one another.
13. Preserve changes to user’s pages and the Internet protocol address associated with the
change for 90 days.
14. Retain profile information for deleted accounts for 90 days.
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- National Center for Missing and Exploited Children - Dialogue on Social Networking Web Sites
Washington D.C., June 22, 2006
Statement of Dr. Frank Kardasz, Project Director - Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task
Force
BACKGROUND
Thank you for inviting me today. I have spent the last six of my 27 years in law enforcement doing
some of the most important police work possible. It is the work of protecting children and teens
from Internet sexual predators and traffickers of child pornography.
This type of police work is still in its relative infancy. Some cops are still computer novices. Some
of us think that a social networking site is the local Fraternal Order of Police Lodge. So we cops
are working to catch up. Getting our law enforcement arms around the growing problem of
Internet crime is a momentous task. By way of analogy, some days I feel like we are trying to
restrain King Kong with a tiny rubber band. But thanks to the DOJ Internet Crimes Against
Children Task Force Program, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, we
continue to improve.
SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES
With regards to social networking sites, they provide users with a lawful service. They provide an
attractive method of communication. Owners of the sites sometimes profit from advertisers who
know that the popularity of the sites provide important venues for attracting people to their
products. There is nothing inherently evil about either of those motives. The challenge comes
from trying to filter out the criminals who use the services with evil intent.
THE LAW ENFORCEMENT ENVIRONMENT
Law enforcement cannot do as much in this area as it would like to. Law enforcement resources
are often absorbed by those crimes for which there is a public outcry. Overall, there is less of a
public outcry for the enforcement of Internet crimes against children than there is for many other
crimes. In recent years Federal resources are drawn to terrorism, drug enforcement and border
control, all of which have great national importance. Local resources are drawn to homicides,
gangs, drugs, burglaries, and other offenses of great local importance. Consequently, we who
fight Internet crime are often understaffed. That’s also partly because children are often
marginalized by society. They have no voice. Very young children, those whose tortured images
we see when we investigate child pornography incidents, cannot call 911. They cannot call the
news media, they cannot write to an elected official. They cannot vote.
Sometimes the crimes are so devastatingly surreal that we cannot wrap our logical minds
around the possibility that anyone would do such things to a child. Some of the most hardened
and cynical cops I know cannot work Internet crimes against children because they cannot
endure the attendant emotional hardship that comes with witnessing the inhumane suffering of
innocent children.
So I am pleased to see all of you here today and see that we are working on these tough issues.
CASE STUDIES
Now I would like to show two case studies from the Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children
Task Force involving social networking sites.
The first case involves a man who called himself “Danny” on his web page. We learned about
Danny because an alert parent was monitoring her childs Internet use and personally knew of
Danny because he lived in the same neighborhood as the woman. She also knew that he is a
registered sex offender. We learned that Danny (not his real name) was also registered sex
offender in Arizona. There is no mention of his sex offender status on his web page and he
advertises himself as a lover of poetry who is looking for a girlfriend. Although his original web
page is no longer available, Danny is not subject to any computer restrictions and is free to
continue advertising himself if he so chooses.
The second case involves a man who advertised himself on his web page as “International man
of adventure.” A parent in Louisiana installed monitoring software on her daughters computer
and found that the minor was communicating with a man from Arizona. The incident was reported
to the Louisiana ICAC Task Force, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the
Arizona ICAC Task Force. Detectives from my Arizona Task Force learned the mans true identity
and discovered that he was wanted on a felony sexual assault warrant in Arizona. He is now in
custody awaiting trial for the sex assault charge.
OFFENDERS
Unlike spectacular and riveting crimes and events involving crashes, explosions, shootings and
widespread newsworthy bloodletting, the evil crimes against children are committed in dark and
private places by offenders who sometimes psychologically groom and control their victims into
silence. In cases involving predators who use social networking sites, the psychological
grooming and control process begins with the offenders carefully constructed web page. They
may pose as friendly adults, or as other children of the same age, or they may just browse and
search and stalk the millions of web pages until they find just the right target and gather just
enough information to permit them to locate and capture a victim.
Once we learn of the offense, law enforcement investigators must scramble to issue subpoenas
and hope that the Internet service provider retained the data so we can find the offender.
VICTIMS
I’m convinced that the quiet crimes committed when an adult sexual predator meets a curious
unsupervised teenager to engage in sex acts are often unreported. Often the minor returns home
without his or her parents ever finding out. We learned of one such case in Arizona when an
undercover officer from my task force was posing as a child and subsequently arrested a
predator. We learned that the offender had met and victimized two girls to whom he had also
given sexually transmitted diseases. In their shame, the girls had never notified anyone of the
crimes. The distraught parents only learned of the offenses when my detectives informed them of
the suspect’s confessions.
SCOPE OF THE PROBLEM
Some will say, it’s not that big a problem; the crime statistics are not large. And that will seem to
be true because these crimes are underreported. Defenders of free speech and privacy will
demand numbers and statistics to justify change. How many incidents? How many sexual
assaults? How many children? How many deaths? But ask yourselves; what is an acceptable
number of children lost to Internet sexual predators and child pornography traffickers? For me,
the answer is none.
I hope we will find some common ground that allows continued social networking while
controlling the criminals who abuse the privilege.
I trust that we will not mentally disassociate ourselves from the victims for the sake of financial
gain or a misguided sense of freedom of expression or protection of privacy. I know that the
proprietors of social networking sites are responsible individuals who share our respect for the
rights of children to grow up happy and innocent.
My Massachusetts ICAC Task Force colleague, Sgt. Steve DelNegro, will talk some more in a few
minutes about the other kinds of cases we are seeing and provide some recommendations for
your consideration.
I will be happy to take questions later.
Thank you
- Requiring credit cards for social networking site subscriptions
by Dr. Frank Kardasz, August 14, 2006
Should social networking sites like Myspace, Xanga, Friendster, Facebook, Hi5, FacetheJury and
others require applicants to subscribe by entering information from a credit card?
The proprietors of social networking sites have difficulty preventing minors from improperly
joining the sites. Many young people have been victimized by predators who roam the sites. Much
of the responsibility falls upon parents who fail to monitor their childrens Intenet activity but
increasingly, the industry is being called upon to place better controls on the use of social
networking sites.
The idea of requiring credit card information from applicant/subscribers to social networking sites
is controversial yet promising.
Credit cards have been suggested as a method of age-verification for subscribers to the sites.
Critics argue that credit cards are not a foolproof method of age verification. While I agree that
credit cards are not the best method of age verification I believe that requiring prospective
subscribers to social networking sites to enter credit card information would be helpful in three
other important ways:
1. As a deterrent to young people who often subscribe without the knowledge of their parents.
2. As a deterrent to criminals who might be less likely to offend knowing that their identity might
be traced through the credit card information they entered.
3. As an investigative lead for law enforcement to follow-up in order to trace back to a criminal
when unlawful activity occurs.
Although the use of credit cards may not be a proof-positive means of age verification it would
likely be a deterrent to youths who would otherwise sneak onto a site and join without their
parents knowledge. If the sites require the entry of a credit card number to subscribe, the child or
teen has one extra hurdle to jump before joining a site without parental consent, and a parent
might notice the charge on his or her credit card statement and follow-up by examining the childs
Internet activity.
Criminals who intend to use the sites for unlawful purposes might be slowed if they were
required to enter a credit card number knowing that the number might be traced later by law
enforcement officials. Yes, some criminals will use stolen credit card numbers, but others will not.
Credit card information would give law enforcement an additional lead to trace through subpoena
and search warrant in order to identify persons who facilitate or commit crimes through social
networking sites.
Requiring a credit card to subscribe to a social networking site would not be perfect nor foolproof
but I believe it would be better than the present free-for-all practices.
Unrelated to the present issue involving social networking sites, a couple years ago, in the
disturbing world of Internet child pornography, we saw a slowing in reports of child pornography
from one major Internet service provider when it began to require that subscribers pay a small
annual fee for its "groups" service. It may be that users simply moved to the other Internet free
"groups" services to share and traffic child pornography, but it is also possible that the chance of
being traced drove some of the child pornography traffickers away from the ISP that began
charging a fee. If social networking sites were to require users to enter a credit card, perhaps a
similar "self-policing" situation would occur.
- Dr. Kardasz: I was honored to be asked to testify before a Congressional Subcommittee about
Internet crimes against children. My testimony follows.
April 6, 2006
Testimony of Dr. Frank Kardasz -Sergeant / Project Director of the Arizona Internet Crimes Against
Children Task Force for the United States House of Representatives Committee on Energy and
Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Sexual Exploitation of Children over the Internet:
What Parents, Kids and Congress need to Know about Child Predators
Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for permitting me to
speak today. Arizona joined the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force Program in
2000. We work cooperatively with our law enforcement colleagues from the FBI, ICE, Postal
Inspection Service and the Secret Service. Although the names of our agencies differ, we all
share the common goal of trying to keep children safe from Internet sexual predators and child
pornographers.
The AZ ICAC Task Force has recorded over 2,000 investigations, with over 200 arrests. Although
Arizona has the toughest laws in the nation against child pornography, this has not stopped the
trafficking of unlawful images, and like all of our colleagues nationwide, we have many more
solvable case files at the ready than we have personnel and resources to bring in the offenders.
Sadly, while these cases await investigation, children and teens continue to suffer at the hands of
sex offenders.
I have had the opportunity to speak with many citizen groups about Internet crime, and at the end
of each presentation there is often some senior individual in the group who raises a hand and
asks: "Why don't they just switch that whole dang Internet thing off!"...as if we have a control panel
somewhere with a dial that we can turn and it will regulate Internet misconduct.
Legislation is the closest thing we have to an Internet control dial. Although opponents of controls
argue that regulations are costly, imperfect and violations of constitutional freedoms, I
sometimes wonder what the framers of the Constitution would have thought if they had known
what we now know about computers and the Internet. Would they have permitted the Internet
crimes against children that we are witnessing today?
I would like to talk about two things today: the threat from those predators who use social
networking sites, and the legal help we need regarding data retention by Internet service
providers. The luring of minors for sexual exploitation remains a continuing threat to our youth.
Beyond the chat rooms that predators have always frequented, social networking sites are now
wildly popular. There are dozens of such free sites, including MySpace, Xanga, Friendster,
Facebook, and others. Curious young people visit the sites every day and post images and
personal information about themselves. They can browse and search for others according to
age, sexual preference, zip code or school name. They can communicate with one another and
then arrange to meet in person. And as you might imagine, the sites are also popular among
sexual predators.
We received a phone call a few months ago from an Arizona woman who said that her young
daughter, while using a social networking site, was contacted by a man from their neighborhood
who was know to her as a registered sex offender. We found the mans web page where he
described himself as a kindly lover of poetry, plants and flowers who was seeking female
friendship for dating. Fourteen other young people were listed on his profile as friends with whom
he had networked through the site. There was no mention on his profile that he is a high-risk
registered sex offender in Arizona. Since that time the mans original web page is no longer
available at the site, but there is nothing stopping him from re-subscribing to the same site or
one of the many other sites under another assumed name.
The use of the sites by sexual predators remains a serious threat to the safety of our children.
The problem will likely get worse before it gets better as kids flock to the sites and more
communities, schools, libraries and businesses provide unrestricted Internet access through
wireless access points that sometimes leave law enforcement investigations at a dead end. My
written attachments contain some suggestions for improving the social networking site
environment, but in the interest of saving time I do not wish to review them all now.
I would like to talk about an item of importance to my investigative colleagues nationwide. Last
week I sent a survey to Internet crimes against children (ICAC) investigators at all of our
nationwide affiliates throughout the United States.
The survey asked one question: What law could be created or revised to best assist the
investigators who work cases involving Internet crimes against children?
The most frequent response involved data storage by Internet service providers and the retrieval
of data from Internet service providers. What our people are telling us is that investigators need
ISP's to retain subscriber and content information so that when legal process in the form of a
subpoena or search warrant are served, there is data remaining with the ISP that will help the
investigator find the offender.
Most ISP organizations are operated by conscientious and professional business people who
are horrified by Internet crimes against children. Some ISP's have graciously extended
themselves to help investigators. Some reluctant ISP's will only assist to the extent that the law
mandates them to assist.
Mandating that ISP’s retain data is not a privacy violation. Law enforcement only needs the data
preserved but not disclosed to us, except in response to legal process. Internet industry
professionals may cite the financial burden of data storage, but consider the potential human
cost of not retaining data. For example, when law enforcement is seeking a predator identifiable
only by the information associated with his screen name, but the responsible ISP did not
preserve the information, the investigation ends while the predator roams free. Based on the
requests of my colleagues
I respectfully ask for two improvements to the law:
1. That Internet service providers be mandated to retain information about subscribers for at
least one year, with penalties for non-compliance.
2. That Internet service providers be mandated to respond to subpoenas involving crimes
against children investigations within one week of receiving a subpoena, and more quickly
under exigent circumstances where a child is missing.
I will conclude by saying that investigators need your help in order to navigate those dark alleys of
the Internet where they work diligently to help protect children. I recognize that turning the Internet
control dial comes with a cost, but failing to turn the dial carries a greater human cost to our
young people.
Thank you again.
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Dr. Frank Kardasz P.O. Box 45048 Phoenix, AZ 85064 e-mail: kardasz@kardasz.org blog: www.kardasz.org/blog/ resume |
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