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Another Excuse to Dislike Social Media
Sep. 3rd, 2010 06:41 pmMy friends know I dislike social media sites. Most of my friends enjoy them and that's fine, but I don't care to participate for many and assorted reasons. Here's another one:
A former coworker of mine was arrested and charged this past June for possession and distribution of child pornography. He's in the Federal lockup awaiting formal arraignment and trial. His crimes are serious enough that they filed Federal charges. And no, I'm not being slanderous-- he has already confessed to some of the crimes and waived his right to a hearing.
How did find at least two of his victims? He searched Facebook for minor girls who lived in his neighborhood. He located them physically and attempted to befriend them. When that failed, he used their Facebook photos and photoshopped them into porn photos and sold them. Obviously, this is not the girls' fault. What disturbs me is that he was able to physically locate them through their Facebook information. What if he had physically assaulted them?
How did the police catch him? A friend of one of the the girls saw her photos on a porn site and told the girl. (You have got to wonder what kind of friend she has who is spending enough time on porn sites that they recognized her face. But I digress...) The girl told her mother, who told police. They tracked the man down, searched his house, and found child pornography of all kinds, including videos. They have proof he has been distributing child porn to various websites in the United States and Norway.
I worked with this man for several years at the donor agency. He was nice enough, if sort of creepy. He was seriously involved with another coworker for at least a year-- and she has two children. Now she is involved with this case because the police are concerned this man may have used her kids. Ugh.
I tend to not expect the best from people, but I gotta say, even I am totally floored by this.
Some of my own friends think I am over reacting, but I'm just repeating what security professionals and others have been saying for a long time: Don't post photos of your kids on the internet. Don't let your kids post photos of themselves either-- especially with identifying information!
A former coworker of mine was arrested and charged this past June for possession and distribution of child pornography. He's in the Federal lockup awaiting formal arraignment and trial. His crimes are serious enough that they filed Federal charges. And no, I'm not being slanderous-- he has already confessed to some of the crimes and waived his right to a hearing.
How did find at least two of his victims? He searched Facebook for minor girls who lived in his neighborhood. He located them physically and attempted to befriend them. When that failed, he used their Facebook photos and photoshopped them into porn photos and sold them. Obviously, this is not the girls' fault. What disturbs me is that he was able to physically locate them through their Facebook information. What if he had physically assaulted them?
How did the police catch him? A friend of one of the the girls saw her photos on a porn site and told the girl. (You have got to wonder what kind of friend she has who is spending enough time on porn sites that they recognized her face. But I digress...) The girl told her mother, who told police. They tracked the man down, searched his house, and found child pornography of all kinds, including videos. They have proof he has been distributing child porn to various websites in the United States and Norway.
I worked with this man for several years at the donor agency. He was nice enough, if sort of creepy. He was seriously involved with another coworker for at least a year-- and she has two children. Now she is involved with this case because the police are concerned this man may have used her kids. Ugh.
I tend to not expect the best from people, but I gotta say, even I am totally floored by this.
Some of my own friends think I am over reacting, but I'm just repeating what security professionals and others have been saying for a long time: Don't post photos of your kids on the internet. Don't let your kids post photos of themselves either-- especially with identifying information!
