Deputy Speaks on 'Wild Wild Web'

Hanlon listed some of the social networking sites that are popular with young adults, including MySpace and two similar sites, xanga.com and facebook. The latter is primarily used by college students.

The deputy also mentioned www.youtube.com, a Web site that allows user to upload videos, and www.gaiaonline.com, a site mostly frequented by online gaming enthusiasts.

Gaiaonline.com has a huge following among middle-school age gamers.

However, it’s not moderated and some material posted is inappropriate for the preteen crowd.

Many "Web cam" sites have cropped up in recent years. Hanlon said young and old alike use these sites to distribute pornography.

"There’s a lot of porn on these sites," he said. "What some kids are doing is setting a Web cam up and getting money for doing lewd stuff online."

The majority of the young adults who use these sites don’t have bank accounts.

However, they are paid through www.paypal.com, a site that allows users to make monetary transactions.

"They use that money to buy stuff online. All you need is an e-mail address," Hanlon warned.

Also, some Web addresses may not be what they seem. For example, Hanlon directed his computer to the address www.happychildren.org.

"You don’t necessarily know what’s going on when you click that link," Hanlon said before he pressed enter.

The computer’s browser redirected Hanlon’s request to controversial shock rocker Marilyn Manson’s site.

"Be careful with sites that do that," Hanlon warned.

Most children wouldn’t give personal information, such as address, phone number or what school they attend, to a strange man on the street corner.

However, by putting this information on a MySpace page, a child could become a magnet for predators.

Hanlon, as well as Richards, spoke of the dangers of having a listed phone number.

If a teenager gave out a phone number to a would-be predator, the criminal could search for the number on search engine www.google.com and be provided with the address of the child’s residence. The criminal could even use GoogleMaps to find out how to get there.

Hanlon advises against children putting their name, age, school, picture, school team or phone number on their MySpace page.

"Anything you put on there, all people can see, but some kids have a sense of false security," Hanlon said. "They don’t realize they have to face it the next day."

The deputy told of a student who gave her MySpace password to one of her "friends." That friend logged onto her MySpace account and made a disparaging comment about another girl in the school. However, since the comment appeared on the student’s Web site, it appeared that she was responsible for it.

"The friend did that with the safety and anonymity from being behind another person’s screen," Hanlon said.

"To log onto MySpace is easy; all you need is an e-mail address and then you can check out just about anybody’s content," Hanlon said. "It’s important for you to have an open-ended and honest discussion with your kids about this. If they don’t feel like they’re going to get in trouble, they’ll be more willing to talk."

Marshall also stressed the importance of communication between parents and children.

"I agree as a social worker, a parent and a pastor. Tell your kids, ‘I want to know your password and I want to know what sites you’ve been on.’ It’s taking back lost ground. Just unplug the computer. You have the right and obligation to say ‘no,’" he said.

If a child suddenly becomes alarmingly secretive, quickly shuts off the computer so their parents can’t see what they’re browsing, doesn’t eat or eats too much, parents should be alarmed, Hanlon said.

"If you say, ‘Something’s not right,’ you should check it out," he advised, adding that parents, as well as students, have many resources, such as guidance counselors, social workers and psychologists. "Look at the Internet history. If it’s constantly being cleaned out, there may be something wrong."

However, if a history, or a log of what Web sites were recently visited, is cleared out, officers can still extract pertinent information from a suspect’s computer.

A computer can be traced by a unique hardware address assigned to every network interface card (NIC) by the manufacturer, making it a valuable tool to law enforcement.

"That’s what we really look at," Hanlon said.

State Assemblyman Marc Molinaro stopped into the forum to ask what he, as well as his colleagues, can do to stop Internet predators.

"We’re going to listen to you. If you have legislative ideas, we’ll try to do it. Hopefully, we can stiffen the penalties on sites like MySpace. If there’s something you want us to take a stab at, we’ll do it," he said.

As the crowd filed out, Hanlon left them with these words.

"You shouldn’t expect anything that’s online to be private. Your life on [the Internet] is an open book."