October: Cybersecurity Awareness Month

by Robin Sax

Did you know October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month? Although it's intended to teach Internet users about reporting and avoiding crime, I'd never heard about until recently -- and I live in the world of Internet crime and safety! This is actually the sixth year the Department of Homeland Security has marked Cybersecurity Awareness. They put on events and have lots of information on how to stay safe on the Internet. See http://dhs.gov/ for more details. The information on their site is important to review (for those of us who use the Internet – just a few billion of us), and not many of those billion people know where to get the resources or knowledge to implement Internet safety.

For example, do you know where to file a complaint about a crime that involved the Internet? If you answered law enforcement or the FBI, you get partial credit. The actual answer is much more complicated, an entire protocol for where and how to report crimes related to the ever-growing World Wide Web.

To determine some of the federal investigative law enforcement agencies that may be appropriate for reporting certain kinds of Internet crime, please refer to the following table:

As you can see, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) noted quite a lot on this chart. So what is the IC3? I bet you didn’t even know that it existed. In their own words, The Internet Crime Complaint Center “is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). IC3’s mission is to serve as a vehicle to receive, develop, and refer criminal complaints regarding the rapidly expanding arena of cybercrime. The IC3 gives the victims of cybercrime a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism that alerts authorities of suspected criminal or civil violations. For law enforcement and regulatory agencies at the federal, state, and local level, IC3 provides a central referral mechanism for complaints involving Internet related crimes.”

IC3 seems to give an appearance of some sort of coordinated effort between agencies - at least in the reporting of Internet crime. That is a good thing. But what about before the crime occurs – is there a coordinated effort to prevent the crime. In other words, if someone is reporting a crime it means that most likely someone was already victimized. Is after the fact reporting enough? OR do we need to figure out how to police the Web prior to victimization?

The Internet is the largest city in the world. It literally has portals and accessibility to everyone—adults, children, young, old, thieves, pervs, predators, and hundreds of millions of others. While there may be individual rules and regulations for specific sites, or in specific countries, there is very little “law of the land” -- other than the concept of what is illegal in real life is illegal online as well.

There are many Internet crimes that are readily known due to effective media, astute educators - who take the time to bring information to their school communities, successful public relations campaigns, or from the unfortunate victimization of people we hear about or even our own family and friends.

Most people have heard of -or use- social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and My Space and also know some online lingo (such as LOL, TTYS, etc.). Many people have heard of concepts such as texting, tweeting, sexting, and cyber-bullying. But there are literally of hundreds of aspects of the Internet that we don’t know about…and we may never know about. There is an underground to the Internet, and it can be very scary.

So what do we do? Bury our heads? Pretend it is not happening? Just complain about it? How about we learn about what we don’t know. Staying current with technology is a must our world today. Figuring out what things are worthy of fear and what things are not can save us from a lot of anxiety. It is critical that we keep our knowledge current about Internet “threats” and can be prepared to face them.

And even though I am going to give you some simple steps you take today to be safer on the Internet, the best way to even know what we are worried about is to peruse, search, and click through the Internet. You can't fear something that you don't know about. Don't simply trust the hype, check it out for yourself. For example, many parents fear "Facebook" but I happen to think that Facebook is among the safer social networking sites out there. They actually have a protocol for dealing with hate crimes, pervs, and bullies. They have security and privacy measures and work diligently to address the issues as the site grows. Is every social networking site that way? No way!! And our social networking sites the only place where trouble lurks? No way. There are websites, ad-sites, instant messaging services, and many more avenues where trouble can surface.

So what's the answer? Know what you don't know. I know it seems daunting and time consuming and it can be. But don't let it!!! Chip away with a places, click through, check it out, and if you need help ASK!!! Want to know what your kids are doing online and can't bear checking yourself? There are sources and resources for help. But if nothing else, keep these tips in mind:

For Your Computer

• Make sure that you have anti-virus software and firewalls installed, properly configured, and up-to-date. New threats are discovered every day, and keeping your software updated is one of the easier ways to protect yourself from an attack. Set your computer to automatically update for you.
• Update your operating system and critical program software. Software updates offer the latest protection against malicious activities. Turn on automatic updating if that feature is available.
• Back up key files. If you have important files stored on your computer, copy them onto a removable disc and store it in a safe place.

For Yourself (Habits To Adopt)

• If you get deceptive spam, including email “phishing” for your information (that means a scam site that is looking for you to input your personal information for the purpose of stealing it), forward it immediately to spam@uce.gov. Be sure to include the full Internet header of the email. Also forward the email to the company, bank, or organization that is impersonated in the phishing email.
• Use strong passwords or strong authentication technology to help protect your personal information.
• If your computer gets hacked or infected by a virus immediately unplug the phone or cable line from your machine. Then scan your entire computer with fully updated anti-virus software, and update your firewall.
• If a scammer takes advantage of you through an Internet auction, when you're shopping online, or in any other way, report it to the Federal Trade Commission, at ftc.gov.

For Your Friends, Family, Colleagues

• Use regular communications in your business (newsletters, e-mail alerts, etc.) and in your home (conversations with your partner and children) to increase awareness on Internet safety issues.
• Set up household and workplace rules on issues such as updating software processes, protecting personal information, securing your wireless network, software downloads, spyware, email attachments.
• Make your preferences clear to your friends regarding email “Forwards” and suspicious attachments.

For more tips, visit: http://http//www.staysafeonline.org/top-tips

Bottom line: educate yourself, be smart, be safe online! Treat the online community like a city street – walk where there are lights, don’t travel in a back ally, keep your senses alert, don’t trust strangers, etc. A small amount of preparation will go a long way in protecting yourself and your family!

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Before There Was "To Catch a Predator" . . . There Was R. Stephanie Good

by Robin Sax

The numbers say it all: each day 2,500 children go missing in the United States, while one out of every five children has been solicited online by sexual predators. Inspired by her own child’s near tragic encounter with a sexual predator, R. Stephanie Good, a highly trained lawyer, house-mom and accomplished author, was compelled to take action.

In 2003, she began a harrowing collaboration with the FBI to track down sexual predators on the Internet– a journey into a perverted underworld that has resulted in the arrest and federal conviction of dozens of sexual offenders.

As Stephanie soon discovered through her undercover work, these predators are more often than not the last ones we would expect, lurking right next door and, frighteningly, having access into our own homes through the Internet. . . .

Sephanie's shocking story is told in EXPOSED: The Harrowing Story of a Mother's Undercover Work with the FBI to Save Children from Internet Sex Predators.

Stephanie worked closely with the FBI agents of Squad C-20, which handles crimes gainst children. Her frightening exposé follows Stephanie as she logs on to chat rooms using the fictitious user profile of a teen-aged girl. She is usually bombarded with instant messages in mere minutes. EXPOSED follows closely as Stephanie participates in Internet chats . . . disguises her voice to conduct wiretapped telephone conversations . . . takes part in dangerous arrest situations where federal agents swoop in to nab a perpetrator who believes he is meeting a minor girl for sex . . . and also as Stephanie comes face-to-face with some of the predators in federal court where she has been called to testify against them.

EXPOSED describes every detail of the process, with excerpts from the actual transcripts of her online chats and telephone conversations with the predators, and the meticulous care that Stephanie employs in her investigations to ensure that everything is done by the book – the results of which have earned Stephanie a 100 percent conviction record.

“Sexual predators have an addiction and will stop at nothing," she says. "And I will stop at nothing to find them and turn them over to the FBI. The fact is that my odds are much better than theirs. While there is no doubt that the Internet has dramatically increased the access of child predators to their young prey, it has also increased the chances that law enforcement officials will catch them.”

Some of the hundreds of predators arrested because of Stephanie’s work, and profiled in EXPOSED, include:

Steven Dovas - a respected teacher, lecturer, well-known filmmaker and commercial animator who had been praised for his work on projects and children’s television segments with Nickelodeon, HBO and Sesame Street. Steven pleaded guilty to the charges, and was sentenced to five years in federal prison and five years supervised release, a $10,000 fine and attendance in a sex offender program.

Jason Corso - a manager of Mutual of Omaha bank. Stephanie participated in the arrest after Corso insisted that Stephanie phone him from the shopping mall where he had scheduled the meeting. After she phoned him with her location, he arrived only to find a swarm of FBI agents awaiting him. Corso pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison, and three years probation.

John Hamilton - a baker from Kentucky. Hamilton, believing Stephanie to be a 15-year-old girl, purchased a bus ticket for Stephanie to leave her family in New York and meet him in the Midwest, where he would take her to his home and make her “disappear off the face of the Earth.” Stephanie says, “To this day, Hamilton is the most disturbed individual that I have had the unpleasant experience to come across on the Internet." Hamilton was sentenced to three years in prison and five years of probation.

Matt Brand - a thirty-six year-old teacher who arranged to meet 13-year-old "Stephanie" at the Port Authority bus terminal. He did not plead guilty, and Stephanie testified at his trial. He was sentenced to five years in prison.

Dennis Joseph - a forty-year-old musician who played at Carnegie Hall, conducted at Avery Fischer Hall, and performed with celebrities Ashford and Simpson, Stevie Wonder, Bill Cosby, Sting, and the Billy Strayhorn Orchestra. He was also featured on stage in the Broadway production of Fosse and played on the soundtrack for Martin Scorcese’s film, The Aviator. Stephanie testified against him at two trials. He was sentenced to ninety-seven months in a federal prison.

“Sexual predators are among us every which way we turn,” warns Stephanie, “and they are not who you often envision. Nobody ever expects the well-dressed businessman who lives next door and buys your child’s girl scout cookies, the soccer coach who pats a kid on the head after a great play, the school bus driver who pulls up to the house to drop off a child in the rain, the teacher who stays after school to tutor a child, the pediatrician, friends, siblings, or even a spouse. But the truth is they are most often the people we least suspect.”

EXPOSED is a chilling story, revealing one mother’s near-tragic personal story that compelled her to make a difference in the hunt for Internet sexual predators.

And R. Stephanie Good is a fine new addition to the lineup at Women in Crime Ink. Because her bio was not posted on launch day, here is more about the professional background of our newest contributor:

R. Stephanie Good, author of Law School 101: Survival Techniques from Pre-Law to Life as an Attorney, and co-author of the New York Times best seller Aruba: The Tragic Untold Story of Natalee Holloway and Corruption in Paradise as well as A Rush to Injustice: How Power, Prejudice, Racism, and Political Correctness Overshadowed Truth and Justice in the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, received her BA in Political Science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa. She continued her education at Hofstra University School of Law in New York York where she earned her JD and an LLM in international law.

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