Lehi Family Workshop reveals keen skills of Internet predators
At the monthly Lehi Family Workshop Friday, Williams showed how anyone with Internet savvy can find an individual.
As an example, a teenage girl trying to sell used CDs on a music Web site gave him her e-mail address, home address, telephone number, likes, dislikes and interests, her parents' names, where they work, when they get home, where she goes to school, when she gets home, she has a little brother, his name and the closest schools.
He may even be able to come up with a picture of her — all from the Internet. Much of the information came from the girl's own postings. Other information came from her school's Web site and other sources the predator could easily access.
Utah Netsmartz is the first publicly funded state organization in the country designed to protect youngsters from Internet predators. It's modeled after a federal program.
The organization was created via a partnership between the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. The Utah Legislature funded the project, which has the blessing of the state Attorney General's Office.
Internet predators posing as someone else usually find their victims in online chat rooms, Williams said. They build trust in their unsuspecting targets — either female or male — and entice the youngsters to run away with them, risking sexual assaults.
Last year 71 suspected Internet predators were arrested in Utah and part of Idaho, Williams said.
The Utah Netsmartz program's video presentations include one for kids from kindergarten through second grade, another for third through sixth grades, a third program for middle through high school students and a program for parents, the community and local government. So far, 25,000 Utah kids have seen the program.
Nationally Utah kids are doing better than the rest of the country with one out of eight children at risk for Internet sexual solicitations. Nationally it's one out of every five children, Williams said.
In Utah an estimated one out of three children have come across sexually explicit images on the Internet and one out of 25 have been asked to pose nude photos of themselves, he said.
Williams showed several brief video clips of young Internet victims who described their ordeals as "You don't know what (predators) are cable of." "I can't believe I did this," and "It's very scary."
How to understand chat room lingo
To find a list of chat abbreviations go to a link to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Web site: www.netsmartz411.org
E-mail: rodger@desnews.com
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