Within less than a week one fateful year in the same Alabama city 3 separate cases of pedophilia occured—all of them occuring online. Unfortunately, stories like this are becoming more and more common, and while the government, law enforcement, families and child advocacy groups across the country are doing their best to stop pedophiles, knowing how to protect yourself and your family is something you can never learn too much about. Two ways that you may or may not know that you can adopt to prevent online predators ever gaining access to your browser—blocking software and keylogging.
The first arrest was an engineer, the second arrest was a doctor, and the third was a 26 year old. All three of them were using the Internet to lure teenage girls into meeting with them for the express purpose of molesting them.
The message that James Johnson, police officer in Ardmore, Alabama emphasized: “I hope the parents of children will start monitoring what their activities are on the Internet. There are a lot of pedophiles preying on these children.”
He added, “Check your caller I.D. Know who your kids are talking to. If you can, go into the history on your computers. Know what times they are talking to these people. They always want to talk when their parents are gone,” he said.
This is such a serious problem that the FBI admits to playing catch-up when it comes to combating clever pedophiles using the Internet, and Law Enforcement agencies plea for more money to combat this growing threat.
The bottom line is this; try as they may the government can’t stop pedophiles or keep online pedophiles away from your children, it’s up to you to keep them safe and the good news is that there are methods that can be used to not only stop online predators from harming your children, but protect yourself as well since many predators also threaten families if the victim talks.
Blocking Software
One of the methods available is called Blocking software, this software works by blocking objectionable content from ever showing up, the software is updated frequently, often daily with a list of sites (called blacklisted), places that cannot be accessed by the computer, using either a web browser such as Internet Explorer, or an instant messaging client and whenever someone tries to access an Internet page the site is compared to the blacklist and the site/chat room is either allowed or not.
Key Logging
The other method is key logging, this method work by recording everything that is typed on the keyboard or clicked by the mouse. One of the advantages that is provided by this approach is if your child has been approached online they generally will not come out and tell you since an online pedophile almost always threatens the child or their family if they talk, and many times the child feels guilty or somehow responsible for the pedophile’s approach in the first place.
Unfortunately the online pedophile knows this and capitalizes on guilt, shame or fear this is all part of the grooming process that the offender uses to ease the child into an abusive relationship.
Blocking software has its place, and is generally better used for young children since it will keep unwanted material from ever showing up, but it’s use is apparent, that is anyone over the age of 8 or perhaps even younger will know that they are being redirected to a safe website, as a parent or guardian you are definitely the best judge of your child and what they should be allowed to see, and where they should go. Which brings us to key logging software, there are many key loggers available some of them will even email you when a certain word or words that you choose are used.
Please remember that child predation is the most underreported crime in the United States and the fact remains that as a parent or guardian you can take action to lessen the chances of it happening to your loved ones.
iRecord specializes in Child Advocacy Consulting and wants to ensure that parent or guardian, you are equipped with as much information as possible to prevent such tragedies from happening in your home. If you know of or have a child who has been or for whom you expect abuse has taken place, we can help.
Contact iRecord today for help or more information.