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INTERNET SAFETY
Imagine yourself doing this:
Write all of your attributes and shortcomings, your dreams for the future, your favorite things and the things you hate, all on a poster in colorful felt pen. List where you grew up, where you live now, where you go to school, where you work, and where you like to hang-out. Write your kids names and ages. Take pictures of yourself and your kids and put them on the poster. Now take copies of your poster and hang one in your church, one in your kids school, one at work, one at the local bars, and one at the adult book store. Now lets wait and see if your true love sees one of the posters and contacts you.
It's a rediculous exercise and you know you would never do any such thing, you're not an idiot after all. How embarassing! Amazingly, I get cases every week that started with just such an exercise. Intelligent people who would never publish such information for their neighbors to see, are doing that very thing over the internet for absolute strangers to see, and probably some of their neighbors who put their name in a search engine and found them.
I'm not against meeting someone on-line, I think it's a great way to meet someone and actually have a dialogue. It's better than going to a loud bar and letting your hormones and alcohol get you involved with someone who is cute but who you can't stand the next day when you're sober.
The point I'm trying to make is that you have to be careful with what information you put into your profile. On-line dating services, chat rooms, and on-line communities such as Myspace, are full of predators looking for some naive person who gives them too much info. You are probably thinking that happens to other people but you're too smart to get caught like that. Please, accept the fact that you're not bullet-proof and you could pick up a stalker. Bad things happen to nice people.
Here are some things I see repeatedly, check your profiles and make sure you are not doing them.
---Do not put your children's photo on your profile, and don't send it to someone your chatting with. You may be thinking that you want to show that you have nothing to hide, or you want to show what a happy family you are. I list this first because it is so important. You may be a little careless with your own information but don't ever forget that you are responsible for your children's safety and that is something you shouldn't gamble with. Hundreds of thousands of children are molested every year and it's not done by a stranger, it is almost always done by a family member or mothers friend. A sexual preditor will see your childrens photo and then lie on-line until he seems like the perfect man and you'll start a relationship. He may not even care about you but he will treat you like a perfect gentleman while he prepares to prey upon your kids.
---One lady I interviewed told me that she met a man in a local chatroom for people in our city. He told her that he was on his laptop at a place that had free wifi because his roomate had gone out of town and he had left his keys in the house and was now locked out. She was a kind person and went down to meet him and he laid the charm down thick. Before the evening was over she offered to let him stay in her extra bedroom for a couple nights until his roomate returned. He moved in with no plans to leave and convinced her to front him some money for clothes and toiletries since he couldn't get to his own. REALITY CHECK PLEASE! He totally bamboozled her. If somebody you just met says he can't get into his house, it's because he is homeless, or there is a wife in that house. Don't let the kindness and charity of your heart let you be taken advantage of by some slick talker.
---Americans in general have an optimistic outlook and beleive that things will work out in our favor. When you're on-line, try to be a little more pessimistic and protect yourself.
---Don't believe that your info is safe because only people you have marked as "friends" can see your page. You and your ex have many friends in common. Your ex will view your page while visiting one of those friends. They may also figure out your friend's password and then they can log-on as that friend and view your page. You should just accept the fact that your ex will find a way to access your page. Don't put anything on it that will lead him to you.
---Don't be specific with your information in your profile. Instead of saying that you work at the BestBuy on main street, say "I work in electronics". Don't give your school, church, or workplace names.
---Don't list your address or phone number. I know, you don't think anybody would be foolish enough to do that, but it happens.
---I've always been amazed at the foolishness of criminals. Many times I have stopped people who had no identification on them but they gave their name verbally to me. Sometimes, catching them in a lie is as easy as reading their name which they have tattooed on their body. If you want to conceal your name from the cops, don't have it tattooed on your body. If you want to conceal your identity on line, don't have a picture of your favorite birthday card that says happy birthday Staci.
---Take a minute and study the pictures that you have posted. Look at what is in the background. Is your awesome car in the picture, showing your license plate? Is your house or apartment in the background with the house numbers plainly visible? Are you posing in front of your school, church or work? Those places are readily recognizable. Are you wearing your work uniform? Are your kids in the picture?
---A large percentage of people intentionally put subtle little clues in their profiles so that their friends will ask about them. That's a fun little game, to see if your friends are clever enough to recognize them or figure them out. I agree, it's fun among friends. The problem is that many people play the same little game with on-line dating profiles. If the wrong person figures out your clues, you may not find it so fun.
UNWANTED EMAILS
If you are getting unwanted emails there are a few basic steps you can take.
Add that persons address to your junk emails, or block their address from sending mail to you.
Change your email address. Before you scream NO, hear me out. Most internet providers will allow you to have several addresses in addition to your main one. You can use one address when registering for an online contest or buying something and you know you will never receive anything personal on that address. Use another address for work. You can have a new address that you give to only your closest and most trusted family and friends. You can continue to use your main address for friends that your stalker knows. This is important because when he is with your friends that he knows also, he will look for you in their address book or see what address they use to contact you. If he only sees the address he already has, he will continue to think that's your only one. Also, when you send something funny to one of your friends, and they forward it to all their friends, when he receives it he can check to see who sent it to that friend and all the addresses they forwarded it to.
When you receive an email that has been forwarded to you, it generally includes a list of all the persons that the sender sent it to. If it is something funny that you then send to your friends, they will see a list of everybody you sent it to, and the list that the initial sender sent it to. By the time the email has been forwarded several times you will see all the lists of every time it is forwarded. If your stalker finally gets it from a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, he can look back through the lists and find you. Since you don't know if any of your friends, or their friends, or their friends are being stalked, it is good to get in the habit of deleting those previous lists before you forward it. You may be saving someone down the line from a lot of aggravation.
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