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Information Technology News Canadian man tries to lure minor online
Information Technology News Canadian man tries to lure minor online | Canadian man tries to lure minor online |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Sunday, 26 November 2006 | |
  
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Authorities say that one of their Peel Region police officers entered an online chat room, posing as a 12-year old girl, and started chatting with an adult male, now known as the accused Jeffrey Totman. Over the next four days, sexually explicit conversations took place in which Totman allegedly tried to arrange a meeting for paid sex. Authorities knew they had a live one and proceeded to make arrangements for Totman to meet who he thought was a 12 year-old girl. Thankfully, he turned up and was arrested by police and charged. Totman was unlucky to have happened upon a police officer in his online jaunts, as it could easily have been an underage girl he was targeting, with potentially tragic results. While a number of awareness and education campaigns have begun in recent times, especially with the MySpace phenomenon of pedophiles lurking on the site, with many also captured by authorities, it is parents that must take the full responsibility of protecting their children from online dangers. An Internet content filter, such as NetNanny or a similar product, is essential on the computers used by children. There is also excellent information from a US organisation called Common Sense, where parents can learn the lingo their children are speaking, understand the programs they’re using and the websites they’re visiting, actually learn to navigate through those websites and environments and learn how to talk to their children in a manner that engages their children instead of driving them away from your authority and natural concern for their well being. Similar organisations and campaigns exist in countries across the world, with the Australian equivalent being NetAlert. Until more parents take this responsibility seriously, teaching about online stranger danger and other pitfalls of life online, we’ll see more reports of pedophiles being caught before and after the act. Don’t think it will never happen to you – take action so you’ve done your very best to make sure it never does. {moscomment} |
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