Pandora’s Blog

Well, I am sure you have heard: Facebook (#2 in the “axis of evil”) – under pressure from legislators (namely New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo) is cleaning up its act.

They are basically going to do 3 things:

You can read the full article here: Facebook to improve predator reporting system

Fine. Great steps. Bravo…

But this is NOT an excuse for parents to remain inactive on the issue of keeping their kids safe and knowing where they are and who they are talking to (online). One could look at this as a great step in prevention… but others could look at it as a prevailence of parents pointing the blame and forcing someone else to take responsibility for the actions that they should be taking themselves.

If Facebook is going to better monitor their users, why are parents monitoring their own little users?

While this is a great step to take, parents need to recognize this is just one step by one person… but it’s going to take many steps from the whole community to stop the problem. Parents need to monitor and control (to some extent) the online activity of their children…

Fortunately you have fantastic parental control monitoring software like PC Pandora to help!!

The first one if from Janie Porter from CBS in Tampa and includes video. It’s basically a taped demonstration (or a story thereon) of an FBI Cyber Division agent signing into a chatroom as a 13-year-old girl – and the ridiculous responses and ‘requests’ he gets.

Check out the story here (click on “video story” to the right under the thumbnail pic): WATCH: FBI catches online predators

The second story is by Victoria Marty at the Evansville Courier Press in Indiana. Her piece paints a shocking reality of how quickly someone can obtain information on your true identity with just one small slip of real information… like a first name and city… or a phone number. All too scary.

Read her story here: Class stresses online safety for youth who frequent Internet

Incidentally, we donated $10,000 worth of PC Pandora to the South Knox School Corp., which is about 50 miles north of Evansville. So, in that area, kids are being kept safer online at school – thanks to us and the great staff there!!

I should have posted this a couple days ago… but there is good news to share, if you haven’t heard: William Joe Mitchell, the 46-year-old sex offender accused of running off with a 15-year-old Alyssa Frank, was arrested Saturday by Virginia state police at the Flying J Truck Stop in Winchester, VA.

Much of this is taken from the official AP article on the arrest:

Mitchell was wanted in Alabama on allegations including rape and kidnapping and Florida officials accuse him of enticing a child via the Internet, violating his probation and other allegations.

State police were notified that the U.S. Marshals Service had tracked Mitchell to a truck stop on Interstate 81, near the West Virginia border. Four state troopers surrounded Mitchell and took him into custody without incident around 11:30AM on Saturday, October 7th, four days after the manhunt began.

Mitchell was standing alongside a 2000 black Chevrolet Lumina that detectives believed he had been driving throughout the investigation. Personal belongings of the girl were visible inside the vehicle. Mitchell was being served federal and state warrants.

Mitchell had 14 prior arrests ranging from burglary and bomb threats to lewd and lascivious conduct, police said.

Like I said in the previous post… there is a REALLY easy way to prevent stories like this. Download and install PC Pandora. When you have something as strong as PC Pandora on your PC that will take snapshots and record all user activity, there is no way any parent will be left in the dark when their kids run off… because their kids won’t even be able to reach that point!

Parents MUST educate themselves on the net, talk to their kids and take active steps in protecting their children and families via the PC. The family’s computer is a doorway to a vast endless space – not all of that space is good. Lots of bad stuff can seep in. But if you are protected – you can stop it.

Educate. Discuss. Protect.

Or be very very sorry. If you don’t install monitoring software… really, and I’m not trying to be a jerk here, but really, one can only assume you are ok with the idea of someone luring your child away. This isn’t an issue of parental trust… it’s an issue of safety. Kids today are given WAY too much freedom with something parents are still trying to figure out. If you’re not an expert on it (the Internet), why do you let your kids roam free?

Anyway… rant over. Parents – please protect your family!!!!!!!!!

Give PC Pandora a FREE try now!

Well, I hate to sound mean or out of line, but Alyssa Frank is the most recent fool to fall in love with someone on MySpace and run off with them. Of course, the person whom she was chatting with was not who they said they were. Instead of meeting a young 20-something she was in “love” with, she found 46-year-old William Joe Mitchell, who has no less than 14 prior arrests. Brilliant.

You can read the story here: Teen found, sex offender still on loose. The story is everywhere…

Of course, Mr. And Mrs. Frank are 100% to blame for this. Stories like the Franks happen all to often. They shouldn’t happen at all. When will parents learn to talk to their kids? When will parents realize there is technology at their fingertips, available to help them?

Had Ma and Pa Frank been monitoring what their daughter was doing, they could have prevented her running off “for love.” At the very least, they could have found her earlier and caught Mitchell. Instead, as of now, he is on the loose and Alyssa is left a victim.

Parents, PLEASE buy PC Pandora or some sort of monitoring software that will help you see what your kids are doing. If your parents could have had binoculars and direct line of site when you were playing on the playground, they would have. You have the tools. Use them. And prevent further incidents like this!!!

Seems like the web has gone the way of the TV ratings system… Xivio.com 2.0 has announced a patent-pending Open Ratings System and Parents’ Zone.

Here is the press release (posted at NBC 26 in Green Bay WI):

MIAMI — Online safety, a concern for parents whose children are active in cyber communities, has been addressed in two revolutionary ways in Xivio.com 2.0 — through a patent-pending Open Ratings System and Parents’ Zone.

Xivio.com, a virtual-world and social-networking website, recently re- launched with several safety features developed during a beta-testing phase.

Xivio is a 3D Flash-driven application that allows users to access all of the site’s features without need of software downloads or additional computer configuration.

Members can log into Xivio.com at any computer and have complete access to content and online protection tools.

In the Open Ratings System, the most advanced filtering tools built to date protect children from explicit content. Community voting on all content in Xivio.com brings democracy to ratings while it allows parents to select the appropriate content level for their children.

With simple-to-understand grading tools, TV-style ratings are assigned to any piece of content (photos, music, videos and journal entries) throughout the site. The ratings are based on a consensus of votes by parents, staff and established site members.

Each content piece begins at the highest level of protection — TV-MA — until enough votes are compiled to give a more accurate rating: TV-Y, TV-G, TV-PG, TV-14 or TV-MA. This allows everyone to manage content and determine based on parents’ input what is appropriate to view.

In the Parents’ Zone, a child’s security settings are managed from an easy-to-use control panel. These settings can be applied to multiple site accounts. The system is tamper-proof and settings extend automatically to any computer used to access the site.

“When we looked at ways to make the online experience for children safer, content ratings based on a similar scale to the one used by television was something we looked to develop,” said David Wisotzky, Xivio LLC. President/CEO.

“Our software, combined with individual content ratings, allows parents to use it in the same manner as the V-Chip. Parents, staff and members all play an active part in deciding the ratings for user-uploaded content.”

This is a cool idea for the net and can certainly be useful for parents… but children can still get around software like this. These are really just pimped up blocks and filters. A more useful tool is one that can block and filter, but also give you an accurate record of everything your child does on the PC. Our PC Pandora can monitor and record all computer activity. It has blocks, filters, key logging and program blocking functions, plus it takes a snapshot of the desktop. Powerful stuff… Probably the most powerful/ most comprehensive thing you can get!