If so, you need to see this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2vARzvWxwY
As a parent, it creeps me the heck out that someone could find my kids' bedroom. I don't have a smartphone, but if I did (and if I posted DD online), I'd be looking to disable those settings ASAP.
Did you know your phone could tell a pedophile where your child sleeps, goes to school and plays?
I don't think being informed is being paranoid. I think that technology and all the little things that go along with new features are beyond most uses' understanding. If someone can pinpoint your child's school or bedroom, I think people need to know about it. I don't even post my child publicly anywhere and don't have a smartphone. I posted to inform other parents and several of my friends on FB said thank you because they did not know about the tagging so even if it's not news to someone, it's news to others. When smart phones first came to be my SD didn't have one, but now she does.
To one of the responses, if someone else posted my child everywhere and I had asked them not to, they would not be my friend. That's disrespectful.
Yes, I post pics online. However, I am careful about who has access to see them and I don't have any location services set up on my phone.
Honestly though, a pedophile could catch of glimpse of my kid at the store, get my license plate number, and find out where we live.
Yes.......i have them on here and Facebook.......Im not concerned with the very rare stranger and even then my kids are always with me.
I just cant go through life worried about this kind of thing.
I post pictures of my kids online. The pedophiles to be aware of and watchful for are those who are your children's coaches, ministers/priests, Scout leaders, relatives, and neighbors. Most pedophiles have access to your child over time and groom them for sexual contact.
I was molested as a child by our neighbor and by my own brother. They didn't find me over Facebook (back in the 1970s)...
I am SO sick of repeating this, but...
YOUR CHILD IS SO MUCH MORE LIKELY TO BE ABUSED/MOLESTED BY A FAMILY MEMBER OR FRIEND than by anyone else. Doesn't anyone else on this site read the news/statistics?!
And honestly, who puts their personal information (city, address, etc.) on FB? I don't have a "smart" phone but I know they have privacy settings, so SET them! Technology is a wonderful thing, but only if you use it with respect and responsibility :)
Yes I do and I refuse to worry about it! I know how to use my technology, and I know awful things happen, but in my own experience and that of others I know, it's the neighbor, the parent's friend, the aunt or uncle - not some random freak hacking into my privacy settings. If that random freak ever decides to come around and erect a 30 ft ladder in plain sight with the dogs freaking out to crawl into my kids' completely sealed windows, the last thing they'll ever see is the cold steel barrel of my pistol about to blow their face off!
Ditto Manda F. and Amanda H. I post pics of my daughter on FB, and so do many of my friends. For me, it's a way of keeping in touch with family and friends that no longer live close by or see DD very often. But I am not "friends" on FB with anyone I don't know if real life. I have my settings so that only "friends" can view my profile and what I post, including pictures - not "friends of friends" or "everyone". The only contact info on my FB page is my e-mail; no cell phone or street address. And I don't have the GPS settings enabled on my phone. I could choose not to put anything on FB, or have an FB account at all, but my daughter could just as easily be the victim of a pedophile going over to play at a friend's house without me. And most victims know their abusers and already have a reason to trust them. I use common sense, but I am not going to live in fear or be all paranoid about it.
Sometimes I do, but even if I didn't it wouldn't matter. Enough of my friends/family posts pics of my kids online anyways, which I totally do not like by the way.
But really, just like others have said, children are more likely to get molested/kidnapped by friends/family/neighbors/coaches than by a weirdo online.
I have pictures of my child on my FB page for many family and friends to see that live far away... If I spend my days being scared of every little thing in life, that would become exhausting quickly. I will continue to post pictures and my mind is at ease.
my son's grandparents live 1000 miles away and only get to see him once a year if we are lucky. i have family about 10,000 miles away that have only seen my son about twice. i do not have a smart phone. i know how to keep fb pictures private and i only have people i KNOW as friends (actually only have about 100 friends because of this). so yes, i post pictures. tons and tons. and i kind of refuse to add this to my list of paranoia about my son...being a mom comes with plenty already.
The newscrew in our area went into the crowd and downloaded pictures of people's kids.
My phone, it does this one thing, it calls people. hehe
Technology is a blessing as well as a curse.
What about the readers out there that can go near you purse and read your credit cards?
My BIL just had his credit card info stolen from an ATM or Gas station by a reader someone had put in the card slot.
Teach the children vigilance but do not be paranoid. That is how the miscreants win.
I don't have a smart phone... and yes I post many pics online of my children.
Okay... maybe because my husband programs, and my sister's in law enforcement...
But this isn't new.
This has been true for YEARS. I think I first became aware of the embedding in 2000? 2001?
There are several ways around it. One of the easiest is to upload them to your computer first and put it into a different program (like adobe), save it as a new file, edit, and then to upload that way. There's still embedded code. (ip addresses from where you upload, as well as photo information from the original photo). There's tons and tons of code in anything that gets put online. Can a h4x04 or the tech people in the police dig that info out? Absolutely. Are there ways around THAT (bouncing off several servers, ghosting, piggybacking, encrypting, etc.)? Absolutely.
But quite frankly very very few of us are "that important" to anyone else, that anyone would spend their time to do so, IF they had the skills to.
Good information.
I've only ever posted my son's pic twice online; it was years ago, on my blog account and the pic came from a digital camera which has no extra information on it.
Ditto to what Manda F. and Amanda H. said. :)
I didn't watch the link, but I read through some of your answers here and I agree with those who say you can't live your life being paranoid. Of course, be careful with what you do with technology. Like many others said, I am not friends with people on FB who I am not friends with on "the street". I do post pictures of my kids. If a pedophile really wants to see where my kids live or go to school they'll follow my minivan home one day. Seriously, it's not that difficult for someone to find out where you live. Most pedophiles are not looking through FB, finding pictures of kids and then trying to figure out where they live. It's just not happening.
EDIT - I just now had the time to watch your link. And while I'm still not going to worry about this too much, I did like how they showed how to disable the GPS thing for just the camera. I sort of figure, why not just disable that? So, thanks for sharing. I'll be disabling that on my iPhone - mostly b/c it only takes 2 seconds.
Wow, that's scary! Thanks for sharing that video~
No I don't.
For those reasons.
I agreed with Manda F (and others), BUT, where does it say links are not allowed in questions?? We use them all the time, for recipes, product searches, articles, ect! Links are great ;)
