This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

Learning How to Travel the World Wide Web Safely

FBI agent gives teens, adults advice on how to negotiate the Internet safely.

An FBI special agent advised teenagers and adults to take safeguards on the Internet to protect themselves from sexual predators and identity thieves, at the Arch Street Teen Center on Wednesday night. 

The teen center and the nonprofit organization Greenwich Pen Women hosted FBI agent Chris Munger, who investigates drugs and gangs in Fairfield County. Warning against disclosing personal details and posting sexually explicit photographs online, Munger said sexual predators prey on insecure teenagers to gain their trust. These sexual predators manipulate teenagers into a false sense of friendship, which can lead to an abduction, sexual abuse, and often murder.

He has investigated four kidnappings in which the perpetrator used online communication tools to gain the trust of victims.

“By the time we are investigating, the victim is stuffed in a trunk of a car being driven to Florida,” he said. “Even at a young age when you are naïve, if something doesn’t feel right- it is not right,” Munger said. “If someone asks an inappropriate question, tell your parents.”

“If someone talks about sex with you, that is the biggest red flag,” Munger said. In such instances “You are either talking to an undercover police officer in our office. The people who want to meet you either are either (undercover) cops who think you are the bad guy, or it is the bad guys themselves.”

Munger shared a phone call he received from a teenage girl who sought the FBI’s help in disabling a website that published a photo of her naked at age 15. The girl admitted to taking the photograph herself and sending it to her then 17-year-old boyfriend. After the couple ended their relationship two years later, the male posted the photograph. He was arrested on child pornography charges.

“The implications of girls taking these photographs last for a lifetime,” he said. “Guys will forever think differently of a girl who poses naked for a photograph that they send to their boyfriend,” he said.

Senior citizens should never wire money to someone who writes an e-mail claiming to be a relative. Identity thieves prey on senior citizens because they tend to be generous with money. In one case, an identity thief swindled a senior out of thousands of dollars, a loss that cannot be recovered, Munger said. 

The Internet safety program was organized by Greenwich Pen Women member Ann Caron, who told Greenwich Patch, she conceived the idea after a friend was deceived by identity thieves.

“A lot of older people are getting these scams asking for money,” said Caron, who is also an Arch Street Teen Center board member. “It is a problem, especially with credit cards being compromised.”

The Greenwich Pen Women is a nonprofit organization of professional artists, writers and composers.

Teen center Executive Director Kyle Silver credited Caron for making a topical suggestion, as Internet safety becomes a more prominent issue in the national consciousness. Silver cited the actions of Florida teenagers who have been arrested in connection with the murder of teenage boy.

“This is one of the most gruesome stories you will ever read, and one of the most heart-wrenching stories,” Silver said. “To think there are teenagers in this society who are capable of doing these kinds of things, and they are using the Internet as a template to follow through with such actions is beyond disturbing.”

Young people need not avoid using social networking sites but rather be discerning and not share details of their personal lives. As someone would not share his or her personal business with strangers in a face-to-face encounter, teenagers should realize the Internet is a decidedly public forum. 

“You take the good and you take the bad. What do you do?” Silver said. “You sit here and hope everyone is making smart decisions, setting a foundation so that as they get older and go to college, they are protecting themselves.” 

In Greenwich High School in March, a list was circulated identifying female students who were described as promiscuous. Last month, Greenwich school administrators condemned the list, and warned that any student who used school computers to disseminate the list would be punished.

About 70 people attended the lecture, including nearly 25 teenagers. Veronica Riera, a high school sophomore who is on the teen center board, learned that digital messages remain in the memory of a device even after the text has been deleted from the screen. 

“Everything you post online, you cannot ever get back,” she said. “Even if someone sends it to you, and you delete it, it remains on your phone or computer.”  

Local teenagers know the difference between appropriate and inappropriate behavior, Riera said. Nonetheless, some kids post inflammatory comments. She has heard about local teenagers taking to online forums to criticize teachers, share details from their personal lives, and disparage classmates.

“I think everyone knows all the rules, but no one ever thinks they are ever going to get caught if they do something,” the 15-year-old Riera said.

Felix Dostmann, a Greenwich High School junior, serves as the vice president of the Arch Street Teen Center executive board. He too learned that information posted on the Internet remains stored in a backup server. 

From his perspective, he does not know of local students bullying each other or otherwise being inappropriate through online forums.

Greenwich High School students use social network sites “mostly for communications, and keeping in touch outside of school,” said Dostmann, 17. “I have not really heard of any problems going on with Facebook.”

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?