Dangers of Posting Pics on the Internet - Spin of Dana's post

Bamamom wrote: So as most of you know my DH is an agent for a federal law enforcement agency. One of his jobs is trying to catch child predators on the Internet. Posting pics of yourself is dangerous but posting pics of your kids is SO dangerous for so many reasons. The biggest one IMO- in order to convict someone of having child porn on their computer you have to have an "identifiable victim." In other words they have to prove that the child in question is a minor and that the head and body match to a real person. What alot of these predators do is take the body of a naked child and put another child's head on it and then it's not a crime - no victim. Stupid, I know, but that's the current law. So there is a database of children who have been photoed nude that they have to compare all these photos to.

Now I don't know about you folks but I don't want some freak masterbating to a pic of a naked kid with my kid's face - even if it's not my kid's body. So no online photos for us.

As for adult photos - the same thing can be done with adult photos but my DH equates it to this - "never post anything on the internet that you wouldn't put up on a posterboard at the food court of your local mall." I'm not putting it up there, nor here.

Call me a troll if you will but I wanted to throw that out there for your consideration. I had no idea about the identifiable victim stuff before I married DH and we had kids. I think it's something parents should be aware of. Feel free to PM me if you have questions.

lisar replied: Thanks for the info.

mckayleesmom replied: Why I understand your concern and reasoning....I look at it this way....A child predator can see my kid in a park, drive by my house, see my kid at walmart and easily snap their picture and do the same thing. There is really nothing you can do to totally protect your child from that happening. Im not going to let them keep me from showing my kids pictures to my friends. There are also ways to copywrite your pictures so they can't steal them.

lovemy2 replied: Thank you for the info - I have to say - I just took my pics off my siggie - I guess in all honesty you do have to be careful - I like to think I can post pics here and they are OK but now I have to rethink.....

punkeemunkee'smom replied: Scary stuff!

While I am in complete agreement with you about the dangers of internet photos, I also know that questions will and do arise. It is no fault of anyone on these type of boards. We all start to feel as though we 'know' eachother. It is a fragile thread of trust that begins to build and eventually it will be broken (for many here has been broken) by someone posing as someone they are not. Once that happens,as unfair as it may be, our trust is harder for the next 'newbie' to earn. I don't think anyone should be asked or forced to post anything they are uncomfortable with posting BUT I also believe that if you are not willing to post pictures of yourself then you have to be prepared to handle the questions that will bring about. It is not anything against the person being questioned...I was questioned....It is more of an attempt to keep our little community safe. (as safe as it can be on the WWW anyway)

Bamamom replied: I don't mean to scare anyone or freak anyone out - and McKayleesmom made some great points. But I do think you need to know the tricks these child predators are using these days - cause I wouldn't know that stuff if DH wasn't involved in it. I just don't want to take any chances with my kids.

mckayleesmom replied:
Photobucket use to have a way to copy right your pictures......I just looked and can't seem to find the feature anymore. This made it impossible for someone to click on your picture and take it. I had to use it one time because someone came to PC and stole my signature with my kids pictures and tried to pose as me...they just changed their screename by 1 letter...

Bamamom replied:
I totally get that and am prepared to answer any questions anyone has (as I think any legitimate person would be). You can PM me or ask any questions here. And believe me I'd much rather you just come out and ask me something instead of trying to be all coy and catch me in a lie as has been done to some folks in the past. But regardless of any of that - I WON"T post pics of myself or my kids. And if that means I'm not welcome here then so be it.

But that really wasn't why I started this thread - I just wanted you all to know how the system currently works and the tricks that these pervs are using to get around the system.

punkeemunkee'smom replied:
No I understand your reason for posting the information and I am glad you did! It terrifies me that these types of things happen online. I am so mad (as I am sure your DH is) that they are protected if the morph the pics! I had actually never noticed that you did not post pics I don't post them very often either for just these type of reasons...

coasterqueen replied: I agree with many of you here. You can "watermark" your pictures, though, to prevent such things from happening. At least that's my understanding.

Being on internet boards in general is risky, if you want to go that far with it. Anyone can be out here reading what you are typing and find out more and more bits about your life. We need to be safe, but we can't live in a bubble either.

jcc64 replied: Thanks for the heads up. It's one of the reasons I don't have pics of my kids in my siggie, either.

lisar replied:
Even with that I could steal picutres. All you have to do is make your computer do a screen shot and save that and then cut the picture out after you saved the shot. There are other ways also. Just because it says copyrighted on it. Dont mean it is at all. Anyone who knows alot about computers and how to use them can do it. Heck my dh just got a laptop and couldnt remember his password. He was amazed when it took us all of about 2 minutes to break into it. With the little finger recongiztion thingy and all.

grandma replied: That info is scary...so many sick people out there!

holley79 replied: I work for the SO and do know the dangers of posting pictures. After some of my pictures were stolen I do refuse to post pictures anymore. Which to me is very sad to say the least. No matter where you are, how you post or anything of the nature when you are on the internet you are susceptible to "theft of your identity". As Bri mentioned your children are at risk whether they are posted here or playing in their own front yard. A predator is going to get the pictures s/he wants no matter what you do.

tammyhopkins replied: Wow that is god to know. Thank you for you information. I always wondered about that.

MommyToAshley replied: That is a pretty dumb law. So, if the predator posts a pornographic picture of just the child's body and not the head then they can't be prosecuted. Sounds to me like this law really needs to be revised.

Anyways, it's a good reminder about safety on the net.

I do post pictures, but I am very careful not to post anything that would identify where I live such as street address, street signs, school name, license plate in the picture, etc. I'm actually more afraid of a predator following us home from a park or something to see where we live. And, I am very afraid of Ashley being so out-going... even though we talk about it on a daily basis.

MommyToAshley replied: I also wanted to add that your child's photograph may already be on the net and you don't know it. You may want to check your child's school website, sporting event sites, your photographer's website, etc. Ashley is on the website of the photographer we use, and before that she had her picture on the JCPenny portrait studio page. So, even if you don't post here, it may still be on the net.

Calimama replied: It is kind of scary now that I think about it.

I think it would be neat if we had a locked forum for photos, locked like P&I where you have to have so many posts before you can get in there. I love sharing my photos with you guys.

DillsMommy replied:
thats a good idea. I never thought about that. I too love sharing photos and seeing other peoples, but don't want "just anybody" seeing them, KWIM? I've never really thought about how dangerous it can be......

coasterqueen replied:
That's a good reminder. Kylie's picture is on their school website.

holley79 replied:
It seriously does need revising. We just had an incident where there was only the lower part of the "child's" body. The person could not be charged because we didn't have a "victim". Well I'm sorry we do just list them as NFN for goodness sake. Charge the creep and let's move on. That is a picture of SOMEONE taken by SOMEONE. There are a lot of things about our laws that need changing.

MommyToAshley replied:
I just want to add something that is a bit off-topic but not really since you said this was a spin-off Dana's thread.

I don't want everyone to think that they need to post pictures or everyone is going to think they are a troll. Dana posted pictures of her face and pictures of her her body (with her head cut-off) separately. Many members questioned whether or not she was PG because she would post those two pictures separately but not together. One of our mods simply relayed this information to her and told her that the easiest way to put these questions at ease would be to post a full-body shot with her head in the picture but told her it was not required and the mods were not asking her to do it. The mod was simply letting Dana know that there was a question, and let her decide what to do with it.

So, while I can understand why Dana was hurt, and I am sorry that happened, I can also understand why some may have questioned the photos. I can understand being shy about posting photos as I am myself, but I also can see how it would seem a little odd to post photos of sections of your body separately but not your whole body together. While I sympathize with her phobia, I think she is beautiful and has nothing to be shy about.

Again, I just don't want the suspicions to start flying around. There is always a risk that someone is not who they seem... you just have to use your best judgement. We have the photo thread with the PC sign which is not required but there if you want to use it (many message boards require this, we do not). I personally like to put a face to the name, somehow it makes me feel as though I know them better, but it is by no means required.

redchief replied: I think Bellasmommy10 should put a request for a locked/limited access photograph forum in the suggestion forum, so you get the credit you deserve. Good suggestion.

As far as posting on the internet goes, my public profile kind of makes it difficult for me to eliminate myself from the net, so I have learned to live with that. Dee Dee is absolutely right in advising against putting personal information on the internet. One of the things I've noticed is that even though I make the news at least 3x per year, not too many people know where I live or how to get in touch with me at home... I'm very careful about that part of our privacy. I also refuse to take callers from work at my home, instead insisting that they make an appointment to see me in my office. It helps keep my private and public lives separate.

Bamamom replied: That sounds alot like my DH. He won't even have photos of me and the kids at work because sometimes he interviews people there that he doesnt want to know that he has a family. He's actually a little freaked out right now because we saw a guy that he is after for molesting his daughter when we were out to eat last week. Now this creep knows that DH has two kids, one a girl, of his own. He has told me to be super careful and try to watch who is following me, be careful getting out of the car and in stores, ect.

I know we are always in a certain amount of danger and the chances that my kids photo is going to be stolen may be slim - but I'm just not willing to take the chance.

And it is a dumb law - write your congressperson. It's a federal law so the letter needs to go to your senator or representative. It sure would help if there weren't so many loopholes for these perverts to slip through.

Great idea about the locked forum - heck I might even post a pic in a forum like that!

redchief replied:
If my memory serves me right, most child molesters tend to be cowardly when confronted by people who can defend themselves, so I would hope that your DH's fears are no more than typical of any dad who worries about his family. Once again I think it's a good idea to tell all of our kids, from a very young age, about the differences between appropriate and inappropriate touching, and to keep cautious distance and not to communicate with strangers. It's an unfortunate fact that although they aren't the high profile news stories, most molesters are family members or close friends of the family.

Notwithstanding the reason this thread was started, I think this was a timely and excellent reminder to all of our members to protect themselves and their privacy.

holley79 replied:
That is very right, Ed. Our detectives deal with molesters on a daily basis. I was speaking to a couple of this today and ask the question about their worries when it comes to their children. They said they don't worry about it any more then before they got into investigations. All of our children are susceptible no matter what career field we are in.

Bamamom replied: This case is actually a little more complicated than that. This guys ex-wife left with the kids when she realized what was happening. The judge awarded him custody when she didn't show for the custody hearing - so now she is considered a kidnapper. But they have pretty strong evidence, in DH opinion, that he was molesting the daughter. So DH has followed up on the leads on the wife, because that's his job, but he has perhaps been less aggressive than he might be if he weren't almost certain this guy was molesting the daughter. So the fear is really that this guy might try to threaten me or try to take our kids.

Sorry - didn't mean for this thread to become about that

Crystalina replied:
This reminds me of when I had Izabella at a flea market when she was about two. I had the cutest little denim outfit on her and she had an American flag sticking out of her back pocket. She went over to look at some baby goats and I saw a man come up to the other side of the cage (which was covered by a blue tarp d/t the July heat). I looked away (still holding her hand) and when I looked down the man was gone but I never thought about it much. Then I got down on my knees to her level so that I could see the baby goats better and when I did I looked across the cage and noticed the man on the other side (with the tarp over his head) taking pictures of her!!! I freaked and just said WTF! and picked her up and went to DH and told him. The man left and I know that (since I take pics) there is not much that can be done since she is in a public place. He can take a pic of her if he wants but I was so as to what his intentions were. She was dressed in her July 4th getup and maybe he thought a baby dressed like that was a great photo op but to be sneaky and hide under a tarp? It can happen anywhere! Those telephoto lenses can have your kids on camera and you'd never know.