WebProNews

Tag: Internet Safety

  • Microsoft: Teen “Sextortion” Common Online

    Microsoft: Teen “Sextortion” Common Online

    A new Microsoft study shows that teen sextortion is running rampant online, with 44% saying they’d personally experienced sexual threats or knew of instances among family and friends. Of those who encountered sextortion, more than one-third said it happened nearly every time they go online!

    The study, “Civility, Safety and Interaction Online – 2016,” polled teens ages 13-17 and adults ages 18-74 in 14 countries about 17 different online risks. Because of the nature of the preliminary results Microsoft decided to release certain results early in order to warn parents and the public of the dangers their children are facing on the internet.

    “We’ve chosen to make this preliminary release, featuring data about teens in the back-to-school timeframe to remind young people about the need for smart, safe and respectful online habits at home, at school and on the go,” said Jacqueline Beauchere, Microsoft’s Chief Online Safety Officer. “We will follow with an early look at key data from the adult respondents in the weeks ahead.”

    Microsoft will be releasing results of the full study on February 7, 2017 which is international Safer Internet Day.

    The study focused on a variety of online risks including:

    • Reputational – “Doxing,” and other damage to personal or professional reputations
    • Behavioral – Being treated meanly; experiencing trolling, online harassment or bullying, and encountering hate speech
    • Sexual – Sending or receiving unwanted sexts and making sexual solicitations; being a victim of sextortion or non-consensual pornography (aka “revenge porn”), and
    • Personal and Intrusive – Being the target of unwanted contact, or experiencing discrimination, “swatting” or exposure to extremist content/recruiting.

    Youths reported much higher incidences of unwanted online contact than adults, although both share an equally high concern about the risks. “Youth are especially troubled by the expectation of sexual threats becoming worse,” says Beauchere. “What may come as a surprise is that youth were more likely than adults to have confronted or retaliated against their offenders. Nearly six in 10 (58%) of young people said they met their offenders in person compared to 43 percent of adults. Youth were more likely to have been in contact with their offenders when negative behaviors involved online meanness, unwanted contact or trolling.”

    The study noted that “unwanted contact” was the primary concern among both teens and adults, with 43% saying they had been approached inappropriately online. When you add in their circle of friends, 63% of people have had unwelcome contact.

    For more tips regarding online safety visit Microsoft’s YouthSpark Hub.

  • The Web Can Be A Dangerous Place: Learn To Protect Yourself

    Malware, phishing scams and other dangerous entities are all over the Web these days. A report from earlier this month said 2013 was going to be even worse than 2012 in regards to the proliferation of malware across the net. It’s now more important than ever to protect yourself, but perhaps you don’t know how. That’s where these helpful tips come in.

    Google thought it was high time to remind its users once again how to remain safe and secure on the Web. The following video contains a number of common sense tips, but you’d be surprised by how many people don’t actually actively protect their computers from Web-born attacks and malware.

    As I said, a lot of these are common sense safeguards that you can put into place. I would like to give special attention, however, to the 2-step verification process. I never used the feature for my Google account because I’m careful about who I give my personal email address to and never ventured outside the “safe boundaries” of the Web without the proper precautions. Even with all my precaution, my account was almost hijacked by a hacker out of China. It was a much needed wake up call.

    In short, if you use a personal email client, you really need to take advantage of the security options that your service provider employs. If you’re proactive about security now, you won’t have to deal with the fallout of having your online identity stolen later.

  • How WhosHere Is Helping Users Connect and Law Enforcement Fight Crime

    With so many deals, coupons, and social activity revolving around location, it’s not really surprising that popular location-aware app WhosHere recently exceeded 3 million downloads. According to Stephen Smith, the co-founder of myRete, which is the maker of WhosHere, the downloads have increased 53 percent since the first of the year.

    WhosHere is about “creating a new network for yourself that’s detached from the social graph.” Smith also said, “You’re completely in control of your personal information, your identity, and your location.”

    In other words, users can customize their profiles and determine how much and how little information is available to others. Users can then communicate with one another through free VoIP calls and text and image messages. All this communication can be done with or without any personal identification being revealed as well.

    WhosHere was also recently used in helping to put a sex offender behind bars. The company was contacted by law enforcement and was able to provide them with information to put the criminal in jail.

    “You put 3 million users into a room, and there’s going to be the occasional bad actor,” said Smith.

    Why is it that some people take a good idea and abuse it? Let us know your thoughts.

    If you recall, there have also been incidents involving sexual predators on sites such as Facebook and MySpace. In fact, former Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal was one of the leaders that pushed for stronger protections on these sites including preventing convicted sex offenders from using the sites and limiting older users in their searches of members under the age of 18.

    While it’s never a good idea for an offender to strike, in this case, in particular, it was really not smart at all, given the site is a location-aware app… ☺

    “If you’re going to commit a crime… the worst place you could do it is on a location-aware application,” Smith said.

    WhosHere has since been praised for its assistance in the case and was even asked to contribute to a series of best practice tips that the FBI presents to schools. Smith also gave us some “common sense” tips that users should apply with all social networking apps and sites:

    –    Don’t give out personal information
    –    Don’t tell where you are
    –    Be sensible about what you share about yourself (e.g. phone number)

    At this point, WhosHere is only available on the iOS platform, but thanks to some recent changes to Android, Smith said we could expect the app on Android and other platforms in the near future.