Predators create MySpace profiles
By Monica Klucharich
For The Collegian
A recent investigation by Wired News found more than 700 registered sex offenders have profiles on the social networking site MySpace.com.
Kevin Poulsen, a reporter for Wired News, said he conducted the investigation over a period of four months, during which he found that 744 registered sex offenders in the U.S. Department of Justice National Sex Offender Public Registry have profiles on the Web site.
Poulsen said he conducted the study after a Wired News freelancer wrote a story discovering seven MySpace profiles of registered sex offenders after typing in names from California's sex offender registry.
"[The story] begged a follow-up story that took a more detailed approach," Poulsen said.
MySpace, which launched in January 2004, currently has 125 million member profiles, said Taylor Patterson, MySpace communications coordinator.
"Its basically just a site that was created to allow a connected community of online users," she said.
Patterson said 86 percent of MySpace users are over the age of 18, but she did not have statistics on how many of those are college students.
Poulsen said he had to comb through about one-third of the profiles to verify that the information in the profile matched that of the sex offender's information in the sex offender registry.
Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer for Fox Interactive Media and MySpace, made a public statement in response to the investigation.
"We are committed to keeping sex offenders off MySpace and are evaluating all functional and scalable solutions," he said in the statement. "In the meantime, we will delete profiles of any convicted sex offenders we find on MySpace."
According to the Pennsylvania Megan's Law Web site, there are 31 registered sex offenders in State College and three in University Park. It also lists 12 sexually violent predators in Centre County. It is unknown if any locally registered sex offenders have profiles on MySpace.
Centre County Assistant District Attorney Lance Marshall said those classified as sex offenders must register with their local police department once every year and sexually violent predators must register every three months under Megan's Law.
"The community is notified that there is a sexually violent predator living among them," Marshall said. He said counseling is also required for the rest of the predator's life.
Marshall said he usually deals with anywhere from five to 10 cases of stalking through the Internet each year.
"Usually, there is some sort of unwanted e-mail included," Marshall said.
Ashley Nesby (senior-journalism), a MySpace user, said she was stalked by a man who sent her unwanted pictures of himself after obtaining her information on MySpace.
Nesby said she blocked him, but he continued to stalk her under different user names. Nesby said he eventually stopped.
"That was an experience I definitely don't wish to be involved in again," Nesby said.
University Police Assistant Director Tyrone Parham said he isn't aware of any harassment cases that the police have dealt with regarding MySpace.
However, he does caution against people putting too much personal information in their online profiles.
"You never know who you're communicating with," Parham said. "The Web sites are public, so whatever you put in there, people can see it," he said.
Community Watch comments:
Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer for Fox Interactive Media and MySpace stated "We are committed to keeping sex offenders off MySpace and are evaluating all functional and scalable solutions," he said in the statement. "In the meantime, we will delete profiles of any convicted sex offenders we find on MySpace."
Nigam is the talking head at MySpace with the CSO title and connections with the Department of Justice - no one is impressed with blah, blah, blah and bs. MySpace needs to get someone to apply some brain power and actually make an impact over there.
Wired found 744 sex offenders on the site with a simple perl script - why not outsource it to several groups outside of MySpace armed with perl scripts until you have an internal solution?
Uh, well, we need to form a committee and then...
MYSPACE NAMES HEMANSHU NIGAM CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER
Nigam to Oversee All Safety, Education, Privacy and Law Enforcement Programs for MySpace and other Fox Interactive Media Properties
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SANTA MONICA, April 11, 2006 - Fox Interactive Media (FIM), parent of MySpace.com, has appointed industry veteran Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam to oversee safety, education and privacy programs and law enforcement affairs for MySpace, as well as the growing network of FIM properties. Nigam, who currently serves as Director of Consumer Security Outreach & Child Safe Computing at the Microsoft Corporation, brings more than 15 years of experience in online safety for private industry and law enforcement, including serving as a Federal prosecutor against Internet child exploitation for the US Department of Justice, an advisor to a Congressional commission on online child safety, and an advisor to the White House on cyberstalking. Nigam’s appointment is effective May 1, 2006.
“Hemu is a proven leader in online safety and security. We are fortunate to have him join MySpace, help us educate the public and protect our members’ safety and privacy,” said Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MySpace. “MySpace has always been committed to an industry leading role in internet safety and will continue to partner with all stakeholders including parents, educators, law enforcement and safety groups.”
“Fox Interactive Media and its network of properties will greatly benefit from Hemu’s experience, stature among law enforcement and private industry leaders, and strategic vision,” said Ross Levinsohn, President of Fox Interactive Media. “We look forward to working with Hemu as we continue in our commitment to provide a leadership role in developing industry standards that safeguard our growing community of members.”
Nigam’s role at Microsoft has been to lead the team within Microsoft’s Security Technology Unit responsible for driving consumer security outreach and child safe computing strategies. Nigam oversees outreach and partnership development with government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved in online consumer safety and security. He led the cross-company child safety initiative launched to build a holistic approach to child safe computing throughout Microsoft products, services and programs. Nigam also served as a spokesperson on virus, hacking and spam enforcement outreach, and on child online protection and law enforcement outreach.
Prior to joining Microsoft, Nigam served as vice president of Worldwide Internet Enforcement at the Motion Picture Association of America. There he built and oversaw the global strategy to combat online motion picture piracy for the seven major Hollywood studios.
In his prior role, he was a trial attorney in the United States Department of Justice, Criminal Division, in Washington, D.C. where he specialized in child pornography, child predator and child trafficking and computer crime cases nationwide. Nigam also served on the Vice President’s Committee on CyberStalking and was a legal advisor to the COPA Commission (created by the Child Online Protection Act, the landmark 1998 piece of legislation defending children’s safety online, to advise Congress). He was also the law enforcement liaison to ISPs and filtering technology companies on child online protection issues.
The appointment demonstrates MySpace’s ongoing commitment to protecting the safety of its more than 68 million members. Since the inception of the site, the company has devoted extensive resources towards these important issues and has created a deep arsenal of programs and services deployed on the site to maintain the security of its members including:
• Limiting use of the site to members who are at least 14 years of age and providing special protections to members who are under 16 so their personal information cannot be accessed by persons they do not know.
• Requiring all new members under 18 years of age to review safety tips prior to registration.
• Deleting profiles of under-age members. Since the inception of the site, the company has deleted more than 250,000 underage profiles.
• Reviewing every image hosted directly to the site – more than 2 million every day.
• Members often link to images hosted on other sites from their MySpace pages and MySpace is working with the largest image hosting companies on the web to ensure that these companies are monitoring the photos and adhering to MySpace’s policies.
• Limiting access to certain discussion groups with adult themes to members 18 years of age and over.
• Providing parents links to free filtering software to guide their child’s Internet activities and access.
• Providing mechanisms, including links next to every photo hosted on the site, so members can report inappropriate content to MySpace.
• Working with hundreds of law enforcement agencies at the federal, state, and local levels to address potential issues quickly and effectively.
• Offering revised safety information and tips from every page of the website for both users and parents.
• Partnering with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Advertising Council, as announced recently, to promote online safety through a series of national public service advertisements – the largest single campaign ever run on behalf of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
About MySpace.com
MySpace is the premier lifestyle portal for connecting with friends and discovering popular culture. By integrating web profiles, blogs, instant messaging, e-mail, music streaming, music videos, photo galleries, classified listings, events, groups, college communities and member forums, MySpace has created a connected community. As the second ranked web domain in terms of page views*, MySpace.com is the most widely-used and highly regarded site of its kind. With more than 70 million members, MySpace is committed to providing the highest quality member experience and will continue to innovate with new features that allow its members to express their creativity and share their lives, both online and off.
• Among the top 2000 domains. comScore Media Metrix, March 2006. For more information on comScore Networks, please go to http://www.comscore.com.
About Fox Interactive Media
With the third largest reach of any Internet company, Fox Interactive Media (FIM) is building an integrated network of sites that offer its more than 70 million worldwide members socially rich media experiences centered on entertainment, news, information and self-expression. The company’s network includes assets from News Corp. divisions, including the highly trafficked Foxsports.com, Americanidol.com and Fox.com. FIM also owns and operates such category leaders as MySpace, the number one social networking site on the Web; IGN, a leading gaming and entertainment site; Scout.com, a dynamic collegiate and pro sports network of property; AskMen, a leading men’s lifestyle site, and Rotten Tomatoes, the premier destination for movie-goers, among others.
