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Predators use Emojis to target Kids

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Who’d ever think those silly little yellow circular faces and other such cyber symbols would become such a worldwide smash? I’m talking about emoticons, also known as emojis. Five years ago Apple put an emoji keyboard on its mobile devices. Six billion of these doggone things are sent every day.

12DBut a story at kdvr.com says this isn’t as innocent as it seems.

The story mentions Sheila Allison and her 12-year-old who regularly communicate via emojis. For instance, Allison’s job means she’s not home when her daughter is going to bed, so she sends emojis for zzzz’s, kisses and princess. (There’s an emoji for everything, and not all of them are faces; some are animals, fruits and other symbols.)

So expansive is the emoji language that a person may be considered fluent in it, knowing the hidden meanings of these icons.

Mike Harris hunts down pedophiles for a living, says the article. He’s fluent in emoji, knowing over 1,200 of the icons. He points out that one emoji may have three or four different meanings.

There’s even a Speak Emoji app that translates “emojiese.” The symbols can be used to bully and threaten. They can be used to communicate any number of messages, such as, “Got any crack?”

There are emojis with very concrete meanings, such as bomb, gun and knife symbols. Others are a bit more cryptic, though sending the emoji of a frog to someone you recently called “ugly” should have an obvious interpretation.

More Meanings

  • Dog (even cute) emoji = b–ch.
  • Pile of poop = sh*t.
  • Harris explains that the sequence of a running-man emoji and a bowling ball emoji means “I’m going to hit you.”
  • Guess what a scared face, knife and shower means.
  • Harris adds that a peach can mean erotic. So can raindrops.
  • Context is important; two people discussing the weather and sending raindrop emojis are meaning rain, nothing more.
  • Anyone whose head is in the gutter will use the banana emoji.
  • Meanings can be invented spur of the moment: sending the pig emoji to an overweight person or when discussing cops. An emoji of a shark (I’m sure there’s one) can refer to a lawyer.
  • But a very non-contextual emoji is footprints; this can mean beer.

Sorry, don’t shoot the messenger! Just giving all those over 30 a heads up!

Robert Siciliano CEO of IDTheftSecurity.com, personal security and identity theft expert and speaker is the author of 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen. See him knock’em dead in this identity theft prevention video.

Predators hunting Kids on Gaming Sites

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As a parent, you may not be crazy about your child spending a lot of time “gaming.” Chances are good that your feelings are fueled by the fact that kids should play outside, be more social, and are getting addicted to tech or maybe the correlation between childhood obesity and excess computer time. It’s not pretty.

12DHowever, there’s another elephant in the room, perhaps squeezing out the obesity threat: the pedophile threat.

Recently on a Long Island college campus, a male student was found to be traipsing through gaming sites that are popular with young boys such as Grand Theft Auto and Minecraft. The 21year old predator, convinced three underage boys to take sexually explicit pictures and send them to him.

It’s tempting to question what these boys were thinking, that they would so freely take and send sexually explicit images of themselves to a complete stranger. But the predator played a numbers game in his trolling quest, finding three vulnerable victims and convincing them that he was “Allison Denario” and ask for the photos.

He’d then pose as Allison’s furious boyfriend. Of course, in real life, an angry boyfriend would normally demand that the photos stop. But “Allison”’s boyfriend told the boys his father was a cop or FBI agent. This angry cyber stranger demanded the boys perform sex acts on camera or he’d snitch on them for sending Allison the images. So. Flipping. Dark.

Well, Mt Predators little game was short-lived and he was charged with child pornography.

For Parents

  • Get an activated security suite for the computer before any game playing begins.
  • Create long strong passwords. Please, no 123Gamer or Jayson14. So a long strong password might be a phrase ImaHugeStarWarsfan or a nonsensical jumble like gowkg850(4)2.
  • Before any game playing, check its Entertainment Rating Software Board’s rating.
  • Protecting your kids is more than just great passwords and online security features. Make your children feel that they won’t be judged or blown off by you if they report something peculiar or suspicious.
  • Teach your kids how to make these reports, about “catching the bad guy in real life.” Feel free to refer to the bad guy as a predator, not just “bully.” Many kids think of “bullies” as other kids who call each other names online. But if a child is old enough to play on gaming sites, they’re old enough to be taught about adult male cybersexual predators and how they pose as young girls.

Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert to BestIDTheftCompanys.com discussing identity theft prevention.

Child Predator screws up, gets caught

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If you’re a pedophile, you’d be wise not to keep any prescription containers in view of a webcam with your lewd pictures. The information on such a bottle is what helped pedophile Stephen Keating get 110 years in the slammer says a CNN article.

4HBut the amazing thing is that the bottle’s information was extracted from a blurry image of it in the background of a photo that Keating took of one of his 14 victims. Keating posted the photo online, not knowing that that innocent little prescription bottle would get him busted—along with the fingerprints that were extracted off his fingertips in the image.

Yes, this is what forensic technology can do these days. Only some of Keating’s name and the prescription number were actually extracted in a photo lab, but it was enough information for a record check of the pharmacy to get his identity.

Homeland Security Investigations Cyber Crimes Center specialist Jim Cole says his Project Vic teamviews half a million images every week.

How does this technology work?

  • Computers use “Photo DNA” to speedily sift through hundreds of thousands of photos, separating previously viewed ones from new ones, sparing investigators from having to see disturbing images more than necessary.
  • Cole says that what used to take nine months now takes one month.

In another case, an image showed a woman and her victim holding a fish at a campground. The woman was a known offender…but where was this campsite?

The image of the fish was sent to Cornell University for analysis of the species: Where is this type of fish found? The location was narrowed down to a specific area, and then the campsite image, minus the offender and young victim, was sent to all the campsite advertisers in that region. They got a hit, and in fact, the reception room of the particular camping grounds had the same image on display. All of this took place in under four hours.

Even a blurry company logo on a shirt can be extracted for identification. In one case this led to a plumbing business where an offender used to work.

Where are all these images coming from in the first place? The public sends in tips to the CyberTipline. So do giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Cole says that the advanced technology has caused an exponential increase in the number of victims rescued.

Good guys 1. Predators ZERO.

Robert Siciliano personal and home security specialist to BestHomeSecurityCompanys.com discussing burglar proofing your home on Fox Boston. Disclosures.