“Thousands of them are doing it every day around the world,” says Raymond Bechard, who says he stumbled up on this while researching a book on human trafficking called “The Berlin Turnpike.”

Here is how it works: child predators create fake profiles to conceal their real identities and then they “friend” one another to trade video and pictures.

“Ben Little, Ben Small, Ben Young, anything that could sound like a name [that] pertains to someone being a little, small child” is usually an indicator, Bechard says.

A Fox 5 investigation found their “likes” to be similar as well. For example, “liking” the book “Lolita,” about a man who has an inappropriate relationship with a young girl, or “liking” Justin Bieber can both be signs.

FBI officials describe illegal photo sharing on social networks as “rampant.” Nickolas Savage, assistant security chief of the FBI’s cyber division, says pedophiles exchanging pictures on social networks can feed a vicious cycle.

“They can meet other people like themselves, and go off and validate their behavior,” Savage says. “When they trade with others there’s always a sense they need more material.”

Child predators even steal innocent pictures of children that could come from their parent’s Facebook profiles and unlocked photo albums.

Stolen or illegal images can be reported to Facebook right on the site. The company removes them. But Bechard thinks the company should do more.

They shut somebody out, but they don’t lock the door,” he says. “They just come back right in as another profile, putting up the same images and trading the same information with other pedophiles.”

That is exactly what Jerry Cannon, a Kentucky pastor, did. He pleaded guilty in April to charges of posting child pornography on Facebook. Police say he used 13 different false profiles to post more than 600 images. Bechard says he reported Cannon to authorities, which is a job he thinks Facebook should be doing.

In response to an enquiry from Fox 5, Facebook offered this statement in an email: “Facebook takes down illegal content as soon as it is reported to us. In the rare case where we believe the content may constitute child exploitative material, we take it down immediately, use our innovative system to block any further sharing of that content, and actually pull it back from any person’s page that it was shared with. More importantly, we share the content with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and then report the person that shared it to law enforcement.”

Law enforcement welcomes tips from the public. You can report illegal images at cybertipline.com or by calling 1-800-843-5678.

Experts recommend that if you post pictures of your children on Facebook, be sure that your privacy settings are set to share with only the people you trust.

SOCIAL NETWORK PRIVACY TIPS

Two settings you need to worry about: the first is for photos and video you post on Facebook in the future and the second is for the photos and videos you’ve already posted on Facebook. You must adjust the settings in two different places to protect your Facebook photos from being shared with the whole world.

1. Log onto your Facebook account.

2. Click on “account” located on the upper right hand side of your computer screen.

3. In the drop-down menu select “privacy settings.”

4. In the middle lower third of the screen click on “customize settings.”

5. Next to “posts by me” click on the drop-down menu and select “customize” this will bring up the custom privacy window.

6. In the custom privacy window, click on the “these people” drop-down menu.

7. You can now select “friends only.” This will share your content with your Facebook friends. Or you can share with an even smaller group by selecting “specific people.” The “specific people” selection allows you to type in the specific people that you want to have see your posts and photos. This setting also allows you to “hide this from” by inputting specific names that you do not want to have see your content.

For photos and albums you’ve already posted you need to adjust these privacy settings as well:

1. Click on “account” located on the upper right hand side of your computer screen.

2. In the drop-down menu select “privacy settings.”

3. In the “things I share” section, click on: “edit privacy settings for existing photo albums and videos.” This will bring up all your albums and photos with a drop down menu beneath each one.

4. You need to now select and set the privacy setting in the drop down menu under each and every album and video.

Remember: The best way to keep pictures totally private is by not posting them on a social network at all.

MYFOXNY.COM – Imagine being able to record and monitor every digital move your teen makes from text messages to emails. High-tech surveillance software turns parents into cyber sleuths, giving them the ability to digitally see it all. But does new surveillance software empower concerned parents or turn them into intrusive cyber spies?

A mobile app called eBlaster mobile can secretly be installed on a child’s phone and send Mom and Dad copies of every text sent and received, including digital pictures. The app is available for either Blackberry or Android phones. Once installed on the mobile device a parent wants to monitor, the program goes into “stealth mode” and is practically undetectable to the teen who is using their cell phone.

It’s digital eavesdropping technology that would expose a teenager’s formerly private digital world to parents prying eyes. And while most teens will dread this technology, many parents will be drawn to it.

SpectorSoft created the app, and the company has similar spyware designed for computers. Parents can install SpectorPro without a child knowing it and use the software to monitor online chats and web surfing. The software records hundreds of digital snapshots of the computer screen and compiles them into a visual log that parents can scroll through to see what a teen has been up to on the computer. The program also has a built-in dictionary that searches for and deciphers acronyms or codes kids use in chats. For example, if a parent comes across a word like ASL in recorded chats, the program will reveal the letters stand for: Age, Sex, Location.

The company claims the program can decipher hundreds of acronyms and cryptic codes:

GNOC = GET NAKED ON CAM
RUH = ARE YOU HORNY?
420 = marijuana

Dr. Jeff Gardere, Fox 5 News contributing psychologist, has some concerns about spying on your kids.

“When do you draw the line when you go from being concerned parent to being a stalker of your kids,” Dr. Gardere says. He thinks parents who want to use this type of software need to be honest with their kids if they plan on installing it on their computer or cell phone.

Otherwise, Dr. Gardere says if a child finds out his or her parent has secretly been spying on them it could have serious repercussions.

“They will feel betrayed and feel major issues of trust from that point on between you and that child,” he says.

Both the eBlaster mobile app and SpectorPro computer monitoring software can be found here:

Well, I haven’t decided yet what is the right move in this case. I am a mom and I want to know what my children do, but my children are little (3.5 years and 5 months old). I am so protective and I want to save them from everything that is out there in the “big world”. However, I am not sure when they get about 15 or 16  years old I still would love to know about everything what they do. I feel that as children grow we have to let them do their own things; we have to give them a certain amount of privacy. How much is a certain amount of privacy? I don’t know. I guess it is different with every child. Some kids are so naive and  they need protection even from themselves, others are  mature enough to handle any situation.

Seeing a report like that I am wondering what kind of relationship  parents have with their children if they want to spy on them? Buying an app and install on their kids’ phones without telling them, then follow every text or e-mail?  Shouldn’t we build a trusty relationship with our children by a certain age?  If this is the way to protect a child there must be some serious issues in that family. Blocking certain websites on the computer might be OK, but secretly monitoring them is a creepy idea. As the psychologist said in the report if a parent would do this with a child, that child would never trust that parent.

Is selling an app like eBlaster a good business? Marketers come up with the weirdest ideas just to take money out of people’s pockets. I would like to know who buys this app and actually how much profit it makes. Probably a spy app will not be the best selling product on the market. I think this is an example how we should not use the “amazing technology”.

(NewsCore) – A British teenager was facing a jail term Friday after he was caught confessing on Facebook to flooding a library, causing £150,000 ($248,000) damage.

The 16-year-old boy — who cannot be named for legal reasons — faced Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court in southern England on Thursday and confessed to blocking sinks in the library’s bathroom, then turning on the taps, local newspaper The News reported.

The youth initially denied the charge, but changed his plea to guilty after he was confronted with a transcript of a Facebook conversation in which he told a friend he was responsible for the flooding at the library.

Asked on Facebook if he had caused the damage on Aug. 18 last year, the youth replied, “Kind of, yeah. I’ve kept it to myself, a few mates know.”

Irreplaceable books were destroyed in the flooding. The library was closed for five months while repairs were carried out, including re-carpeting, the replacement of computers and electrical work.

The teenager will return to court on May 11 for sentencing.

We talked about privacy on Facebook in class. We all agreed that once the information is put up there it is not ours anymore. We all want to believe that we have control over our accounts, however it is not the case. Whatever we publish it goes out and it can be turned against or testify against us. In this case, although, the 16 years old denied that he flooded the library, in a  previous conversation he confessed he did it.                                                   My question is that if somebody does something culpable why he tells to anybody? Especially why he talks about it on a social network side?? I have to think that these teenagers are looking for attention and Facebook seems the perfect place to get it.  Unfortunately, they don’t think about the legal consequences of their actions.                     Reading this article through another thing comes to my mind. If this boy confessed his action to one of his friend I would like to know how much responsibility a friend has to report him. What if somebody posts even something worse on Facebook? How much responsibility we, who are his or her friends, have to report that action? Do we have to report if we read something illegal? Signing up for Facebook I don’t remember I read anything regarded to legal actions.

Facebook is launching a deals program Tuesday in five U.S.

cities, following on the popularity of Groupon and other services that offer deep discounts – for example: $50 worth of food at a local eatery for $25.

By allowing small businesses to leverage the Internet while helping consumers score great deals, these group-couponing services have become some of the fastest-growing businesses in the world.

Facebook now wants a part of that. It hopes to exploit its existing networks of friends and family when it begins testing offers in San Diego, San Francisco, Atlanta, Dallas and Austin, Texas.

Many deals sites have a social component. For instance, if you get three friends to buy a LivingSocial voucher, yours is free.

Groupon’s offers become valid only after a certain number of people purchase them.

But the deals are circulated to users through email, and the community aspect is secondary.

Facebook is hoping to change that.

“We’re building a product that is social from the ground up,” says Emily White, director of local for Facebook. “All of these deals are things you want to do with friends, so no teeth whitening, but yes to river rafting.”

Starting Tuesday, when Facebook users in the five test markets log into the site, they will see a deals insignia at the bottom of the page.

Clicking on it brings up a list of currently available offers. A user can buy one, click the “like” button to recommend it to others or share the offer with friends through Facebook’s private messaging system. When users purchase or “like” a deal, it shows up in their friends’ news feed.

That means “the discovery of the product can happen in lots of different places,” White says.

To get the program started, Facebook has enlisted 11 companies that already supply deals elsewhere. Restaurant reservation service OpenTable will broadcast offers for local eateries, while online ticket seller Viagogo will market events.

Not all offers involve discounts. Some are experiences people may not otherwise have access to, such as a backstage pass to Austin City Limits concerts, a tour of the Dallas Cowboys’ new stadium, or a children’s sleepover at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco with live-snake demos.

In some cases, you’ll get a “friend bonus” – an additional discount – if at least one other person in your social network buys a deal.

Leveraging social tools and direct sharing among friends will be “a key to success for daily deal companies” going forward, says Lou Kerner, social media analyst at Wedbush.

This is not the first time a social network has made a foray into disseminating deals. Twitter launched its own daily deal program called Earlybird Offers last year but canceled it after just two months. Last November Facebook launched a product called Check-in Deals that allowed users to “check in” via their mobile phones when they visit certain businesses and in turn receive discounts and other special offers. Location-based social network Foursquare has a similar program.

Offers through Facebook can last anywhere from a day to a week.

The social network won’t disclose how much commission it takes.

(With Groupon and others, the deal site typically takes up to half the revenue.) There are hundreds of Groupon copycats willing to accept lower commissions, but many small businesses prefer to partner with larger companies such as Groupon and LivingSocial because they reach more potential customers.

Facebook will bring deals to even more people. While Groupon has 70 million members and LivingSocial has 28 million, Facebook has 500 million people worldwide.

Add to that the fact that many small businesses already have a Facebook presence, and the social network becomes a good fit for daily deals, says Greg Sterling, senior analyst for Opus Research.

As a share of overall Web surfing, visits to group-buying sites grew ten-fold over the past year, according to research firm Experian. LivingSocial had 7 million unique visitors in March, up 27 percent from February, making it one of the 10 fastest-growing websites in the U.S., according to ComScore.

“Groupon and LivingSocial have shown how much demand there is out there,” Sterling says. “Facebook, if they do this right, can have a big hit on their hands.”

Well, another way how Facebook wants to extend its business. I have to admit that I never heard Groupon  and  LivingSocial before reading this article. Now, I know them. I went on Google and found out what these two names covered. Websites that sell coupons and offer deals to make the every day life and living cheaper. I don’t know how other people feel about coupons and online deals, I don’t use them although I should, however, I think it is a really good business. I know these coupons offer huge savings, and I have friends who shop only if they can find a good deal online.                                                           I saw a report on Nightline, where the reporter went shopping with two “crazy” coupon collectors and they showed that how a 200 dollars shopping spree could cost 20 dollars or even less with coupons.                                                                                                                 As the article mentioned that Facebook has over 500 million users; teaming up with Groupon and LivingSocial seems a very good idea. People who use Facebook now can get their coupons and deals without leaving their favorite sides. Everything in one place. The ice on the cake is that people can have their own little businesses too. Telling about great products just to a few of their friends would make a big difference at the next shopping. Facebook do have the chance to make big money selling these coupons. This service will start, or already started last week, in five big cities, but I wouldn’t be surprise to hear that Facebook extended it nationwide.