Phishing attack targets MySpace users

A MySpace page hosting the fake login looked like a legitimate page

31 October 2006
By Robert McMillan

Phishers have found a way to use genuine MySpace.com accounts to trick users into revealing their account information.

Last week, web analysis firm Netcraft reported that a MySpace user was emailing potential victims inviting them to visit a fraudulent log-in page, where they were asked to enter their email address and password. That information was then sent to a server located in France, according to Netcraft.

The attack, which was shut down by MySpace around 10 am on Friday, took advantage of the way MySpace organises URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) in order to give the fake log-in page a believable web address, something that could confuse even security-conscious users, according to Netcraft analyst Rich Miller.

The attacker had registered a MySpace account named login_home_index_html, meaning that the MySpace page hosting the fake login looked like a legitimate place where users would sign on to the service.

Users visiting the page would see a legitimate MySpace URL but would not necessarily realise that it was, in fact, a MySpace user page that had been configured to trick them into entering their passwords and email addresses.

This type of attack is not unprecedented, but it does show, "one more interesting way that phishers are trying to trick people out of their account details," says Miller.

Typically, sites like MySpace have a database of user names that are off-limits, in order to prevent this type of attack, Miller says. "What this kind of attack suggests is that sites have to expand that list."

MySpace is owned by News Corp. A News Corp. spokeswoman says that users who are unsure about whether they're at the right log-in page should go to the main address.

back to top

Marketers drool over MySpace generation

21 July 2006
By Jenny Keown

Teenagers' love of social networking websites, blogging and use of media channels is growing, but so is their false sense of control over the technology.

Marketers are feverish with excitement over defining the new generation of post-modern youth - what they like to call Generation C - who are driving change in the marketing industry through their use of technology.

Entrepreneur Jack Pearce says companies such as Sony, L'Oreal and Toyota are pushing hard to tap into the new generation by running campaigns asking them to contribute their marketing ideas - a Sony advertisement last year was produced by an 18-year-old.

In New Zealand, we have seen companies capture Generation C to some extent through initiatives such as Telecom's Rubbish Film Festival, which received 1000 entries from consumers who created films, but marketers are still slow to catch on in New Zealand, says Pearce.

Pearce, who is working with companies around the world, tapping into this new generation, is confident he has a sense of what they are all about - control, creativity, community and customisation.

A large chunk of this new generation's attention is focused on MySpace <http://www.myspace.com/> - the largest social networking site in the world with 88 million users, says Pearce.

MySpace includes millions of pages of autobiographical data, blogs, homemade movies, pictures and lists - and is described on its website as an online community that lets you meet your friends' friends.

"The key difference with this generation compared to previous ones is they believe they have something meaningful to say to a mass audience, unlike previous generations, who did not have the same kind of confidence using technology to express their ideas," says Pearce.

"Blogging is about participation on my terms, it's very 'me' driven. So 88 million people on MySpace believe that their content is competitive, meaningful, and they can create their own destiny through it."

There are 50,000 new blogs an hour, and third of those who start will continue to blog.

Another interesting development is YouTube <http://www.youtube.com/> - a web place for people to engage in new ways with video by sharing, commenting on and viewing videos - which is growing faster than MySpace, says Pearce.

YouTube originally started as a personal video sharing service, and has grown into an entertainment destination with people watching more than 70 million videos on the site daily.

University of Auckland business school senior lecturer Robert Davis says the reasons for Generation C behaving in this way need to be looked at in more depth.

Teenagers do have a false sense of security on these sites and are putting a high level of information on the social sites, including their phone numbers and full names.

MySpace has been the subject of a number of lawsuits in the US because it is attracting paedophiles masked as teenagers, and the White House is starting to put through legislation specifically targeting this problem.

"It's not until something goes wrong that people realise what they are exposed to. Dangerous offenders can easily act like a 13-year-old and that is what they do," says Davis.

But while paedophiles are a concern, it is also marketers' misrepresentation of information and whether what is being said is true that needs to be looked at further.

Davis says another element of Generation C is their need to be a celebrity, seen on technology such as Songstar, where you can record your own songs.

"I think this is a function of them being told they can be anything and everything, that is, be the star. We may have a very insecure group of consumers here. They want to be totally in control and the celebrity, but in reality it is not possible."

Netsafe New Zealand spokesman Martin Crockett says while the technology is exciting, the level of detail teenagers are supplying to social networking sites is still a concern.

"It is part of the effect of the internet that people sit at the computer and leave their inhibitions behind. They feel safe and the risks are quite extreme.

"Internet lowers the barriers required to develop a relationship. Young people call people their friends much quicker online than offline."

In the US, due to the MySpace problems, they are developing rules so that younger users' profile information is not immediately available.

But Crockett says rules only go so far in an environment where you have no control over how people behave or communicate.

Netsafe works with schools through presentations to staff and school communities, basically telling parents what a social networking site is, and teaching students to look critically at the information on the web and not fall for the spin.

Says Crockett: "It is best to empower people to make the right decision through education in an environment that you can't control."

back to top

Dad's plea for police to check Net sites

11 July 2006
By Jo McKenzie-McLean

A horrified Christchurch dad whose teenage daughter invited a stranger home for sex wants tighter policing of social networking websites – some of which are now being banned in Australian schools.

On Saturday The Weekend Press revealed how South Island teenagers, some as young as 13, were displaying provocative images of themselves on social networking sites, posting sexually explicit messages and giving out personal details, such as their full names, phone numbers and schools.

Authorities in Australia are so worried by sites such as Bebo. com, which has attracted 25 million members since its launch 18 months ago, that some schools have banned them and written to parents to warn them of their concerns.

In Britain, one principal called in the police after finding more than 700 of her students had signed up with Bebo and that some were displaying images she considered indecent.

A Christchurch father, who contacted The Press because he wanted to warn other parents of the dangers of social networking sites, said he had been forced to place his daughter under "house arrest" after she invited a stranger home for sex after meeting him on Bebo. com.

His daughter started using Bebo about five months ago and initially everything seemed OK, he said.

"We are quite an open family, so we keep an eye on things that are happening. It was just like making a website. That's all I was aware of," he said.

The parents arrived home one night to find a boy in their house with their daughter.

"Then we started finding condoms lying around. We questioned her a bit further and it came out," the father said.

He forced his daughter to show him the website, and he was horrified at what he found. She was acting like "something off Manchester Street".

"The whole school is in on it, hooking up left, right and centre. They post messages like `Fancy hooking up?' and they come around to the house when Mum and Dad are out to make whoopy," he said.

"They go to the chatrooms, see if they are attractive enough and go from there basically. It's unbelievable."

His daughter "was actually making the first moves".

"They are all talking about sex, who they had sex with or were going to have sex with," he said.

Police, schools and the Government needed to take steps to crack down on the sites before something "blew up".
"I don't think police have picked up on it, but it's obvious to me the websites are dangerous."
Worried father

"I don't think police have picked up on it, but it's obvious to me the websites are dangerous," the father said.

"The cover of the web page might look innocent enough but there is an insidious dark side to these sites. Police don't know what the threats are because they are not looking at the sites."

His daughter had told him she often accessed the sites at school when the teachers were not looking.

As well as banning his daughter from the internet and a cellphone and removing her details from the internet, she was also getting counselling and a health check, he said.

"Despite our daughter reading all the safe-surfing jargon, teenagers being teenagers, she decided to put her health and safety at risk," he said.

"For God's sake, parents, wake up, get on the internet and get your kids off these sites."

In Britain, the company operating Bebo said: "Bebo has taken the issues of privacy and safety very seriously since its inception and was one of the first social networking sites to partner with organisations like wiredsafety. org to create safety tips on issues such as cyber bullying and online safety.

"We prominently post links to these safety tips for parents and Beboers on our homepage, and all profiles have a `report abuse' link where members can report other members for inappropriate content or behaviour."

It is estimated that 61 per cent of British children aged 13 to 17 have a personal profile on a networking site, which enables a user to create a personal homepage, exhibit photographs and socialise online.

Of the eight million children in Britain with access to the internet, one in 12 said they had gone on to meet someone whom they initially encountered online.

Australian research showed 40% of teens would potentially meet in person someone they had met online, and only 12% would ask their parents' permission to do so.

More than 40% of 16 to 18-year-olds admitted they had downloaded content from the internet they did not want their parents to know about.

While half of the parents surveyed believed they always knew what sites their children visited, 71% of parents believed their children used the internet for research, while only 23% of teenagers said they researched online.

Netsafe is advising schools in New Zealand to educate students and to implement filtering software that can keep inappropriate material off school networks.

"What they (children) need to realise is when they post something on the web, anyone can access it," said Robert Minahan, of Netsafe.

back to top

Social networking website under scrutiny

30 June 2006
By Peter Griffin

Online safety organisation Netsafe is holding its annual symposium in Wellington next week, and social networking websites such as myspace.com will no doubt be high on the agenda.

Myspace, which was bought last year by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp in a deal worth US$580 million ($972 million) and now boasts 85 million members, has been getting a lot of press lately - much of it negative.

Type "myspace.com" into the news section of Google's search engine, and some worrying headlines emerge: "Teens use myspace to set up robbery victim", "Man pleads guilty to using internet for sex with minor", "Cops search myspace page of slain girl".

A few months ago, the website was billed as the best new place to promote bands, organise community groups and clubs, and express yourself among friends. Now it is seen as a hunting ground for perverts and fraudsters.

The backlash has mainly been in the US.

A few weeks ago, US news networks were headlining the story of a 17-year-old girl who attempted to fly to Israel to marry a man she'd met on myspace. US officials intercepted her in Jordan and put her on a plane home without her passport.

The worm has certainly turned for myspace, which is now being branded as an unsafe place for its mainly young members to congregate. Myspace's smaller competitors are coming under closer scrutiny as well.

The US current affairs show Dateline has based its top-rated series To Catch A Predator on online sting operations, which aim to nab would-be offenders on social networking websites. The show's camera crew is ready and waiting when the man who has been lying about his age turns up in the park to meet the 14-year-old girl.

The pressure is on the internet industry in general to fight exploitation of children on the web.

While myspace restricts those under the age of 14 from joining the site and prevents those claiming to be over 18 from seeing the profiles or those under 17, the whole system falls down when people lie about their age when signing up. Phone numbers and surnames are filtered out so people can't inadvertently give away their private details, but that doesn't stop them from doing so in weblog postings.

There's nothing to stop a 35-year-old man posing online as a 14-year-old girl. He's unlikely to make any myspace buddies without posting a picture of "herself", but one of those can easily be found on the internet and edited to his needs.

Critics want the websites to add age verification to stop people misrepresenting themselves online but that would involve members handing over a credit card number, which many people are dubious about doing online. Also, kids can't own credit cards, so that method of verification is useless.

The sites are used globally so verifying age by social security number would be problematic, even if that information could be accessed by myspace. In essence, there are no other publicly available databases of information that could be used for age verification, so there's no easy way to keep young people safe on such websites.

Despite the terrible design of the personal pages at myspace, the bad grammar and cacophony of music used in some profiles, it is amazingly useful.

And really, what's the danger in people reading innocuous details about what you like or what music you listen to or what you got up to on the weekend?

The biggest problem is educating people about becoming too familiar with people they've only ever met online.

So are the safety problems just an American problem, beaten up with media hype and pushed along by an administration with a conservative agenda? There are, after all, only a few thousand New Zealanders registered on the big US-based social networking websites. But the dangers are just as relevant for us, Netsafe says.

Take the example of a New Zealand girl who befriended an Australian "girl" of the same age. The two shared personal information, including comparing security in their homes and alarm codes. When the New Zealand girl returned from a holiday she had told her friend about, her home had been burgled. The investigation found the alarm had been turned off with the correct code and the 12-year-old "friend" was a burglar living nearby.

It's a valid cautionary tale. Social networking sites will become more popular here and parents need to be aware of the safety issues.

back to top

Pupil suspended for slogan on website abusing teacher

4 June 2006
By Catherine Woulfe

A teenager has been suspended from school after posting a photograph of a teacher and his newborn son on a website - and then making degrading comments about the pair.

The student, from Tauranga Boys' College, found an online photograph of music teacher Nathan Geldard holding his six-month-old son. He then copied it on to the bebo website with a degrading slogan.

Last week, bebo was one of two sites investigated by the Herald on Sunday.

Bebo and satire site uncyclopedia were found to contain vicious abuse, bullying, accusations of sexual abuse against teachers and details such as names and phone numbers.

The sites had been flagged by the New Zealand School Trustees Association as the newest forms of "large-scale harrassment".

Mr Geldard said he was "gutted" about the incident. "I was devastated. It was taking something which to me is very personal and quite sentimental, and just trashing it. The stupid thing was the student actually had his name on the top of the page."

Mr Geldard said the student was stood down within a day and would not be allowed back until he and his parents met with the Board of Trustees.

The student, understood to be 15, apologised to Mr Geldard, saying he did not realise what he was doing and had meant it as "a bit of a laugh".

But Mr Geldard said other teachers at the school were also "shocked and hurt" by the incident.

Computer experts had since checked the site and also removed a post by a school representative which was thought to be inappropriate, Mr Geldard said.

Students could not access the site from school and, after senior exams finished, they would be spoken to about the importance of internet privacy. Mr Geldard said he was very pleased with the way management had handled the incident but was still concerned about the potential of cyber-bullying. "There's been the whole text-bullying [problem] but now there's this. It really did hurt."

Mr Geldard said he did not even know of the site until a junior student came to him last Wednesday and warned him of the page.

But when he tried to log in to bebo using his email address, he found it had already been used.

"Therefore, someone could be logging in as me. This starts to break rules of privacy and harrassment. I emailed bebo about this and they removed the image."

Many schools approached during last week's investigation had not heard of the site - although virtually every school in the country was listed on it, meaning anyone could log in as a 'student' and then create their own home page.

Tauranga Boys' College principal Graham Young said the school had dealt with Mr Geldard's complaint and it was time to move on.

"I was delighted with the responsibleness of the boys, once they recognised what was going on wasn't right."

Robert Minahan, school education manager for Netsafe, said the trend followed on from text bullying. "It's insulting and naming and shaming - it's similar to sending an offending text to someone."

"If anyone received a threat they could go to police," Mr Minahan said.

back to top

MySpace Faces a Perp Problem

18 April 2006
By Jenn Shreve

According to his MySpace page, the 41-year-old San Bruno, California, resident is single, a Sagittarius, a nonsmoker and nondrinker, and counts an online stripper among his six friends. But California's online database of registered sex offenders offers a different profile of the same man: convictions for forced sodomy, oral sex and "lewd and lascivious acts" -- all with a person under the age of 14.

A 22-year-old man in San Francisco comes off as a typical college student on MySpace, professing a love for beat poetry, nature and obscure coffee house bands. His profile doesn't mention that he's a convicted child molester.

Wired News ran the names of randomly selected registered sex offenders in San Francisco and neighboring Sonoma County through MySpace's user search engine, and turned up no fewer than five men whose self-reported names, photographs, ages, astrological signs, locations and (in two instances) heights matched those of profiles on the state's online sex offender registry.

In two additional cases, the information posted on MySpace was sufficient to suggest a probable but not certain match. Repeated e-mails to all seven men through MySpace were not answered.

None of the men appeared to have minors listed on their MySpace friends list.

Assuming the profiles are authentic, the easily verified presence of registered sex offenders in the online community highlights the difficulties MySpace faces as it seeks to clean up its content and public image, while maintaining the flexibility and privacy that has drawn more than 70 million users to its website.

Over the past several months, MySpace.com has been hammered by media reports, portraying it as both a safe haven for sexual predators and a dangerous place for naïve teens who post personal, and potentially damaging, information for all the world to see. In response, the Rupert Murdoch-owned company has boosted its security and public relations efforts.

Last week it brought on Microsoft veteran Hemanshu (Hemu) Nigam to fill a new post of chief security officer, and launched an advertising campaign promoting online safety.

Already, one-third of MySpace's rapidly growing staff of 300 is dedicated to customer service and support, looking into images and profiles that potentially violate the site's terms of use. But with an astonishing 270,000 new users registering every day, and a thorny tangle of privacy and legal issues to navigate, MySpace doesn't aspire to keep tabs on everybody.

At the same time, when your company continuously pops up in the news because your service is allegedly being used by sexual predators to exploit teens, having registered sex offenders posting openly on your site just looks bad.

All but one of the offenders Wired News found on MySpace appear to have been convicted of engaging in some kind of sexual activity with a minor. The other, one of the two probable matches, is listed as having raped, penetrated with a foreign object, and engaged in oral sex with an unconscious person.

On MySpace, he's a Christian with a girlfriend and nearly 400 friends.

All of their online profiles, which understandably make no mention of their crimes, were surprisingly easy to find. The search <http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/search.aspx> was conducted over the course of a few hours and covered a very limited geographical area. Not every registered sex offender's name was checked. In many cases, profiles matching the name and location of listed offenders were found on MySpace, but the profile was too incomplete to determine a match.

But with five conclusive matches, the endeavor was a bit like searching for a needle in a haystack and pulling out a pin cushion.

Given that MySpace's user base is approaching the combined populations of California, Texas and New York, and the fact that 46 states have online sex offender databases, a more exhaustive search is not only possible, but would likely turn up many more registered sex offenders on the site.

On the surface, the ease with which these profiles can be located seems to undermine MySpace's claims to be cracking down on sex offenders on its servers. But even if the company wanted to use state sex offender registries as a MySpace blacklist, doing so may not be possible or even advisable.

For starters, a registered sex offender is not breaking the law just by participating on the site. (It's for this reason that we've chosen not to identify the ones we found by name.) While a judge may on occasion require a convicted sex offender to, for example, stay out of internet chat rooms or avoid playgrounds, that order ends once a sentence has been served. Afterward, under typical state laws, the perpetrator's only requirement is to register with law enforcement agencies annually, and upon changing residences, for the rest of his life.

"It's not against the law, to be on the site itself, no, unless they're prohibited by probation or parole," said inspector Jim Zerga of the San Francisco Police Department.

Nor are convicted sex offenders violating MySpace's rules by using the site. Felons of every stripe are as welcome. In fact, the only people not allowed on MySpace are those under the age of 14, those who provide false information or fail to maintain the accuracy of their profile, or people who use the service unlawfully.

And if MySpace decided to harvest state registries to boot convicted sex offenders, the move might even land the company in some legal hot water of its own.

"This information is put out there for people to help protect themselves and their families," said Mariam Bedrosian, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Justice, which maintains that state's online sex offender registry. "You can't use it to discriminate against housing and employment."

Would kicking registered sex offenders off a website be illegal? If a case was ever brought, it would be up to a judge to decide whether the action was in violation of Megan's Law -- the statute under which California's list is produced and distributed, according to Bedrosian.

In any event, such a crackdown would amount to little more than a public relations move, because it would only expel sex offenders who, in keeping with MySpace's terms, provide their real name, location and other personal information. Users can easily register and start using MySpace with a completely fake name, address, age and even e-mail address, and one suspects that many people who wish to use the site for ill purposes do just that.

It's a loophole the site has no intention of closing. The reason? Requiring personal verification, such as a credit card number, would create difficulties for the many rock bands, teenagers and non-U.S. users who belong to the community. In short, it would alienate large portions of the site's user base.

"One risk they take -- and I know they think about it -- is if they get overly protective kids will leave," said Larry Magid, a journalist who runs a number of internet safety education websites, including BlogSafety.com <http://www.blogsafety.com/> .

"MySpace is constantly engaged with local police and investigators regarding the safety of our users," Grossman wrote in an e-mail. "The company cooperates directly with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies to swiftly and thoroughly address any issues affecting the safety of our users."

In many ways, MySpace finds itself in the same situation as eBay in the late 1990s, when it had grown well beyond its own capacity to police itself, and fraud was rampant due to the resulting security loopholes. EBay walked a fine line between punishing bad behavior and alienating its users, many of whom were drifting off to new competitors.

And if MySpace took the extreme step of forbidding registered sex offenders from using its site, what's to stop them from setting up camp at Xanga or Friendster or MyYearbook? Even in the impossible event that all the existing social networking sites became verifiably pervert-free, new sites and new applications would just spring up in their place, bringing about a whole new spate of security problems.

"I've been doing this since 1993, when I first wrote about internet safety," said Magid. "If you go back to that booklet, all of the threats are the same, all the issues are the same, but the venues have changed dramatically. Back then it was newsgroups. IRC was an issue, then chat rooms, instant messaging. Now nobody talks about chat and everybody talks about social networking.

"Five years from now we won't be talking about MySpace," Magid concludes. "I don't know what we'll be talking about, but it will be the same issue in a different venue."

back to top

Teenagers cyber-socialising in a substitute world

13 April 2006
By Peter Griffin

It was a cold and rainy day in London, and I was catching up with an old workmate who wanted to show off her pride and joy - her 14-year-old daughter.

But the girl was nowhere to be seen. She was upstairs, tapping away on her computer.

"Faceparty," my friend said distastefully. "She spends half her life on it."

It turns out Faceparty.com is a social networking website. I'd never heard of it so I logged on myself to have a look.

The front page told me: "Faceparty is the most advanced online community in the world. We're more than a website - to thousands we're a way of life."

Faceparty has six million members, most of them British teenagers. It's a social networking site, like Myspace.com, the most successful of the breed with more than 70 million members, which was bought last year by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp for a whopping US$580 million.

On Faceparty, people with similar interests meet and chat, swap photos and gradually build a network of friends. Sounds innocuous enough.

But that last bit - "to thousands we're a way of life" - also sounded a bit creepy to me.

Don't kids spend enough time on the internet doing homework and playing games without undertaking much of their socialising on it as well?

And as a gathering point for youth, you might be concerned that it's also a trawling ground for perverts and paedophiles.

Many readers will be oblivious to the popularity of Myspace among teenagers as it's an American and European phenomenon. A mere 3000 Myspace members are listed as being from New Zealand and just 400 for Faceparty. Both sites are free to join.

But the profiles of those Kiwis who do belong to the social networking hubs are no different from those of youths on the other side of the world.

They're forthright, open accounts of life. It seems that the barrier of keyboard and computer screen gives people the confidence to really open up.

The postings are littered with personal information, some members going well beyond the pale to post numerous photos of themselves, list email addresses and even the names of bars and nightclubs they drink at.

The personalised sites, which are designed with templates provided by the likes of Myspace and Faceparty, let other people know what sort of person you are, and therefore whether they want to electronically socialise with you. You're invited to list your favourite movies - Donnie Darko and The Princess Bride seem to be favourites among female Myspace members. Favourite bands, hobbies, sexual preferences, religious beliefs, smoking and drug-taking habits can also be listed.

Myspace will host a blog for users to keep a running diary, which their network of friends can read. Notes are often written in that terrible sort of shorthand that makes up mobile phone text messages.

After a few hours in the world of Faceparty and Myspace, I came away staggered at the scale of the websites and impressed at the attention some people pay to maintaining their online personalities.

But there are enough horror stories in the United States already about some of the content that's been posted to Myspace - from naked photos to defamatory statements about teachers.

Experiencing such fast-paced growth, Myspace has become the Wild West of the web, a place where literally anything goes. Its owners have clearly struggled to police the masses of postings.

To its credit, Myspace is now trying to clean up its act, seemingly spurred on by the Murdoch takeover. It recently appointed former US federal prosecutor Hemanshu Nigam as its chief security officer.

The site is also running adverts on American TV stations warning children and adults of the danger lying in wait on the internet. Policies are being tightened and there will be more zealous policing of the content posted.

For News Corp, Myspace offers a direct channel to the youth market. Advertising revenue figures haven't been revealed but are believed to be in the tens of millions. There is money in social networking.

When Trade Me was scooped up by newspaper publisher Fairfax for $700 million last month, the buyers picked up a thriving online community of traders who discuss everything and anything on the site's message boards as well as the Oldfriends site, which has 750,000 members.

The social networks attract eyeballs like nothing else on the internet and that alone will ensure they're here to stay. They can be expected to assume more of a presence locally.

It seems the human desire to be understood and to fit in as part of a group, for many people, can be well satisfied through the internet. That's what social networking is all about. By and large, it's a very progressive movement. But if you're penning a Myspace profile, just be careful about revealing the real intimate details. You never know who is watching.

back to top

MySpace: Your Kids' Danger?

Popular Social Networking Site Can Be Grounds For Sexual Predators

6 February 2006
By April Ehrlich

It all started on the social networking Web site MySpace.com, reports CBS News correspondent Sandra Hughes. A 14-year-old girl began receiving graphic messages from a much older man, asking whether she was "OK with me being 38?"

It wasn't the first time the alleged predator, Robert Wise, trolled the Internet looking for sex, according to Sgt. Dan Krieger of the League City, Texas, police department.

"We assumed her online identity and started chatting with this guy," Krieger explains. "During that point, he made it very clear he wanted to meet her for sex. We were able to find another 14-year-old female that he's actually had sex with."

Wise is now in custody, charged with multiple counts of sexual assault.

But the incident is just one of many cases nationwide — and some of them have ended tragically.

In New Jersey, Majalie Cajuste is grieving the murder of her daughter Judy. The 14-year-old reportedly told friends she met a man in his 20s through MySpace.com.

Across the country, in Northern California, friends are mourning 15-year-old Kayla Reed. She was active on MySpace until the day she disappeared.

Police are investigating possible MySpace connections in both murder cases.

The Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported more than 2,600 incidents last year of adults using the Internet to entice children. With numbers like that, you'd think all parents would be hovering over their kids, wanting to know what they're doing online. But authorities say many parents are clueless about their kids' MySpace profiles.

CBS News Technology Analyst Larry Magid had a look at one personal profile on the site, belonging to a 15-year-old girl.

Magid says the girl writes in her description, "Drink a 40, smoke a bowl, sex is good, life is great, we are the class of 2008."

"Now if you were a predator and you read something like that," asks Hughes, "what would it tell you about this young lady?"

"I'd target her, I think," Magid replies.

In talking to some teens who regularly use MySpace, it's easy to see that a lot of kids aren't very careful about the information they put on their pages.

"So many people don't even use common sense," says Katie Pirtle, a high school student. "Some people even put their phone number on there."

And while they information kids put on MySpace may be intended for their friends, do they think, "Hey there's 35-year-old or 45-year-old guys out there looking at my site?"

"Definitely not," says April Ehrlich, another high school student. "When they think MySpace, they think other teenagers. They don't think there are adults pretending to be teenagers on there."

Many MySpace users post "the survey," which asks for responses about issues like drinking, drug use and skinny dipping. Users can also put up pictures.

MySpace declined CBS News' request for an on-camera interview but said in a statement: "We dedicate a third of our workforce to policing and monitoring our site."

The site requires users be 14 or older, and they are warned not to post any "personally identifiable material." But the teens we spoke to say that advice is routinely ignored.

"Just like a car accident, it can happen to you," says high school student Julia Rinaldi.
"Predators can come to you — and that's what they don't think when they post those things."
Those predators include men like 26-year-old Jeffrey Neil Peters, who was arrested last month for sexually assaulting Susie Granger's daughter. Granger says parents should keep their kids off the site.

"Please don't allow your children to go onto MySpace," she says. "It's a very unsafe environment for them to be in."

But for the thousands of teens who are hooked on the site, it's a warning that's lost in cyberspace.
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved

back to top