What's your passion?

What’s your passion? You know, that topic that gets you fired up. Something inside you awakens and makes you want to DO something. Everyone should have at least one passion. These are the things that make us interesting.

You may not know this, but for roughly 13 years or so, my passion has been internet safety. Wha…?? (My musician friends just did a complete 360 in their chairs).  As a founding member and vice president of Predator-hunter.com, I was deeply involved with finding ways to keep kids (and to some extent adults) safe online. At one time, our organization was large (at least as big as Perverted Justice was a few years ago – maybe bigger). We had people trolling the net looking for trouble to report – reports always went to NCMEC. We worked with some law enforcement groups, helping provide technical work on cases. We even helped a young hacker called “OmniPotent” get his valuable evidence to the proper authorities, bringing down a pedophile judge. We built a training site for teaching law enforcement how to use tech tools. We provided awareness training for parents. I worked for a while with Laura Chappell, presenting information to parents, teachers and anyone who would listen about internet safety for kids.

These days, there is little need for organizations like Predator-hunter. And groups like Perverted Justice have given internet safety organizations a bad name. Sorry PeeJ folks – your program started out with the right idea. It just became - umm – perverted along the way. Most law enforcement agencies have their own training available – or have personnel who have experience with the tools they need. Computer forensics has come a long way in the last 13 years. It’s difficult to get parents to an internet safety training presentation these days, as most parents of teens in 2011 have some experience with computers and don’t think they need more information. Organizations like NCMEC have improved their own education programs and created great education modules that schools can use to educate kids on everything from school yard bullies to the dangers of sexting. There’s so much information out there, one could get lost for days.

I still believe in keeping kids safe. I’ve just decided there are so many other people out there doing the work, I can focus on something else for a while. Thanks Michael Vaughan, Amy Baglan, Laura Chappell, Gary Dimmock, Wendell Krueth (rest his soul), and all the other people I worked with over the years… I’m still here, but in a different capacity. Internet Safety will always be a topic that will get my attention.