The family of Megan Meier can testify to that. The Missouri teenager committed suicide after a “boy” she met on the social networking site MySpace rejected her. In fact, there was no such person.

According to investigators, the boy was a persona Lori Drew invented to spy on Megan, who Drew believed was mouthing off about her daughter. Reports say the fake boy told Megan two hours before she hung herself that “the world would be better off without you”.

Drew was indicted on federal charges earlier this month, after prosecutors determined she had broken no state laws. She will be tried in California, where the MySpace servers are housed.

It’s unfortunate a girl’s death was needed to prompt any action, but the heartening news is several states are looking to patch similar holes. Missouri has since made it a crime to harass someone over the Internet, and Illinois legislators followed suit.

Here in Wisconsin, it’s already illegal to threaten someone directly via computer, but state Rep. Donald Friske, R-Merrill, is trying to expand that. His bill would make it a misdemeanor to encourage others to harass someone. That could be by posting that person’s financial information on a Web page, for example, or by suggesting someone intimidate that person.

Another legislator initiated the effort in response to a domestic dispute in central Wisconsin several years back, and Friske eventually took the torch. He has introduced similar bills the last three sessions but seen them fizzle each time. Most recently, Assembly Bill 51 passed 93-1 but got lost in the Senate.

Click to learn more…

Come join us on the 10th of June at 11am mst… to hear Amy Ryan tell her and her son JD’s story, live on: CHWradio.com it’s going to be a great show…

If you want to protect you and your children from CyberBullying then you should try PC Pandora out for free, here… plus a 10.00 discount.

“The problem of sexual predators on social networking sites has been well documented in the media. Experts agree the websites did not create the threats, but they opened doors. Internet predators, however, are not the only things in cyberspace that should concern parents.”

James Leasure co-founder of Pandora Corp. makes and sells the leading monitoring software PC Pandora 5.0 and likens it to a TIVO for your PC, it records all content via a screen capture.

Check out the Press Release! PC Pandora Advises Parents to Increase Internet Safety at Home this Summer, Despite Social Network Pledges

Make sure you come back and GET a $10.00 Discount Here!

We have searched Internet high and low for the one and only “absolutely the best” all-round solution for your child’s online safety, and we’ve found it! We liked this company’s philosophy so much that we have created a partnership with them, to deliver you the very best tools, PC Pandora® is one of America’s leading Monitoring Software packages!

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“Our program allows parents to see everything their child does and opens the window for a conversation and chance to correct the potentially risky or dangerous behavior,” explains Leasure. “If your child is visiting a website that you feel they are not ready for, or if they are developing a relationship with a username you don’t recognize, you will know about it and be able to do something.”

SAN FRANCISCO, CA and NEW YORK, May 8, 2008 – In a new, nationally representative poll from Common Sense Media and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center (JGCC), American parents agreed by a wide margin that digital media skills are important to kids’ success in the 21st century, but they also expressed skepticism about whether digital media could contribute to the development of skills like communicating, working with others, and establishing civic responsibility.

The full results of the poll, the first of its kind, will be unveiled at the first-ever Joan Ganz Cooney Center Symposium in New York City on May 9. The symposium, sponsored by Electronic Arts, McGraw-Hill Education, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and PBS, will convene thought leaders from the fields of research, communications, and policy to address how best to use digital media to improve children’s learning and development.

(For the rest, please view this Story)

Thank you so much for dropping by our RCC website, and having taken the next step and deciding to be a part of The Responsible CyberCitizen Community….

To get your free book go to the form in the upper right-hand corner fill in the info, and you will be taken directly to your copy of the book: “Don’t Take Candy From Strangers”

If you would like to find out how to share our message of a safe a CyberHood for everyone [Go Here] and fill out the form and we will contact you directly…

Thanks again,

Dave & Bill

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

A Netizen (a portmanteau of Internet and citizen) or cybercitizen is a person actively involved in online communities. Netizens use the Internet to engage in activities of extended social groups, such as giving and receiving viewpoints, furnishing information, fostering the Internet as an intellectual and a social resource, and making choices for the self-assembled communities.^[1] Generally, a netizen can be any user of the worldwide, unstructured forums of the Internet. The word netizen itself was coined by Michael Hauben.

It might also mean this: Simulating 933 Active Citizens

Cyber Citizens is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) built around Google maps. Create a citizen and specify characteristics such as a first and last name, height, weight, age, sex, and starting city, political party, and more. Once your citizen is created give them a job based on his or her ratings in the areas of happiness, health, intelligence, nourishment, and strength. Navigate around real world city maps of Dallas, London, Los Angeles, New York, Rome, Sydney, and Tokyo to find locations within your citizens travel capacity that will help you improve these ratings. Purchase individual items to carry with your citizen to further increase your ratings to open up new jobs and opportunities to make more money.

Possiblely: Cybercitizen® Health

Cybercitizen® Health is a syndicated multi-client consumer study and advisory service focused on key research topics and trends at the intersection of technology and healthcare. Updated annually, the research study is based on extensive population-level interviews among U.S. consumers. As the foundation of Manhattan Research’s consumer research, the objectives are to understand how the population of U.S. consumers is gathering healthcare information to empower their treatment decisions and to understand overall consumer technology adoption and utilization for healthcare.

But I think what my partner says, sums it up the best:

A responsible cybercitizen is more than just professional technologies and IT support and making sure your PC is not one of the cybercriminals weapons to attack others but, it’s also good parenting and an awareness of the unpleasant underbelly of the Internet and understanding what we as a network of responsible cybercitizens can effect change. If you want to learn how to become a Responsible CyberCititzen! Join our Community….

A good backup will mean the difference between a couple hours’ of inconvenience –in case of a failure– and total loss. Just recently, I wrote an article on how having the second backup saved my bacon on an XP machine (see Back in the saddle) when its hard drive decided enough was enough.
I cannot say it often enough: computers are complex devices and their parts DO fail (and usually provide little or no warning before they do). Make some copies of your stuff.

This is a really good article about something that I don’t do as much as I should… So, do as I Say not as I DO… Because, your the one that will pay for the mistake, when it happens… I have started to use an external drive and also the Mozy online backup system… it just a habbit…3 weeks and it iwll be something that you always do!

Read the rest of this great article here and [Backup] all your system files…

Ken, is one of my most favorite people on the Internet and in the security world, that’s because he fights the good fight… check out his blog here!

The big news today is from Massachusetts where the Supreme Judicial Court said for the first time, on Friday, that sexual predators could be prosecuted for communicating with their potential victims over the Internet.

Now, before I paste the article, I want to give you my thoughts:

There is a lot of hoopla over the fact that this impedes freedom of speech. As you know, the 1st Amendment has granted that right and been challenged and re-worked over and over. What it comes down to is that you can say what you want in this country, thankfully, as long as your ‘speech’ does not include intention to commit a crime.

For example, on a plane, you can have a conversation about how you are afraid to fly because of people blowing up planes. But if you start saying out loud and screaming that you have a bomb or you think there is a bomb on the plane – you will be arrested.

For example, you can talk about sex with an underage person (as nasty as it may be that you are), but if you are doing it to lure them into contact or with the purpose of hurting them, those conversations can be used against you and you can be prosecuted. Read the rest of the story…

But the first thing your going to learn About Regina Lewis is she is very passionate about helping other even us cleaning challenged men

This type of cleaning I am actually very familiar with and this is great advice young, old, male, female, rich or poor…. because this problem affects all of us!!!

Regina Lewis says:

It’s always great fun to do a segment with Rachael Ray & we both hope today’s material on defending your reputation and combating CyberBullies is helpful. She was gracious enough to dedicate the entire first half hour of today’s program to the issues. Here are some related notes.

Consider your online identity your credit score for the 21st century. Mistakes can cost you. The stuff you put out there or risk having put out there by friends or friends of friends is kind of like a tattoo. It has a certain staying power … But just as tattoo removal has become popular, so has cleaning up ones digital dirt. Here’s how, plus some ways to avoid rolling in the mud in the first place …

Read the 5 Super Tips on keeping you safe, in this new millennium.

The worst is that there is no drug to remove it; your own brain produces the endorphins, making you feel high. Adolescents are at an increasingly high rate of danger of not just passing out when “playing this game”, but actually suffocating themselves or choking themselves to death.

Read More [GASP]