Hello all. I know it has been a while since I published one of these, but with my busy life, I haven't been around a lot lately. However, I felt a little inspired to post one of these, so here we go.
I have seen an influx of posts from people on Facebook posting articles and sharing news stories of people disappearing and then being found killed or raped. And this has been happening on a more frequent basis. And then I see pictures of people on Facebook and all over the Internet of people scantily dressed and barely dressed and it makes me wonder.
Do people actually see the connection?
Yes, when suspects are found, there are a few of the cases where the suspect is revealed to be a jilted ex-lover. But a lot of the times, the killer happens to be some pedophile or pervert that happened to have stalked them or communicated (and feigned) interest in these people.
This is a newer age than it was when I was younger. People didn't share pictures as easily as they can now. People didn't have the kind of open exposure to the world as they do now. And it is really a scary thing when you think about it.
For instance, when a person posts a scantily dressed picture of themselves on Facebook, and they leave the audience set as "Public," they expose themselves to the world. Friends will see the pictures, but so will friends of friends and so on and so forth, until you have worldwide exposure. And you know what they say, "Once it is on the Internet, it stays on the Internet." That has never been more true than now.
The thing is, this is how people find you. Pictures CAN be hacked, especially if taken from a mobile device with GPS. The image gets encoded with metadata that can be read through a hex editor (or something like Notepad even). If you ever take an image file and open it in Notepad, it will render a lot of text. Someone could get GPS coordinates out of it and actually find exactly where the picture was taken. Basically, posting scandalous pictures on Facebook provides an open invitation to all perverts and would-be rapists saying, "I am a fresh piece of meat, come and get me. ;)"
What really concerns me is the fact, that the audience of people on Facebook also seems to get younger and younger. It used to be in the beginning that you had to be a college student to even get a Facebook account. Originally, you had to provide a college email address to even get entrance onto the site. Nowadays, you can have you own account at the young age of 13. At 13 years of age, a lot of people do not know the dangerous that lurk out there in the world of the Internet. A lot of people do not understand the dangers that lurk on a computer nearby.
And even though 13 is the youngest age you have to be to start your own account legally, I HAVE seen younger people lying about their age to get a Facebook account. And I've seen people who actually started Facebook accounts for kids who were 6 years old. These kids probably do not even know how many pedophiles exist in their own neighborhoods.
So, I send this out as a warning to parents of young children, or to even young adults. Be sure to practice a certain degree of safety when posting pictures on-line. If you post pictures that are provocative or scandalous, be sure you know everyone who will be seeing your pictures. Be sure you understand your audience. Be sure that if posting from a mobile device (or any other computer device that can get your location), to disable the GPS or tracker. To kids who are on social media, be sure you fully understand the dangers that lurk on the Internet before you post. To parents of kids who are in the world of social media, be sure you know what your kids are posting and who is following or reading those posts.
Remember, do not make yourself a target... someone will eventually shoot for it. Be sure you know who it is that is doing the shooting. :)
