Regarding Grace

[AmysMacdog]

OMG! Thats so scary!..........WOW! 2 minutes! :shock: :shock: :shock:

 

[Kyle@theWintertime]

Yeah it's not that hard.

I think I shall compile an email to her mom now. For her own safety, if nothing else.

 

[Honorine]

I can't tell you how many times I've told a kid 'You tell your Mom or I will', its a parent thing. She seemed very very immature to me, so I don't think I even participated on her threads. I've learned to avoid kids online, nothing but trouble. Granted I also avoid the venting threads as well for the most part, thats not really what I'm here for. Her mother does need to know what her 12 year old daughter is doing on public sites, so she can curtail such behavior. Grounding would be nice too.

 

[DogCatMom]

If in fact she is not even 13 yet, I would strongly recommend her mother be contacted. If she's 13 or older, I'm not sure what the law/protocol is. People must in general be ≥ 13 to participate in on-line forums. (At least, that's the policy on the ones I'm part of, and definitely policy on the gardening forum I help moderate.)

She is in fact under 13.

Gobsmacked. Flabbergasted. In a complete State of Stun. Dear Lord above....

Imagine: someone, let's call him/her a "creep," has the full name of a minor female "somewhere" in Kansas. The "somewhere" can be ascertained fairly closely by a narrow reading of her posts both here and elsewhere on animal forums. This much, anyone might do out of normal curiosity. But the "creep" decides to go further, reaching out on social media known to be popular with young people (i.e., teens rather than 20-somethings) and contacts Grace by means of one of these media. "Creep" sets up a meeting somewhere close to Grace's home, perhaps in conjunction with a rabbit or goat show.

This is a legitimate and SCARY concern.

I didn't know whether others realized the totality of what she had posted here, let alone elsewhere. I just checked the goat forum; putting the info on the two forums together *is* scary.

I spent some time on the "drama" threads, trying to talk her down from the edge (and now I wonder if she was actually on the edge) just a couple of weeks after I joined RT in August. That's time from my life I can never get back. If it helped her, I don't begrudge one second of it. But if the whole situation was faked, then I am very grudging of my time.

We may never know.

I agree, Dogcatmom, but I also think of it this way: if she legitimately needed help, and we helped her, then so much the better. If she wasn't and just wanted attention or something and didn't need or WANT help, and we tried to help her anyways, so much the better. I'd rather be blown off and talked trash about by a lying, backstabbing child any day...because it means we won't dismiss or ignore a person in need of help when they really NEED IT.

But yes, I'm sure much of our time was "wasted" on her.

Fair point.

There are laws governing information sharing from person's under certain ages. My daughter has lost her Internet access at home, almost entirely, for violating them.

My son is strictly monitored for online stuff...and he knows the rules: no giving out real names at ALL, don't get any more specific than "Canada" when asked where he lives (hey, let's be honest, Canada is HUGE, so that doesn't narrow anything down!!! :lol, never answer if someone asks how old you are, AND if ANYONE asks for ANY of that he must tell an adult IMMEDIATELY.

Grace is only a few years older than my son. :x Gives me pause when I think about some of the info she's "shared." :shock:

I do agree that her mother should be informed. (Sorry, Sassy -- I mean Kyle!)

LOL!!! Tempted to put "Watch out, I'm sassy!" in my signature. :mrgreen:

I'll ask my ultra-rational friend once I get to their house...if G. agrees, I'll send a message to her mother. Hopefully it will help Grace get the help she needs and will prevent a tragedy-in-the-making, such as the "creep" scenario.

Those are good guidelines; I think they're very close (if not an exact match) to the ones recommended by Larry Magid, an Internet safety/privacy watchdog.

If we (or, more importantly, her mother/parents) needed additional evidence that Grace's Internet use is beyond safe bounds, she's set up a website for her even younger sister, Caroline, who must be all of--what? Ten (10) years old???

I cannot believe that any responsible parent these days would condone such Internet use; more likely, these girls are knowingly transgressing parental rules/guidelines. (At least, I hope that's the case. "Parents asleep at the switch" is an image I really don't want to process.) Given RJ Schaefer's ability to trace the address in 2 minutes, these two girls (10 and 12 years old) have put themselves, and perhaps their family, in real danger.

How secure are their animals?
How secure is the house/land?
How secure are the members of the family when engaged in their normal activities?

I just keep getting a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach. Twelve years old. I wonder if the goat forum knows that she's under 13.... She's soliciting business on their forum. :!:

 

[AmysMacdog]

I know! This is so upsetting, I do like Grace and I knew she was young but not THAT young. Its horrible to think what could happen. Its easy to see her defiance, it will more than likely take her down the wrong path and as wild as she is already I shudder to think just how far she has gone so far. Very sad indeed.

Kyle :clover: For that email to her mom!

 

[dayna]

I let a mod at TGS know that Grace is so young. That might violate their policy.

 

[trinityoaks]

On -----, she lists her name as Grace ----, but has a lot of other personal info there (that matches everything on her other sites), as well as a closeup photo of her face. All of it is listed as PUBLIC.

 

[Millinex]

I've read some of her stuff in the past, and it's always mind boggling some of the things she posts... and the attitude she brings up randomly about things... I mean her post about the goats, god... I would have loved to run circles around her 'knowledge'.

As someone with a tremendously drama filled background (former semi pro gamer) who's used to an immense amount of attitude/bsing/smack talking- I don't really see why she would want to bring drama into a forum about... rabbits? I mean I throw it out heavily in the gaming world, but... rabbits? It just doesn't make sense for drama/ego/attitude/fake stories to be here????

As for the rude thing- I find the opposite. I was just banned from the HRS forum for being against vet medicine, and against some of their policy, and trying to actually help save a rabbit on deaths door. This forum has been wonderful. I'm new, people help answer my questions despite my lack of tons of experience. People who breed very high quality animals for show, are here, but at the same time, we have people who also produce meat rabbits, know to cull, can offer vet experience, all under one roof. It's not usual that rabbit loving people don't completely bash and rip me apart for the fact that... they are food for my snakes in many cases...

Keep it up, I'm impressed, and clearly a lot of people are. Not every forum is for everyone, that's why there is more than one rabbit forum, more than one dog forum, etc etc... sometimes certain people/ideas don't mesh.

 

[dayna]

I also let TGS owner Austin know about her actual age. I assume the mod will tell him but I figured he really needs to hear about it too.

 

[Millinex]

Thank you for removing this source of drama. I cannot say I'm "happy" that she's been banned; that's not the feeling I have.

I am surprised to find that this former member wasn't 15 or so; her drama was very consistent with 15 years old (says the former 7th- to 12th-grade teacher). But I was extremely concerned a few days ago when she signed off--in her signature block, not on a single post--with her full name, given and surname. It was an invitation to Internet trouble of the worst kind.

Imagine: someone, let's call him/her a "creep," has the full name of a minor female "somewhere" in Kansas. The "somewhere" can be ascertained fairly closely by a narrow reading of her posts both here and elsewhere on animal forums. This much, anyone might do out of normal curiosity. But the "creep" decides to go further, reaching out on social media known to be popular with young people (i.e., teens rather than 20-somethings) and contacts Grace by means of one of these media. "Creep" sets up a meeting somewhere close to Grace's home, perhaps in conjunction with a rabbit or goat show.

I think we can all take it from there, and it's not pretty.

If in fact she is not even 13 yet, I would strongly recommend her mother be contacted. If she's 13 or older, I'm not sure what the law/protocol is. People must in general be ≥ 13 to participate in on-line forums. (At least, that's the policy on the ones I'm part of, and definitely policy on the gardening forum I help moderate.)

I spent some time on the "drama" threads, trying to talk her down from the edge (and now I wonder if she was actually on the edge) just a couple of weeks after I joined RT in August. That's time from my life I can never get back. If it helped her, I don't begrudge one second of it. But if the whole situation was faked, then I am very grudging of my time.

We may never know.

I will also say.... this, because I'm good at this subject. I was a hardcore gamer for awhile, I spent a lot of time on video games. Sometimes, someone would denial of service (dos) attack someones computer to win the game. I eventually got fed up with that and decided to seek out the people committing this crime.

On average, from JUST a skype user name alone, I could track down every bit of information on a person. I had one guy who attacked my friends connection. I had his facebook, google+, youtube videos of him, I had his name (frist and last), his parents, his grandparents, aunts, uncles, best friends.. where his family worked, where he went to school. I ended up calling his parents at 1am (when he was committing the crimes) and letting them know their son was committing a felony, of course he got a nice grounding for that...

How long did it take me to find that information? 15 minutes.

You are not anonymous on the internet unless you are EXTREMELY proficient at computers/hiding yourself, I was good at that at her age, but I was one of the very very few... First and last name, with a state, with an age, with a picture..... Someone could trace that in >10 minutes with one eye closed..

Kids should be very careful on the internet these days, lots of weird people who use this kinda knowledge for bad things (as opposed to stopping felonies), and it's disgusting... All parents should learn how to proxy their computers, and teach their kids to never reveal any location/name info and such online...

 

[Gone]

This is all very true. Doxxing is ridiculously easy if you know what you're doing, as people are very careless with their information these days. Even if Grace edited out all the information she has posted lately, it still would be accessible through other means for a long time, just a bit more difficult to locate.

The problem I see in the last page or so of this thread is that we've had a few people, with the best of intentions, essentially doxxing this girl themselves, and posting some of what they found in the thread here. This has been edited out by moderators, but it shows how even with good intentions we can easily make the problem worse, by disseminating that personal information in yet another place, and making new links between existing sources of information.

Please, in future, don't post any personally identifiable information about users (even banned users), for the above reasons. It ends up being counter-productive and adds to the risk of something happening to the person whose information is posted.

That all said, the "danger" of the kinds of information being found tonight is non-trivial, but also being (in my opinion) overblown. The fact of the matter is that the majority of people using the internet make these mistakes, and the vast majority of the time, nothing comes of it. There is just SO MUCH information out there that we get lost in the static, which is probably a good thing. I'm just trying to say that there's no reason to panic because you found or saw that someone found more information on this girl. It may be new and shocking to you how easy it is to dox someone, but it's not a new thing at all.

We're all in one way or another emotionally charged on this whole situation, and many of you want to do *something* to help. That's very commendable, but I think that it's all been done now. Parents notified, TGS staff notified, the subject discussed at length among ourselves. I think it's time to wrap it up, wish her well, and focus on our own stuff again.

Last thing: You guys are great, all of you! I'm blown away by how well this topic has been handled by all involved. We have a wonderful community here, and I'm very pleased to have had a role in creating it.

 

[luvbunnies]

I'm new here and I don't have much to say about thus topic.i just wanted to say, when I saw it was under "Around the coffee table", I honestly thought this was someone with theology question. Lol I had to click to see what the deal was.

 

[MaggieJ]

Thank you, Dayna, for making sure TGS owner knows Grace's true age.

We are locking this thread now.

I think we have done all we can for Grace. I just hope she will be okay and that the people who have a responsibility to her will step in to set limits and protect her from herself and from the dangers that abound on the Internet.