Sep 30, 2014 4 min read

FBI statistics show nearly 20 percent of teens have sent a nude photo of themselves to another person through phone messaging or the Internet. The momentary lapse in judgment can cause a whirlwind of consequences both for the sender and the recipient.

Throughout a presentation last week at Bethel Park High School, retired state attorney general chief deputy Jim Dill went over a wide range of security and privacy issues for both children and adults. Hosted by district judges Ron Arnoni and Guy Reschenthaler, Dill covered recurring problems of “sextortion” and the lengths teenagers will go to hide their online activity from parents.

“These self-destructive texts – you’ve heard of Snapchat but have you heard of Burn Note? Wickr? Tiger Text? There are countless proprietary apps whose sole purpose is to allow people to feel dangerously confident about sending incriminating information about themselves,” Dill said.

But even with these applications, Dill said, the receiver has abilities to save those photos or texts. “They can take a screenshot, or use an app like SnapHack that automatically saves the photos as soon as they’re received. What teens don’t understand is that once you send that photo, what happens to it is out of your hands.”

While teens often feel bold about sending racy or inappropriate photos and messages, Dill said they’re quite conscious about what their parents see.

“There are things like SMS Calculator, an app which looks like a calculator but is a secret text application. Also, there are ones called TxtDrop, and Shady SMS,” he said.

If a child is attempting to hide communications the old-fashioned way, coded acronyms are one method used.

“Some of these you may know. PIR: Parent in room. Or, KPC: Keep parents clueless. And then there’s GNOC: Get naked on camera,” Dill said.

He recommended the site netlingo.com/acroynms for looking up suspicious texts.

Dill warned of photos in general on digital cameras and on phones, in that they all have EXIF data, or, an exchangeable image file format, which logs location and GPS data and time the photo was taken.

“This data strung together, or even a quick search on the social photo sharing site Flickr, allows someone to track where you’re most likely to be, and can pattern your movements from these sites.”

While Facebook and Twitter are sometimes the chosen social networks for cyberbullying or “sextortion,” other completely anonymous social networks allow more vitriolic communication and have led to suicides.

“Ask.fm, YikYak, Whisper – these are all sites that offer anonymity to users. And unfortunately, that again makes both perps and victims feel bold and confident in their online activity. But the sad fact is, bullying and outright cruel harassment starts and has lead to dozens of suicides,” Dill said.

Parent Heather Gold has attended a few cybersafety seminars before, and said it’s important to keep discussing technology with your children as it evolves.

“I have two kids in third and seventh grades. There are apps and sites I didn’t even know about until tonight. Parents need to come to these events,” she said.

Likewise, Beth and Curt Jones, who have two children in the district, said they keep coming to the tech safety forums offered in the region.

“Technology on phones alone keeps changing. You can watch them while they’re on the computer, but they’ve got a little computer in their hands when they’re out of the house,” Beth Jones said.

Fortunately, law enforcement is catching up to technology. State Sen. Matt Smith said before Act 115 passed in July, intimate partner harassment, or “revenge porn,” wasn’t punishable by state law.

“And we gave the attorney general long-arm jurisdiction, so if either the victim or the perpetrator is in the state, we can go after them. And we allowed civil action to be brought against the perps, because often we see people losing their jobs or loss of wages because of the slanderous material put out there,” Smith said.