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How Katie introduces herself is subtle, interesting, and gives readers a good base information about how she may be in her everyday life. This includes her name, age, grade, occupations, where she lives ect. I think this is a important factor of the book because we really get to know who she was and what she was about before we find out her shocking truths and battles she faced.

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Katie is explaining how her friends are maturing faster then her and is now concerned about others, the knowledge she knows about boys, and relationships, and lastly her physical appearance. This is a challenge a lot of teenage girls face during their coming of age.

Quote -> " I felt stupid because there was obviously something going on that I didn't know about. "

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Katie talks a lot about her older sister Abby. She brings her up as someone she looks up to, relied on, someone who she can truly trust, and lastly be herself around. The two of them were really close she even remembers her most fondest memory of her going to New York city alone with her which she cherishes.

Quote -> "This might sound small, but it was the kind of adventure I had only with Abby. With her I could be myself and have fun." (PG. 17)

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Now that we have talked about and introduced Abby, lets talk about Katie's other sister Carrie. There are a lot of hardships in Katie's family that others may not see or know about. She mentions how uncomfortable it is when her sister competes with her for everything, gets more attention, and doesn't appreciate the dad figure she has in her life. Compared to Katie who's dad isn't present in her life. This leads to several conflicts between them and showcases the relationship between them.

Quote -> "Like all my friends who had 2 parents Carrie didn't seem to appreciate what she had." (PG. 19)

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Katie's mom definitely plays a big role throughout this whole book and idolizes her. However at the beginning of the book Katie mentions how she still wonders about her dads and how she is disappointed she doesn't have her biological dad by her side like Carrie does. This factor definitely takes a toll on her and affects her emotions towards her family. The only thing she remembers of her biological dad isn't exactly sweet either.

Quote -> "I got a white polar bear. I still have it. I'm not entirely sure why I've held onto it, because I know I felt as if I had spent the entire day with a complete stranger." (PG. 21)

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Katie is finally starting to realize what she likes and doesn't like in boys her age or perhaps someone she wants to pursue. She mentions it would be hard to find someone she truly would want to associate herself with because the boys around her were not to her standards.

Quote -> "The problem was, middle school boys had none of these qualities, and they were only interested in girls for their bodies." (PG. 24)

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The book is now settling in and we know the basics of Katie and how she perceives the environment around her. As we get further and further in the book we get a closer look on Katie's relationship status. Katie has touched based with the Online chat rooms that have just opened up to her generation. This way instead of socially interacting in person she is talking to people online.

Quote -> "Suddenly there was an entire new world opening up to me in the online chat rooms and the world wide web. and it was limitless." (PG. 24)

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Katie is now normally on the online chat rooms. However one day she comes across a guy named Valleyguy with 3 l's. She starts talking to him and they soon become friends.

Quote -> "At last I had connected with another kind, intelligent soul." (PG. 30)

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It is a normal day in Katie's life although one night she is extremely tired from her swimming practice and falls asleep as soon as she got home. During the night she hears her phone ring and its from Valleyguy and from there in the middle of the night they were chatting up.

Quote -> "It was hard to believe that this was the first phone conversation that I was having with Mark because it felt like I was talking with an old friend." (PG. 35)

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Karen, Katie's best friend wanted to have a talk with her one day at school during lunch. Katie doesn't suspect anything, but it ends up being something important and serious. Karen's brother Rob now has been diagnosed with leukemia and this shifted there friendship on a deeper level.

Quote -> "The truth was, Rob wouldn't be fine." (PG. 39)

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Katie is debriefing about her feelings about swimming. She still has the passion but it has came to light her true and deeper feelings about swimming is more complicated than we would have anticipated from the start. All the preparation, how it makes her feel, and how it affects her social life.

Quote -> "I was frustrated with the hours, and it ruined my social life." (PG. 45)

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It's been some time since Katie has talked to Valleyguy, nonetheless one day they decided to talk again and from there forward they started talking everyday. A 13 year old girl and supposedly a 23 year old man from LA exchanging words with each other online.

Quote -> "At the moment, we were only friends, but it seems to me that we were moving toward a deeper relationship."

(PG. 49)

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As time passes and Katie's feelings for Valleyguy which we soon came to find out is named Mark grows bigger. Though Christmas is around the corner which is Katie's favorite holiday she finds herself still chatting with him and finding interest in their conversations.

Quote -> "Despite the chill in the house, I felt warm as I signed off." (PG. 56)

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The day of Katie's 14th birthday she claims that her connection with Mark grew stronger. This tells us how much she is cherishing someone she thinks she knows all about and has a connection with however after this day all the decisions and talks she had with him impacted her future.

Quote -> "My connection with Mark grew stronger around my birthday, January 26." (PG. 62)

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Katie's friends soon find out about her and Mark and despite their concerns she ignores them and plans to meet Mark in Texas. This would take place during the teams swim meet after 6 months of them taking online.

Quote -> "When I get to Dallas, I'm going to want to see you as soon as possible."

(PG. 83.)

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Soon time flies and its time for Katie to go to Texas for hr swim meet and also meet Mark. However when this happens Katie gets sexually assaulted and everyone around her that she could possibly think of finds out.

(PG. 19-97)

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At first Katie lied when the police interrogated her that night of the incident, but after a few days of carrying guilt on her shoulders she stopped protecting Mark and came clean about her SA. Her mom soon decided they will press charges which lead to deeper investigations. (PG. 115)

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Things start to settle down after the whole commotion from Texas. Some complicated hardships are faced but overall Katie is okay. She soon gets a polygraph test on what had happened that night and gets positive results. This leads to more and more steps to court with Mark and testifying to put him in jail. (PG. 143-145)

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More and more time passes and Katie is Finally accepting that Mark is actually Frank John, Kufrovich. She soon faces him in court and unravels the truth about him. He soon attends Jail serving 20 years in prison.

(PG. 158)

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Katie has a chance to finally rest after everything that has happened from Texas, and post the Texas incident. To close this unsettling and hard chapter of her life she writes a letter to supposedly the judge of the court she attended for her trial. However I feel it is a sign she can finally stop fighting and really heal herself from the course of events. This ties everything down and locks it up for her to move past this and go on about her life how she wants. (PG. 180-183)

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11 Internet Safety Tips for Your Online Security

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How to protect yourself, children, and others from harm!

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t is every parent's nightmare. You turn on your home computer and are shocked to see disturbing images of children being physically abused, sexually molested, tortured, and even murdered. You investigate further and discover sexually explicit, obscene e-mail from a cyberpredator intended for your preteen son or daughter. You race up the stairs to your child's bedroom to discuss what you have discovered, only to find the receipt for a plane ticket to a destination across the country on the dresser and clothes missing from the closet.

Such nightmares are becoming a reality for a small but increasing number of parents as more families go online. While the Internet offers a vast array of helpful information, access often comes with little, if any, warning of the risks it poses to children, who may unwittingly invite dangerous predators into their home.

Responsible parents advise their children never to talk to strangers who approach them in person or over the telephone. Wise parents instruct their children to tell them about any such encounters. Yet the same parents rarely educate their children about the dangers of exchanges with strangers on the Internet, often because they are unaware of the risk to their children or of measures to protect them.

Cyberplayground for Predators

According to authorities, there is unprecedented growth in child pornography in the United States largely because of the Internet, which provides child sexual predators with a virtually undetectable means of sending and receiving illicit images of children (Huycke, 1997). Because of its anonymity, rapid transmission, and unsupervised nature, the Internet has become the venue of choice for predators who transmit and receive child pornography. "The Internet is the ultimate distribution system for child pornography," says Robert Flores, a former attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division, Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (Kaplan, 1997). "Before the Internet, pedophiles and child predators targeted children in parks and playgrounds, offering ice cream or candy to gain the child's trust." Today, the virtual playground of cyberspace affords these child sexual predators1 the opportunity to engage children in anonymous exchanges that often lead to personal questions designed to assess whether the child can be lured into sexual conversations and sexual contact.

Cleverly adept at communicating with children, child sexual predators hide behind the anonymity of the Internet to become whoever and whatever best serves the ultimate objective of many child sexual predators, face-to-face contact with a child. Once a child is lured into meeting the predator, the realization of the predator's pornographic fantasies can become the realization of a parent's greatest fear -- the criminal exploitation of one's child.

Perverse Pattern

Dr. Chris Hatcher, professor of psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, explains that pedophiles who contact children display a specific developmental pattern: "It begins with fantasy, moves to gratification through pornography, then voyeurism, and finally to contact."2 The Internet is a superhighway down the path of that perverse pattern, giving child sexual predators instant access to potential victims and anonymity until a face-to-face meeting can be arranged.

Online predators use an escalating pattern of questions once contact with a child is made. One detective described the pattern in this way:

First, they want to know your age and what you look like -- height, weight, and bra size if [you're] a girl. Then they want you to describe your underwear. From there, they want to know if [you're] a virgin and the conversations become more explicit . . . The pattern intensifies when the child predator asks for photographs of the child or begins to send photos via e-mail showing various forms of pornography, usually involving child pornography or cartoon characters familiar to the child which have been altered to depict sexual activity. When the child predator thinks the time is right, he will suggest a face to face meeting.3

Regardless of law enforcement's ability to detect and arrest child sexual predators using the Internet, the most effective protection against child victimization is an involved and educated parent. If parents are to protect their children against cyberpredators, they must understand the rationale and methodology in using the Internet to approach potential victims. Parents must be aware that the Internet has created an easily accessible source of stimulation for these predators. One pedophile related the following:

You can download pictures in complete anonymity. You do not have to have any human contact. Anonymity is so crucial because your average child molester is not the dirty old man in a trench coat, but a teacher at your local elementary school. The Internet becomes his outlet. Successful pedophiles are better with your children than you are. They give them more attention. They are your swim coach, your Sunday school teacher -- people you trust your child to everyday.4

Trolling Chat Rooms

Internet chat rooms may provide the greatest opportunity for sexual exploitation of children. Although most child sexual predators are aware that law enforcement is present on the Internet in some capacity, the odds of being caught at any given time are on the side of the predator, who often trolls chat rooms specifically designed for children. Chat rooms featuring subjects that attract children and teenagers, such as music, sports, or fashion, are prime targets of child sexual predators, who often disguise themselves as peers.

Pederasty.com

The risk of direct exploitation by online child predators is not the only danger posed to children by the Internet. On the World Wide Web, where any organization may publish a Web page that promotes its philosophy and offers products catering to its tastes, organizations such as the North American Man/Boy Love Association provide support groups to bolster and empower pedophiles. One site, called Boys in the Real World, features nude and seminude prepubescent boys and teens and has received more than 250,000 "hits" (visitors) in a 3-month period. Another site has a startlingly straightforward mission statement that calls for acceptance of boy lovers who see no need to change a behavior they feel is natural.

What historically has been an isolated -- if not ostracized -- population is forming unprecedented numbers of support groups in cyberspace to advance the acceptance of a lifestyle that embraces child sexual exploitation. Leading experts are concerned that such online support groups validate antisocial and even criminal behaviors. According to psychotherapist Gary Hewitt, who counsels teens with sexual dysfunctions often related to abuse, "The support group sites give pedophiles a real sense of power, and the impetus to go out and molest someone."5

Protecting Our Children

The stark truth about the Internet is that it can expose children to vile and degrading materials in the sanctuary of their homes and open the door to dangerous child sexual predators. While law enforcement is doing its best to meet the challenge posed by a technology that changes from day to day, the primary responsibility for protecting children rests with their parents. As John Perry Barlow, cofounder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, points out, "The hard truth is that the burden [of protecting your children on the Internet] ultimately falls where it always has: on the parents. If you don't want your children fixating on filth, [you] better step up to the tough task of raising them to find it as distasteful as you do yourself" (Elmer-DeWitt, 1995).

The child sexual predator is aware that many parents do not alert their children to the perils of the Internet and generally know far less about computers than their children know. The predator counts on the neglect and ignorance of parents when it comes to their children's access to the Internet. Overtures to children often take place while mom and dad are watching television in the next room and are oblivious to the Internet intruder who is stalking their child.

Protective Measures

Parents should keep the family computer in a central location where the child is not isolated, limit the time the child spends online, set guidelines and rules for computer use, and learn about Internet technology in order to better monitor their child's online activity. Sergeant Nick Battaglia of the San Jose Police Department's Child Exploitation Unit, San Jose, CA, advises parents to go online with their children as often as possible and help them identify inappropriate communications.6 Parents should get to know their children's cyberspace friends, just as they would want to know their real-life friends.

Parents should stress that people encountered in chat rooms are strangers and that the same rules apply to cyberspace strangers as to those encountered in the real world. A recent pamphlet suggests the following rules (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 1997):

Parents also may want to have their child sign an Agreement To Abide by the Rules and post the agreement and the rules near the computer. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (1997) offers the following as appropriate rules:

Use and Limits of Cyberfilters

Parents should find out what controls are available through their Internet service provider and consider augmenting them with filtering software such as CyberSitter, KidCode, Netnanny, or SurfWatch to block objectionable material. SurfWatch matches a potential Internet destination to a proprietary list of forbidden sites. In addition, the software package looks for objectionable language and blocks sites containing that language. Microsoft, Netscape, and Progressive Networks have collaborated to develop even more sophisticated protective devices that should be available soon.

Filtering options are not foolproof -- they may not block all objectionable materials and may prevent access to sites approved by parents. They are simply one step in providing a line of defense against cyberpredators. Parents should be aware that the child sexual predator, or even the child, may find ways to bypass blocking software.

Not all children who are victimized via the Internet are innocents who took a wrong turn on the information superhighway. Some have deliberately strayed into the seamy side of the cyberworld. Supervisory Special Agent Kenneth Lanning of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Missing and Exploited Children's Task Force cautions, "Investigators must recognize that many of the children lured away from their homes after online computer conversations are not complete innocents duped while doing their homework. Most are curious, rebellious, or troubled adolescents seeking sexual information or contact. Nevertheless, they have been seduced and manipulated by a clever offender and do not fully understand or recognize what they are getting into."7

Computer Access Outside the Home

Although parents may have installed blocking software on the family computer and set up a system to monitor its use, they also need to be aware of their child's use of the Internet when visiting friends who have computers. Parents should talk to their children about following the same rules for computer use wherever they are -- not just at home. Children need to know that they can talk to their parents about anyone whose behavior makes them uncomfortable and that they can and should return home from any situation that violates their sense of appropriate behavior. In addition, parents should be aware of the policies concerning computer use at the school or public library and the kinds of blocking devices used, if any, to filter out sexually explicit material.

Reason for Concern

Research conducted at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, shows the reason for such concerns. Drawing on computer records of online activity, researchers measured the material being downloaded in comparison with the stated reasons for Internet use. The results were enlightening.

In an 18-month study, the research team reviewed 917,410 images that were downloaded; 83.5 percent were pornographic. Trading in sexually explicit images is currently one of the largest recreational applications of users of computer networks. At one university, 13 of the 40 most frequently visited newsgroups featured sexually explicit posts. The study demonstrated that these materials go beyond the soft-core pornography on magazine racks. The online market features images of pedophilia (nude photographs of children in various poses), hebephilia (youth/teens), and paraphilia (images of bondage, sadomasochism, urination, defecation, and sex acts with animals) (Rimm, 1995).

The flow of such objectionable material via the Internet into our homes, schools, and libraries -- wherever computers may be found -- raises reasonable concerns that are too important to ignore, especially when they endanger the future of America's children. Congress made an initial attempt to combat these dangers by enacting the Communications Decency Act. However, this Act was held unconstitutional in Federal court in July 1997.8 Nevertheless, concerned parents and citizens have legitimate interests in ensuring that children have the opportunity to benefit from the best the Internet has to offer while being protected from its worst. Common sense, communication with children, and constant vigilance are the best weapons against the cyberpredator. Parental involvement in the cyberlife of children is crucial to safeguarding their future and, perhaps, their real-world lives.

Notes

1. For the purposes of this article, the term "child sexual predator" is used by the author to encompass the terms "pedophile" and "child molester." References

8. Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 117 U.S. 2329 (1997).

Elmer-DeWitt, P. 1995. On a screen near you: It's popular, pervasive, and surprisingly perverse according to the first survey of online erotica. Time (July 3):38.

Huycke, D. 1997. Protecting our children: U.S. Customs Service Child Pornography Enforcement Program. Police Chief Journal (February):34.

Kaplan, D. 1997. New cybercop tricks to fight child porn. U.S. News and World Report (May 26):29.

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. 1997 (February). Child Safety on the Information Highway. Pamphlet. Arlington, VA: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Interactive Services Association.

Rimm, M. 1995. Marketing pornography on the information highway. Georgetown Law Journal 83:1849.

Daniel Armagh is the director of the American Prosecutors Research Institute's National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse. The Center provides training and technical assistance to prosecutors and other professionals involved in the investigation and prosecution of child abuse cases.

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A Safety Net for the Internet: Protecting Our Children

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t is every parent's nightmare. You turn on your home computer and are shocked to see disturbing images of children being physically abused, sexually molested, tortured, and even murdered. You investigate further and discover sexually explicit, obscene e-mail from a cyberpredator intended for your preteen son or daughter.

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Sextortion: A Growing Threat Targeting Minors | Federal Bureau of Investigation

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The FBI wants to warn parents, educators, caregivers, and children about the dangers of online activity that may lead to the enticement of a minor.

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Allegiance Credit Union on Instagram: "Celebrate Cybersecurity Awareness Month by protecting what matters most, your personal information!
Stay one step ahead with these quick tips to protect your info online. 💻✨

#cybersecurity #foryou #tipoftheday"

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Stay safe online during Cybersecurity Awareness Month with these expert tips. Learn how to avoid common scams, update your devices regularly, and protect your personal info from cyber threats.

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ParentsTogether on Instagram: "Does your kid know how to keep their data safe online? 🔒

📶 The internet can be a dangerous place, especially for kids! It's important to teach children how to protect themselves when they go online, and data security is a big part of that lesson.

🖱️ Ask your child these 5 questions to teach them the basics of data security and get some insights into what they already know about it!

–––

#ParentsTogether #ConversationStarters #ConversationCards #OnlineSafety #ScreenTime #DailyParenting #ParentingTips #Questions #Safety #ParentsOfInstagram #GentleParenting #QuestionOfTheDay #Conversations #ChildDevelopment #RaisingTinyHumans #RaisingKids #CreativeIdeas #CheckIn"

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357 likes, 3 comments - parentstogether on February 24, 2023: "Does your kid know how to keep their data safe online? 🔒

📶 The internet can be a dangerous place, especially for kids! It's important to teach children how to protect themselves when they go online, and data security is a big part of that lesson.

🖱️ Ask your child these 5 questions to teach them the basics of data security and get some insights into what they already know about it!

–––

#ParentsTogether #ConversationStarters #ConversationCards #OnlineSafety #ScreenTime #DailyParenting #ParentingTips #Questions #Safety #ParentsOfInstagram #GentleParenting #QuestionOfTheDay #Conversations #ChildDevelopment #RaisingTinyHumans #RaisingKids #CreativeIdeas #CheckIn". 

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