so over the next three years the
cybersecurity industry is going to spend
about a half a trillion dollars John to
tools and technology
protect your data and your information
from hackers and data breaches and
identity theft but unfortunately not one
dime is going to go to protect Alicia or
the twenty thousand kids that go missing
in the United States of America every
day from being exploited or from online
predators
Alicia is just like most other kids that
we see in the United States she’s a
fourteen year old child who had had come
from a living loving family she lived in
Pittsburgh with her mother and her
father and she really was a young
precarious young lady who was enthralled
with the Internet and now in 2002 when
she was 14 most of us were not fully
aware of the dangers and they and and
some of the things that we needed to be
concerned about with the Internet so you
know her parents they went out and
bought a computer and they put it home
in a common area of their home where
where they knew that it needed to be
because that was what the common ideal
was at the time if you’re gonna buy a
computer go ahead and buy it and and put
it where your kids can use it but that
you can watch to make sure that they’re
gonna be safe and Alicia she loved it
she went out on the Internet she found
lots of friends some of her friends from
school were online and they spent hours
upon hours chatting and discussing about
things that they couldn’t do in the real
world and like many kids at the time and
adults really she met some people that
are online that she had never known
before and some of them she became quite
close with one in particular she became
really close with and wanted to actually
meet in the real world and they schemed
and they they kind of came up with a
plan that on New Year’s Eve in 2003 they
were gonna they were gonna meet the girl
that she met online was gonna have her
father driver to Alicia’s town in
Pittsburgh her neighborhood and they
were just gonna meet and talk and and
that was the plan now now New Year’s Eve
for Alicia’s family was really really
special she would they would have a big
dinner and her entire family would come
over and they would spend the evening
together and sometime between dinner and
dessert Alicia told her mom that she
wasn’t feeling well and asked if she
could go upstairs to her room and of
course your mother said that’s fine what
and but instead of going upstairs
Alicia’s she slipped out the front door
and went down the driveway
and slid off the end of the driveway and
took a right and started walking away
from her home now it was late it was
probably 7 o’clock and it Spitsbergen it
was obviously it was December 31st so it
was dark and Alisha she’s not dumb you
know she knew in her that sound in her
voice does that sound in her head those
little voices started to say well he
said this is probably not a good idea
and you should go home so she stood in
waited the streets were deserted at that
time she stood and waited and she’s
thought maybe I will go home and she
turned around to leave and she took a
couple of steps and then she heard her
name call she turned around and and this
is where things get a little fuzzy for
Alisha she wasn’t sure exactly how it
happened but she next thing she
remembers she’s laying on the floor of
the car which is speeding out of her
neighborhood and and she’s being shoved
down on the floor by somebody that she
didn’t really recognize and she didn’t
know who it was well the person that she
had been gotten into the car with was a
guy by the name of Scott he was a 40
year old programmer from Reston Virginia
who had come to Pittsburgh to kidnap her
and take her back to Virginia with him
so while she was on the floor she was
able to actually maneuver herself so
that she could see out the window of the
car and she saw road signs flying by
that she she recognized the names of and
she she understood where she was and she
saw signs for the for the Pennsylvania
Turnpike and she thought that there
would be an opportunity here where she
would be able to get free because
certainly they had to stop at the
turnpike booth in and pick up the card
and the toll booth operator would
recognize that there was something wrong
and called the police but that didn’t
happen
straight through the toll booth they
went and for six hours she laid on that
floor not knowing where she was going
and not knowing what was going to happen
to her well Scott drove all the way to
his home in Reston Virginia and he
parked his car in front his house and
grabbed her out of the out of the
passenger seat floor and dragged her
inside down to the basement where he had
built a dungeon for just this occasion
this is what he had planned to do he was
an online predator okay
so once he got her down to the basement
he put a dog collar on her neck and a
chain attached to it so they could take
her up to his bedroom and chained her to
the floor and then that first day that
she was there he
used her both tortured her and
physically abused her and videotaped it
and then put that video it out onto the
Internet in the networks that Scott
traveled on the dark web that many of us
hear about but we don’t exactly know
what it is and on the dark web Scott’s
network of compatriots were able to view
these this video and and do whatever
they may with it as distribute it which
is what one of the things that the
internet did for child pornography in
case you’re wondering what we’re talking
about is it allowed it to be easily
distributed unlike prior to the Internet
where it was more or less moved around
by hand so for three days three more
days Scott kept Alicia in his home and
he didn’t feed her tortured her abused
her and on the fourth day in the morning
he said Alicia I like you too much
tonight when we get home from when I get
home from work we’re gonna go for a ride
Alicia knew what that meant so do you
that was the last day that Alicia was
going to be on earth but fortunately
somebody had seen that video online and
the day that Alicia went missing her
parents contacted the FBI and they
started working with what was referred
to as at the time was the Internet
crimes against children Task Force which
is the FBI state and local police in
Pittsburgh which actually had one of the
first Internet crimes against children
Task Force and they started working
their magic of Investigation to try to
figure out where Alicia was based on
clues in the video and some of the
information that was provided by the
tipster and while Scott went off to work
they actually located Alicia in Reston
Virginia arrested Scott saved her and in
a few days she was reunited with her
family now Alicia very very resilient
young lady she actually went on to
create a foundation it’s called the
Alicia project and she spends her time
traveling around the United States and
testifying before state and federal
government committees trying to explain
to them the importance of actually
educating parents and children about
some of the dangers that are online now
no one wants to believe that the
Internet is a terrible place and it’s
not it is an amazing place and all of us
have had great fortune of growing up or
at least living during the time when it
went from a very small
a network – one of the biggest networks
that we can actually see but there’s
some things that we have to be aware of
as far as how we’re going to allow our
children to to thrive in this this what
is going to be an awesome way of life
and in the next 10 to 15 years the
Center for Missing Exploited Children
put out a lot of statistics for us to
try to digest as it relates to child
abduction and missing children or
children that get exploited online and
I’m gonna bet that some of us as we
think about this text attest Excel
recognize that perhaps somebody we know
might fall in here so like Alicia about
4% of the of the perpetrators or the the
predators that are online will actually
try to make contact with a child in the
real world four percent one in twenty
five which is which is if you think
about it is is quite significant given
the total number of people that are
online three quarters three quarters of
the people that run into predators
online meet them in some sort of social
networking site some sort of chat room
75 percent think Facebook think all
those other applications that your kids
are on or that young adults are on that
had the chance of running into a
predator half of the Predators online go
through the grooming process and that’s
really what it’s all about and that’s
one of the things that I want to talk to
you about today is this grooming process
this process where the predator actually
tries to befriend the individual so that
they can gain their trust so half the
time they’re offering money or gifts to
the to the to their victim the rest of
the time like an Alicia’s case they’re
just being their friend they’re just
trying to gain their confidence they’re
trying to be their surrogate parent per
se ninety-five percent of the time
ninety-five percent of the time the
predator does not try to hide their age
from their victim in Alicia’s case they
did they tried to pass themselves off as
a younger person but ninety-five percent
of the time which is quite startling if
you think about it they do not try to
hide how old they are
and the majority of the time the victim
willingly goes to meet them just like
Anne Alicia’s case so you’re probably
thinking why did I come here today to
talk about this right I’ll tell you when
I mentioned what my wife would I wanted
to talk about she thought I was she
thought I was crazy she said there’s no
way that this is appropriate and I
really had doubts and I asked it is this
okay to talk about to to the TEDx folks
and and it’s important message to say so
I Drive home every day and every day in
the morning when I go to work I see this
sign right it says it happening here
stop sexual exploitation of children or
youth and I see it again when I go home
now I live in the town it’s got about 50
people in it ten of those people in that
town were related to me which means some
of them have had this occur to them
statistically it’s virtually certain
that at least one of my children or
perhaps my grandchildren when they get
older will fall into this statistic
which is just a little bit too much for
me to take right so ruff Waldo Emerson
says that you know one idea will light a
thousand candles and I have no idea if
today is a good idea or I’m just a
candle but what I think we can do
together as a profession to
cybersecurity professions were spending
tons of money on things nothing to do
with this or us as a society or as a
community it’s we can just start having
a conversation don’t need to spend money
we don’t need to go up buy expensive
things we just need to start talking
about it because when we start shining
the light on it the light of the
thousand candles then things can change
it comes to the radar and as a community
as a society we can begin to address
some of the questions and some of the
trouble that we see so as parents as
educators as community members just
start talking to your kids ask them what
they’re doing online
ask them what types of apps they’re
using now I don’t expect anybody’s kids
I got teenagers and I’ve got older kids
if I when I had this conversation with
them each time I was basically told that
I was nuts and I’m no way I’m
tell you exactly what I’m doing online
and that’s fine but what they need to
know is that I have an expressed
interest in what they’re doing online
and I hope that they understand that
they can come and talk to me if they
have questions that’s all we’re asking
that’s all that I’m asking today so if
we can take the thousand candles that we
have here in this room and start having
a real conversation about the things
that need to be done and how to raise
awareness then maybe just maybe we can
take our collective candle watts and
shine some light on this really dark
area of the web this really dark
underbelly of sus of Internet Society
and hopefully in our lifetime just
simply eliminate
cybersecurity industry is going to spend
about a half a trillion dollars John to
tools and technology
protect your data and your information
from hackers and data breaches and
identity theft but unfortunately not one
dime is going to go to protect Alicia or
the twenty thousand kids that go missing
in the United States of America every
day from being exploited or from online
predators
Alicia is just like most other kids that
we see in the United States she’s a
fourteen year old child who had had come
from a living loving family she lived in
Pittsburgh with her mother and her
father and she really was a young
precarious young lady who was enthralled
with the Internet and now in 2002 when
she was 14 most of us were not fully
aware of the dangers and they and and
some of the things that we needed to be
concerned about with the Internet so you
know her parents they went out and
bought a computer and they put it home
in a common area of their home where
where they knew that it needed to be
because that was what the common ideal
was at the time if you’re gonna buy a
computer go ahead and buy it and and put
it where your kids can use it but that
you can watch to make sure that they’re
gonna be safe and Alicia she loved it
she went out on the Internet she found
lots of friends some of her friends from
school were online and they spent hours
upon hours chatting and discussing about
things that they couldn’t do in the real
world and like many kids at the time and
adults really she met some people that
are online that she had never known
before and some of them she became quite
close with one in particular she became
really close with and wanted to actually
meet in the real world and they schemed
and they they kind of came up with a
plan that on New Year’s Eve in 2003 they
were gonna they were gonna meet the girl
that she met online was gonna have her
father driver to Alicia’s town in
Pittsburgh her neighborhood and they
were just gonna meet and talk and and
that was the plan now now New Year’s Eve
for Alicia’s family was really really
special she would they would have a big
dinner and her entire family would come
over and they would spend the evening
together and sometime between dinner and
dessert Alicia told her mom that she
wasn’t feeling well and asked if she
could go upstairs to her room and of
course your mother said that’s fine what
and but instead of going upstairs
Alicia’s she slipped out the front door
and went down the driveway
and slid off the end of the driveway and
took a right and started walking away
from her home now it was late it was
probably 7 o’clock and it Spitsbergen it
was obviously it was December 31st so it
was dark and Alisha she’s not dumb you
know she knew in her that sound in her
voice does that sound in her head those
little voices started to say well he
said this is probably not a good idea
and you should go home so she stood in
waited the streets were deserted at that
time she stood and waited and she’s
thought maybe I will go home and she
turned around to leave and she took a
couple of steps and then she heard her
name call she turned around and and this
is where things get a little fuzzy for
Alisha she wasn’t sure exactly how it
happened but she next thing she
remembers she’s laying on the floor of
the car which is speeding out of her
neighborhood and and she’s being shoved
down on the floor by somebody that she
didn’t really recognize and she didn’t
know who it was well the person that she
had been gotten into the car with was a
guy by the name of Scott he was a 40
year old programmer from Reston Virginia
who had come to Pittsburgh to kidnap her
and take her back to Virginia with him
so while she was on the floor she was
able to actually maneuver herself so
that she could see out the window of the
car and she saw road signs flying by
that she she recognized the names of and
she she understood where she was and she
saw signs for the for the Pennsylvania
Turnpike and she thought that there
would be an opportunity here where she
would be able to get free because
certainly they had to stop at the
turnpike booth in and pick up the card
and the toll booth operator would
recognize that there was something wrong
and called the police but that didn’t
happen
straight through the toll booth they
went and for six hours she laid on that
floor not knowing where she was going
and not knowing what was going to happen
to her well Scott drove all the way to
his home in Reston Virginia and he
parked his car in front his house and
grabbed her out of the out of the
passenger seat floor and dragged her
inside down to the basement where he had
built a dungeon for just this occasion
this is what he had planned to do he was
an online predator okay
so once he got her down to the basement
he put a dog collar on her neck and a
chain attached to it so they could take
her up to his bedroom and chained her to
the floor and then that first day that
she was there he
used her both tortured her and
physically abused her and videotaped it
and then put that video it out onto the
Internet in the networks that Scott
traveled on the dark web that many of us
hear about but we don’t exactly know
what it is and on the dark web Scott’s
network of compatriots were able to view
these this video and and do whatever
they may with it as distribute it which
is what one of the things that the
internet did for child pornography in
case you’re wondering what we’re talking
about is it allowed it to be easily
distributed unlike prior to the Internet
where it was more or less moved around
by hand so for three days three more
days Scott kept Alicia in his home and
he didn’t feed her tortured her abused
her and on the fourth day in the morning
he said Alicia I like you too much
tonight when we get home from when I get
home from work we’re gonna go for a ride
Alicia knew what that meant so do you
that was the last day that Alicia was
going to be on earth but fortunately
somebody had seen that video online and
the day that Alicia went missing her
parents contacted the FBI and they
started working with what was referred
to as at the time was the Internet
crimes against children Task Force which
is the FBI state and local police in
Pittsburgh which actually had one of the
first Internet crimes against children
Task Force and they started working
their magic of Investigation to try to
figure out where Alicia was based on
clues in the video and some of the
information that was provided by the
tipster and while Scott went off to work
they actually located Alicia in Reston
Virginia arrested Scott saved her and in
a few days she was reunited with her
family now Alicia very very resilient
young lady she actually went on to
create a foundation it’s called the
Alicia project and she spends her time
traveling around the United States and
testifying before state and federal
government committees trying to explain
to them the importance of actually
educating parents and children about
some of the dangers that are online now
no one wants to believe that the
Internet is a terrible place and it’s
not it is an amazing place and all of us
have had great fortune of growing up or
at least living during the time when it
went from a very small
a network – one of the biggest networks
that we can actually see but there’s
some things that we have to be aware of
as far as how we’re going to allow our
children to to thrive in this this what
is going to be an awesome way of life
and in the next 10 to 15 years the
Center for Missing Exploited Children
put out a lot of statistics for us to
try to digest as it relates to child
abduction and missing children or
children that get exploited online and
I’m gonna bet that some of us as we
think about this text attest Excel
recognize that perhaps somebody we know
might fall in here so like Alicia about
4% of the of the perpetrators or the the
predators that are online will actually
try to make contact with a child in the
real world four percent one in twenty
five which is which is if you think
about it is is quite significant given
the total number of people that are
online three quarters three quarters of
the people that run into predators
online meet them in some sort of social
networking site some sort of chat room
75 percent think Facebook think all
those other applications that your kids
are on or that young adults are on that
had the chance of running into a
predator half of the Predators online go
through the grooming process and that’s
really what it’s all about and that’s
one of the things that I want to talk to
you about today is this grooming process
this process where the predator actually
tries to befriend the individual so that
they can gain their trust so half the
time they’re offering money or gifts to
the to the to their victim the rest of
the time like an Alicia’s case they’re
just being their friend they’re just
trying to gain their confidence they’re
trying to be their surrogate parent per
se ninety-five percent of the time
ninety-five percent of the time the
predator does not try to hide their age
from their victim in Alicia’s case they
did they tried to pass themselves off as
a younger person but ninety-five percent
of the time which is quite startling if
you think about it they do not try to
hide how old they are
and the majority of the time the victim
willingly goes to meet them just like
Anne Alicia’s case so you’re probably
thinking why did I come here today to
talk about this right I’ll tell you when
I mentioned what my wife would I wanted
to talk about she thought I was she
thought I was crazy she said there’s no
way that this is appropriate and I
really had doubts and I asked it is this
okay to talk about to to the TEDx folks
and and it’s important message to say so
I Drive home every day and every day in
the morning when I go to work I see this
sign right it says it happening here
stop sexual exploitation of children or
youth and I see it again when I go home
now I live in the town it’s got about 50
people in it ten of those people in that
town were related to me which means some
of them have had this occur to them
statistically it’s virtually certain
that at least one of my children or
perhaps my grandchildren when they get
older will fall into this statistic
which is just a little bit too much for
me to take right so ruff Waldo Emerson
says that you know one idea will light a
thousand candles and I have no idea if
today is a good idea or I’m just a
candle but what I think we can do
together as a profession to
cybersecurity professions were spending
tons of money on things nothing to do
with this or us as a society or as a
community it’s we can just start having
a conversation don’t need to spend money
we don’t need to go up buy expensive
things we just need to start talking
about it because when we start shining
the light on it the light of the
thousand candles then things can change
it comes to the radar and as a community
as a society we can begin to address
some of the questions and some of the
trouble that we see so as parents as
educators as community members just
start talking to your kids ask them what
they’re doing online
ask them what types of apps they’re
using now I don’t expect anybody’s kids
I got teenagers and I’ve got older kids
if I when I had this conversation with
them each time I was basically told that
I was nuts and I’m no way I’m
tell you exactly what I’m doing online
and that’s fine but what they need to
know is that I have an expressed
interest in what they’re doing online
and I hope that they understand that
they can come and talk to me if they
have questions that’s all we’re asking
that’s all that I’m asking today so if
we can take the thousand candles that we
have here in this room and start having
a real conversation about the things
that need to be done and how to raise
awareness then maybe just maybe we can
take our collective candle watts and
shine some light on this really dark
area of the web this really dark
underbelly of sus of Internet Society
and hopefully in our lifetime just
simply eliminate
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