Related News: St. Paul man finds home invasion suspects in YouTube rap video

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. KMSP-TV published an article titled St. Paul man finds home invasion suspects in YouTube rap video.

The victim of a late September home invasion and robbery in St. Paul helped solve his own case after identifying the three suspects in rap videos posted on YouTube.

According to a search warrant affidavit, three men were going door-to-door with pamphlets in the area of Margaret Avenue and Winthrop Street on Sept. 25.

A 31-year-old man was home alone with his 2-year-old daughter when the suspects knocked on his door in the 600 block of Winthrop Street. The three men immediately threatened the man with a handgun, then forced their way inside, kicking and punching the victim as he fell to his knees.

The suspects demanded drugs and $200,000 cash.

Source: KMSP-TV

Related News: Montgomery teen’s many online party photos lead to drug and gun charges, police say

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. The Washington Post published an article titled Montgomery teen’s many online party photos lead to drug and gun charges, police say.

A Montgomery County 11th-grader sold marijuana from his family’s home in Gaithersburg — with the apparent blessing of his father — before the teenager was done in by more than 600 photographs he had posted online of him and his friends partying in the home, according to court documents.

Police said that there were 45 guns in the home, including an M16 assault rifle, and that the father had a loaded gun when a SWAT team raided the place Oct. 11.

“The house has been a problem house in the neighborhood, as some neighbors around the house have pointed out,” officers wrote in an arrest affidavit. The case was made public Thursday.

Source: The Washington Post

Related News: Parents, beware of bullying on sites you’ve never seen

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. CNN published an article titled Parents, beware of bullying on sites you’ve never seen.

“Why aren’t you dead?”

“You should die.”

“Wait a minute, why are you still alive?”

“Go kill yourself.”

It’s impossible to comprehend another human being, let alone a child, sending such hateful messages to another person, but according to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd in Lakeland, Florida, these messages are all too real.

They were sent to 12-year-old Rebecca Sedwick, who ultimately jumped to her death in September, he said. The messages didn’t come via the social networking sites many of us are familiar with: Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. They were sent via newer, lesser-known social applications called Ask.fm and Kik, according to Judd.

Source: CNN

Related News: Are we too quick to cry ‘bully’?

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. CNN published an article titled Are we too quick to cry ‘bully’?.

Actual bullying, many educators and social scientists say, is intentional, repetitive abuse by a powerful person toward a less powerful target.

But not everyone defines it the same way: Although most states have bullying laws on the books, according to the Education Commission of the States, it’s handled differently around the country. New Hampshire’s law specifies that an act need occur only once — not multiple times — to be bullying. Nebraska’s law calls on local districts to create bullying policies. Several states recently added provisions to cover cyberbullying — bullying or harassment through technology. Laws in Massachusetts and New Jersey detail how educators should prevent, report and investigate bullying.

Say the word in almost any school these days, and it will get a quick reaction. In many cases, advocates said, that’s helpful. But sometimes, when it’s not really bullying, kids miss out on a chance to learn to cope with minor conflicts on their own.

Source: CNN

Related News: Sheriff: Taunting post leads to arrests in Rebecca Sedwick bullying death

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. CNN published an article titled Sheriff: Taunting post leads to arrests in Rebecca Sedwick bullying death.

The attorney for a 14-year-old Florida girl charged with aggravated stalking that allegedly led to the suicide of a 12-year-old classmate told CNN that her client isn’t responsible for a controversial Facebook post that led to the suspect’s arrest.

Police on Monday arrested two girls, ages 14 and 12, in connection with the death of Rebecca Sedwick, who jumped from the top of an abandoned concrete plant last month.

Authorities said the 14-year-old girl was Rebecca’s chief tormenter, and the girl posted a taunting message Saturday on the Internet about what had happened.

Source: CNN

Related News: Ala. lawmaker lobs bill to castrate sex offenders

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. WSFA published an article titled Ala. lawmaker lobs bill to castrate sex offenders.

The Florence Times Daily reports Republican Rep. Steve Hurst of Munford is trying again to pass a bill requiring sex offenders over the age of 21 whose victims were 12 or younger to be surgically castrated before being released from prison.

Source: WSFA

Related News: Stanford researchers discover ‘alarming’ method for phone tracking, fingerprinting through sensor flaws

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. SFGate published an article titled Stanford researchers discover ‘alarming’ method for phone tracking, fingerprinting through sensor flaws.

It turns out every accelerometer is predictably imperfect, and slight differences in the readings can be used to produce a fingerprint (see below for a further explanation). Marketers could use the ID the same way they use cookies — the small files that download from websites to desktops — to  identify a particular user, monitor their online actions and target ads accordingly.

It’s a novel approach that raises a new set of privacy concerns: Users couldn’t delete the ID like browser cookies, couldn’t mask it by adjusting app privacy preferences — and wouldn’t even know their device had been tagged.

Source: SFGate

Related News: Google Sets Plan to Sell Users’ Endorsements

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. The New York Times published an article titled Google Sets Plan to Sell Users’ Endorsements.

On Friday, Google announced an update to its terms of service that allows the company to include adult users’ names, photos and comments in ads shown across the Web, based on ratings, reviews and posts they have made on Google Plus and other Google services like YouTube.

When the new ad policy goes live Nov. 11, Google will be able to show what the company calls shared endorsements on Google sites and across the Web, on the more than two million sites in Google’s display advertising network, which are viewed by an estimated one billion people.

Source: The New York Times

Related News: Facebook removes a privacy setting you might have been using

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. NBC News published an article titled Facebook removes a privacy setting you might have been using.

Facebook has removed a certain privacy setting from the accounts of “a small percentage of people” still using it: from now on, there is no way to prevent your Timeline from coming up when someone searches for you by name. But it’s not as dire as it sounds.

The setting allowed a user to control whether their name would appear when other users typed it into the search box. For instance, if Bob Smith set it to “no one,” (as opposed to “friends of friends” for instance) his profile wouldn’t appear when others searched for “Bob Smith” (although other Bob Smiths might).

Source: NBC News

Related News: Saraland man accused of sexually abusing child, making child pornography

One new article link has been added to our Related News page. AL.com published an article titled Saraland man accused of sexually abusing child, making child pornography.

A 34-year-old man turned himself in to authorities Monday after Saraland police say he had inappropriate contact with a young child and produced child pornography.

Police started looking into William Scott Cunningham, of Saraland, during an Internet Crimes Against Children investigation, said Cpl. Arlan Gaines, public information officer for the Saraland Police Department. The program is funded through federal grants and aimed at catching online sex predators.

Source: AL.com