Suzanne in ABQ Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 Does anyone have a copy of the story circulated last year about a young teen girl who inadvertently gave out a lot of personal information to an adult who was pretending to be a peer friend. She chatted with the person, and through a series of exchanges she told him her school mascot, described the street where she lived, etc, and he was able to figure out her address, what time she walked home (alone), and other dangerous stuff. I believe the adult turned out to be a police detective, or a news reporter, or some other harmless person. I'd like to have my kids read this story, but I can't find it. Any leads? TIA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quad Shot Academy Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 Is it this one? http://www.snopes.com/horrors/parental/shannon.asp :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardening momma Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 It's on Snopes. Though the preceding tale is related on a number of web sites as a true story, it's not. Written by two Christians concerned about the danger unwittingly presented by young people giving out too much personal information online, this cautionary tale first surfaced on the Internet in January 1998. The authors very clearly stated the Shannon story was not true, but that part of the email was seemingly lost in the first volley of forwards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suzanne in ABQ Posted December 29, 2009 Author Share Posted December 29, 2009 Thank you. Yes, that's the story I was looking for. It doesn't matter to me whether it's true or not. My ds is insisting that he would never give out our personal information online, but I want him to see that he could do it unwittingly, if the person on the other end was deceptive enough to draw it out of him. This is just one example of the kind of scenario I'm looking for as examples. We had a suspicious case of this sort of thing a few years ago, and it started right here on the boards. A "mom" posted looking for e-pals for her 11yo daughter. I volunteered my 11yodd, and they started exchanging emails. The messages coming to my dd just seemed way too sophisticated to me, to be coming from an 11yo. It's possible that the person writing my dd was just a brilliant 11yo, but it was also possible that those e-mails were coming from an adult pretending to be 11yo. The messages just sent up red flags with me. I didn't have any way of knowing, so I wrote them and asked them to stop writing. That was the end of it. Anyway, thanks for finding the story. I didn't think of looking at Snopes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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