Conn. AG to MySpace: Turn over sex offender data

The Connecticut attorney general's office on Friday served MySpace a subpoena demanding that MySpace hand over the identities of registered sex offenders it claims the social-networking site discovered and subsequently removed from its roster of members.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal also told CNET News that his office is reviewing independent research about registered sex offenders said to still populate the site. Blumenthal declined to comment on whether he plans to take further action.

Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace's chief security officer, said in a statement provided via e-mail that MySpace was using "state of the art technology to aggressively identify and remove registered sex offenders from our site." He added that MySpace was cooperating with Blumenthal and other state attorneys general requesting information.

Law enforcement officials and parents are concerned that sex offenders can easily find victims on social networks. From deleted profile information, officials can see whether sex offenders have violated parole by joining a social network and whether they have been communicating with minors on the site.

This screenshot shows a registered sex offender on the Texas registry Web site.

(Credit: Texas Department of Public Safety)

Friction between MySpace and the states around this issue is not new. Some attorneys general have criticized the company for failing to do more to keep sexual predators off its site. A couple of years ago, MySpace initially rebuffed efforts to share sex offender data, but the service finally agreed to provide officials with the requested information. It then reportedly removed 29,000 sex offenders from the membership rolls. A year ago, when MySpace reached an agreement with the attorneys general, it said it would cooperate with law enforcement officials and develop technology for age and identity verification.

As social networks have grown in popularity (MySpace had 125 million unique visitors in December), law enforcement agencies have warned about the potential danger to minors posed by sex offenders trolling through cyberspace. Politicians, who have picked up that battle cry, have urged social networks to put in place tougher measures to protect minors.

Politics aside, the threat is not just theoretical. Steve Rambam, who is the director of private investigative firm Pallorium, said he found 100 registered sex offenders with MySpace profiles. One man used his mug shot as his main photo, while another, who was convicted of using the Internet to solicit a minor for sex, lists a 15-year-old girl as a friend on his MySpace page.

In carrying out his research, Rambam said he ran a list of 40,000 registered sex offenders against more than 2 million MySpace member pages. He came up with nearly 12,500 likely matches. After comparing the MySpace member photos with mug shots on a registered offender database, Rambam found 100 confirmed matches and said he would have found more if he had continued the research.

Among those matches, CNET News confirmed that at least half a dozen included registered sex offenders. One member's MySpace profile headline read, "Daddy, Oh My Goodness," while another featured a photo caption that reads, "Never accept a ride from a stranger, unless they give you candy first." A third member, who was convicted of sexual assault, uses violent, misogynistic language on his profile page.

"Based on the number of hits we're getting as a percentage of genuine MySpace users we believe that there are anywhere from 3,000 to 39,000 sex offenders on MySpace," Rambam said on Friday.

This is the MySpace page of what appears to be a registered sex offender who used his mug shot (see image above) as his profile photo.

(Credit: MySpace)

MySpace is using technology from a company called Sentinel Tech to help find and remove registered sex offenders from the site. According to MySpace, the company takes information members provide when they sign up and information they put on their profile and runs it against Sentinel servers that contain information about registered sex offenders, and follows up with manual checks of suspicious members.

John Cardillo, chief executive of Sentinel, questioned Rambam's methodology.

"We audit our database against all the sites out there, against the states' registries and the federal government registries... It could just be an issue of an individual maybe entering false information and we'll catch them down the road. Without seeing (the research), I can't really comment on it," Cardillo said. "MySpace deploys the most robust and impressive scrubbing apparatus in the business."

Rambam said he stands by his research. "We have a high degree of confidence that the first 100 matches we've compiled match on first and last name, city and state, exact age, and the photos clearly show the same person," he said. "Because of certain information and certain technology we have available to us, we were able to de-anonymize a lot of data and then do a second scrubbing run."

The matches all came directly from state sex offender registries and from the Megan's Law sex offender database, all publicly accessible data, Rambam said.

Rambam did the MySpace research on behalf of California lawyer Gary Kurtz, who is representing a company called Blue China Group in defending itself against a spam lawsuit filed by MySpace. "As part of that defense we are investigating a number of aspects about MySpace, and this pedophile issue popped up as something astounding," Kurtz said.

"These sex offenders and the efforts to find them are a small portion of a year-long investigation we conducted into MySpace," Rambam said.

"MySpace filed a complaint against Blue China Group in federal court in Los Angeles alleging that BCG repeatedly phished and spammed millions of MySpace users," MySpace Chief Security Officer Nigam said in his statement. "Unfortunately, while that lawsuit continues, BCG has apparently decided to raise this unrelated issue without providing any data to support its assertions."

Rambam said two state attorneys general offices have been in contact with him regarding his research. He found hundreds of potential matches from one of the states on MySpace and is preparing a report to give to that agency next week, he said, declining to name the states.

"This ongoing evidence completely refutes claims that child predators are an overblown threat," said Blumenthal, who is on a panel of 11 state attorneys general who have been investigating MySpace and other social-networking sites. "This is the tip of the iceberg."

A report issued last week by the Internet Safety Technical Task Force concludes that minors are less vulnerable to sexual predation than previously believed.

[peter29073]

every human being should be allowed to have a social networking profile, regardless of criminal record.

[Pete Bardo]

Ok, you'll catch all the dump perverts that way-the ones not smart enough to use a fake name and post a fake photo and profile.

Come on now, 3000 to 39,000? That's a whole order of magnitude larger. The data and the study are worthless. Let the AG's go after the perv's. It is not the responsibility of individuals or corporations to enforce the laws. That's what we pay the AG's and cops to do.

The more we are asked to watch our neighbors, the less neighborhood we have.

[Harrison912]

Thanks, Elinor, for this article. As a web site owner for safety and security products, I'm a firm believer that we need to take some responsibility for our own safety. We can't completely rely on the government and law enforcement to protect us all the time. They can't possibly do that.

I also believe that to be a good neighhbor means we should look out for one another. I want to be in a neighborhood where I know others are helping to keep me and my family safe. We do out number the perverts but they depend on us not working together to complete their horrible agendas.

The perverts will always try to find ways to out smart the system, that's why we should always be there for each other to send up a red flag or sound an alarm when one of them invades our neighborhood. They may be allowed to be there but we don't have to socialize with them. Safe boundries are not just legal, they're a must in our society.

[Solaris_User]

Yeah, why should My Space report on these guys?

Every time this comes up I think of the Doug Stanhope MySpace Pedophiles comedy routine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8APlx9btTn8

"With the press that Myspace gets, you can't even log into your account without thinking - I must just be here to f*** kids."

[aleyIVO]

Odd that you would quote a man, in Rambam, who has been shown to be a fraud and liar

http://steverombom.org/

http://jewishdefense.org/rambam/

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/07/fbi_arrest_private_eye_speaker.html

And when he is a PI for the attorney Gary Kurtz who is representing a spamming group being sued by MySpace

http://news.justia.com/cases/featured/california/cacdce/2:2007cv08292/404088/


CNET has sunk to a new low

[inachu]

People often get shammed by shysters and there will always be ethnic groups that support the liars.
I agree CNET has sunk to a new low.

[cnet1239]

Yes, CNET has sunk to a new low, by allowing false and slanderous comments to be posted about Steven Rambam.

I know Rambam for more than 30 years and worked with him before my retirement. Absolutely nothing posted on aleyIVO's websites is true. They are the rantings of a convicted felon, Alan "AJ" Weberman, who was sent to federal prison by Rambam.

When Weberman first posted his websites, Rambam sued Weberman for slander and obtained a million dollar judgment. Detalis and a newspaper article can be found at: http://pallorium.com/ARTICLES/art26.html.

Before Rambam helped send him to prison, Weberman moved ONE TON of drugs and laundered millions of dollars of drug money. Weberman's most recent criminal conviction was for smacking around his wife, Nonet Depul, which should give you some idea of his character. Weberman was also under investigation for his "relationship" with his daughter, Sarah. Weberman blames Steven Rambam for his time in jail, and for having to plead guilty in connection with his wife beating arrest. Most important, Weberman's partner is "Mordechai Levy" (Mark Levey), who went to jail for shooting at Steven Rambam and at 2 other investigators during an attempted service-of-process on Bleeker Street in Manhattan.

Yes, CNET has sunk to a new low by allowing felons like Weberman and Levy to use CNET's site to slander someone that I know to be a completely honorable person and a world-class detective.

Let's give Rambam credit for doing a great job, and keeping 100 registered sex offenders away from our children.

Let's keep Weberman and Levy off the web.

[inachu]

It could also be some jokers who could also use Americas most wanted by the FBI and use the picture as his own. Jokers who are innocent will be thrown in jail too?

[unknown unknown]

The bigger question is or should be, if these people are still dangerous, and they must be if states and the federal government feel compelled to expend the resources they do, why are not still in jail and instead on some over elaborate supervised release program? Why do only three states have violent offender registries, when according to the just department non-sexual violent offenders have a higher recidivism rate.

In some states public urination is a sex offense, are they removing public urinaters from MySpace as well? lol

I am convinced our laws for dealing sex offenders were written solely for the benefit of the career politicians who wrote them to look tough on sex offenders in response to salacious fear mongering news coverage and shows like "To catch a predatory".

[unknown unknown]

*justice department

[Imalittleteapot]

So, my brother once told me. You know, one day there's going to be so many laws and the government will do everything they can to label everybody a criminal or something they don't like, that it will create so many prisoners there won't be any place to hold them all.

Then they'll have to let all the prisoners go free and the innocent people will have to stay in prison where they can be locked behind the prison walls to keep themselves safe from the criminals on the outside.

Do you lock your doors when driving at night in a bad neighborhood? Do you deadbolt your doors? You tell me who the real prisoners are.

[SeizeCTRL]

Am I the only one who thinks that MySpace profile they have imaged here is a JOKE? Come on, do you really think a sexual predator would put YOUR DAUGHTER as who he would like to meet? That's almost as retarded as the city of Boston thinking the ATHF LED signs were bombs! I highly doubt any terrorist is going to put LED lights on a bomb which will make it incredibly obvious at night, just as any pedophile is going to put YOUR DAUGHTER in the box on who he would like to meet.

That profile is clearly a joke profile by someone with a sick and twisted sense of humor.

When are the AG's going to start demanding this info from Facebook and other social networks... heck, for that matter, am I going to have to start keeping track of every pedophile that stumbles upon my website for fear that I might have to turn over logs and data on any visitor some attorney general just happens to want?

For that matter, I want access to the data on the AG's computer. I want to know what our government officials are up to. Seems only fair.

[jjesusfreak01]

I agree, that profile page looks extremely suspect. "Loves kids, but not for me?" Has no friends, but only wants to meet your daughter?

Looks like he is getting set up. Cant imagine any sex offender that was actually after kids would put up a profile like that.

[0ri0n]

Anybody else pick up on this:
1.) That RamBam is working for a company looking to dethrown Myspace, and in a court case, supposition and innuendo can do a lot to damage credibility.
2.) A mug shot is EASILY available from the sex registry database - but what IDIOT would use it in a myspace profile???
3.) The young guy in his 'friends' section is a default addition (its the founder of myspace).

i.e. RamBam could have created this entry (or others) to give his 'report' more weight than it deserves.

This whole this thing, and especially this entry, seems really too suspicious. I am not saying child predators aren't on my space, because I believe you will find them everywhere, regardless of how much you try to filter them out. Unless you are willing to assign contact approval to a legally verified adult for every social networking site out there, you will have this problem.

What I am saying is a company with ulterior motives picks a hot topic to discredit MySpace (that every politician would love to jump on, or risk looking bad for lack of support) while they are supposedly investigating them for an unrelated topic regarding their client.

This doesn't look so much like an investigation, as it does a simple smear campaign.

[MSLGWCEO]

Obviously, the AG is doing a little self agrandizing in the name of "protecting children" on Myspace. He must not have heard of this study: " Media creates online sex predator myths."

which says,
"Much of the public's concern comes from fear-mongering journalism. While TV shows like NBC's "To Catch a Predator" and the "Today Show" gain high ratings frightening parents into thinking that threats to children lurk around every corner and abound on the Web, the reality is quite the opposite."
Read it here:

http://cfcoklahoma.org/New_Site/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=0&func=view&catid=13&id=546

If the link doesn't work, copy and paste.

[MSLGWCEO]

Now, here is a study worth it's weight in gold.

"The Internet may not be such a dangerous place for children after all."

"A high-profile task force created by 49 STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL to look into the problem of sexual solicitation of children online has concluded that there really is NOT A SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM.

ARTICLA AND VIDEOS HERE:

http://cfcoklahoma.org/New_Site/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=0&func=view&catid=21&id=627#644.

[Agile_Cyborg]

Yes, I can perfectly grasp the sexual threat this beastly-looking 68 year old man would pose to a cute sixteen year old.

[thelemurking]

****!!! Tell me it's not true! over 100 sex offenders have profiles on MySpace! We're doomed! All the childrens are going to be raped now! heaven help us all.

There's what, like 400-500 million, if not more profiles on MySpace? I would imagine given the number of profiles, that there are probably a whole lot more sexual predators and sex offenders on MySpace than Rambam suggests... does that make MySpace bad a place? NO! If you take 500,000,000 people, put them in one giant area, there's bound to be sexual predators, rapists, drug dealers, murderers, and all sorts of vile creatures of humanity there. Heck, for that matter, there are a lot of churches that have pedophile priests raping alter boys, taking advantage of girls on church trips and so on. I would imagine even some of those men of cloth have MySpace profiles.

Maybe the Connect A.G. should start investigating churches as well... why stop at MySpace?

[i8246i]

I like how this article switches gears from talking about "sex offenders" to "sexual predators"

two TOTALLY DIFFERENT THINGS there, guys

In some states, all you have to do to be a "sex offender" is to moon someone. Or how about the poor souls who end up sleeping with a girl/guy who was lying about their age/had a fake ID? Whoops! Do not pass Go, do not attempt to protect your privacy, decency, or public image, you're now going STRAIGHT TO JAIL and will be put in the same group as REAL sick minds and REAL threats to a community!

Sorry, I'm all for catching criminals, and for protecting our children...but the laws of this country are there to protect EVERYONE.