An acoustician by education, a graduate from the Faculty of Electronics and Telecommunication of the University of Technology in Wroclaw.

Currently he works as a security specialist for the Nasza-klasa.pl portal. He joined the Nasza Klasa company at the beginning of 2008. As a Security Department employee, he is responsible for the portal’s contact with law enforcement bodies and for preventing and/or eliminating any offences or transgressions on the website. Furthermore, his tasks include detecting and preventing online threats to the portal (phishing, spam, etc.).

ABSTRACT

30 September, Wednesday, 14.30 - 16.30

Parallel session: Digital lifestyles – safety in social networking sites
Presentation topic: The second life of our children 

In summer 2008 a large number of fictitious personal profiles of children were noticed on the Nasza-klasa portal. Most photos added to their photo galleries showed babies or very young children. Many profiles included the same photos, apparently taken from other accounts or from the Internet. A distinctive feature of all these profiles was their infantile language (or baby talk). The information provided in the profiles suggested that the virtual "children" had been abused or abandoned and were seeking care and help. Vulgar or obscene language occurred in many of the profiles, too. 

Our internal investigation found that there were also “virtual parents” on the portal. They were looking for children they could "adopt". Interestingly, photos in the galleries and personal data provided in the profiles referred to popular actors, such as Vanessa Anne Hudgens, starring in the "High School Musical" series. Both the "children" and the "parents" were very active on our Internet forums, living their virtual lives there. There were virtual weddings and adoptions. 

As the number of such accounts was growing, our User Service Department began to accept more and more reports from concerned users. The subject was also frequently discussed on several external forums, particularly on vortals focusing on young parents and child rearing. It was also described in newspapers. Internet users were increasingly outraged and worried. 

First, we decided to secure the data and remove the suspicious profiles. Then we contacted the police and experts from the Kidprotect.pl Foundation. Based on the collected evidence, we established that all these accounts were owned by children aged 8–14. Children who had created such profiles and were later interviewed by experts, explained that "playing paedophiles" was very popular among young people in this age group.