• Cybertraps for Expecting Moms and Dads
  • Cybertraps for the Young
  • Cybertraps for Educators
  • Obscene Profits
  • The Decency Wars
  • American Privacy
  • The Court and The Cross
  • The Naked Employee
The Cybertraps Series

The Cybertraps Series

Whether you are a young adult, teacher, parent, or just curious about the impact of your digital footprint, read Cybertraps to stay in the know of how technology can do significant harm to you, now and in the far future. While the world focuses on privacy data and how this affects us as a society, nationally-recognized cybersecurity and legal expert Frederick S. Lane delves deeply into how technology impacts us all at the most personal and intimate levels.

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The Cybertraps Podcast

The Cybertraps Podcast

This twice-weekly podcast features a live current-events discussion and interview with experts from the fields of cybersafety, cybersecurity, education, technology, and more!

Hosted by Jethro Jones and Frederick Lane.

Live shows Mondays at noon eastern.

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The Cybertraps Newsletter

The Cybertraps Newsletter

If you are interested in the cybertraps discussed on this web site and on "The Cybertraps Podcast" (https://link.cybertraps.com/ApplePodcast), you'll definitely want to subscribe to The Cybertraps Newsletter.

Subscribers get weekly email updates on emerging cybertraps. Paid subscribers get access to the newsletter archives, online copies of Frederick Lane's Cybertraps series, and other exclusive benefits. Subscribe now!

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Solicitation Charges Against OK Teacher Spark Older Complaint

In April, Charles Clay Dawson, a teacher at Wanette Public Schools in Pottawatomie County, was charged with soliciting nude photos from two female students, one aged 16 and the other aged 15. According to the investigative report, the 43-year-old Dawson solicited the photos from the students using standard text messaging and the KIK messaging app.…

Allstate Decides the Data in Your Car Is Not Enough [Interview]

Earlier this summer, I was interviewed by by Becky Yerak (@beckyyerak), the Business Reporter for the Chicago Tribune, about a patent issued to Allstate Insurance Company under the innocuous-sounding name “Motor Vehicle Operating Data Collection Analysis.” As I wrote at the time, the patent raises significant privacy issues. If you want to get the most…

Public Officials Cannot Use “Religious Freedom” to Justify Nonfeasance

In a brief, one-sentence order, the United States Supreme Court rejected a request by a Kentucky county clerk to stay a U.S. District Court ruling that ordered her to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In the months following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held that same-sex couples have a constitutional…

Two Teachers Face Multiple Years in Prison for Sex with Students

For several weeks over the course of the early summer, former Oklahoma teacher Jennifer Caswell and former Utah teacher Brianne Altice waited anxiously to find out what their punishment would be after entering guilty pleas to charges of sex with underage students. Their wait is now over. Earlier this spring, I wrote about Caswell’s case…

Roanoke Shooting of Journalists Is Terrifying on Multiple Levels

It has been difficult to concentrate today, following the horrifying news that 24-year-old reporter Alison Parker and her 27-year-old cameraman, Adam Ward, were assassinated on live television by a disgruntled former employee of WDB7, the local Roanoke news station for which they worked. It has been difficult to concentrate because I have worked as a…

NJ Teacher Charged with Using School Computer to Upload Child Pornography

An elementary school teacher in the Bloomfield [NJ] School District has been charged “with possessing, uploading and distributing videos and images of child pornography from his home and workplace.” Nicholas K. Schumacher, 29, had been under investigation since May 4 after the Morris County prosecutor’s office received a tip from the National Center for Missing…

SC High School Gives the Bum’s Rush to Teacher Who Sexted Students

Dorman High School, located in Roanoke, South Caroline (just south of Spartanburg), may now hold the record for fastest termination of a teacher accused of digital misconduct. On Tuesday, 8/18, officials at the school were told by a student that math teacher and assistant cross country coach John Sewell had been sending him sexually explicit…

Trinity High School Teacher Patrick Newman Pleads Guilty to Child Exploitation Charges [*Update]

Back in June, I wrote about the case of Patrick Newman, a Social Studies teacher at Trinity High School, an all-boys Catholic school in Louisville, KY. Following a tip by Twitter to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, investigators determined that Newman had used Vine (a video app owned by Twitter), Kik, and…

Cyberethics for Educators: The Rising Cost of Digital Misconduct [Lecture]

2015-08-19 Cyberethics for Educators from Frederick Lane I had the pleasure of returning to lecture in San Bernardino approximately six months after my first visit. During that time, the name of the organization, Southern California School Risk Management, has been shortened by dropping the “Southern,” to reflect that the fact that the organization is now…