• 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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Draft Family Acceptable Use Policy for Little Device Users (Toddlers and Pre-School)

The following are a few policies that parents might want to discuss between themselves and with their young device users before handing over their technology. Policies for Parents I/We will supervise our child when he or she is using any electronic device. I/We will make sure that our devices are configured to prevent unauthorized downloads…

Queensland Teacher Retains License Despite Failure to Maintain Professional Standards

A rude Facebook comment, combined with some other inappropriate classroom conduct, nearly cost a Queensland, Australia teacher his license this spring. In the end, however, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal determined that Dion Ashley Paulsen had taken sufficient steps to reform his behavior and allowed him to continue teaching. Paulsen, who teaches in the…

Dangerous Game: “Registered Sex Offender or Not”

Over the weekend, the New York Times published a sobering report about a case in Indiana involving a teenage boy, a teenage girl, a mobile app, and the state’s sex offender registry. It is not, as you might expect, a love story. Last December, Zachery Anderson, a 19-year-old resident of Elkhart, IN, arranged a date…

Family Rules Regarding Appropriate Electronic Behavior

The Importance of Setting a Good Example Before you can start negotiating effective rules regarding online behavior with your older, more technologically competent children, it’s important to make sure that your own house is in order. Few things will more quickly undermine a serious conversation about safe and ethical online behavior than your child’s awareness…

Brooklyn HS Teacher Illustrates Risks for Vulnerable Educators

Unlike most of the entries in this blog that involve teacher misconduct, this is not a story that begins or ends with high-tech malfeasance. It does, however, offer an unusually well-documented example of the role that emotional vulnerabilities can play in contributing to the various types of cybertraps that snare so many educators. According to…

Establishing Family Rules Regarding Electronic Content

Uh-oh! Jonny Can Read From a family acceptable use perspective, things start to get rapidly more challenging in grades 2-4. Three significant developments occur that will change your child’s relationship to electronic devices: First, he or she will learn to read, spell, and hunt-and-peck on a keyboard, all of which means that your child can…

Some Family Rules Regarding Personal Property & Safety

Where’s My Phone? Who Took My Tablet? In a remarkably short time (thanks in large part to Steve Jobs and Apple), we’ve transitioned from “Don’t touch Dad’s computer” to “Do you want to read a Sesame Street book on the iPad?” My sons were toddlers in the mid- to late 1990s, and seeing them heading…

Planning a Family Acceptable Use Policy

What Is a Family Acceptable Use Policy? A Family Acceptable Use Policy (FAUP) is a document designed to help you and your children understand the benefits and risks of using the Internet and electronic devices, and to establish household rules regarding their use. It is a document that can be used to organize and clarify…