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Connect Iowa targets elderly for help getting online

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A nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding broadband in Iowa is turning its attention to the state’s elderly population. Jeremy Thacker, with Connect Iowa, says a recent study found 73% of people over the age of 70 don’t have internet access in their homes.

Thacker notes his own grandmother is “fearful” of the technology. “And I see that as being very sad for her because she is missing out on a lot of services that could really make her life easier in terms of coordinating her medications and ordering through an online pharmacy or talking to some of my cousins who live hundreds or thousands of miles away,” Thacker said.

Connect Iowa has launched an initiative to possibly create community based programs that teach seniors how to use computers. Thacker believes too many Iowans over 70 don’t know how to go online.

“Because of fear of the technology or not having access to the technology, they’re missing out on life-enhancing benefits,” Thacker said. The new initiative involves an assessment of the internet needs of 50 Iowa communities by the end of this year.

Thacker hopes to eventually have a certification program where people will be awarded discounts on broadband for learning how to use the internet.

Senator Grassley says internet sharing bills may need tweaking

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Several popular websites, including Wikipedia, plan to go “dark” on Wednesday to protest two bills pending in Congress that aim to stop the illegal sharing of music and movies on the Internet. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says the bills, known as SOPA and PIPA, may need a little tweaking but the intent of the legislation is very well meaning.

Grassley says, “They may not be perfect the way they’re written and I’m going to be part of the process to try to perfect them so that we can find a balance between people stealing copyright, trademarks and inventions and I guess you’d call it the freedom of the Internet.”

Leaders at Wikipedia, the massive online encyclopedia, claim the bills would force websites into the impossible task of policing cyberspace. Several other major websites, including Google, Facebook and Twitter, will still be online Wednesday, but their chiefs are joining Wikipedia in opposing the two pieces of legislation.

“If these search engines, like Google, are taking the position that nothing needs to be done, they’re taking the position that stealing is okay,” according to Grassley. The bills are SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA, which stands for Protect I-P or Internet Protocol.

Grassley says the Senate version of the bills should be out of committee next week and will go to the floor for debate. He’s hoping common ground can be reached. Grassley says, “If everybody takes the position that stealing of copyrights, trademarks are wrong or that theft just generally is wrong and we start from the premise of what can we do to stop the stealing, then I think we can meet a friendly consensus on this issue and get the job done.”

Other websites that will be joining Wiki with off-line protest on Wednesday include Reddit and BoingBoing. Their complaint focuses on how the bills would require Internet service providers to block websites that are involved in the illegal sharing of movies, music and other content.

Search engines would also be stopped from linking to those websites, which they say is in direct opposition to the concept of an open Internet.

Program teaches kids how to be safe on the internet

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A program designed to help young internet users stay safe online was the subject of a workshop last night for parents and students in Council Bluffs. Shannon Seeger, spokeswoman for the Internet Keep Safe Coalition or i-Keep-Safe, says children are growing up in a world where their social life is coordinated through interactions on-line or through a cell phone.

Seeger says kids need to be reminded how to act and interact. “Keeping and maintaining a positive reputation, keeping your personal information to yourself, also, when you interact with people, how to be a citizen about it,” she says. Children need to be aware of predators, cyber-bullying, harassment and other threats.

While the Internet can be a great place to connect with friends, Seeger says some people use social networking sites to humiliate and degrade others. “It doesn’t just deal with bullying, it’s harassment of all kinds, child-to-child harassment, parent-on-teacher, child-on-teacher,” she says.

“There are many, many different variations on cyber-bullying.” Seeger says there are increasing reports of children missing school, dropping out and event taking their own lives because of non-stop bullying. “One-million children were cyber-bullied last year on Facebook alone,” she says.

“That doesn’t take into count all of the other social media and all the networking and messaging that children are doing back and forth.” The first workshop Tuesday in Council Bluffs was for teachers only and was directed at helping to teach their students to be responsible online.

The second workshop last night was for parents and students, urging them to start their own at-home programs for safe, healthy and ethical internet use. Learn more at: “www.ikeepsafe.org“

Grassley not sold on internet tax bill

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Legislation that would tax all online purchases and potentially funnel billions of dollars back to states is being introduced in Congress, but Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley isn’t a fan. Grassley, a Republican, says the proposal called the Main Street Fairness Act goes against one of his primary political creeds.

“It’s a tax increase and I’m not ready to vote for tax increases,” Grassley says, “particularly, I don’t want to be responsible for voting for tax increases at the state level.” The bill is being introduced by Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois. Durbin sponsored a similar measure last year that never reached the floor for a vote. Grassley says he’ll try to keep an open mind about the legislation and won’t say he’s absolutely against it.

“I’m not going to co-sponsor the bill,” Grassley says. “If the bill comes up for a vote, I’m going to wait until that happens and decide at that particular point, but I don’t think that I’m ready to say that Iowans ought to be paying higher taxes.”

Grassley says the legislation would counter a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said states could not collect taxes on Internet purchases unless the seller had a brick-and-mortar building within the state’s borders.

“If the state of Iowa can find some way of collecting that tax, then that’s okay with me, but I don’t want to be responsible for that burden,” Grassley says. “Particularly in times of recession, you don’t increase taxes.” Some estimates say Internet sales are rising at a rate of 15% per year, with one report saying online purchases last year hit a record $165-billion.

Gambling treatment official not taking stance on internet gambling bill

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The manager of the Iowa Gambling Treatment and Prevention Program isn’t taking a stand on the bill that would allow internet gambling in Iowa. Mark Vander Linden was asked about the proposal during a presentation at the Racing and Gaming Commission meeting.

Vander Linden says internet gambling will increase the number of people who gamble, but he says his hope is that there will be enough safe guards to keep underage people from gambling. And he says those safe guards will hopefully limit the harm that could be done to problem gamblers.

Vander Linden says he doesn’t have an opinion on the long-term impact if Iowa became the first state to legalize internet gambling. He says you generally see a spike in interest when a new gambling options is introduced, because it is new and interesting and people want to try it out, and then interest levels off.

Vander Linden says he doesn’t really have a position on the bill. Vander Linden says internet gambling is not a major source of problems in Iowa right now. Vander Linden says their tracking shows internet gambling was identified by only one-and-a-half percent of the people who came in to get treatment last year for problem gambling as their primary form of gambling. He says the most prominent form of legalized gambling in the state is the one that is credited with causing the most problems.

He says 61% of the people who came in for treatment identified slot machines as the reason for their problem. The internet gambling bill was passed this week by a senate committee. New Jersey’s governor vetoed a bill that would have made his state the first to allow internet gambling.

Roll out continues for new website seeking to prevent internet crimes against kids

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The Iowa Task Force on Internet Crimes Against Children is launching a new website that aims to educate parents on how to prevent on-line crimes before they happen. The website’s main feature is a cyber tip link, where parents can alert officials about a potential on-line threat. Criminal investigator Mike Ferjak says the site can help parents educate themselves and their kids about on-line risks.

“We want to focus on what the proactive measures can be,” Ferjak says. “By the time you call the task force or the police department, something bad has already happened. This is our effort to get proactive, to get the information out there before there’s a tragedy.” Iowa

Attorney General Tom Miller says the new website offers tips on talking to teens and kids. Miller says it will make parents the front line of defense against child predators and other on-line risks. “The whole idea is prevention,” Miller says. “Once a crime has taken place, that’s a very serious matter and a very harmful one. So the main thrust here is to let people know what they should be looking for, how they should be dealing with their kids, what their kids should know, having their kids on this site as well.”

The site features safety tips for children as young as five all the way through high school. It also provides information about the legal consequences of sexting, which can result in serious charges for young people who make or send sexual messages by phone or on-line. The address for the Internet Crimes Against Children website is: “www.iaicac.org“.

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DCI unveils website to combat on-line predators

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D.C.I director John Quinn, Attorney General Tom-Miller (L-R)

D.C.I director John Quinn, Attorney General Tom Miller (L-R)

The Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation today unveiled a new website designed to protect children from on-line predators.

Mike Ferjak, with the D.C.I.’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, says the site will help parents, teachers and others talk to kids about the dangers communicating with strangers on-line.

“We now have a page where they can go and get some ideas,” Ferjak said at a press conference in Ankeny. “They have the resources on the website to flesh out those ideas. Maybe they can make it a part of their family routine, go on the Internet together and establish household rules for the Internet.”

[Read more…]

Study finds Iowa among slow states for internet connections

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Internet router A study finds Iowa is improving but is still among the slower states in terms of Internet connections.

The study by the Communication Workers of America tested the speed of the last mile of Internet users’ hook-ups, what tends to be the slowest mile.

Annie Hill, the C-W-A’s executive vice president, says Iowa ranked 35th in the U.S., which is up from 43rd last year. Hill says Internet speed is vital to a state’s development.

"There’s actually real-time examples when you look at how it improves rural economies," Hill says. "The U.S.D.A. just put out a report that says rural areas that adopted broadband have a much stronger economic background than those that didn’t." She says the C-W-A’s " Speed Matters " test is reinforcing the emphasis on the importance of increasingly-faster Internet connections to bolster economic growth, education, medical research, and more.

Hill says Iowa’s at something of a disadvantage, being such a rural farm-based state. "The states that are the fastest are the ones that are the most densely populated," Hill says. "It’s where businesses that deploy broadband Internet often make decisions to focus on not only dense population areas but especially metropolitan areas. We look at the upper East Coast that has the fastest. The further south you go and the further west you go, states don’t tend to do as well."

The fastest three states on the survey are Delaware, Rhode Island and New Jersey, while the slowest are Idaho, Alaska and Montana. Hill says Iowa’s speed -did- show a marked improvement in the past year, which is key for the state’s many industries, especially for agriculture.

"A lot of farming has become more technological and people rely on weather reports, information on soil conditions, they use it to check prices on whether they’re selling grains or animals," Hill says. "Having access to the Internet is very important to running a farm in the 21st century.

"Hill says the United States as a whole ranked 28th in the world for Internet connectivity. The U.S. average download speed is four times slower than the number-one nation, South Korea. ".

Parents urged to keep close eye on kids’ social networking

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A federal agent says Iowa parents should be involved in virtually all aspects of their kids’ lives, especially when it comes to the Internet. Robert Georgai, a white collar crime specialist with the F-B-I, says with the growing popularity of social websites like MySpace and Facebook, parents need to be especially aware of what information their kids are sharing online.

"If they’re going to put online, ‘Hey I’m going to go see the Harry Potter movie tonight at midnight,’ well, it’s not that hard for a bad guy to figure out exactly where that child’s going to be," Georgai says. "Be careful about that kind of information and we always encourage parents to be actively involved in their kid’s lives." An Omaha police officer was arrested last week on charges he used the Internet to lure what he thought was a 14-year-old girl for a sexual encounter. Georgai says predators are out there, lurking.

He says, "The most important thing a child can do is make sure they’re not revealing too much information about themselves and they have to be pretty cautious about who they allow on their friends list." He says moms and dads need to get online routinely to keep an eye on what their kids are telling the world. "We always recommend to the parents that they actively check their child’s profile, that they actively become a member of their (child’s) social networking site," Georgai says. "If a child knows that their parent is part of their FaceBook team they might not put out the exact same information that they would if they thought their parents weren’t looking." 

Georgai says it’s unfortunate, but on websites like FaceBook, the number of friends a person has is a status symbol, which encourages them to continue giving access to people who may not have good intentions. Clarinda Police Chief Keith Brothers reminded residents of an Arizona crime in which a home was burglarized by someone who learned the home would be vacant on Twitter.

 

Use caution with "secret shopper" offer

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Iowans are being warned about a "secret shopper" scam which may have its roots in Nebraska. Authorities in both states are investigating the scheme in which people are recruited to patronize certain businesses, report on the experience and get paid for it.

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning says people in Iowa and elsewhere are being approached through the U-S mail and through e-mail. "The trick here is what’s being provided is a check for training," Bruning says. "Well, the check is a fake check."

Bruning says consumers receive the training check, they’re asked to cash it, then send or wire money back to the business. He says about 300 people have already fallen victim to the scam, but he couldn’t say how many of them were in Iowa.

"The checks have been two-to-three-thousand dollars and they put a new twist on this," Bruning says. "There’s a phone number and they appear to come from a Nebraska bank."

Bruning says the check looks very legitimate but he warns, Iowans should not fall for the trickery and the promise of easy money. He says, "There’s a phone number on the checks and indeed, if a bank locally, if you try to cash, you follow up, there’s somebody on the other end of the call who’s keeping track of these fraudulent checks that have been sent out."

Iowans are urged to contact the Iowa Attorney General’s office of consumer protection if they get such an offer — by mail or email.