On February 11, 2025, Rich Wistocki gave a presentation on Youth Cyber Security at East Campus. Wistocki is a retired police officer for 30 years, 28 of which were at the Naperville Police Department, as well as an internet crime investigator.

Though there was a very low turnout of at most 10 individuals at his presentation, not including those on the live stream, Wistocki mentioned that he was not surprised because many parents suffer from a deadly syndrome, NMK, which stands for “Not My Kid.” Most parents believe that their kid would not be a victim or a predator online, so they don’t attend these presentations and as a result, don’t know what to look for. 

The retired detective first assured parents that Lockport Township High School is safe because he works directly with the high school and receives a call every other week for cyber security reasons that always get resolved. He also made it a point to make sure that the parents knew their kids owned nothing and are “not required to have any privacy because parents need to know what is on their kids phone to keep them safe.” They need to know their password because if they don’t, there is a reason they aren’t telling them. This could be because they are the predator asking for explicit images, or because they are the victim being asked for explicit images.

As the presenter was talking about stories from his many years of experience as a detective, many parents sounded shocked to hear just what their kids may be seeing on the internet. Gasps were heard throughout the auditorium after hearing a story about an 11-year-old girl being manipulated by a predator to record explicit videos online just to be told by untrained police that she could be arrested for creating the videos. Parents looked very horrified that this could be going on in their own children’s lives. 

Throughout the presentation, Wistocki repeated, “No one online is anonymous.” In order for the predator to be caught in under two hours, he asks parents to do the following: screenshot everything, provide a gamertag, email, user ID, or phone number; do not report it to the social network, write a detailed statement, print everything and put it on a flash drive. 

Wistocki continues discussing teens being responsible with their phones. He mentions how recording anything in the bathroom including fights is a felony and will stay on your criminal record. He also points out that 93% of school shooters posted online what they were going to do before they did it. With this, he urges teens to be responsible saying, “when you see a post, do not repost it because when you repost it, you are the one making the threat.” This includes parents reposting threats on any social media platform who may later be arrested for it. 

Instead, they should immediately report it to their school resource officer to be investigated. As he showed a slide with this information, the viewers took their phones out to take a picture and hopefully show their kids at home as a precaution to remember this important fact. 

Roblox, the game played by 8-16 year olds, is the #1 predator sight in the world. Predators lure children off this app onto Discord or other private chats to then ask for pictures or videos and threaten them into sending more and not reporting it. 

With this being said, Wistocki tells parents, “If you take everything away, they’ll find a way.” He pleads parents to talk with their children about cyber security safety instead of taking their devices away because they will always find a way to be on social media. Once sent, a picture cannot be unsent.

If someone already has pictures online, they can upload the pictures to the website Takeitdown.ncmec.org. This website will help remove or stop the online sharing of nude or sexually explicit photos or videos. 

Aside from online safety, he informs parents that when they allow underage teens to drink in their home, they are responsible for them. If anyone gets into a car accident afterwards and someone dies, it is their responsibility because they broke the law, whether they knew about it or didn’t.

After saying this, parents were made aware of this law and the looks on their faces confirmed that they would not be allowing underage drinking in their homes in the future. He also tells mothers to pay attention to their maternal instinct because if they think someone is wrong, it probably is. 

Wistocki hopes that more parents will attend these presentations to learn how to keep their children safe online and expressed how thankful he was for those who showed up and listened to his important presentation.