CyberAngels

The world’s oldest and largest online safety organization. In 1995, this anti-criminal activist arm of the hacker community started to appear online. CyberAngels began after a telephone call was made to Curtis Sliwa, the founder and President of Guardian Angels and a radio talk show host for WABC in New York. At this time, a female asked him on his talk show what he was going to do about safety in cyberspace. Sliwa faced the challenge by forming the first cyberstalking help program on IRC.

Today, the CyberAngels group has more than 6,000 volunteers residing in 70 countries. Their role is to patrol the Web around the clock in the battle against child pornography and cyberstalking. In 1998, President Bill Clinton honored the CyberAngels with the prestigious President’s Service Award. In 1999, the organization helped Japanese authorities locate illegal child pornography sites, resulting in the first-ever set of arrests in Japan of Internet child pornographers. In 2003, the CyberAngels took their online messages into classrooms to teach students how to stay safe in chat rooms and online.

See Also: Child Pornography; Hackers; Internet; White Hats or Ethical Hackers or Samurai Hackers.