A modern online-safety program for today's threats — phishing texts, deepfakes, AI scams, and online manipulation — built for the classroom and respectful of kids' privacy.
A pilot draft for review by Daniel & a classroom teacher. Empowerment-first, non-fear-based — teaching judgment, not surveillance.
Your phone buzzes: "USPS: your package is on hold. Pay the $1.99 redelivery fee: usps-redeliver.co/track". Your friend got the same one and already tapped it. It looks official. Do you?
Phishing is when someone pretends to be a person or company you trust to trick you into clicking a link, logging in, or paying. By text it's called smishing; by phone call, vishing. It works by creating a feeling — urgency, fear, or excitement — so you act before you think.
usps-redeliver.co is not usps.com. Read the part right before the first single slash.What's a scam text you or someone you know has gotten? What made it feel real — and what was the one detail that gave it away?
A video of a streamer you follow says he's giving $500 to anyone who scans a QR code — his face, his voice, everything. That same night your phone rings: it's your cousin's voice, panicking, saying she's in trouble and needs money right now. Both feel real. Neither is.
AI can now fake a voice, a photo, or a whole video convincingly — from just a few seconds of someone's real audio or a handful of their pictures. That means "I saw it / I heard their voice" is no longer proof. Scammers use this for fake celebrity giveaways, crypto cons, and "someone you love is in trouble" calls.
If a shocking video of someone famous showed up in your feed, what are two ways you'd check whether it's real before sharing it?
Someone new follows you — cute profile, tons in common, always says the right thing. Within a week they call you "special," want to move the chat to a private app, and casually mention an "investment" that's making them money. They're moving fast. It feels flattering.
Not everyone online is who they say. Scammers build fake profiles (catfishing), use flattery and fast closeness (love-bombing), then steer you toward money, gift cards, crypto, or private photos. Their real tools are urgency, secrecy, and moving you off-platform where no one can see.
Why do scammers push so hard to move the conversation somewhere private and secret? What does that tell you?
Someone you were talking to online is now threatening you — saying they'll share something private or spread a rumor unless you send more, pay them, or do what they say. You feel scared, embarrassed, and trapped.
This is a crime called sextortion or coercion, and it happens to a lot of teens — including smart, careful ones. Predators often pretend to be a peer, earn your trust, then threaten. It is not your fault, and you are not in trouble. The person is counting on your fear and your silence. Take away the silence and you take away their power.
Why do you think fear and secrecy are a predator's biggest tools — and how does telling a trusted adult break their power?
This is a draft of four classroom-ready modules to test with a real class (the layout previews how Argos Guardian would feel). It's built to be privacy-by-design: teacher-mediated, no student accounts, no student data collected — the trust posture schools need.
Before launch: Module 4 needs child-safety-expert review; all four should be mapped to your state's digital-citizenship standards and piloted with a class for feedback on what lands.
Approach: we teach kids to recognize and handle threats (judgment that lasts) — the complement to monitoring tools, not a replacement, and privacy-respectful by design.
Argos Guardian · a community initiative by Intelligent Automation, LLC · pilot draft 2026-08-01