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What You Don't
Know about Online
Safety
Can Hurt You
by
Linda Lee 2008
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Safety on the Net is
certainly on any parents mind these
days.
With most
of our kids spending time on the Web,
we need to educate and learn safety
online
for our
children's sake and our own!
What can
a parent do to help protect your children and
yourself and your computer?
* Easy
effective ways to protect your computer
* What you can do to
protect your family
* Online Bullying
* Myspace ,Facebook,
Friendster, blogs and profiles. Are they
safe?
1.
Easy effective ways to protect your
computer:
A) NEVER
EVER EVER allow free downloads unless you
are sure it is “safe”
download
B) Do
not let your children download “Free
Stuff”- Nothing ‘Free’ Is Ever
Free.
This is a prime method spyware creators use
to gain access to your
computer
.
C)
Install Anti-Spyware
programs
There are very few free safe
downloads- but there are some. Here are
three of the best
FREE
Keep your Pc safe and
clean, and surf
safely!
The 3 FREE best Anti-Spyware
tools I use
Ad-aware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/
Spybot
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html
For
other useful tools and interesting downloads,
check out
For
safe and useful downloads, you can
trust
RUN THEM ONCE A
WEEK!
Install updates for
these programs as they become
available.
Windows
XP users- you must install your software
updates.
Most of
these are security patches.
Ways to
Protect Your Family
* Keep
the computer in a family
area.
Monitor it, where it is easy to see and you
are aware of what your
children
are doing
*
No computer
with Internet access in a child’s
room...
Having a computer out in the open reduces
the temptation to go
to
unsavory or dangerous sites by about
75%
*
Set your search
engine preferences to “strict
filtering”
All search engines offer this feature; I
feel Google is the best.
This still allows you and
children to do research or homework
freely
while protecting
them from unwanted images and
text.
Simply
find the section in your search engine that
says
Advanced
features- click
there.
This will
take you to your choices on filtering –
Strict, Moderate or
none.
*
Monitor Your
Children’s History - Set the
‘History’ feature
…
Open Internet Explorer- Click on Tools tab
-/this opens to the
General
tab- /the
third box down is History- / Set the
amount of days you want
the history
saved.
Then
to check the ‘History’ …Open Internet
Explorer-/ Find the icon on
your
toolbar that says History. Click on
it, and on the left-hand
side
menu
will open up and you will see all the days
you requested saved,
recent
Internet activity.
* Online Chat Rooms, Instant Messaging
& Online
Predators
ü
Set time
limits. This may be unpopular, but it is
necessary with today’s advanced
technology.
ü
Know whom
your children are talking with. Know the
nicknames and who they
are.
ü
Do not
tolerate unknown
parties.
ü
Be aware of
acronyms: pbm. - “parent behind me” and
pos- “parent over
shoulder”.
ü
Tell your
children that at any time you may sit in
and watch the
conversation.
ü
Do not let
your children go into places online that
you are not aware of.
Sit down and discuss the following safety
guidelines with your
children.
1) Never, ever give out
any personal information about yourself
online!
If you give out
your name or address, people can find where
you live, and this can be very
dangerous.
Do not tell people where
you are going, what you do, and where you
live.
2) Do not go to any chat
rooms without your parent’s
permission.
Only talk to people you
know personally.
Many dangerous people
pretend to be a teenager in chat
rooms.
Never agree to meet
someone you have met
online
3) Do not feel like you
have to respond to any messages, emails or
text messages
that make you
uncomfortable or upset
you.
4) Always tell an adult
when you feel threatened or upset by
anything
online!
* Online Bullying… What is it and
what can you
do?
This is when other
kids harass your children through instant
messaging,
email
or text messages using the cell
phone.
What can you
do?
Ø
Talk to your kids
about it. Ask direct questions, "Have you or
any of friends ever been harassed
online”?
Ø
Ask them what may
have happened with their friends, this makes it
easier to start a
dialog.
Let your children know the following: They
can…
Ø
Block emails from
bullies
Ø
Block Id’s in
IM/AIM that are saying hurtful things or
harassing them
Ø
Never give out
your full name or any personal information
online, always first name
only!
Ø
Do not respond to
bullies- TELL YOUR PARENTS or another adult!
They are not alone.
*
Myspace
-Online diaries/journals/blogs. Is it
safe?
Myspace is a meeting/social
networking
website.
Millions of teenagers, (and
millions of adults)
create
highly personal profiles and
journal their thoughts
online.
These often include shockingly
revealing photos,
and
personal
information.
There are not filters that you ,
as a parent can use to keep your child from
seeing all of these.
Myspace is loaded with nude photos, and
tons of sexual inappropriate
content.
A study of teenagers' blogs/journals
published this year by the
Children's Digital Media
Center
at
GeorgetownUniversityrevealed that
kids volunteer far too much
information.
Two-thirds provide
their age and at least their first name; 60
percent offer their location and contact
information.
One in five
offer up their full name. Our kids are
telling strangers their inner most
feelings,
school they
attend, town they live in and more. This is
not safe, at any age
*
You must be 14 to sign up. ( this is in no
way enforced)
Just two years after its
creation, MySpace went from zero
to more fifty million
members.
As of August
2006, the web reports were up to 100
million!
|
Percentage of
Monthly Market Share of
Visits Among Top Social
Networking Web Sites
(U.S.), April Through
June 2006 |
| Domain |
June
2006 |
May
2006 |
April
2006 |
| www.myspace.com |
79.97 |
77.20 |
76.07 |
| www.thefacebook.com |
7.58 |
8.73 |
8.24 |
| www.xanga.com |
3.81 |
4.40 |
5.29 |
| 360.yahoo.com |
1.13 |
1.29 |
1.38 |
| www.bebo.com |
0.98 |
0.77 |
0.73 |
| www.tagged.com |
0.92 |
0.97 |
1.17 |
| www.classmates.com |
0.83 |
1.01 |
1.30 |
| www.hi5.com |
0.78 |
1.06 |
1.19 |
| spaces.msn.com |
0.75 |
1.29 |
1.41 |
| www.sconex.com |
0.64 |
0.70 |
0.81 |
| www.gaiaonline.com |
0.57 |
0.50 |
0.50 |
| www.bolt.com |
0.52 |
0.43 |
0.21 |
| www.friendster.com |
0.46 |
0.53 |
0.58 |
| www.orkut.com |
0.30 |
0.33 |
0.30 |
| www.myyearbook.com |
0.26 |
0.25 |
0.24 |
| www.crushspot.com |
0.18 |
0.18 |
0.18 |
| www.migente.com |
0.16 |
0.18 |
0.19 |
| www.tagworld.com |
0.13 |
0.14 |
0.14 |
| www.faceparty.com |
0.02 |
0.02 |
0.03 |
| www.xuqa.com |
0.02 |
0.02 |
0.04 |
|
Source:
Hitwise, 2006 |
All parents need to
take a serious look around these websites
before you let your children
participate.
*
Sexual
solicitations from strangers are a
fact of life for MySpace.com
bloggers.
It is the No.1 site for
teen social networking and "if teens
are there, predators are there
too,"
said John Shehan of the National
Center for
Missing & Exploited Children's
Exploited Child
Unit.
*
If you decide to allow your
child to participate, make sure you help them
set
“Myspace” privacy feature. This only
allows approved “friends” access to their
information and
photos,
and
keeps their profile from being posted for
the general
population
*
Check out this and all
websites before your children sign
up.
*
Talk to your child about
online safety
*
Keep your eye on where and
what they are doing
online.
Recent News from
Wikipedia about schools restricting
the use of
myspace.
Many schools and
public libraries in the United States and
the United Kingdom have restricted access
to
MySpace because it
has become "such a haven for student gossip
and malicious
comments".[23]
A Catholic
school in New Jersey has even prohibited
students from using MySpace at
home,
on MySpace or
similar websites or face
suspension.[25]
The school claimed
that this action was made to protect its
students from online
predators.[26]
On
July 28 ,
2006 , the
United States House of Representatives
passed a controversial
bill
requiring
libraries and schools receiving certain
types of federal funding (
E-rate )
to prevent
unsupervised minors from using chat rooms
and social networking
websites,
was approved by a
410-15 vote and is pending approval in the
United States Senate.
.
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