SET GROUND RULES FOR CHILDREN

Listcrime is a one-stop-shop for reliable, up-to-date information about cyber crime, we at Listcrime.com want to give home users and small businesses the advice they need to use the Internet safely. For the most part, references within this web page appear as links to the actual site that the information came from. I revert to customary referencing when citing non-WWW based sources. A bibliography of any sources not linked will appears at the end of this web page.

WHAT ARE THE DANGERS OF THE INTERNET?

The Internet offers a global wealth of information. However, its success and diversity is in part due to the fact that its content is open to all and so is effectively unregulated. As such, policing the content is very difficult, particularly because the Internet also offers a degree of anonymity for both its users and content providers. Legislation is also a problem because the Internet doesn't necessarily respect national borders and laws.


While the Internet can be a fun and great learning and recreational resource for children, it is very important that they are educated about how to surf the internet safely and responsibly. Social networking sites like www.myspace.com and www.facebook.com can be fun to use as well as an effective way for young people to link up with friends and people who have similar interests. As with many online environments, there are some risks involved in interacting with others and putting personal information online. Such risks can include cyberbullying, exposure to anti-social or illegal material, and being targeted by sex offenders or others who may wish to cause harm.

Parents need to understand that the greatest risk our children face online is being denied access. The Internet is essential to our children's education, future careers and lives. But even the most experienced Internet user doesn't understand how children use the Internet and how to help them have a safer and more enjoyable surfing experience.

As many of these sites are used by young people, parents can help minimise such risks by getting involved in their child's online life and providing a tool box of strategies to help them stay safe while having fun online.  Another issue related to the presence of children on the Internet is the potential misuse of this tool. Whether the consequences are intentional or unintentional, the Internet can open a dangerous window of accessibility for children who are unaware of the consequences of irresponsible use. For this reason, it is essential that teachers and parents consider how to educate children about the consequences associated with misusing the Internet.

POPULAR SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

My Space
You Tube
FaceBook
IRC
Instant Messaging

MySpace is a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos internationally. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California, USA, where it shares an office building with its immediate owner, Fox Interactive Media; in turn, the owner of Fox Interactive and therefore MySpace, News Corporation, has its headquarters in New York City.

Click Here: ikeepsafe.org myspace tutorial

Facebook  is a social networking website, launched on February 4, 2004. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg, a former Harvard student. Initially the membership of Facebook was restricted to students of Harvard College. It was subsequently expanded to MIT, Boston University, Boston College, and all Ivy League schools within two months. Many individual universities were added in rapid succession over the next year. Eventually, people with a university (e.g .edu, .ac.uk, etc.) email address from institutions across the globe were eligible to join. Networks were then initiated for high schools on February 27, 2006 and some large companies. Since September 11, 2006, anyone 13 or older may join. Users can select to join one or more participating networks, such as a high school, place of employment, or geographic region.

Click Here: See How Facebook works

YouTube(pronounced /juːtuːb/ or /juːtjuːb/) is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. YouTube was created in mid-February 2005 by three former PayPal employees. The San Bruno-based service uses Adobe Flash technology to display a wide variety of video content, including movie clips, TV clips and music videos, as well as amateur content such as videoblogging and short original videos. In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for US$1.65 billion in Google stock. The deal closed on November 13, 2006.

Click Here: See How Social Networking sites work

Instant Messaging (IM): is a form of real-time communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via computers connected over a network such as the Internet.

Instant messaging (IM) and chat are technologies that facilitate near real-time text based communication between two or more participants over a network. It is important to understand that what separates chat and instant messaging from technologies such as email is the perceived synchronicity of the communication by the user - Chat happens in real-time before your eyes. For this reason, some people consider communication via instant messaging to be less intrusive than communication via phone. However, some systems allow the sending of messages to people not currently logged on (offline messages), thus removing much of the difference between Instant Messaging and email.

Text-based chat or IRC: Online chat is a way of communicating by sending text messages to people in the same chat-room in real-time. The oldest form of true chat rooms are the text-based variety. There are also graphical user interface (GUI) text-based chat rooms which allow users to select an identifying icon and modify the look of their chat environment.

Twitter: is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates" (or "tweets"; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter web site, via the Twitter web site, short message service (SMS), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook.

Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone is the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application. For SMS, four gateway numbers are currently available: short codes for the United States, Canada, and India, as well as a United Kingdom number for international use. Several third parties offer posting and receiving updates via email.

 

THINK AHEAD

  • Understand the risks yourself and plan ahead before allowing children access to the internet.
  • Decide, agree and communicate what your children can and cannot do online.
  • Consider signing a computer use contract with your children.
  • Work out how you are going to monitor their internet use.
  • The boundaries you set and the kind of conversations you have with your children will depend on their age and technical ability as well as your judgement as parents.
  • These factors will change as they grow up and should be reconsidered regularly.

ABC's FOR PARENTS

  • Ask your children to share all their online user names and passwords with you.
  • Be sure your children don't spend all of their time on the computer.
  • Consider installing internet monitoring software to track what they do online. Explain what viruses and spyware are, what you are doing to prevent them and ask them to come to you if they get an alert while online.
  • Don’t rely on a single technical solution. Supervision and education are also part of good parenting.
  • Ensure that your children use only monitored chat rooms on reputable kids’ sites.
  • For younger children, always sit with them while they are online.
  • Get to know their "online friends" just as you get to know all of their other friends.
  • Help them find a balance between computing and other activities.
  • Invest time into finding age-appropriate internet sites that you can suggest to your children.
  • Just talk to your kids and set limits on when they can use the computer and for how long.
  • Keep up with internet filtering software (if installed) so that you can control or block access to some unacceptable sites or only allow access to sites you have approved (see Internet content filtering).
  • Let your children know they can come to you if they feel uncomfortable or threatened online.
  • Make sure your children know not to share personal information, like their name, address or telephone number, with anyone online.
  • Never put the computer in an closed area in the home like their bedrooms.
  • Openly encourage your children to share their internet experiences with you.
  • Permissible and non permissible sites should be discussed.
  • Quickly set up a limited user account on the family computer that restricts what they can do without your permission.
  • Restrict their ability to download software, music or other files without your permission.
  • Set Internet Explorer to limit access to inappropriate content. To do this: go to the Tools menu and click Internet Options. Select the Content tab and then click Enable under Content Advisor.
  • Time to make it very clear that they must not give out personal information without your permission. In particular, addresses, phone numbers, school details, passwords or pictures.  Also take care to limit children's access to credit card and bank information.
  • Use an up-to-date web browser with a built-in pop-up filter to prevent unwanted adverts appearing onscreen.
  • People, not computers, should be their best friends and companions.
  • Keep the computer in a family room, kitchen or living room, not in your children's bedroom.
  • Learn enough about computers so you can enjoy them together with your kids.
  • Warn them to be careful about giving away their email address in chat rooms or when registering for sites.
  • Forbid them to meet anyone in person that they encounter online without your consent and without a responsible adult present.
  • Agree what types of sites are permissible and which are not; for example you may make a policy of not allowing them to use un-moderated chat rooms or to use file sharing programs.  
  • Watch your children when they're online and see where they go.
  • Make sure that your children feel comfortable coming to you with questions.
  • Keep kids out of chatrooms or IRCs, unless they are monitored
  • Encourage discussions between you and your children about what they enjoy online.
  • Discuss these rules, get your children to agree to adhere to them and post them near the computer as a reminder.
  • Agree whether (or not) they are allowed to spend money online. Although you might not give them your credit card, if you have already stored your details at an online store it may be easy for children to spend you money if you don't take steps to limit their access or agree ground rules.
  • Remember to monitor their compliance with these rules, especially when it comes to the amount of time your children spend on the computer.

 

  • DISCUSSION POINTS
    • People online are not necessarily who they say they are and bad people can sometimes appear friendly and good.
    • How to weigh up information found online and how to spot the difference between fact and opinion.
    • How to use online resources with homework.  It’s okay to research online but simply cutting and pasting information is cheating.
    • The nature of internet piracy – downloading music, television, films, games and other software. Just because the internet makes it easy, it doesn’t make it right (see Be careful with peer-to-peer file sharing).
    • How you expect your children to behave towards other people while they are online. Explain that gossiping, bullying etc. are unacceptable.
    • Talk to your kids about online pornography and direct them to good, age-appropriate sites about relationships and sexuality.
    • Talk about advertising and how it affects you. The American Public Broadcasting Service has a good website that can help you and your children explore the issue.

     

    KNOW THE RISKS

    • Inadvertent exposure to violent or sexually explicit images.
    • Solicitation by sexual predators in chat rooms and by email.
    • Online bullying or harassment.
    • Piracy of software, music or video.
    • Disclosure of personal information.
    • Spyware and viruses.
    • Excessive commercialism: advertising and product-related websites.
    • Illegal downloads, such as copyright-protected music files.

    CLICK HERE MONITOR ONLINE ACTIVITY

    ADVICE FOR KIDS

  • Never post your personal information, such as your cell phone number, address, or the name of your school or school team.

    Be aware that information you give out in blogs could also put you at risk of victimization. People looking to harm you could use the information you post to identify you or gain your trust. They can also deceive you by pretending they know you.

    Never give out your password to anyone other than your parent or guardian.

    Only add people as friends to your site if you know them in person.

    Never meet in person with anyone you first “met” on a social networking site. Some people may not be who they say they are.

    Think before posting your photos. Personal photos should not have revealing information, such as school names or locations. Look at the backgrounds of the pictures to make sure you are not giving out any identifying information without realizing it. The name of a mall, the license plate of your car, signs, or the name of your sports team on your jersey all contain information that can reveal your location.

  • And never post sexually provocative photos of yourself or your friends.
  • Never respond to harassing or rude comments posted on your profile. Delete any unwanted messages or friends who continuously leave inappropriate comments. Report these comments to the networking site or Internet Service Provider if they violate that site’s terms of service.

    Check the privacy settings of the social networking sites that you use:

    1. Set privacy so that people can only be added as your friend if you approve it.
    2. Set privacy so that people can only view your profile if you have approved them as a friend.

    Remember that posting information about your friends could put them at risk. Protect your friends by not posting any names, passwords, ages, phone numbers, school names, or locations. Refrain from making or posting plans and activities on your site.

    Always remember what you post online is not private. Parents, teachers, coaches, employers, and admissions officers may go online and find out things about you – from your profile, or from someone else’s. Some teens have lost jobs, admission offers, and scholarships because of information posted online.

  • Anyone you don't know who asks you for personal information, photos or videos.
  • Unsolicited obscene material from people or companies you don't know.
  • Misleading URLs on the Internet that point you to sites containing harmful materials rather than what you were looking for.
  • Anyone who wants to send you photos or videos containing obscene content of individuals 18 and younger. (The possession, manufacturing, or distributing of child pornography is illegal.)
  • Online enticement for offline sexual activities. (No one should be making sexual invitations to you online – and it’s an especially serious crime for adults to do it.)

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