Monitoring Your Children Online

The internet is a magnificent educational tool that can assist people with anything from a cooking recipe to how to solve a calculus equation. Have a problem and you are not sure where to find the answer? Not to worry Google will solve all with just a few simple clicks! There are negative implications to being able to find any and all types of information online, such as websites that promote violent and harmful behaviors. One can find websites that encourages eating disorders, self-mutilation, and body modification accompanied by graphic images and instructions on how to achieve these harmful acts. Hate groups such as, the Ku Klux Klan, the Westboro Baptist Church, and the Neo-Nazis use the internet as an outreach tool to advertise their agenda and to recruit new members. Anyone can learn how to make a bomb and methamphetamine by running a quick online search. Easy online access to pornography has always been a controversial issue but some pornography demonstrates child abuse and rape. Do you want your children to have access to any of these violent and/or harmful behaviors?

Many of these sites are protected by the First Amendment, but there are ways to protect ourselves and our children from information we do not want to be exposed to. The Children’s Internet Protection Act is a federal law that limits access to obscene content, child pornography, or images and content that is considered harmful to minors on school and library computers. (For more information about this act visit: http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cipa.html). Parents are able to set up search engines that filter out adult content and even purchase filtering software!

Here is a list of some free child friendly search engines:

http://kids.yahoo.com/

http://www.squirrelnet.com/search/Google_SafeSearch.asp

http://www.askkids.com/

Net Nanny is filtering software that includes parental controls and monitors internet activity.

http://www.netnanny.com/

This site provides information on how to modify your search filters on your home Google page:

http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35892

Tips for Children and Teens:

• If you come across a website, picture, message, etc. that makes you uncomfortable or threatened to your parents about it!
• Do not respond to messages or requests online (via email, instant messaging, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) that make you feel uncomfortable or that you are unsure about
• Use friendly search engines that are designated for children and teens
• Be aware that you may search for one thing online and accidently come across something completely different online (safe search engines will help prevent this!)
• Do not search or browse through websites and other online information that you know your parents would not approve of
• If you have questions about something you have stumbled across online, talk to your parents about it

Tips for Parents:

• Set up internet filtering programs for your children
• Make sure you are educated about internet safety, filtering programs, and the various ways to monitor what your children are browsing through online
• Talk to your children about internet safety and let them know what they could potentially access could be dangerous or harmful
• Check the website history before and after your children use the computer
• Put your family computer in an open area so that you can monitor what your children are browsing through online
• Become familar with the websites your children are using

Online Predators and Exploitation

Feeling safe on the internet is different from being safe on the internet. As the usage of chat rooms, social networks, photo uploading, and blogging increases, the more necessary it becomes to understand risks at hand. Do you know the populations at risk when it comes to online soliciting? How about the risks associated with certain platforms on the web? These are just some of the concerns parents and youth should confront and become as aware of as possible!

Let Us Prevent Online Risks With Knowledge!

DID YOU KNOW?

• There are over 100,000 web sites offering child pornography


• 79% of teenagers admit they aren’t careful when giving out personal information online


• 64% of teenages admit that they engage in online activity that they wouldn't want their parents to know about


• One in Five Children are sexually solicited online and only 25% of those confided in a parent


• 89% of sexual solicitations occur in chat rooms or through instant messaging
  

WATCH THESE

video link to MSNBC dateline experiment: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/6089037#6089037

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

video link to internet caucus panel in DC on predators: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/05/11/just_the_facts.html


LAWS FOR OUR PROTECTION:

Protect Our Children Act
Sets requirements for Internet companies to report incidences of child pornography.

Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act
Requires a sex offender to provide the National Sex Offender Registry with all of his Internet identifiers, such as e-mail addresses.


Sex Offender Registries

http://www.familywatchdog.us/

www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/cac/registry.htm

http://www.registeredoffenderslist.org/

ADULTS

Ask your children questions about their internet use

Make clear cut rules about usage

Make sure your child knows that it is ok to discuss serious issues that may arise

Monitor pictures your child takes and or posts

Utilize search engines and software that have censorship capabilities
check out this website for some software options:
http://www.wellresearchedreviews.com/computer-monitoring/?id=58&s=google&gclid=CMmq_aPD85kCFcxL5QoduTpBPw

CHILDREN

Do not converse with strangers online who are not in your age group

Sensor your profile content (do not include personal characteristics or info)

Ask your parents questions when curious about different things

Avoid content that you wouldn’t feel comfortable letting your parents know about

Online Banking, Identity Theft, and Fraud

Online Banking

Do you use online banking? If so, are you familiar with your banks privacy policy? This might be something you want to learn more about. Your bank might want to share your information with third parties to advertise other services to you. It may also track what websites you visit on the internet to better market advertisements to suit your interests. It is required by law that your bank provide you with its privacy policy a well as clear guidelines on how to opt out. It is also possible that you can block tracking through your internet browser.

It is important to make sure that your bank’s website is encrypted. If the site is encrypted, it will scramble personal information to protect against unauthorized access. A small lock should appear at the bottom right corner of the browser.

Is Online Banking Safe?

Watch more USA TODAY videos on AOL Video

Passwords

Never use personal information that is easy to guess as a password, such as birthdays. The longer a password is, and the more complicated it is, the stronger the security will be. It is good to include both capital and lowercase letters and numbers.

Examples of very secure passwords:

Butterfly583

Sh0pp1ng

L0VE2sw1m

You should also try to switch your passwords from time to time. In the bank where I worked, we switched passwords every month. The change could be as small as just changing the number in the password. For instance, if in January my password is PassWord01, I might change it to PassWord02 in February.

E-mail – Avoid Phishing Scams!

Your bank will never send you an e-mail asking you to verify your account information. Sometimes scammers will send an e-mail acting as a bank or credit card to steal your identity. Below is an example of such a scam:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/the-recession-a-boon-for-internet-scams/?scp=1&sq=internet%20fraud&st=cse

Never give out personal information unless you are in a secure site

with a company you trust.

Take this quiz to learn more and to test your knowledge:

For more games like this one, visit OnGuard Online (http://www.onguardonline.gov/games/overview.aspx). This is a website written by the federal government to help citizens protect themselves from fraud.


How Can You Protect Your Children?
As far as your children are concerned, keeping the lines of communication between you and them is important. Talk to your children about what they are doing on the internet.

Below I have provided a short tutorial on how to control the privacy settings for your internet browser:

For Internet Explorer users:

Click on “Tools” then “Internet Options.”

Click on the tab labeled “Security” and control your settings from there.

For Firefox users:

Click on “Tools."

Click on “Options.”

Your settings can then be altered under “Privacy” and “Security.”

It is best just to read through all of your options and decide what kind of settings you will need.

For more specific guidelines on how much protection your child needs (by age) see:

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/family/age/stages.mspx

Fun sites and search engines that are safe for your kids:

http://www.wisekids.org.uk/Kids_safe_search_engines.htm

For more information from the FDIC on safe internet banking:

http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/online/protect.html

How to Protect your Face

Internet protection is highly applicable to everything you do on the computer. Everyday children, teens and adults use facebook, myspace, myyearbook, chat rooms, aim, yahoo blogs and so much more. I want to help teach you how to protect yourself or your children.

For adults:
Did you know employers can look at your profiles or blogs? There are privacy setting so that only people you are friends with can see your profile, or you can hide your profile so no one can find you. As an adult if you have a social network it should have information that you would not care that everybody could see. As for your children, checking your child’s profiles and blogs will help eliminate predators, misleading information and activity that is not condoned in the household.

For children:
Do you know how much information people can find off of your profile? A blog or profile where you enter your information can lead people to find out information about you or others that you may not want them to know. As a child you should not place personal information such as your phone number, school, or address on your profile.

Ways to protect your face:
· Do not place revealing information about yourself on your profile such as, your phone number or address
· Change your password every few months and don’t tell or write it down for anyone
· Change the privacy settings on your profiles so only friends can see your information
· Screen the people who you add as friends to your profile

Here is a video that shows what not to do, and how not to protect your password and username.