Keeping Your Kids Safe on the Internet

1. When the computer enters the house, place it in the living room. The last place a computer with Internet access should be is in a bedroom with a door that closes and locks. The child should become accustomed to the Internet being a ‘public’ place. This will send a psychologic message that anything one does on a computer is no different from doing it in the living room. The parent or a friend should be there teaching the child how to open an email account. Although some are secure requiring nothing but a user name name and a password, many collect a entire biography. If your child uses one of the email services which collects northing but name and password the greatest hackers in the world can never uncover her real name or address as the site doesn’t have her name or address. Yahoo.com, for example, not only asks for particulars but reveals them so that getting an email from snowflake@ yahoo.com arrives as (Jane Smith)snowflake@yahoo.com. A bit of hacking can easily unearth a lot of information about Jane Smith.
2. I.P. catching is an option on many sites; it was placed for the protection of the owner of the site, it can be used for other purposes. There are many personal I.P. catchers, which can be used to translate the I.P. number to the provider of the Internet service. Once getting the I.P. and its owner it is simplicity to learn the local from where it connects, so that a Zabasearch.com will find the Jane Smith who lives in New York City and reveal “Jane Smith at 123 Green Street, Brooklyn, New York, tel: (212) 5434445 is likely to be that snowflake@yahoo.com. The first thing one must do is get an email address which is safe because it asks and keeps no personal information. Catching the I.P. number might only reveal that it is a service provider in New York City, but said provider has a million customers.
3. On children’s sites as well as porn sites, the birthday is important. But even children’s sites can host pederasts so ‘chat’ should be carefully monitored.
4. Cams should never be used. If you have one, hide it, and it only comes out when you are there. Messenger services are not to be encouraged.
5. There are many sites for children, so you can introduce them to your kids, as well as other educational sites.
6. Give your child some privacy so that after a time you go away and leave your child alone with the computer.
7. Every so often, ask a question; “Can you find out what is the capital of Mongolia?” Or, “Can you get me a recipe for…” so that the ability to gain information is always primary.
8. Warn your child not to download anything, open attachments, or believe they won any prize, no matter how many times the pop up flashes. Malware; viri, trojan horses, etc. arrive on computers via ‘free’ games or opening attachments.
9. When your child is in bed, check the “history” section of the browser to see where your child went. Sometimes there may be an accident. Whitehouse.com is a porn site.
10. Many sites are harmless, some are not. Check them, but keep this information to yourself. If you find anything particularly bad do the sneaky thing; change the child’s password.
11. Firefox keeps a comfortable list of passwords. You can learn the password, go to the site as ’snowflake’ change the password into hkjhklhjj and when prompted to save, say no. In this way, she can not get back on the site, and doesn’t know what happened. Yes, it is sneaky, but better than going through a long discussion about “privacy” and “rights”.
12. Every so often bring up examples of children who had bad things happen to them on the Internet. Use cited examples. newspapers and the net is full of them. While discussing these cases ask; “What would you do if….?” You aren’t making up stories, you are talking about real life examples, things that happened to others just like her. Even if you don’t find “bad” sites in her history this conversation should take place every time there is an incident.
13. Teenagers are more difficult. Many know a great deal about hacking and so it will be more difficult to stop them or protect them.
14. When your kid lives on the computer, has moved the computer to his room, or has his own laptop, interrupt him. Force him to go outside, to meet people in real time, to play sports. Check his history when he’s at school. If he’s deleted his history, you know you have a situation.
15. Find out what he does on the computer. Going from site to site is not a problem. Playing games endlessly is. Looking at porn constantly, is. Playing games, glancing at porn, doing homework, is not a major problem, as kids will do this. The question is how much time is spent on each activity.
16. Taking away the computer sends him to someone else’s house. The Internet is not the problem. The child could have a problem.
17. Before the Internet, children had problems. No body likes me, I don’t like anyone, I hate the way I look, I hate where I live; 1940/1960/1980/2000; the same problem.
18. Many times what is necessary is to have outside activities, sports, for example, where the family goes somewhere together. It could be the movies, it could be a restaurant, it could be a museum, anywhere away from the computer, anywhere the family can be a family.

It is not impossible to keep your children safe, it just requires your time and interest.