No Name Online

The potential of the internet is staggering; its potential as a means of finding information, shopping, socialising, relaxing and generally making our lives easier and richer. It has therefore become a perfect place for all of us, but particularly our children, to express ourselves and flourish. However, its potential also extends to those looking to illegally exploit the billions of us logging on, so it’s vital that we know how to protect our children whenever they’re online.

There are perhaps more risks that can potentially affect children when they’re online than adults, but on the other hand it should, in many respects, be easier to keep these risks at an arms length. In addition to the threats that adults encounter, children may also have to be protected from issues ranging from inappropriate content (such as ‘adult’ sites) to the more sinister threats that some other users pose younger individuals online.

A Safe Environment

Before allowing your child to access the internet, your first step should be to set up a controlled environment in which your child can get online. That might mean specifying the times of the day in which they can access the computer (some operating systems now have built in controls to help you with this) but should definitely include setting up a unique account for your child which can then be set to have only limited permissions – for example, not the ability to download and install new programs.

Inappropriate Content

There is a forum for pretty much anything on the internet and that includes many subjects (and therefore much content) that would be inappropriate for young children to be exposed to. Ideally, as your child grows up you would want to educate them as to these dangers and encourage them to make their own sensible decisions when browsing the web, however it is also sensible to create a safe environment for them using parental controls so that they will not stumble into inappropriate areas by accident.

Parental controls can come in the form of special software or the built in functions in later versions of Windows and Mac OS which will allow you to specify which websites your children will be able to access as well as what activities they will be able to perform on your PC. It is worth spending some time familiarising yourself with these programs to ensure you create a safe but still rewarding environment for your child.

It is also worth keeping your browser up to date and ensuring that it is set to block pop up windows so that your children do not see anything they weren’t expecting to and setting your home page to a child friendly site so that they at least start browsing in a safe environment.

You can if you wish also install internet monitoring software which will track your child’s online activity if you have any concerns over what they might be seeing or doing.

Viruses

Before anyone connects to the internet on your PC, you or your child, you should always ensure that you have taken steps to protect the computer against the threat of malware, or as they tend to be more commonly referred, viruses.

Viruses are basically pieces of computer code which can find their way onto your computer and then perform actions that you wouldn’t want them to such as gleaning personal information from your hard drive, disrupting the running of your computer and attacking other people’s computers. The internet offers many ways for them to get around and to propagate and it is a constant battle to keep them at bay however, a few basic steps should give your PC enough protection for you to sleep easy – activate your firewall (most operating systems will have a built in firewall), install antivirus software and run scheduled scans – there are plenty of reliable and free antivirus programs available.

Viruses can hide themselves in files and emails that you download to your PC so you should also make you child aware that they should only download and open files and emails that they know are from a reliable and trusted source. Again parental controls can be used to restrict a child’s ability to download content which could potentially harbour viruses regardless of whether it is appropriate or not.

Many antivirus programs will come with scanners which can verify the safety of emails and files before they are opened. Email providers, such as Hotmail and Google, and desktop clients such as Outlook and Thunderbird, will attempt to filter out any messages that it thinks might be dangerous as Spam. However, your child should be encouraged to mark any messages that get through the filters as spam if they can’t verify where they have come from, and to raise any concerns with you.

Information/Identity theft

One of the biggest areas of cybercrime is that of identity theft, through either legally or illegally harvesting personal information. This is an issue for children using the internet just as much as it is for adults – criminals don’t mind whose information they can get.

The key thing to remember is that once you have put your information into the public domain you have no control over what happens to it. Therefore, you should only submit information to sites and services you trust to keep it secure. Your children should be made aware of these risks and if necessary limited to sites which can be trusted to handle personal information responsibly.

By having antivirus software installed you should be protected against the risk of spyware which would attempt to grab personal information from your PC but you children should also be made aware of the risks of responding to emails with personal information or following links back to websites which then request personal information. Emails that appear to be from a trusted source may or may not be a scam but emails really from trusted sources will not request personal information anyway as it is usually an unsecured method of submitting it.

Social Networking

Often the key driver for children wanting to be online is the opportunity that it offers for them to communicate with their friends and share their interests with them. Children are more likely to be familiar with how these social networking sites work than their parents but they may not be so aware of the potential risks.

Bullying (cyberbullying) on social networking sites is a growing concern and it is hard to proactively protect children against it. They should therefore be encouraged to report any instances to you as soon as they happen so that you can either report them to the site administrators and/or remove your child from the site.

A key lesson which applies to the whole of the web, but particularly social networking sites is that people may not be who they pretend to be. Children need to be acutely aware of this as they may encounter individuals posing as potential friends who have more unhealthy intentions.

Social networking sites encourage sharing and there is a risk that children will share too much information if they are not aware of the consequences. Before allowing a child on a social networking site it they should again be made aware of these risks and it may well be worth working with them to ensure their privacy settings are set to an appropriate level before they start using the site.

With all the risks, the key is to have an open dialogue with your child so that they are aware of internet safety, understand the potential threats and feel encouraged to report any issues to you. You cannot prevent every threat but if your child is educated on the dangers and has an open channel of communication with you, you can steer a safe course and your child will get the most out of the internet.

Who should read this article:

Any parent with minor children who use the internet.

Introduction:

Identity theft is a huge problem worldwide. It is not limited to adults; children can also have their identities stolen. It’s much harder to catch someone using a kid’s identity, since the child is under the age of 18.

Think about it: how many kids do you know that use a credit card? How many youngsters under the age of 18 work on a regular payroll (where they get paid by check, not cash)? Not many, I’ll bet. How long do you think that person will be able to work or buy things using your child’s identity? Not long or not at all if you are vigilant from the beginning.

This article will give you tips to proactively protect your minor child’s identity.

Proactively protect against ID theft:

1. I’ve often wondered about those family websites. Let’s take a fictional family: the Brown’s. On sites like these, you will often see pictures of all the children, where they go to school, how old they are, and so on. You can certainly share these things with other family members, but what possesses these people to put their family business online? Millions of internet users can study websites like these just by typing “list family websites” into any search engine.

Tip: a family site is not an appropriate place to post anything personal family information. It’s very easy for an online predator to steal private information. Take any family site down immediately.

2. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have exploded in popularity. I’ve often seen profiles of people that also list each member of their family, their photographs, and other identifying information. These social media sites are extremely popular these days, so there are lots of predators that can study each profile. All they have to do is become a member and start searching!

Tip: make your social media profiles as brief as possible. Post nothing (including any family pictures) that you wouldn’t want used against you or your child.

Tip: whatever you do, don’t let your minor child have his own social media profile. If she insists, do not let her post any pictures or any other information. She can even use an alias. Make sure you monitor her usage closely (insist on having her username and password).

3. This one is interesting: you need not provide your kid’s school with his social security number. Apparently, many schools ask for it and you DO NOT have to provide it. Wow, how easy it would be to grab hundreds of socials in one go. Can you see how many unblemished credit records you would have? Think of how many of these SSN’s can be used for work purposes.

Tip: don’t provide your child’s school with his social security number. The school can, if they wish, generate a nine digit random number(as an example) to represent your child. It should raise a red flag if they insist on it; in this case, consider another school for your youngster.

4. Does your child have a savings account? There is no need to give away any of your child’s personal information to the bank. All you need to do is establish the account in your name. Your child’s name can appear as the account holder, but your name should also be there as the guardian. And if the bank needs an identifying number and they insist on a social security number, give them yours. You can also take your business to another bank.

Tip: if your child has a bank account, establish it yourself and use your social security number if the bank insists.

5. Keep your kid’s social security card(and yours too!) under lock and key in your house. Preferably, keep all private information in a file folder and store it in a fire-proof box. Keep the safe hidden in a closet. Anyone breaking into your house will most likely be looking for cash or small items they can fence easily. They will not be looking for documents.

Tip: store all your youngster’s personal information in a file and put it in a fire-proof safe that has a lock on it. Never have any personal documentation in an unlocked drawer or on a shelf.

6. Many new online users think that sending regular email is safe, their privacy assured. Nothing could be further from the truth. Email is easy to intercept and read. Most email users are not sophisticated enough to encode all their messages and have the receiver at the other end decode each message before reading. Lots of people use their email attachment capability to send pictures and other information about their children to other family members and friends.

Tip: don’t use email attachments to send family photos and especially other identifying information on any family member. Online information is simply too easy to steal. So what can you do instead? Send any pictures via the post office or even better, UPS or Fedex. If you send the photos along with other things, it is very unlikely to be opened and resealed en route. Think about it: the bad guy has to open the package, look around for identifying information he can use, and reseal the package. It’s too easy for him to get caught!

Tip: if you need to send personal information about your child, use registered or address/return/receipt mail. That’s the safest way. Even your telephone conversations can be monitored if someone wants to go to a LOT of trouble, but it’s possible.

Tip: if your child has his own email account, make sure you know his user name and

password. Monitor his email yourself. Encourage your kid to make up an address book of his trusted friends and relatives. Then set up his email so that anything coming from other addresses is sent to the junk folder AND immediately deleted. Your son or daughter should never has to see any junk email.

Tip: make sure to investigate any new friends your child adds to his address book. If it is someone he knows only online, you need to find out what you can about this person before any emailing takes place. Again, monitor your child’s email, to the point of reading any email before she does. You will not be popular, but you will feel safer. As your child gets to be about 16 or so and seems to be trustworthy, you can relax these rules a bit.

7. When your child starts using the internet, it’s time to sit down and talk to him about identity theft predators online. Explain to your son or daughter how easy it is for someone to steal their identities. You will also have to try to help them understand why this is so important. When you start talking about “credit history” and “bad credit” and “ruined credit”, it may pass over their heads. You might talk to them about someone working using their SSN, but they may not understand. That’s OK, keep talking until they get old enough to understand for themselves.

Tip: talk to your children early about the importance of keeping their identities private. Start when they start using the internet or around 13 at the latest. Use parent controls on your kid’s computer, and make these controls as tight as you want. You won’t be popular with your children, but they will thank you later when they hear about their friends who have had their identities stolen!

Tip: tell your child again and again not to give out any personal information in emails, especially to someone they met online. Do not allow your minor child to send any pictures of themselves to people you have not met.

8. If you both work and need to hire care providers for your children, do not give these household employees any more information than they need to know. There is no reason for a nanny or babysitter to know your child’s social security number. Any child care provider needs to know where to take your child in a medical emergency, what time to take or pick him up from school, what to feed him, and so on. And that’s it.

Tip: if you need to hire a care provider for your children, give them ONLY what they need to know to do their job effectively. No matter how long they work for you, they do NOT need to know any personal information about your child, including their social.

9. Here’s a pretty obvious one: use a combination of letters and numbers for any password. Also, make any user id have the same equal combination of letters and numbers. So if your child has his own email or social media account, here are some quick tips for user id and password aliases:

Tip: do not use any part of your child’s name. No middle names, no confirmation names, no first initial/last name combinations. These are too easy to guess or find accidentally.

Tip: do not use any pet’s name, like the family dog. This is especially true if your child posts a picture of his dog and mentions that the dog’s name is “Sam”.

Tip: a user name or password should not be any word that can be found in the dictionary. There are many password guessing programs that simply go through the dictionary, trying various combinations of words.

Tip: make sure that any user name or password is at least 12 characters long. Many social media or email sites require at least six characters, but this is not enough. The longer the passcode is, the harder it is to guess or dig out using software.

Tip: let’s say your kid’s name is Joseph David Williams.

Here’s an example of an easy to guess user name and password combination:

user name: jwilliams

password: david

Here’s an example of a very hard to guess user name and password combination for the same Joseph David Williams:

user name: *Sdc56s+)9s^c

password: 7^jbMj(LA79K&-

Note the use of capital and small letters, special characters, and how all of these can be combined into “words” that make no sense.

Tip: many sites will offer to remember at least the user name. Don’t let them. Make your child type it in every time. He will think this a real “pain in the neck” and he’s right, it is! But it’s better to take an extra minute or two and type in a hard to guess user name/password combination than to have someone steal his identity!

10. Don’t let your children have any type of deluxe or feature-rich cell phone. Make sure his cell phone can’t do any of the following:

a. Take pictures

b. Has internet access

c. Allows text messaging

Tip: This one’s easy. If you let your kid have internet on his cell phone, then his online usage is out of your control. Text messaging can be very expensive. It’s something your child does not really need. And there’s the whole privacy issue with cell phones that can take pictures. If you give your child a cell phone, it should be “no frills”, in other words, just a telephone.

Conclusions:

Most of the above is common sense, but it is amazing how trusting people are online. They tell things about themselves that they wouldn’t tell members of their own family. They somehow think that what they say is private and that they are invulnerable. This is especially true of teenagers.

You will understand and agree with this article if you make it a point to lock your doors at night and when you are not at home. Why make it easy for someone to break in?

Do yourself and your children a great favor; do anything you can to protect their identities, especially if they use the internet. If your child gets a laptop at school, make sure the school puts restrictions on online use.

One last thing: unfortunately, many people who steal children’s identities are other family members. You may have to consider not telling cousins, uncles, aunts, etc any personal information about your child unless they are staying with them.

Don’t let anyone convince you that you are being paranoid, better safe than sorry!

The Internet serves as an incredible tool for educators and students to communicate, research information, and learn. The widespread availability of computers and connections to the Internet provides everyone around-the-clock access to information, credit and financial services, and shopping.

Unfortunately, there are people who abuse the Internet through their criminal intentions and actions. Cybercriminals creatively gain unauthorized access to computers and then use that access to steal identities, commit fraud, and even attack other computers and networks.

Staying safe online is not as easy as it used to be when, for the most part, you could rely on your Internet provider or portal (AOL, MSN) to protect you. you are now forced to take proactive measures on your own.

Here are nine security measures you can employ immediate to protect yourself, your family, and your business. By following the recommended cyber security measures outlined here, you can limit the harm cyber criminals can do not only to your computer, but to everyone’s computer. However, keep in mind that there is no single cyber security measure or technological solution that will prevent their cybercrime. These recommended cyber security measures highlight that using a set of common-sense precautions that include Internet habits as well as technology solutions can make a difference.

The National Cyber Security Alliance recommends eight measures. To that, I have added an additional. They are practical steps, in no particular order, you can take to stay safe online and avoid becoming a victim of fraud, identity theft, or cyber crime.

1. Protect your children online. Implement parental control tools that are provided by some Internet Service Provider (ISPs) and available for purchase as separate software packages. Remember: No program is a substitute for parental supervision. Also check your browser to see if it would allow you to set some parental controls. (Internet Explorer allows you to restrict or allow certain web sites to be viewed on your computer, and you can protect these settings with a password. To find those options, click Tools on your menu bar, select Internet Options, choose the Content tab, and click the Enable button under Content Advisor.)

2. Back up important files regularly. No system is completely secure. If you have important files stored on your computer, copy them onto a removable disc, and store them in a secure place in a different building than your computer. If a different location isn’t practical, consider encryption software. Encryption software scrambles a message or a file in a way that can be reversed only with a specific password. Also, make sure you keep your original software start-up disks handy and accessible for use in the event of a system crash.

3. Protect your valuable personal and financial information. Don’t open unsolicited or unknown email messages. If you do get an email or pop-up message asking for personal information, don’t reply or click on the link in the message. To avoid opening such messages, you can turn off the “Preview Pane” functionality in email programs, and you can set your default options to view opened emails as plain text to avoid active links or pop-ups in the messages. Most importantly, do not respond to solicitations for your personal or financial information.

If you believe there may be a need for such information by a company with whom you have an account or placed an order, contact that company directly in a way you know to be genuine. Never send your personal information via email because email is not a secure transmission method.

4. Use strong passwords or strong authentication technology to help protect your personal information. To further increase the security of your online identity and to help protect you from account hi-jacking, take advantage of stronger authentication tools wherever available. This may take the form of two-factor authentication – the combination of a password or PIN number (something you know) with a token, smart card, or even a biometric device (something you have).

Stronger authentication can also come from a behind-the-scenes identity-verification process, which uses various data to establish whether or not a user is genuine. Ask your bank, your regular online retailers, and your Internet Service Provider (ISP) if they offer stronger authentication tools for more secure transactions.

5. Know who you’re dealing with online. Every day, millions of computer users share files online, either as email, documents, or photos. File-sharing can give people access to a wealth of information, including music, games, and software. You download special software that connects your computer to an informal network of other computers running the same software. Millions of users could be connected to each other through this software at one time. Often the software is free and easily accessible, but file-sharing can have a number of risks.

(a) If you don’t check the proper settings, you could allow access not just to the files you intend to share, but also to other information on your hard drive, like your tax returns, email messages, medical records, photos, or other personal documents.

(b)In addition, you may unwittingly download pornography labeled as something else. Or you may download material that is protected by the copyright laws, which would mean you could be breaking the law.

Therefore, downloading file-sharing software is not advisable and could place your personal information and computer at risk. If you do decide to use file-sharing software, set it up very carefully. Take the time to read the End User License Agreement to be sure that you’re sharing files legally and that you understand the potentially high risk of any free downloads. For example, some license agreements include an agreement to allow spyware to be installed on your machine.

Although the Internet basically provides a positive and productive experience, cyber-attacks against our personal privacy and security are reaching epidemic proportions. These attacks are occurring in our own homes and businesses. Our own computers are being used are being used as zombies to attack other people, businesses, and even our nation itself. As an average Internet user, you may not be aware of these threats nor have any idea about the dramatically increasing risks you face when connected to the Internet.

On a campaign for internet safety awareness and protection, my mission is to bring critical awareness to individuals, families, and small business owners, and to provide access to the necessary tools and ongoing expertise to secure your computer and help you stay protected.

Test your computer, discover what threats affect you and take the steps to protect yourself.