1. Take the computer out of the kid’s room. What I find particularly frightening is that parents tend to do things that make them popular with their kids, not necessarily what’s safe for them. It’s almost like they’re trying to be their friend more than their parent. For example, they buy their kid a laptop or desktop and take no steps to set ground rules or follow up on agreements to not visit inappropriate websites.

Computers are a necessity in the world we live in, so not giving them a computer I think is too extreme in most cases. However, you can have them use it in an open area of your home. “But mom, I feel like you’re not giving me any privacy!” is what they’ll say, to which you reply, “When it comes to how you use the computer, you’re right. Take it or leave it and by the way, I love you.”

Harsh? Well, that depends on how soft a parent has been, so there may be a bumpy transition. But ultimately, a parent who cares about their children will no doubt want to know where they go outside of the home. Going online is no different.

2. Install a web filter. Tons of choices exists. Some good, some not so good, so you should spend a little time reviewing what others have said and decide which one is best for you. (I’ll be posting more about some choices you might consider later.)

3. Explain to your child what’s acceptable and what’s not. It’s not enough to tell them “Don’t go anywhere online that’s not good.” That leaves the door wide open for interpretation. What’s good? Social networks like MySpace for example, can be a good thing, but if used inappropriately, then trouble can happen. Sites of girls posing in bikinis may seem harmless, but could ultimately lead to other sites that are more provocative and then can lead to porn. Gambling sites are another danger zone.

4. Set timing restrictions. It’s one thing if a kid is online doing homework for hours. It’s an entirely different thing if they’re just online for hours aimlessly browsing. Personally, I’m guilty of this one as I do go online a lot keeping up my various blogs. Even so, I should still make time to be offline with the living and get some exercise. So even if a kid is online doing nothing harmless, it’s still a good thing, both mentally and physically, to have some time not hooked up to the web.

These are some of the main points that parents tend to overlook when it comes to their children being online. By no means is it conclusive, but starting with these can provide the foundation for safer and more beneficial web experience. Kids are naturally curious and that’s good, but if left to their own devices — without parental supervision — then that curiosity can lead them in the wrong direction.

This is especially true when it comes to Internet safety.

Do you really take part in your child’s Internet activities? Do you know where they’ve been online and to whom they’re talking to? Seriously, when a computer is hooked up to the Web, it’s a window into a whole world of things AND it’s a window into your home.

Sometimes parents forget this one crucial piece of information. They’ve given their child their own computer in their room and they think they’ve done a good thing by making them happy. Okay, happy they may be, but are they safe? Are they getting to know other people that, if you met them in person, you’d run screaming the other way?

Sexual predators know this. They know parents tend to let kids have unsupervised Internet activity and use this to the fullest extent of their skills. They groom kids into trusting them, get to know more about them, send them gifts to dig their claws into their prey even deeper. Don’t let your child be another statistic.

I watched a video this morning where a woman explained that her husband of 10 years was a sexual predator. He wasn’t someone in a dark trench coat either — what some people still think sexual predators look like. No, this guy was a children’s dentist and got a long swimmingly with his patients.

She didn’t have a clue until she was told by authorities that he went out of the country on what she thought was a business trip, but was actually going to meet up with young boys to have sex. I’m not going to sugar-coat this. Parents have to realize this stuff goes on all the time and the Web has only made it worse.

The Web is just like fire — it can help you or burn you or a loved one. Don’t let that happen. Get to know where your kids are going online. You’d want to know where they’re going out on the street with their friends, right? This is no different.

I’ll be posting later this week steps you can take to help make for a safe Web environment. Please stay tuned.

Parents also have control in a number of ways. After the software is installed, you see a padlock icon in the upper right corner of your browser. It’s always locked until you decide to unlock it, which is intended for when mom and dad want to get online. Seeing where your kids have been is also provided by viewing a history log. (I should point out that this feature is included with all web browsers, even without Littleye installed.)

You can also add to the list of safe websites. In case you decide one of the sites is not appropriate, you can choose to have it removed. Parents who wish to help in this manner for the good of other families can join the community and have a direct influence over the sites to include or not.

Littleye is free for the first 30 days. Afterwards, it’s $9.95.month. it’s $4.95 / month or $49/year annual subscription. It’s also compatible with Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox on the Windows and Apple platforms.

It has been estimated that 500,000 children were the victims of identity theft last year. Not only do I find that number staggering, but the fact that it’s children who are being affected is doubly so. To think that one’s identity could be stolen as a kid is not only heart-breaking, but speaks of the desperate and despicable behavior one will go to make a buck.

Family Secure is a website that focuses on providing parents with the means to protect their children’s identity from being stolen. It has the backing of ConsumerInfo.com, which belongs to Experian — the people who work with credit reports.

The thing about identity theft is that it could be years before the criminal is found out. And only when it’s too late does the victim learn about the wake of damage that has been left behind. Not only that, but when you’re talking about a child who is the victim, you’re talking about someone who is facing a long road ahead of them before they even enter adulthood.

One of the things Family Secure does is alert you when someone opens an account or applies for credit in your child’s name. Plus, they’ll do it when there is a significant change in your credit report.

There’s more to tell you, but I’d like you to find out for yourself by giving you one FREE year of their service. Yes, I have SIX promotional codes that I will give to the first six commenters to this post.

With one of these codes you will get one full year of FREE service to Family Secure instead of paying $19.95 a month. This means one parent and their child(ren) can enroll.

When leaving a comment, you’re required to enter your email address anyway. This is how I will contact you. Don’t worry, I hate spam, too, so your address is safe with me.

And that’s just the ones who were — excuse me — stupid enough to put their name out there for the authorities to see. I would think it would be virtually impossible to discover the ones who were a little more discrete.

This should be a wake-up call to caring parents who need to know what danger lies within this community. I’m not making a blanket statement that MySpace is all bad, but if you spend a few moments browsing the profiles you see on there it wouldn’t be long before you come across something, shall we say, unsavory.

Just like cyberbullying, the Web offers a feeling of freedom not normally found in the offline world. Just as it’s easy to harass someone online using the Web and be anonymous, so too is the feeling one has when they are in the comfort of their own bedrooms providing all sorts of data for all the world to see.

What can you do?

• Ask your child if they have a profile on MySpace. If they do, try not to freak (again, I’m not saying everyone on MySpace is bad), but ask to see it and judge for yourself if it contains appropriate material.
• Set guidelines for what is appropriate and what is not appropriate to put on their profile.
• Have them require visitors to be part of their network, thus requiring a login. At least this way some control is involved with who can see the information. And have them connect with only friends they know in real life.

I’ve viewed profiles on MySpace and have witnessed first hand that kids can put content of themselves that they wouldn’t think of showing mom and dad in a million years. Provocative poses, shots of inappropriate behavior, information about where they go to school or live, their cell phone number, and lots more.

What I’m suggesting here is not to eliminate their freedom of expression. I don’t think that’s even possible with kids today even if we tried. But it’s more about teaching them the difference between right and wrong. So many times kids think it’s only their friends who are viewing their information on their profiles. Not so, unless they’ve only limited their profile to be viewed by their friends.

[tags]MySpace,sex offenders,pedophiles[/tags]

This last message I received was still dripping with urgency, but they must have missed the class that explained how to hide the true destination of a link. Check it out:

Your account has been flagged!
PayPal Security Measures.

Dear PayPal Member,

Your account has been randomly flagged in our system as a part of our routine security measures. This is a must to ensure that only you have access and use of your Paypal account and to ensure a safe PayPal experience. We require all flagged accounts to verify their information on file with us. To verify your information at this time, please visit our secure server webform by clicking the hyperlink below:

[linked snipped]

If you choose to ignore our request, you leave us no choice but to temporarily suspend your account.

Thank you for your patience as we work together to protect your account.

I removed the link for obvious reasons. Just know that it was an IP address with nothing to do with PayPal. Both the displayed text of the link and the actual code behind it were the same.

What to take away from this message?

• As always, someone like PayPal would surely use your name if they were really contacting you.
• The part about “…you leave us no choice…” Come on — neither PayPal nor any self-respecting business would ever speak to their members that way. It’s merely to scare people into taking an action.
• Even though it’s not shown here, I can tell you that the message didn’t even show my email address. I had to dig deeper to find out what they did use, and true, it’s a real address of mine, but again, PayPal would have no reason to be so secretive about that.

Surf safely!

[tags]web safety,internet,phishing,scam,PayPal[/tags]

What makes Glubble different is that it’s not a typical web filter. Instead, it’s something that you tell it what you approve of. It also allows each member of the family to have their own customized access to the Web. If a site is not on your approved list, then your kids can’t get to it.

Once installed you’ll find it comes with a beginner’s pack of popular sites. You can add and remove as you like the sites you want. To get a preview, check out GlubbleWorld.

Through this GlubbleWorld of approved sites, you can also use popular search engines like Google and Yahoo. But not to worry: search results are filtered.

You have flexibility in the look and feel of Glubble, so you can make it age appropriate. If you find sites that you want to share with other families, you can do that, too. This feature could come in handy with a friends house or maybe visiting the grandparents. This way you’ll know they won’t be given free reign over the Web when they’re out of your sight.

One word of caution: I remind you that this is only for Firefox, which means Internet Explorer and other Web browsers on a computer are not affected. Kids have a way of being tech savvy, so they may already be familiar with the idea of other browsers that may be on your computer.

[tags]glubble,software,firefox,add-on,family,web safety,internet safety,kids,fun[/tags]

An attractive and well-laid out site, ChildNet International provides useful information for kids and adults, and done so in a variety of award-winning projects. There’s Jenny’s Story, a heart-felt story of a girl who started off making a friend online, then it turned to tragedy when they met face-to-face. And there’s ChildNet Academy, devoted to putting the spotlight on kids and those who help them achieve online excellence.

There’s also KidSmart, ChatDanger, Music & The Internet, and many more.

By promoting awareness and providing advice, they strive to instill “net literacy” skills in people of all ages. One of my favorites is Parent’s Resource, an interactive resource for parents to see another point of view on cyber issues and get tips on how to deal with them.

[tags]web safety,cyberbullying,cyberculture,parenting,family[/tags]

I recently found out that they’ve stopped selling their product, but it’s not because they’re going down the tubes. Instead, the news is good for you, me, and families everywhere. They’ve been purchased by Google! Their site has this to say:

GreenBorder Technologies, Inc. has been acquired by Google, Inc. We will continue to support our existing customers through the end of their current subscriptions.

And in case you haven’t heard, there have been rumors (and only rumors) for some time about Google creating its own browser. Perhaps things are moving in that direction with this recent acquisition. But even if it doesn’t, my hope is that they’ll offer GreenBorder (GoogleBorder?) as a free download given their efforts to make things publicly available.

I’ll be keeping an eye on this.

[tags]software,google,web safety,sandbox[/tags]

This latest attempt came out of the blue. Clue one. It was from a company I had never done business with nor heard of. Clue two. And finally, it didn’t show the email address it was using to get to me. Clue three. Any company I’ve done business with, to the best of my knowledge, has used the email address in the header of the message.

But the real telltale sign of this whale of a phish is the fact that the URL in the message was pointed to somewhere else entirely. Where? Well, it wasn’t the Federal Credit Union site, that’s for sure. How did I know this? Easy. I rolled my mouse over the link and looked at the bottom corner of the browser to see the URL it would have taken me to.

Here’s the message:

Account Info Verification

Dear FCU holder account,

As part of our security measures, we regularly screen activity in Federal Credit Unions (FCU) network.
We recently noticed the following issue on your account: A recent review of your account determined that we require some additional information from you in order to provide you with secure service. Case ID Number: PP-065-617-349 For your protection, we have limited access to your account until additional security measures can be completed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Please log in to your FCU account to restore your access as soon as possible.

You must click the link below and fill in the form on the following page to complete the verification process.

Click here to update your account (<-- link removed)

In accordance with NCUA User Agreement, your account access will remain limited until the issue has been resolved. Unfortunately, if access to your account remains limited for an extended period of time, it may result in further limitations or eventual account closure. We encourage you to log in to your FCU account as soon as possible to help avoid this. We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your account.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Sincerely, NCUA Account Review Department

Had I clicked on the link I would likely have found a place to enter my username and password. Doing so would have given them quick access to whatever I had in there. Fortunately, I didn’t have an account with FCU, so I didn’t have what they were likely to be looking for in the first place. Or perhaps they would have asked me right then and there for my personal details — whatever I could give them.

But that may not have been the only danger. It is possible to download malicious code to your computer just by browsing to a page. Even something as innocent as viewing an image could have infected my computer with a virus, that is, if I didn’t have defenses in place already.

So the moral of this story is:

• Don’t click on any link in an email message unless you’re absolutely, positively sure it’s from someone you know AND it makes sense they would send it.
• Before clicking on any link, be sure to roll your mouse over it first to show the true destination. If you can’t see this, then perhaps you can view the source of the message and examine it that way. Sometimes these phishers include valid links in their messages just to lull you into a false sense of security.
• Go to the company in question’s web site on your own, meaning either use a bookmark you already have or type in the URL that you know. Don’t use the one in the message. Or simply give them a call using a number you’ve looked up yourself.
• And if at all possible, contact the company — the real one — to report that there’s a suspicious email going around.

[tags]web safety,internet safety,phishing,scams[/tags]