SPAM is a part of our lives. If we have email access, we are going to receive spam. Although spam filters help, they are not able to rid the inbox of all spam. Unfortunately, they often place real messages, often important ones, in our trash.
Although is it nothing for a parent to receive messages offering things like:
Find Sex Partners In Your City!
Buy Drugs Online HereE
Viagra, Valium, Etc Cheap!
Enlarge your Penis!
While these are annoying to adults, they are inappropriate for children. Spammers do not care who receives the messages. They have no code or inclination to send these messages to only specific users. These messages are intended to hit every valid email address on the internet.
The end result is that your child will receive these messages. As parents, we are responsible to protect the inbox of our child from these. Ignoring that responsibility leaves our children to fend for themselves. Unmonitored, we're leaving them to assume that drugs abuse is acceptable in society and that penis enlargement is important.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Dangers: Inapproproate Search Results
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Dangers: Predators
Although we assume that there are predators out there, we often find ourselves thinking that they are targeting "other children" and that ours are not on their radar.
Statistically, this is the truth. Most children will not become the target of an online predator. However, every child is a "potential" target and the online selection process dictates that "a child" will become every predators target even if "every child" will not.
The important thing to acknowledge is that our ability to wish our children into the safe side of the statistic is not a realistic way to assure their safety. It is the responsibility of the parent to stay informed and alert in the off chance that their child does become targeted.
Predators have changed over the years. We're no longer on the lookout for a man in the park offering candy from his pocket. We're now faced with children spending significant amounts of time on the internet. They are posting pictures and blog and personal information about themselves, their families, their schools, friends, and habits.
This information is what takes the predator out of the park and parks him behind the keyboard. No longer does he have to expose himself in public and be watched while selecting his target. He is now granted unmonitored access to the lives and habits of our children. To further his ability to blend in, a 25yr old man can easily "become" a 13 or 14yr old girl by simply creating a profile and uploading a picture he took from anywhere else on the internet.
Using this profile, he can initiate contact with the child he is targeting. Using the information provided by their profile and blogs, he knows what "interests" them and what triggers a response. This allows him an "in" to their lives that would have never existed if they saw him on the street.
To take this one step further, a predator may never initiate online contact with the child. It is often easy to simply cross reference locations (hangouts/schools/etc) and follow blogs/twitters to determine WHEN and WHERE the children will be unsupervised because they have posted information about "sneaking out" and meeting up. Of course they were assuming only their irl (irl=in real life) friends would get and use that information. However, a predator can use this for nightmarish purposes.
Todays Lesson: Nothing is as it seems on the internet.
People can be anything. We need to know this. We need to make sure our children know this. This hearkens back to the saying "I saw it on the internet, it must be true!"
Statistically, this is the truth. Most children will not become the target of an online predator. However, every child is a "potential" target and the online selection process dictates that "a child" will become every predators target even if "every child" will not.
The important thing to acknowledge is that our ability to wish our children into the safe side of the statistic is not a realistic way to assure their safety. It is the responsibility of the parent to stay informed and alert in the off chance that their child does become targeted.
Predators have changed over the years. We're no longer on the lookout for a man in the park offering candy from his pocket. We're now faced with children spending significant amounts of time on the internet. They are posting pictures and blog and personal information about themselves, their families, their schools, friends, and habits.
This information is what takes the predator out of the park and parks him behind the keyboard. No longer does he have to expose himself in public and be watched while selecting his target. He is now granted unmonitored access to the lives and habits of our children. To further his ability to blend in, a 25yr old man can easily "become" a 13 or 14yr old girl by simply creating a profile and uploading a picture he took from anywhere else on the internet.
Using this profile, he can initiate contact with the child he is targeting. Using the information provided by their profile and blogs, he knows what "interests" them and what triggers a response. This allows him an "in" to their lives that would have never existed if they saw him on the street.
To take this one step further, a predator may never initiate online contact with the child. It is often easy to simply cross reference locations (hangouts/schools/etc) and follow blogs/twitters to determine WHEN and WHERE the children will be unsupervised because they have posted information about "sneaking out" and meeting up. Of course they were assuming only their irl (irl=in real life) friends would get and use that information. However, a predator can use this for nightmarish purposes.
Todays Lesson: Nothing is as it seems on the internet.
People can be anything. We need to know this. We need to make sure our children know this. This hearkens back to the saying "I saw it on the internet, it must be true!"
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Trouble That Finds Them
- Predators actively seeking out children
- Search Results that include Inappropriate results
- Dangerous Spam (Adult/Drug/Alcohol)
The Trouble They Find
- Curiosity about what's out there leading to secretive and dangerous research
- Attempts to "fit in" leading them explore dangerous activities.
The Simple Dangers
- Sexual Exploitation by Predators
- Sexual Exploitation by Peers
- Inappropriate Sexual Exploration
- Drug and Alcohol Glamorization
- Hidden Dangerous Activities
- Predators actively seeking out children
- Search Results that include Inappropriate results
- Dangerous Spam (Adult/Drug/Alcohol)
The Trouble They Find
- Curiosity about what's out there leading to secretive and dangerous research
- Attempts to "fit in" leading them explore dangerous activities.
The Simple Dangers
- Sexual Exploitation by Predators
- Sexual Exploitation by Peers
- Inappropriate Sexual Exploration
- Drug and Alcohol Glamorization
- Hidden Dangerous Activities
Friday, September 5, 2008
Myspace, you know, for kids!
Myspace has been a great way for children to communicate with their friends after school, post picture, share memories, document weekend adventures, and just generally be kids.
However, most parents have no idea what their children are doing on myspace. Thanks to that fact, we find ourselves watching TV shows where kids are posting enough information to give away their locations and enough personal information that predators are able to navigate their way into the lives of children that would otherwise "know better". However, by providing the predator with a "road map" to the hopes and desires of the child, they give them a way in that seems "safe" to the child.
As with nearly every other aspect of the internet, parents must remain informed and "in touch" with what their children are doing. We're not talking about children playing in the backyard with their friends after school. We're talking about an environment where you can stay in touch with what you perceive to be your safe bounds without understanding that everybody in the world has access to that backyard.
Of course, children are crafty. In cases where parents "ban" myspace, children often pull a couple of common stunts to get around it. They may use it only from friends computers or simply create a safe looking profile for their parents and give their friends the link to their "real" profile where they are acting irresponsibly.
However, most parents have no idea what their children are doing on myspace. Thanks to that fact, we find ourselves watching TV shows where kids are posting enough information to give away their locations and enough personal information that predators are able to navigate their way into the lives of children that would otherwise "know better". However, by providing the predator with a "road map" to the hopes and desires of the child, they give them a way in that seems "safe" to the child.
As with nearly every other aspect of the internet, parents must remain informed and "in touch" with what their children are doing. We're not talking about children playing in the backyard with their friends after school. We're talking about an environment where you can stay in touch with what you perceive to be your safe bounds without understanding that everybody in the world has access to that backyard.
Of course, children are crafty. In cases where parents "ban" myspace, children often pull a couple of common stunts to get around it. They may use it only from friends computers or simply create a safe looking profile for their parents and give their friends the link to their "real" profile where they are acting irresponsibly.
The Frontier Works Both Ways
Years ago, the internet was touted as bringing information to your fingertips. Things that once required a drive to the library, or to the library in another city, would be available in your home. This was the dawning of the new age of information access and exchange.
Of course now the ease of gathering information includes instant access on portable devices such as cellphones and pdas. With this ease of information transfer, the world is at our fingertips even without wires.
However, not everyone understands (or understood at the time of this dawning) that access to information and resources is not limited to good or positive information and resources. There is no demographic more effected by this realization than parents.
The internet does not discern between Financial Research and Child Pornography. To your computer and the servers/routers on the internet, all of this information is simply collections of data, ultimately series or ones and zeros to be sent or received.
This means that you and your child can read the news as easily as you can watch humans have sex with animals. To further complicate the matter, it's not necessarily reasonable for "the internet" to manage the content. What this means to us; the users, the families, and the parents, is that by having internet access in our homes, work, and schools brings us one click away from allowing ANY content in.
While this is a bonus for many, this is a problem for parents. Parents are responsible for the nurturing of their children. Leaving a child alone with access to anything on the internet, is like dropping them off with a body guard in an alley in bangkok where the body guard is only allowed to prevent physical attack.
In the short run, a child on the internet will get be physically attacked even though there are cases where online activity has led to abduction and abuse. However, the psychological effects are similar to direct exposure to the back streets of bangkok. They are able to passively experience things that negatively effect their psychological growth.
Unfortunately, the awareness of their surroundings and allowable limitations often assists in children accessing dangerous information and keeping it a secret. This is where many parents are not able to intervene until the damage has been done. It could be an addiction to pornography, or it could be a physical relation with an adult, but the dangers are real. In some cases, children simply disappear as they are abducted after meeting a stranger.
The dangers are significantly different that previous generations have had to deal with. We're forced to balance the need for information, the necessity to be technologically adept, with the need to limit dangerous information and contact. In short, we are bringing Bangkok into our backyards and must find methods of keeping safe at the same time.
Of course now the ease of gathering information includes instant access on portable devices such as cellphones and pdas. With this ease of information transfer, the world is at our fingertips even without wires.
However, not everyone understands (or understood at the time of this dawning) that access to information and resources is not limited to good or positive information and resources. There is no demographic more effected by this realization than parents.
The internet does not discern between Financial Research and Child Pornography. To your computer and the servers/routers on the internet, all of this information is simply collections of data, ultimately series or ones and zeros to be sent or received.
This means that you and your child can read the news as easily as you can watch humans have sex with animals. To further complicate the matter, it's not necessarily reasonable for "the internet" to manage the content. What this means to us; the users, the families, and the parents, is that by having internet access in our homes, work, and schools brings us one click away from allowing ANY content in.
While this is a bonus for many, this is a problem for parents. Parents are responsible for the nurturing of their children. Leaving a child alone with access to anything on the internet, is like dropping them off with a body guard in an alley in bangkok where the body guard is only allowed to prevent physical attack.
In the short run, a child on the internet will get be physically attacked even though there are cases where online activity has led to abduction and abuse. However, the psychological effects are similar to direct exposure to the back streets of bangkok. They are able to passively experience things that negatively effect their psychological growth.
Unfortunately, the awareness of their surroundings and allowable limitations often assists in children accessing dangerous information and keeping it a secret. This is where many parents are not able to intervene until the damage has been done. It could be an addiction to pornography, or it could be a physical relation with an adult, but the dangers are real. In some cases, children simply disappear as they are abducted after meeting a stranger.
The dangers are significantly different that previous generations have had to deal with. We're forced to balance the need for information, the necessity to be technologically adept, with the need to limit dangerous information and contact. In short, we are bringing Bangkok into our backyards and must find methods of keeping safe at the same time.
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