Example for Children:
When your child is chatting with someone he or she does not know, it is not safe for them to use the same guidelines as you do for giving out personal information. The amount of information they give out should not even fit on a business card. Usually, if they give out their name, number, address, or anything else about them, they become huge targets for stalkers and criminals.
By just giving out a phone number to someone, they can find your name, address, and even a map to your front door. How is this possible you might wonder? The site you can find this information is the most popular site on the internet: google. Just check out this result for my local police department: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=active&q=316-788-8888.
Click on Google Maps, and amazingly enough, there is a map right to your house. That’s something you definitely do not want your kids to give out – it puts them in a very dangerous situation. Google does allow the option to remove your information from the top hit, and if you have children, I recommend you do it.
Google isn’t the only place you can do this, though. Whitepages.com has a “reverse phone lookup” option that allows you to do the exact same thing. The best way to make sure this doesn’t cause you problems is to make sure you do not allow your children to give out information to anyone: just like when answering the phone or the door when a parent is not home.
Section Conclusion
The goal of this section was to demonstrate ways to monitor children’s activity online and to protect their safety. Ultimately, the only sure way to protect your children is through education and understanding. Logs should be considered a backup, in case reasoning fails to come through. Make sure to educate your children in online safety – it is an essential part of getting on the internet.
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“War Games” & “Hackers: The Movie” sure did motivate a few kids to become internet security specialists. Groups formed on mIRC and it became pretty big at that time.