Tom's Safety and Personal Conduct on the Internet

Rules of Conduct

Rules for safe surfing are a particular concern for children.  It is unfortunate, but a small percentage of people on the internet try to gather information for unethical, illegal, or uses that can be personally dangerous. Never provide home phone numbers, personal passwords, or addresses over the internet. Never invite an "internet friend" to your home. Refuse cookies from all sites that are not reputable. Although most net users are good people, careless abuse of safety rules risks fraud and abuse. Additional information for parents (and variations on basic safety rules) can be found at GetNetWise, the FBI's Internet safety Tips for Kids, Silicon Valley's Tech Museum, Safekids.com, Yahooligans, Eugene Schools, Compuserve, SafeSurf, WorldKids, and many other sites.

Protect Your Children

Supervise a child's internet browsing experience. Teach them to make "safe surfing rules second nature; teach them to avoid downloading any title or site that looks or sounds "bad." (Younger children should only "surf" the internet through search engines designed for kids.)  Even though porn sites are only a small percentage of the content on the internet, owners of these sites often design their web pages to fool people into visits. However, just because it is there does not prevent you or your child from refusing to view inappropriate material.  Ideally, children learn to "surf" responsibly; they avoid visiting or downloading from sites that violate parent standards. Even a child can learn to say "NO" to bad influences.

If a parent has difficulty teaching or enforcing responsible surfing, concerned parents have several options for safe content filtering. (Filtering uses programs that block or "censor" block sexually explicit or other undesirable internet downloads.) One of the cheapest (and simplest) is the censor included with Windows 95 (and later) Microsoft operating systems. The censor is pretty rigid and can let a few offensive sites past its protection, but it is free and waiting to be activated on many systems.  If you need something more discriminating, protective portals, like SurfMonkey, combine a password protected browser plug-ins with their filtered web portals for more a discriminating "censors". (Note: Be sure to install both Netscape and Explorer and then activate the protective plug-ins in both. This type of filter can be evaded by dedicated children who download alternative browsers.) For the most secure (against determined kids) content protection, "children safe" internet providers (ISPs), such as This.com, build content filters directly into your ISP access. Content is "censored" by remote programs which recognize and block inappropriate visual and text material before it can even reach a local computer. However, no matter what your choice, there is no substitute for parental oversight. "Censors" cannot protect against all forms of fraud or abuse; they  only reduce risk to a minimum. The best protection is a child trained to accept responsibility and limits in Internet use.
 

Dealing with SPAM and "Virus-Infected" E-mail

SPAM or junk e-mail is a problem. In its mildest form, sites you visit to gather information ask  for your e-mail address. Once you give this information, it may be sold to organizations that begin sending overwhelming amounts of junk e-mail to your address. In more offensive forms, your address may fall into the hands of organizations or individuals that e-mail truly offensive (not just nuisance) information to you. Protect yourself by rarely giving out your e-mail address and by obtaining and using a separate free e-mail account  through organizations like Mail City, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. for interactions with strangers or commercial web sites. (Free e-mail addresses do display a few adds  when you download your mail, but this can be worth the extra privacy layer. The accounts can be canceled and reopened under new addresses to give you a new, clean mailing address any time too much junk e-mail finds your address.)

In a more dangerous twist, some e-mail may (accidentally or by intention) contain "attachments" that can infect your computer with damaging, unseen programs called "viruses." Viruses begin as malicious programs that hide in other programs or hitch rides on e-mails. They usually originate with a hidden minority of people who seem to gain pleasure out of creating problems for others. Occasionally they originate with organizations attempting to gather information from you computer for illegal purposes.

You can protect your computer against "viruses" using two strategies: The simplest is to set you browser security to bar all active-X or Java features (these are interactive programed features in web pages) and then never open attachments or download software form the internet.  If interactive web page features are locked out, and you never open an e-mail attachment or download software, it is near impossible for a virus to sneak into your computer. Unfortunately, many web page are unusable if your browser locking out interactive features, most e-mail attachments are fun and useful, and quality software downloads are offer extensive free or low cost opportunities to enhance you computer. The best solution is to buy and install an anti-virus defense program  from top-rated vendors such as McAffee, Dr. Solomon, or Norton . Installed properly, these programs scan all e-mails coming in, block infections, and update the their protection automatically via a link to the vendors anti-virus labs. (Note: virus infection designs mutate regularly; it is wise to buy annual renewals that keep the automatic protection upgrade link at fully active.)

Once a good anti-virus program is installed on your system, there is no reason not to download software or open e-mail attachments. Pictures and messages sent by attachment can be allot of fun. Free software or shareware (try-before-buy) games, tools, and images are often worth using. (Just as advertising pays for the content of TV broadcasts, adds or promotional values pay for "free" download material.  Always apply common sense to what you choose to use.) As long as you follow instructions posted by the software provider and stick with reputable sites for program downloads, good anti-virus programs are ample protection. (If you do not use a censor program, remember to screen demo software for content which is not suitable such as violent games, suggestive content, etc.) Avoid disreputable download site; they may provide buggy software that places an excessive burden on your anti-virus or content screening protection.
 

(Note: Review license and use conditions before a download. Never download unauthorized copies of software. Defrag your harddrive before installing anything new. Finally, make sure you have plenty of room on your harddrive before any program downloads. Sometimes, squeezing "one more game" on an already full harddrive creates major problems on a computer system.)

Additional Privacy Protection

Be aware that anything, good or bad, can be found on the internet. Most people or organization posting pages on the internet are not a problem. However, a small percentage of the content includes inappropriate viewing (violence, porn, etc.) or "con games" ('get rich quick" frauds, sites for stealing credit card numbers or identities, etc.). Learn to ignore inappropriate offers (unsolicited porn, violations of safety rules, etc.,),  "free" offers, and "surveys". Accepting these offers has a price; the price is often a loss of privacy. Sites that offer "free" drawings or conduct "surveys" often make their money by using the information they gather for advertising purposes. (Every time you fill out a forms asking for e-mail address, your load of "junk" e-mail is likely to increase.)

For most people, following the rules above will provide adequate privacy. However, for more security, privacy services can provide a higher level of protection. Freedom's customer privacy software, available for download, can create a set of virtual digital identities (called "nyms") for cruising the internet. Used properly, Freedom's software helps conceal your home and personal identity from any direct connection to internet-based data collection.
 

Protect Yourself Against Fraud

As you become more involved with using the internet, you will learn that, like the real world, there are people who use the Internet to steal. Never provide a credit card number via e-mail or unsecured web page (lock symbol at bottom left off). Never provide a card number to anything other than a well-known commercial site with an established consumer protection policy. If you aren't sure about any of this, don't buy via the internet; stick to simple information gathering within the "safe surfing" guidelines.

You can get specialized internet-function credit cards from Discover (the first) and now other major credit cards. This type of "protected" card prevents unauthorized use (theft) of card identities by either setting up one-time access card numbers (you don't give out your card number, just a number that works for a specified transaction) or other forms of transaction protection. Identity theft is a growing problem. If you must buy via the internet, this approach can reduce risk.

All of this does not protect against direct fraud. If an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is. For more information on how to detect fraudulent internet offers, follow the Federal Trade Commission's advice on Internet Auctions and read about online fraud in an article by David Coursey.

 

Closing Advice

Finally, remember that when you "surf" the internet, you have joined an international community. Protect yourself, but also show consideration for other people on the internet. Always conduct correspondence and all internet activity within the bounds of "net etiquette."

This all may seem complicated, but once you've done it for a bit, safe surfing and good net etiquette become second nature. Use good sense and your internet journeys will be a rewarding doorway to an exciting new world!