Internet Safety

General Rules

Here are my general rules for internet safety.

1. Don’t give out personal information. This means that you should avoid posting your email address, phone number, address, social security number, credit card numbers, etc. on the Internet. What about facebook? Well, facebook and similar sites promise some degree of privacy that limits who can view your information. In general, these sites are safe for limited personal information. What about online shopping? Make sure you use trusted online retailers, or retailers that use paypal, google checkout or amazon. These retailers make sure your data is encrypted and it should be safe. So basically, you shouldn’t post your information in blogs, chat rooms or other public forums. So, how do I post my email address or a phone number? Well, I use an email imager site that creates an image from my email address. This prevents robots from harvesting my address. You can also make a contact me page with google forms. I use google voice for my phone number. This way I can put a call me button on a website without ever worrying about my phone number going public.

2. Avoid chat rooms. These used to be really popular, but they don’t seem to be today. Chat rooms encourage secretive behavior. People can pretend to be someone they are not.

3. Enable Safe searching. Most search engines allow you to filter material.

4. Don’t download everything in the world. If it is something that normally costs money but is free and is from a strange website, don’t download it. It’s too good to be true. If you get a strange email, don’t click on it. If you get a strange link in an email from a friend, email your friend and verify it first. When you are installing new software, read before you click. Often times during the installation process, it will ask you to install other things. You can say no.

5. Be Smart. In my opinion there are four ways to get a virus or spyware on your computer. 1) Infected Networks 2) Looking at pornography, 3) Downloading illegal media and 4) clicking on unknown links. So, this means 1) use anti-virus software, 2) don’t look at pornography, 3) don’t download illegal media and 4) don’t click on shifty links. In other words, be smart!

To help students:

  • monitor what they are doing
  • state, review and post clear rules for internet use
  • teach them to use the internet safely
  • These links below have some more suggestions.


Links to articles on Internet Safety


http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/parent-guide/parent-guide

http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/net_safety.html

http://kids.getnetwise.org/safetyguide/

http://www.netsmartz.org/safety/statistics.htm

http://www.netsmartz.org/safety/safetytips.htm

http://www.hostingreviews.com/an-internet-safety-guide-for-parents-and-children/

http://coupons.answers.com/guide/13892702/Online-Couponing-and-Shopping—Basic-Consumer-Safety.html


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