Internet Safety

09 Mar 2011 1 Comment

The internet is all around us and has become such a part of our lives. Many of us use the internet every single day. The district has us taking attendance using e-school, many of our checks are directly deposited into our bank accounts, so many of us are on Facebook and read e-mail more often than regular mail (now referred to as Snail Mail). What did we do before we had the internet at our fingertips? We can find any bit of information with the click of a mouse. It’s a little bit daunting and can be a little scary at times, especially considering the amount of personal information that is all over the internet. That being said, the internet is not going anywhere and if it is not already a large part of your life, it will be.

Our kids are even more involved in the internet than we are. Is there a way for kids to use the internet to its fullest potential and still remain safe? Definitely. Many of the strategies we can teach our kids to remain safe when on the internet are the same strategies we use when we teach our kids about strangers, plus a few more. In fact, exposing our kids to the internet is probably the best way to teach them about how to behave in an online environment. I like to equate the cyber world to the real world to understand its dynamics. For example, if we never taught our kids how to cross the street, what would they do if they came to a corner? They could be blindsided by a zooming car! The same is true for the internet. If we don’t teach our kids about what could be out there, they will never know what to do when they encounter danger.

Many of you may be thinking, “Hey, I’m not even up-to-speed with the internet, so how the heck am I supposed to watch out for danger or help my kids look out for it?” A good place to start is to just know the lingo. The following are some terms used to describe some not-so-nice internet practices:

Spam- unsolicited email or junk mail

Pharming- a technique used to redirect a legitimate website’s traffic to another illegitimate website in order to gain access to a users personal info

Malware- intentionally malicious software or code designed to damage your computer or collect information without your knowledge

Phishing- mail or instant message scams that are disguised to look like official communications from legitimate websites. They fool the users into providing sensitive information like passwords, credit card numbers, etc…

Trojan Horse- malware that appears to be benign or desirable and thus tricks the user into allowing the program access to their computers, usually through a download or email attachment

Hoax- Email chain letter that warns of impending viruses and tries to scare users into forwarding and continuing the hoax email

Clickjacking- a technique that tricks users into clicking on a malicious link by adding the link to a transparent layer over what appears to be a legitimate site

Mousetrapping- commonly used by pornography sites, this technique keeps visitors from leaving a website by locking them into a window, opening multiple windows on the desktop or relaunching their website into a window that can’t be closed.

Virus- self-replicating software program that is designed to infect a computer by rapidly spreading from one file to another sometimes causing great harm. It is spread by humans when they copy or add email attachments of infected files.

I never even heard of a few of these and was surprised at the maliciousness of some people, but then again, the world can be a scary place! With how many of these terms are you familiar?

Back to safeguarding our young…

What can you do to guide your students, or even your own children toward a healthy relationship with the internet? There are tons of internet resources out there to guide educators and caregivers on the importance of online safety and how to disseminate this information to youngsters. Here’s a video that provides information and might be a good way to start a conversation with your kids:

Here’s a direct link to onguardonline.gov It is a bank of free online safety resources.

I’ve also included a few links that contain lesson plans for online safety. Our kids are going to be online no matter what. It is their world and we need to educate them on how to live safely in that world.

Internet Safety Resources:

http://www.webwisekids.org/classroom_resources/teacher_resources/

http://cybersmartcurriculum.org/safetysecurity/lessons/

http://www.netsmartz.org/StreamingPresentations/InternetSafetyBasics

http://www.gcflearnfree.org/internetsafety

http://www.wcs.k12.va.us/users/honaker/9-12-Internet-Safety.html

http://ikeepsafe.org/PRC/DARE.php