Do you know where your teen goes online?

Kids and especially teens are notorious for keeping secrets from their parents, and in today’s world of technology they have a whole new world of ways to keep secrets.

Since kids are also incredibly adept at learning and using modern technology and the following list may help you keep better track of what your child may be hiding.

1. Surfing the Internet: Today, kids have almost unlimited access to computers, and now computers are small enough to carry, enabling access to the internet literally anywhere. This gives kids easy access to sites parents may disapprove of, not to mention “adult only” sites that only ask the user to click a link stating they are over 18 years of age. That’s an easy button to click if you want to keep secrets from parents. Close monitoring of your child’s computer history, password protection and parental blocks can keep your child away from inappropriate sites.
2. Downloads: Kids love to download- anything they can: pictures, jokes, videos, etc. These downloads may be putting your computer at risk for viruses that could cause permanent damage. Parents need to know the source of any download and that it is safe, as well as keeping up-to-date antivirus protection on all computers.
3. Music Downloads: What kind of music are your kids downloading and listening to? Even if the site is safe, the music might not be. Listen to the music downloads. If you are not able to understand the lyrics of the songs, you may want to check them out. You can find an internet music site that has song lyrics available to read. Be careful, though, if you do not allow your child to download certain titles, he/she will probably change the file name of the prohibited song to something allowable.
4. Uploads: Kids are not very discerning when it comes to what others should or should not know about themselves, and their families. Find out what sorts of pictures, text and other files your child might be sharing on social networking sites or shared folders.
5. Games: What games are your kids playing? Playstation, X-box, computer games, both individual and interactive-online are filled with violence and “adult” themes. Monitor the games your child buys or rents; most are labeled with age guidelines and parental notices. Also, monitor your child’s history with online games. Install a computer block that allows access to only approved sites.
6. Friends: Kids have many friends. Some of them, they don’t even know. Facebook and other online social networking sites make it easy for children to fall prey to predatory abusers disguised as “friends.” If your child has a Facebook or other social networking accounts, make sure that you know their username and password, and check in on their activity once in awhile.
7. Cell phone use: How much time your kids spend on the phone, when they are calling and who they are calling are important to know. Read the itemized portion of your bill each month to double check, and if there is a number you don’t recognize or don’t want your child accessing, have it blocked through your service carrier.
8. Texting: With unlimited texting capabilities on cell phone plans, your kids can text anyone at any time, day or night. Parents need to know who they are texting and the language they are both reading and using while they are texting.
9. Abbreviations: LOL, and CUL maybe be familiar “social” abbreviations, and ROLOFLMHO may be used by your kids without any qualms, but ROLOFLMAO might be offensive to some parents. Do you know the difference? Also, new abbreviations are added to the lexicon of technical communication on a daily basis. As a parent you need to be familiar with abbreviations so as to know what your kids are saying. You can check the internet for sites that list abbreviations and meanings.
10. Plagiarism and cheating: That kids are able to access information which expedites learning in ways never before thought of, is a wonderful outcome of technology today. That kids can also use this information to cheat in ways never before thought of, isn’t.

Spy v spy

America is constantly under attack, and the National Security Agency (NSA), America’s top intelligence network, has been working with Internet Service Provider’s (ISP’s) in attempts to foil cyber-attacks. Here are some of the ways the agency and ISP’s work together. Some ISP cooperation has been voluntary, but in many instances ISP’s have had little choice in the matter.

1. Existing Cooperation Between NSA and ISP’s – AT&T and Verizon have been handing the NSA voice and data traffic for years; once illegal, laws have been changed to allow the practice. The Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA) of 1978 paved the way for greater government utilization of civilian companies and, eventually, ISP’s.
2. CALEA – In 1994, Congress enacted a program called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcements Act (CALEA), a program that required all providers of Internet service, including phone companies, ISP’s, colleges and even coffee shops to install equipment that would allow the government to monitor almost all Internet activity.
3. The Patriot Act – In the fallout from the 9/11 attacks, warrantless surveillance was introduced, and even though opposing voices were raised there was enough fear of additional attacks that the program was enacted without effective judicial review, and the Bush administration titled it the Terrorist Surveillance Program.
4. Recent Developments – In May of 2011, it was reported that defense contractor Lockheed-Martin had come under cyber-attack, and, in a novel move, the defense industry, ISP’s and the NSA joined together to launch a program that would enable the NSA to utilize data sets to identify malicious programs that had been slipped into data streams received by Lockheed-Martin and others. ISP’s would then be able to disable the threats before they reached company servers.
5. Unknown Threats – Right now, the NSA technology and the ISP’s ability to filter Internet traffic is only effective against known threats, and work is under way to develop methods of detecting threats that are more ambiguously presented.
6. LulzSec and Anonymous – LulzSec and Anonymous are a pair of hacking groups that have declared a virtual war on manifold targets like media companies and mega-corporations; these are among the types of threats the NSA and ISP’s hope to neutralize.
7. Civil Liberties – Any time a government begins to monitor its citizen’s personal or business communications, there is a very real threat to the civil liberties of that citizenry.
8. Technology – The NSA, which employs more than 40,000 people, is at the forefront of many aspects of Internet security technology, which makes partnership with ISP’s possible.
9. Data Bases – ISP’s control incredible data flows, and their ability to monitor vast amounts of information makes them indispensable in any credible attempt to disable cyber-attacks.
10. What We Don’t Know – In a cyber-world infused with secrets, we may never truly know the depth of interactivity between ISP’s and government agencies like the NSA.

More threats are inevitable, and continued cooperation between the NSA and ISP’s is truly needed.

Source:  Internet Service Providers

Are you a parent that is always connected virtually?

Wired. Plugged in. Connected. The Internet and technological gadgetry in our modern lives have kids connected with their peers 24/7 through blogs, game consoles, social networking sites and cell phones. This young generation has a large virtual life, and it is time for us parents to ask, “Is this really helping?”

Mike Elgan, in an article for Computerworld.com, discusses the negative connotations of wiring children and cites addiction, distraction, shortened attention span (ADD, AD/ HD), and others as disturbing effects of the wired life. David Barrett, from the Telegraph (UK) found that teachers find an alarming number of children distracted from learning when there is a gadget around. This April 18-24th Commercial Free Childhood is organizing a “Screen-Free Week” asking for parents, children and groups to unplug and spend more time together over the span of seven days to experience a week free from screens and other gadgets.

Technology has impacted how children view the world. My youngest asked me to see the picture I had just taken on a one-time-use film camera and questions why Grandma’s car doesn’t have TV. Because of this, I’ve brainstormed a few ways we can unplug our children to get them accustomed to a non-digitized life:

Email

While being very convenient and inexpensive, electronic mail has given our kids a screen- to-screen persona, which they tend to hide behind instead of facing the reality of the world. With the onset of new technologies, the Internet has become even more of an arena for cyber bullying, be it in Second Life, a chat room, Facebook or Twitter. The school district we live in has mentioned to parents that spreading rumors has become much easier for our children via the Internet, text messaging and other forms of digital communication.

We suggest: Teach your child to write handwritten thank-you notes and real letters to friends. It teaches them to go the extra mile for peers, and to live beyond the screen. The less time they spend with email, the less time they w have to consider getting involved in cyber bullying, or being a victim of such.

Wii/Xbox/Playstation

Simulation game consoles like the Wii, Xbox or Playstation often recreates activities that take place outdoors, and many indoor games as well. The Wii has made almost any activity a virtual experience and children sometimes do not have the opportunity or interest to explore these activities beyond the screen, finding these games “better than the real thing” or less of a challenge.

We suggest: For beneficial physical exercise, discipline, healthy competitive spirit and fun social interactions encourage your kids to participate in outdoor activities and sports. It will build a good foundation of regular exercise and the discipline of learning through doing. Learning skills such as fishing in the real world is also incomparable to playing it via a screen.

GPS

Very handy and convenient, GPS shows any driver where to go without having to consult a map, analyzes the best routes and even remembers the address of specified peoples’ house or office. I discourage dependency on this gadget since oftentimes GPS can malfunction or give no information if its not available. Children today are unfamiliar with how to read maps, some even unable to recognize basic symbols and ideas.

We suggest: Teaching your children basic survival skills, like reading maps or building a fire from scratch. In times like these, with nature out of control due to global warming, it can’t hurt to know that your kids are able to handle themselves should an emergency arise. Learning these now-unique skills also translates into personal confidence and independence from unnecessary devices.

iPhone/iPad and Apps

It seems everything and everybody has apps these days. Addictive, hardly challenging, and sometimes crude, apps on portable devices teach next to nothing and create addiction or reliance upon technology.

We suggest: Getting your kids out into the real world. Try a Screen Free Week yourself, even if it’s just for your family. Institute a board game night, or something to do with the family without the need for game consoles. Make use of this time to get to teach them skills they wouldn’t learn glued to a screen.

Build your own world with your kids, without the need for constant screen time or hiding behind an avatar. Doing so develops all needed skills and values for real success in the world and creates well-rounded individuals with interests and genuine personality.

Self reliance and preparedness come naturally to Renee Bedford, a mom who knows these skills will keep her children not only smarter but safer. Renee sells artificial Christmas trees for Christmas Tree Market. Being prepared for some assembly might be required, because many of her products are artificial Christmas trees.

Keeping your kids safe virtually is a priority.

Facebook turned 7 years old this month.  Hard to believe that a college student and his buddies invented it and now it has spread so quickly that more than 40% of the U.S. population has a Facebook account.  Talk about going viral.

While this social network phenomenon started out as a tool for college kids, it has rapidly grown to include a younger and younger audience.  Facebook rules state that a user must be 13 years or older to have a Facebook account.  However, there is no way to verify this so there are many kids that are younger than that with their own accounts.

How do you protect your kids from the questionable material on Facebook?

1. Don’t let them get an account. Now, this may sound obvious, but it’s the truth.  The best way to protect your kids is to make sure they don’t have an account before they are old enough.
2. Make sure your child friends you. You need to watch what your child is posting on their friends’ walls and what kind of stuff is being posted on their wall.
3. Make sure your child only friends people they know in real life. Anyone can send you a friend request if you are a friend of a friend etc.  This can be an open invitation for predators.
4. Discuss boundaries with your child. Your child needs to know that he/she should not post any personal information online.  No reference to their full name, name of their school, their address or their birthday.
5. Limit your child’s access to the computer. Computers are a way of life, but as a parent you want to be able to monitor what your child is doing on the computer.  Make sure the computer is in a central location like the living room or office.
6. Invest in parental control software that monitors your child’s computer activity. You can’t always be with your child.  If you have software like that specializes in monitoring your child’s keystrokes, you can see exactly what your child is doing on the computer and on Facebook accounts even if you aren’t home.
7. Do not allow your kids to post pictures. Pictures lead to online bullying and sometimes too much information.  What if your child posts a picture from his soccer game?  Seems innocent enough, but this gives out personal information that may put children at risk from a predator.
8. Allow your child to use your Facebook account. This may sound funny, but if they aren’t posting under their own name they may be more conscientious.  Plus, you will indeed have access to see everything they have posted.
9. Make sure you have their passwords. There is no such thing as privacy in your house.  You should have their e-mail password as well as their Facebook password.
10. Make sure you set the privacy settings on Facebook. Facebook will show your phone number and other personal information if you don’t turn it off.  Make sure you are there to help your child set up their account.

Source: Internet Provider

In Broward County, Mother’s Against Predators (MAP) was formed to help educate and inform parents, teachers and the community about the warning signs of predators as well as tech tips we all can use.

Internet Predators do not discriminate, any child is at risk if not properly taught about how to stay safe in cyberspace.

Be an educated parent, you will have safer teens.

Read more.

What Can You Do To Minimize The Chances Of An On-line Exploiter Victimizing Your Child?

Tired of your old social network? Wish they would listen to you? Looking for a fun and new place to make new friends, or want to create a private mini community for just your family? Check out Friendburst, a YOUR Friendship Community.

The Future of FriendBurst (From one of the founders, Kevin of More4Kids)

Well, that will be up to our members and community. I would like to think of FriendBurst more as a co-op social community. Everyone should have a say.  So what are some lessons learned from some of these other social networks?

1) Our members are members, not user or guests! That distinction is critical

2) Don’t touch a members profile. Many spend tens of hours getting it just ‘right’.

3) Listen to your members, and that mean’s ‘all’ your members and not just the noisy ones.

4) Be helpful, providing excellent customer service is so important.

5) Encourage creativity and a members ability to express their individuality.

With that said, what does FriendBurst have to offer?

1) An activity feed that lets you share links, photos, videos, and more. It has built in privacy settings so YOU can decide who sees what and what you want to share.

2) Blogs. FriendBurst.com has a very sophisticated blog that all members have access to built right in.

3) Music. If you are a Musician, you can upgrade to a FREE musician account and share your music.

4) Photos. Create you own photo albums and password protect.

5) Friends. Create friends lists and send messages to multiple friends at once.

6) Recipes. Over 4000 recipes that members can submit and comment on.

7) Profiles!!! Customize your profile with html, CSS or use our editor.

Forums

9) Groups!! Like the profiles, your groups can be customized with CSS or the editor. Each group has a Group name, plus its own individualized url which the Member creates.

10) FAN Pages. We love giving our members the ability to customize things at friendburst. Like on the profile and groups, you can customize pages with CSS and the Editor.

Those are just a few of many things we are doing at FriendBurst.com. Its all about our members and giving each one the abililty to truly express their individuality and creativity.

It is wonderful how new technology has brought us closer to all points of the world.  Technology, especially the Internet has made our once big world small; Insomuch that at any given time we can talk to China or Australia and never leave our home in rural America.  While for the business world that may be a good thing, it goes without saying that for our children, it is a little much for them to be experiencing so much of the world so soon.

I enjoy watching the TV show “To catch a predator”.  Maybe enjoy isn’t the correct word, but it is interesting to say the least.  Maybe the part I like best about is to see the would be pedophile caught, and watch him squirm.  Also knowing it is a foiled attempt to actually meet a young innocent teenager. I like watching as they are hauled off to jail to stay awhile and think about what they are doing or were about to do.  How many are actually rehabilitated is a million dollar question.

The outcry from parents has been so loud against pop-up pornography sites that the Microsoft people have played a big part in stopping most pop-ups.  As careful as I am about certain sites my PC got viruses and I had to have it commercially cleaned.  I was appalled at what they found – so thankfully it was removed with no harm done except the fee I had to pay for getting it cleaned up.

Without thinking young people fill in applications for this or that, leaving themselves open to the world with all their information; from age to sex to likes and dis-likes.  Nothing is hidden on the WWW.  Parents beware of what your children are telling about themselves.  Spammers are good at what they do.  And once Spammed is too late to keep it from happening.

A recent article about parents in China, showed that 42.6 percent of the parents surveyed “strongly oppose their children’s use of Internet” or “relatively oppose”, while as high as 78.4 percent say they worry that surfing Internet could adversely affect children’s study. Another 44.9 percent worry about their children’s exposure to pornography online.

I remember when CHAT was the thing back in the 90’s.  It was weird to get on a chat with people one did not know just to talk (chat) awhile.  It opened up an exciting venture for teens to introduce themselves and chat with people around the world.  Now the truth is – were they from down the street?  Across town?  Was their name really Jack or Mary?  There are a lot of messed up people in the world and children are not mature enough to know the difference in real versus crazy people.

Now there is the ChatRoulette which is supposed to be for viewers above18 years or older, however there is not a place to enter the birth date of the viewer.  By the name Roulette, it gives us a good picture of the content.  It is easily accessible using Skype and what the viewer sees on the screen is anyone’s guess and from what I read it can get pretty graphic even porn-a-graphic.

One thinks of the internet as a place to do research and study.  Invariably it has taken place of my set of World Book Encyclopedia’s.  However not everything on the Internet is true. Just because it is in print and somehow got on the internet, does not make it Gospel.  Everyone has an opinion.  Opinions are not History.  History is an actual accepted record of what happened at a certain point in time.

Kim Komando of CyberSpeak,  brought up an interesting subject with the following:  “We all know that music can alter your mood. Sad songs can make you cry. Upbeat songs may give you an energy boost. But can music create the same effects as illegal drugs?”

This seems like a ridiculous question. But websites are targeting your children with so-called digital drugs. These are audio files designed to induce drug-like effects.  All your child needs is a music player and headphones.”

Do you find this as scary as I do?   I wish I were knowledgeable enough to even discuss it, however it would bear great urgency for Parents to check it out.  I found the information on the USA Today site.  Very informative.

Then there is U Tube, the place where a megabyte of fame is worth everything.  Kids have excess to cameras every day; on their phone or mini video cameras.  In a moment when a young lady has let her guard down can change her life forever.  Or for that matter a young man, being teased can be shown on the WWW and he is embarrassed for life.  What may have started out as a joke, may wind up as being harassment.

We cannot keep our children locked up for short seven years of their teens.  The Internet is technology that is here to stay.  And from the youngest of ages, our children are being exposed to the World Wide Webb.

Warren Buckleitner, editor of Children’s Technology Review says, “Kids are surrounded by screens in a way like never before, at home, in their pockets, in the minivan, and they know how to use them at younger and younger ages and Parents must be a part of it.” He goes on to say:  “”If you’re going to allow your kid to go to a website or play a game, you have to first check it out yourself.  Think about it, you don’t let your child eat a meal you’ve never tasted before.”

Special guest contributor: Kate Crosten of Internet Services

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In a recent survey on TeenVogue.com, 94 percent of readers polled said that teenagers should be more concerned about privacy on the Internet.

Social networking sites, such as Facebook, has become a go-to site for college recruiters as well as employers.  Does your teen know the consequences of posting their party pictures, or language they should only be using privately (if using at all)?

Do you recall a recent Examiner article, Employers now asking for your Facebook link when applying for a job?

Although it can be nearly impossible to control or monitor everything our teens do, it is imperative you stress the importance of the lasting effects that an innocent photo or a questionable action that is posted on your Facebook page can result in – years from now.

Many kids are not able to grasp that two to five years from now is really not a long time.  Like many kids, it seems like forever – so why not post these cool things they are doing.  The problem is, what they consider cool, some may consider crude.

What may seem humorous to you and your friends, could be offensive to others.  Privacy is a gift, and how much you want to give is up to you.  However give with caution!

Don’t learn the lesson the hard way, “Google Bomb! The Untold Story of the $11.3M Verdict That Changed the Way We Use the Internet,” a story everyone needs to read.  This case took place in Broward County.

Ironically when our children were young, most taught and encouraged our children to share.  Now we have to redefine sharing and give it boundaries.

Be an educated parent, you will have safer teens.

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