Cyber Bullying

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If you did not already know, cyber bullying is bullying using the internet, a mobile phone or other technology like a digital camera to hurt somebody or embarrass them.  It is a worldwide problem and it is a big problem.

Cyber bullying means that bullying can now happen outside wherever and however your child communicates with friends - on websites, online chat and on their mobile phone.  It may involve someone posting nasty or threatening comments on a child's social networking site; hacking existing web accounts; creating a false profile on someone they wish to harrass; circulate videos or embarrassing photos of someone or spreading nasty rumours using this technology.

Its a big deal because 1 in 5 New Zealanders reported being a victim of cyber bullying in 2007 and in the USA, an 18 year old committed suicide after she was being taunted at school regarding an embarrassing photo she sent was doing the rounds.


Children need to be made aware that it is important to tell an adult if they are affected by cyber bullying.  Talk to your children so they understand the issue.  If they do become a victim it is important to gather and save the evidence.  


There are a number of resources on cyber bullying and internet safety.  MySpace, Bebo and Facebook all have pages relating to safety.  In New Zealand, the number one organisation dedicated to cyber safety is www.netsafe.org.nz

They have alot of information about all aspects of internet safety.  The Police should also be contacted in situations where cyber bullying becomes threatening to cause harm.


There is also an excellent short video dedicated to cyber bullying that can be seen at: http://www.cyberbullying.org.nz/at-a-distance-film/

Malware and How it can Slow Down your Computer

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As a parent, allowing children to use the internet uncontrolled can result in your machine being infected by Malware.  What is malware?  Malware is short for malicious software.  There are many ways malware infects a computer, but it all comes from the internet.

Malware is often injected into unsuspecting sites that receive a high volume of traffic.  Sites hosting online games such as www.miniclip.com are known to have infected machines with malware in the past.  A machine infected with malware will run slower than what it should.  

There are several types of malware.  In the early days, malware was purely designed to slow a machine down and frustrate the user.  However, nowadays malware has become more sophisticated and is often used for criminal gain.  Malware common today are 'backdoor' trojans.  This kind of malware, once it has installed itself on the computer, can potentially record everything you type, including user names and passwords.  Malware of this kind then can send the harvested data back to the infector.

There is malware that may be designed to propagate itself as a worm, infecting portable usb devices.  Such malware has the potential to infect large networks, as the unsuspecting user plugs the usb device into other machines.

There are other malware that act as a robot or 'bot', potentially talking to other computers.  These 'bots' use mass computer power to launch attacks against other networks, either sending out SPAM or having the potential to render another site of network out of action, or denial of service.

How can I protect myself? Education.  It is important to understand that any pop-ups appearing on your computer are often harmful.  At anytime a pop-up informs you your system may be infected with a virus, and they offer a free scan and clean, don't click on it.  Clicking on such links often will install malware on your computer, and you don't get your machine scanned or cleaned.

Malware writers have recently taken opportunities recently with the death of several high profile film stars.  Masquerading as a legitimate site with information on the death of a movie star, such sites have been infecting unsuspecting users with various malware.

Several free programs can be downloaded to assist in cleaning malware from your machine.  
Adaware from www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php  is well regarded in cleaning malware.  It works on a signature file that contains the latest malware patterns to remove, so it is important to ensure you download the latest pattern file.


Another highly recommended product is Spybot Search and Destroy available from  http://download.cnet.com/Spybot-Search-amp-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10122137.html Once again, this works on the latest pattern file, so ensure it is kept up to date.

How To Permanently Delete Your FaceBook Account

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While on the subject of FaceBook, some of you may want to delete your account permanently.  Privacy is a hot topic these days, and deleting an account anywhere on the internet often does not remove it permanently.  It removes it from view from the internet, but that data often remains on the servers of the company where you had a profile.

There are 2 options to make the removal of your FaceBook profile more permanent, and are as follows:

Method 1

Make sure your Facebook account contains a contact e-mail address (such as Yahoo or Gmail).
Delete any college, high school, or work e-mail addresses listed in your Facebook account. Your contact e-mail should be the only address listed.
Deactivate your Facebook account. (Under Settings)
Register using an e-mail address other than your contact e-mail (a college, high school, or work e-mail is fine).

Once you are signed into your new Facebook account, add your contact e-mail address to the account. Open the link in the confirmation e-mail that has been sent. This step will wipe out your previous Facebook account, rendering it inaccessible.

Method 2

If the above does not work for you, here is an alternate method.

To ensure Facebook has none of your vital information you should sign in delete all networks, photos, friends, inbox/outbox messages, contact info, and basically anything connecting you to the page.

Go to bottom of home page click on help which will lead you to help centere.
At help centere skip over the options and go to permanently delete. This should be number 3 on the list of help options; on a list on the right of the help centere page.
Follow the steps which maybe... include you typing in your log in information such as email, password, and a captcha.

Do not log in for the next 14 days and it will be deleted completely. However, if you change your mind before the 14 days period, just log in and this will reactivate your account!

To speed up the process and if the above failed email Facebook directly at privacy@facebook.com and request them to delete your account.
Wait to get an email response from Facebook confirming that your account has been permanently deleted. This should take a few days.

If you don't hear back from Facebook within a week, email them again at privacy@facebook.com. As well as support@facebook.com and info@facebook.com.

Finally, attempt to log in to your account once you get an email from Facebook. If you're unable to log in and don't get a message asking you to reactivate your account, your Facebook account has been permanently deleted.

Tips

If you really want to be secure, change the contact e-mail back to the new e-mail address and then remove your original contact e-mail from the list. Then deactivate the new account.
It should be noted that quite how deep your deletion goes is highly questionable: does facebook still store your information even though youve destroyed your way of accessing it?
Now you can permanently delete your facebook account by accessing this URL: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

Warnings

If you try to register using your contact e-mail address, Facebook will inform you that the address is currently in use. You must first register using an alternate e-mail address, then add your contact e-mail address when the account creation process is complete

This information was provided by: www.wikihow.com

Untagging Photos on Facebook

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Facebook provides the ability for users to add the names of people in an uploaded photo. This is known as 'tagging'. Once you are tagged in a photo, that photo will be visible on your profile as well as all your friends attached to your profile.

Recently, my 15 year old daughter, who lives overseas with mum, was tagged in 7 photos. Unfortunately, they did not show her in a positive way. Needless to say, I was not impressed.

I immediately sent instructions on how to untag herself from the photos. My recommendation is to ensure that the tagged photo setting is switched off or disabled. You do this by:

Choose 'Settings' on the top right hand side of the page

Select 'Privacy Settings'

Under Privacy, choose 'Profile'

Under 'Photos tagged of you' select 'Custom' then choose 'only me'

Do the same for 'Videos tagged of me'

If you already have tagged photos of yourself and want to remove the tags, there is an option next to the photo allowing you to remove the tag of you. This will remove the photos from your profile, but they will remain on the profile of the person who originally tagged you.

Is Twitter Safe for my Kids?

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Twitter is known as a 'micro blogging' service. It allows for anyone with a Twitter account to send a short message known as a 'tweet' out to anyone who wants to read it. Messages have a maximum number 140 characters.

Since its inception, companies have been looking at ways of marketing themselves vis twitter. Twitter has also been looking at how they can derrive revenue from the service, and is currently not making revenue from it.

Twitter is similar to a text messaging service from a cellphone, except with twitter, anyone can pick up your 'tweets'. Using the search function in twitter, you can search on any keyword. So, if you were to search on 'party' you will come up with 'tweets' that contain the word 'party'. Twitter returns the search results from the latest postings, and these are world-wide.

I believe there is alot of fine-tuning required by Twitter before it can become more user-friendly. It currently does not have the ability to provide search results by region or area, so anyone broadcasting the fact that they were having a party, would require their group of friends to be subscribed to their messages. This is known as 'following' someone.

By 'following' someone, you automatically receive any of their 'tweets'. Likewise, you can identify those that are your 'followers'.

Companies send out 'tweets' on their products, as a marketing tool. AirNew Zealand send out their 'grab a seat' tweets regularly, and it offers another avenue for their marketing.

Until more customisable features are introduced into Twitter, I don't see it as a real concern.