WebSafety NZ - Web Safety | Internet Security | Parental Software

Why Parental Control Software?

2011-07-29T11:15:00.000+12:00

Parental control software is known by many names including parental software, internet safety software, cyber safety software, monitoring software and so on. Ultimately, its purpose is to monitor and filter internet traffic.

Let’s examine why parents may wish to install it and some of the key features and use.

Children are using the internet at a younger age than ever before. One of the reasons for this is that technology has improved considerably from the old ‘dial up’ days, when children got bored waiting for a page to open! Not the case anymore with much faster broadband speeds.

Children are now ‘cutting their teeth’ on the internet at aged 4 or 5 years of age. Remember when we started school many years back? Our parents would first walk us to school, help us cross the road and walk us to the gate, to make sure we got their safely. They would slowly pull back the restrictions by walking us to the crossing and letting us cross by ourselves, till eventually letting us walk the whole way on our own. It should be the same when our children use the internet.

So, why do so many parents believe protecting their children on the internet starts at age 11 or 12? No parents ever kissed their 5 year old child goodbye at the door and expect their child to find their own way to school. It’s just not safe.

Why do parents let their child play in an open environment that has many lures out there to potentially get them into difficulty? It is no different to sending a child onto a highway blindfolded, and asking them to walk across.

If you type in a misspelt word in a search engine and you may stumble across pornographic material. Type in any girl’s name, and if your search engine is not restricted, you’re likely to land on pornography. The same can be said for cartoon characters and the list goes on.

A search engine is the window to the internet. Parents should at least know what their kids are typing in!

As parents we need to guide our children and teach them positive aspects of the internet. At the same time explain the dangers and what they should be aware of. Yes, now that the computer is out of the bedroom that’s great! But you can never be over their shoulder every time they are using the internet.

Many young children are using social networks without their parent’s knowledge. Unless the site is a recommended safe site, there is potential for grooming, bullying or the child handing over of personal and identifiable information.

We recommend parental control software be installed on any computer as SOON as a child starts using the internet. There are many products on the market, some cost money and others are for free.

When you decide which one, choose one that has a good choice of internet categories to block. All of the products record ALL internet activity as the basic function. Other options to look out for that you want are:

Reporting, either via email or through a website
Ability to prevent personal information like phone numbers and addresses from being sent
Being able to record internet searches
Record and block chat, as well as identify who is chatting
Take screenshots of activity
Take webcam screenshots of activity
Record keystrokes being typed
Specifying specific sites to block and not block
Specify time use options (great for homework time)
Record and block certain programs from being used

As a minimum, parents want to install software that records website activity, search terms used and be able to block certain categories of sites being able to be accessed.

Protecting our children on the internet using software is simple and gives us parents more time for ourselves. We all deserve it!

To arrange a home installation on your computer, contact WebSafety NZ

Chat Rooms: Why Parents Should Be Concerned

2011-07-22T12:35:00.000+12:00

Chat rooms have been around for many years and when it first came on the scene, the technology was the start of online social networking. Simple to connect to, easy to get involved and with no profile to setup, subscription to join or bulky software to install, chat rooms have proved popular.

A chat room is typically an online space hosted on a website that allows for any number of people to communicate, on any decided topic for that specific chat room. Users have the ability to create a chat room on any topic they desire.

The early days of chat rooms go back as far as the 1980’s, but chat rooms became very popular in the 1990’s when the internet was in its infancy.

Chat room technology was basic and was perfect for a dialup modem, as conversation was text based, which meant that communication was instant, due to the small amount of conversational data transported over an internet connection.

A typical chat room has a moderator, who manages the conversations and has the ability to kick a user out or ban them, if they break any of the rules applicable for that room. But not all chat rooms have a moderator or administrator.

Using chat rooms sometimes require the user to download a small piece of software, such as an IRC client. This software allows users to connect to various chat rooms around the globe, including New Zealand. There are certain commands used with this technology that allow the user to find their way around chat room technology.

To participate in a chat room, a user creates a name for themselves, which should be any name not related to their own identity. Anonymity is the key in chat rooms. No one knows who you are.

Features within a chat room allow for a member to correspond with any other member ‘privately’. Once a member agrees, a private window is opened, whereby any conversation taking place within that window is between them only, and no one else.

Chat rooms are regularly used to ‘hookup’ or connect with members of the opposite sex (or same sex), and there are sometimes chat rooms dedicated for this purpose. In such cases the rooms may be named to suggest this.

WebCams or web cameras opened up a new world in chat rooms. Users have the ability to see who they are chatting to, provided that the requestor of the ‘webchat’ clicks ‘agree’ to open up the webchat session. WebCam chat technology has also opened up a lot more sexually related activity and deviant behaviour.

In New Zealand there are about 20 sites hosting chat rooms. Topics range from innocent through to flirtatious and sexual.

It is well known that chat rooms are a hive for sexual predators. In the US alone, there are over 65,000 predators online at any one time. These people have many tricks they use to make a person feel comfortable and give personal information freely. They are dangerous.

As a parent it is important to discuss chat rooms with your children. Help them understand what they are about, and why it may be dangerous to use chat rooms. Explain to them about predatory behaviour, and how strangers have ways of trying to obtain personal information. Teach children that under no circumstances are they to give over their address, full name, phone number, school or even city that they live in.

Teenagers have been known to involve themselves in sexual activity via webcam. This is very dangerous and creates a negative view on society for those participating.

Installing monitoring software can help a parent identify internet activity, and used positively, will help parents guide children to more positive aspects of the internet.

For help with monitoring software contact WebSafety NZ through their site: www.websafety.co.nz

Private Internet Browsing

2011-07-09T15:34:00.000+12:00

Anyone surfing the internet without filtering software and browser search options set to ‘strict’ or ‘moderate’ risk having the results returned that may contain objectionable material.

Children often stumble on such material when doing their homework. A minor spelling mistake in the search string or words that may infer another meaning are often linked to pornographic material. Stumbling across such material is very distressing for a youngster.

On the other hand, search engines for some time now have offered a feature allowing the user to surf the internet undetected.

Such features came about from a backlash by communities who were concerned about internet sites collecting personal information relating to the internet habits of their users. Some businesses collected this information and sold it to marketing companies for targeted advertising.

The feature, known as ‘Private Browsing’ (Mozilla Firefox) and ‘InPrivate’ (Internet Explorer) allows the user to surf the internet and not be detected. When using this feature, no activity is logged, therefore it is not possible to identify where a user has been, unless monitoring software has been installed, that does screen capturing.

InPrivate browsing can be turned on and off within Internet Explorer here.

Children using any of the private browsing features to surf the internet do so to hide the activity from their parents.

Another method of surfing the internet ‘privately’ is by using an ‘open proxy’ . There are thousands of sites in existence that provide for anonymous open proxy, which allow the user to conceal their network address and activity, and surf the internet without being tracked.

These sites have become useful in countries where the government has censored or blocked certain parts of the internet, as the technology allows for the user to bypass any filtering. It does however; it does provide another method for children to surf the internet undetected

A list of the many thousands of anonymous proxies can be found here.

Turning off private browsing is done within the browser settings. Preventing someone from surfing the internet using an anonymous proxy can only be done using filtering software.

For help on filtering software, contact us here.

Facebook Video chat

2011-07-07T12:56:00.000+12:00

Facebook video chat was announced 6 July 2011. The service integrates Skype into Facebook, allowing users to call their friends right from Facebook.

The revamped chat system now includes a sidebar with “the people you message most.” It automatically appears when your browser is big enough.

This may be great news for those regular users of Skype, because the people you probably speak to on Skype are attached to your Facebook profile.

However, parents need to be worried. Children who accept unknown ‘friends’ to their Facebook profile may now have these unknown people attempting to talk to your children!

The service has just been released, and to find information on how it works, click here.

We strongly recommend parents install some form of monitoring / filtering software. That way you will at least be able to see where your children are going to and speaking to on the internet.

School Holidays: Colouring Books & Pencils Not Enough

2011-06-21T13:19:00.000+12:00

Colouring books and pencils are not enough to keep kids busy during school holidays. Today, the internet is their new playground and as we are aware, is a playground littered with adult related material.

We’ve put together a ‘Top 10’ list of sites parents can encourage their kids to use. These sites are safe and well managed.

1. www.minimonos.com – A New Zealand site where kids take the form of a monkey avatar and learn about the environment in a positive way in a cartoon environment. The site is monitored in real-time. Age 6+

2. www.hectorsworld.com – A New Zealand site where kids learn about cyber safety in a cartoon underwater world. The site is actively monitored. Age 5+

3. www.clubpenguin.com – A US site run by Disney, containing all sorts of fun activities. 5+

4. www.superclubsplus.co.nz – The NZ arm of an Australian / English site, also marketed through schools, where kids learn about all sorts of activities on the subject of cyber safety. Age 6+

5. www.togetherville.com – A US site designed to be an introduction to social networking. 7+

6. www.yoursphere.com – US site with various sections on the site different activities. Age 7+

7. www.gianthello.com – US site operating similar to Facebook but in a safer environment. 10+

8. www.whatswhat.me – US site that requires a mug shot of the user for the site records and is very secure. 8+

9. www.scuttlepad.com – US site closely monitored by staff and requires parental signup. 6+

10. www.skidekids.com – US site closely monitored and moderated. 6+

When a parent investigates which site to recommend to their children, it is important to know the level of moderating and monitoring on each site. Most do this well. Also, we recommend choosing a site that requires the parent to sign up the child. Why not start with the two kiwi sites?

Remember, it doesn’t matter how old your children are, if they are using the internet, installing monitoring software that also filters adult material is essential. Too many beginners using the internet stumble across objectionable material accidentally.

Anyone mistyping or misspelling a word in a search engine will often land a page containing material they did not want to see. Such material can deeply affect children emotionally.

Parents are often surprised at how easy such software is to use, and how cost affective is really is.

See www.websafety.co.nz/residential.php for more details on their installation services.

Internet vs Virus vs Productivity: It All Catches Up Eventually

2011-06-10T14:26:00.000+12:00

Ever wondered why a computer gets a virus? Ever thought where the virus comes from? The answer is simple.Computer viruses come from either a portable device plugged into it, or from the internet.

Computer viruses come in many forms. Malware that may slow your machine down or interfere with running processes; root kits that may harvest information such as account names and passwords, then email that info back in stealth mode; viruses that aggressively interrupt the functioning of a computer, and others that delete files.

The end result is that eventually someone has to carry out some remediation on that machine. If the machine owner has the technical capabilities, they will need to clean the machine or possibly rebuild it, in a worst case scenario. Otherwise it involves calling in a PC guy to fix the problem.

In a business environment it becomes a larger issue. Any machine infected with a virus has the potential of infecting the network. A network infected with a virus often leads to technical experts restoring network drives attached to the system. This has the potential to making that data inaccessible for a number of days, many hours of lost producivity and thousands of dollars in lost revenue!

Most businesses have some kind of anti-virus software. BUT in most cases, that software sits on the computer itself. That can prove to be ineffective if the virus entry point is through the internet!

Cleaning infected machines from viruses will always be the priority. However, a business manager should consider the activity the user was involved in to infect the machine in the first place.

I have seen too often, machines being cleaned from viruses, only to be infected again. After forensically auditing the internet activity, I find a pattern of internet surfing to sites known for virus infection as well as much non-work related internet surfing throughout the day. That behaviour usually has been occurring for several months!

For more information on internet auditing see http://www.websafety.co.nz/websafetyaudit.php

Keeping it REAL in the Digital World

2011-05-24T21:23:00.000+12:00

How many parents find the internet difficult to get our heads around? How many of us wonder whether we should just turn off the plug and dispose of our computers? How many of us see the events taking place on the internet JUST TOO MUCH FOR US TO COMPREHEND!

I am sure many of us fall into that category. However, if we take a step back, look at the picture from a higher level; take a bird’s eye view of it all, we can begin to see the picture a lot more clearly.

Since the popularisation of social networking began several years ago, users quickly understood that communicating from behind a computer, in a relatively safe environment, meant that we sometimes communicated in a way that we may not have, if that conversation took place face to face.

This encouraged some users to let down their guard and behave in ways that may not be totally acceptable in the real world. Some of the behaviour was devious, risqué, dangerous and bullying.

This has led to the rise of scams, viruses, identity theft, cyber bullying, as well as social problems brought on by internet addiction and depression.

Parents are often confused in trying to understand technology, and how best to protect their children, in a world they don’t quite understand.

Helping parents understand technology is something WebSafety NZ does well. We help parents make the right software choices in the home as well as helping businesses manage their internet environment.

Once parents teach their children that the way they behave on the internet is no different to the way they behave in society, we start to develop a culture of good digital citizenship.

We are currently presenting our Internet Safety seminar to parents at some of the top schools in Christchurch. ‘Keeping it real’ is the theme of these presentations.

Remember, there will always be new technology surfacing. Always a new fad, craze or trend relating to technology. It doesn’t matter whether it is Formspring, ‘planking’, ‘tea-potting’ or ‘couching’, once we understand that we apply the SAME positive behaviour regardless of the technology, we start to understand how to manage it going forward.

Facebook: Find People Fast!

2011-05-12T08:16:00.000+12:00

Have you ever wondered about how detailed the search feature has become on Facebook? Or thought how easy it now is to find people?

It’s a fantastic tool for law enforcement agencies to find criminals, but not so good when our children don’t have appropriate privacy settings in place on their profiles. After all, Facebook builds all its search criteria on the information each user makes public. The less information filled out on a Facebook profile, the better.

Let’s take a closer look at the features of search on Facebook.

1. General Facebook Search

On this page you can select search by people and enter the basic information such name, location, education, workplace and start your search.

2. Search for Friends on Facebook

Facebook also provide more specific search like search by name or email, search by school and search by company. Just enter the person’s name in each search category.

3. Find friends from different parts of your life

This page also provides more specific people search term to get more accurate search results.

4. Find Friends by email address

Facebook can help you to find person from your email address book. All major web mail services like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Skype etc are supported Etc.

5. Facebook Advance People Search Application

You can use this application to search for people on Facebook. It is added from the available applications. This app currently indexes profiles of about 240 million people in its database.

As a father, I don’t want someone trawling through my daughter’s school and going through her friend’s profiles.

Think about prospective employers. We know they are likely to reference Facebook for any candidates they may be reviewing, but it now makes their job a lot easier.

Can anything be done to limit the search ability of a user on Facebook? The answer is YES. This can be achieved in two ways. Firstly, limit or remove all personal information about yourself in your profile, and restrict what information is shared. You can find this in the privacy settings.

Secondly, Facebook provides the ability to make your profile unsearchable on Facebook. This is found in the privacy settings. Any profile can be made secure on Facebook. It’s just a matter of taking time and figuring it all out!

Acceptable Use Policy: An Essential for Any Business

2011-04-20T13:31:00.000+12:00

It is surprising how many small businesses have no guidelines for managing staff in their electronic environment. This resource should be an essential tool for any business, regardless of the size. See it as part of your ‘tools of the trade’.

Staff working on a computer supplied by a business can potentially cause havoc, and when an unexpected event DOES take place, it’s often unintentional.

If employees are not made aware of what is expected and what is unacceptable in a business computer environment, they are left up to their own judgement to determine what is right and what is wrong.

Some areas of concern are:

· Mass storage devices infecting the network with a virus

· Mass storage devices being used to remove sensitive company data

· Potential infection of machine or network through an internet site

· Blurred lines of ownership when personal devices are being used within the business

· Integrity of data when versions of documents are shared between networks and devices

An Acceptable Use Policy, when implemented properly is a resource that will clearly define the boundaries and make staff accountable.

A comprehensive policy should cover topics such as:

· General use guidelines

· Acceptable use / unacceptable use

· Network and desktop guidelines

· Information guidelines

· Social media guidelines

· Enforcement

· Breach and consequences

All Staff sign a copy at time of implementation, and new staff will sign a copy at time of employment into the business.

Generally, businesses that implement a robust Acceptable Use Policy find that it plays a positive part in behaviour within the business, and incidents are kept to a minimum as a result.

WebSafety NZ Limited helps businesses manage the internet simply. Find out more here: www.websafety.co.nz/business.php

What Is 'Digital Citizenship'?

2011-04-18T15:35:00.000+12:00

Nowadays we hear a lot about ‘digital citizenship’. But WHAT does it refer to? Digital citizenship is a term used to describe the behaviour skills required for acceptable engagement relating to internet activity.

It is taking a holistic approach to everything the internet encompasses, and applying appropriate behaviour to those technologies.

There will always be something new when it comes to communication and the internet. We need to apply the same behaviour to whatever comes along, instead of treating each new change as a separate issue. Once we can accomplish that, we are heading in the right direction.

A digital citizen:

· is a confident and capable user of ICT

· uses technologies to participate in educational, cultural, and economic activities

· uses and develops critical thinking skills in cyberspace

· is literate in the language, symbols, and texts of digital technologies

· is aware of ICT challenges and can manage them effectively

· uses ICT to relate to others in positive, meaningful ways

· demonstrates honesty and integrity and ethical behaviour in their use of ICT

· respects the concepts of privacy and freedom of speech in a digital world

· contributes and actively promotes the values of digital citizenship

One of the local schools has come up with an excellent mindmap on the subject of digital citizenship. It includes what they call the ‘9 strands’ of digital literacy.

We are always guaranteed to see CHANGE in technology. Helping children to understand how they can better be empowered to be confident and safer digital citizens is the best any parent can do.

When Should I Install Monitoring Software?

2011-03-28T14:49:00.000+13:00

Parents are being bombarded with information on this subject. Two weeks ago we heard of a boy in Australia who retaliated after being bullied for many years, and the video was uploaded to YouTube.

Last week we saw images of two girls at a North Island school in a vicious fight, including one taking kicks to the head that left her bleeding from the ears.

“Children are still learning how to conduct themselves in the electronic world, and will do for some time. They have got a long way to go.”

We also saw the launch of a mobile monitoring product for cell phones, and a debate around whether it was right or wrong for a parent to install.

WebSafety NZ has sold internet monitoring and cell phone monitoring software for some time. Both products have been tested, and are well placed for the New Zealand market.

Children are still learning how to conduct themselves in the electronic world, and will do for some time. They have got a long way to go.

Parents have a responsibility to provide guidance to children in how to behave appropriately, in that electronic world. However, many parents are not aware of the risks the internet poses, nor are they aware of how damaging and hurtful it can be, when it all goes horribly wrong.

Whether it is to protect or prevent the content they may be viewing, the content they may be posting, the people they may be in contact with and what they are saying to them, or the way children are conducting themselves in the electronic world, PARENTS NEED TO BE AWARE.

We have one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and just like any other country, cyber bullying is rife. Young girls make themselves vulnerable by taking semi naked photos of themselves and sending them to boyfriends, potentially destroying their reputation in the process.

Boys are receiving images from girls that could be classed as child pornography.

As a parent, it is not about spying on our children. It’s about having the tools at hand to identify any threats, issues or unacceptable behaviour, so we can address them in a responsible way and help our children understand positive behaviour in today’s digital world.

WebSafety NZ installs monitoring software on home computers and mobiles both locally or remotely. They can be contacted at: www.websafety.co.nz

Is My Child Being Bullied?

2011-03-22T15:36:00.000+13:00

Bullying has been around for many years and for some time was accepted as part of being a kid. If you were bullied it was something you just had to deal with.

Today, that is no longer accepted. Many of us understand the trauma the victim goes through. The anxiety, stress, pain and misery that can be inflicted and how the effects can be far reaching for years.

It was only last week when the media showed video footage of a 16 year old boy from Sydney, who picked up his perpetrator after being taunted, and slammed him into the ground. This boy, like many other victims, had been bullied most of his life.

Sadly, many parents are unaware when their child is either the victim or the offender. In the case above, it was only brought to the attention of authorities after the video was uploaded to Youtube, and viewed by thousands worldwide.

New Zealand schools may vary in the methods used in addressing these issues when they arise. Talking about it during educational sessions can go a long way in helping children understand the effects of bullying.

Parents play an important role in maintaining a mental checklist. If a child exhibits any of the following symptoms:

Stop using the computer
Flinch when they receive a text message
Loss of appetite
Stop socialising with friends
Change in mood

…they may be a victim of cyber bullying. Remember, children often won’t tell their parents if they are a victim.

Monitoring software installed on home computers will help identify what children are doing online. There are some great products out there and used in the correct way, can be a valuable tool for picking up any concerns.

Parents can also discuss the bullying topic with their children whether they think they may be a victim or not. YOUR child may even be the bully!

The Day Christchurch Cried

2011-02-27T16:20:00.001+13:00

Tuesday 22 February was like any other day. Kids were in school. Parents were at work, and tourists were visiting the many heritage sites within the city. For myself, I decided to head into downtown 15 minutes earlier than usual, for a cheap haircut. I knew I would have to sit in a queue.

I had a few more erins to run, before getting back to my desk at about 12:45pm. Little did I know, that 6 minutes later, at 12:51pm, our beloved city would change forever.

When that time came, my two story building shook like never before. This was not one of the many aftershocks still around from the September 4th quake. This was something new, and very serious.

We dropped under desks, then ran out of the building, everyone safely made it. Sadly, many others in parts of the CBD didn’t.

My partner was in Lyttleton, the port town over the hill from Christchurch. It was also the epicentre of the quake. I know she was there, and had no contact from her till 7pm. I was concerned. She experienced bricks raining down, while a client pulled her into a stand-up steel safe. That was a lucky escape!

Dust filled the air after the quake, and liquefaction oozed up through suddenly visible cracks in the pavement, as water mains and sewer pipes broke below us. The grey sludge was a constant flow and was potentially contaminated with sewage.

Standing outside our building, which still stood, was airy. We were not allowed back in, and most of us had personal belongings in there. I headed home, and walked through one of the main streets on the eastern edge of the city. Walking past blocks of shops that were now piles of bricks. The old 2 storey house that was being rebuild, down like a pile of match sticks. Three cars crushed by the debris.

Streets near home were flooded with grey sludge, as I waded through to get home.

Our place was without power, water and other services for 4 days. We managed the best we could, and coped well.

People in Christchurch have been amazing. The CBD has Search and Rescue experts from countries around the world such as Japan, Israel, UK, Australia, USA, Taiwan, Singapore to name a few. The coordination has ben the best overseas experts have seen ever. We have over 300 police from Australia, many of the armed forces involved, as well as experts and help from all over New Zealand.

Liquefaction has been even more of a problem than the last quake. We have seen a lot more of it. We spent two days clearing it from our street and another property. This toxic sludge is very fine, and as it’s mixed with sewage, needs to be cleared quickly. If left, it hardens like concrete.

Likewise, the fine dust created when it dries is a real health hazard. We will be purchasing masks tomorrow to ensure there are no long term health effects.

As day 5 of the earthquake draws to a close, the international teams of Search and Rescue or USAR as they are referred to (Urban Search & Rescue) continue to do their job. Over 1000 students (The Student Army) have been out and about with shovels helping people clear silt, more than 1800 diggers clearing roads and streets, and local folk helping each other, continue. And will so, for many weeks and months to come.

Much grieving has taken place, and more still to come. We all know people that we are still trying to make contact with. We can only hope for a positive outcome.

Christchurch city is going to take some time to recover and rebuild. It’s always been a great city, and even though it will be a very different city, it’s our home, and we all look forward to the future.

Underage Facebook Users

2011-02-21T08:01:00.000+13:00

Some of us may not realise that Facebook has an age restriction when going through the process of creating a profile. Part of that process asked for your age. If the user is under 13 years old, Facebook will not allow the profile to be created. The minimum age is 13.

Yet this is easily bypassed, by changing the year you were born to another year. The end result is that Facebook users are joining at a younger age. Often, parents are the guilty party, as they are creating profiles for the children!

Here are some issues to consider before approving a Facebook profile for a child 12 and under:

1. Age

Facebook requires users to be over 13 years old. Consider how you feel about this and whether you want to condone your children "lying", even if you feel it is acceptable for them to have a Facebook account.

Kids are not surprisingly imitating their older siblings and other older Facebook users and the kind of posts they may write, the surveys they answer and the photos they upload of themselves are sometimes inappropriate for their age. We should understand that it is not "cute". Bragging about having a boyfriend or sharing highly emotional expressions in a public social network pushes them towards dealing with issues they are not ready for and do not need to be exposed to.

2. Posting Personal Information

Kids reveal a lot about their lives in Facebook - they do this via Wall posts on their own pages and those of friends, they vote for what they "like", join fan pages, they post videos and photos. A savvy user can easily piece together the multitude of information and make use of it. There is real risk involved in having too much personal information out there.

Kids often compete against one another in the number of ‘friends’ they can accumulate on their profile. In most cases, they don’t personally know these people. Simply telling kids to not "friend" strangers is NOT enough.

3. Privacy

Kids may not be aware of or be concerned about the privacy settings. Facebook made significant changes whereby the default is to expose much of your PERSONAL information to public access.

A lot of information can be identified by browsing ‘friends’ profiles, as well as ‘friends of friends’ profiles.

4. Insults and Bullying

Kids are more likely to be insulting on Facebook. And everyone can see the insult and join in. This is very different than a fight between two children on the playground, where they cannot take it public and conduct surveys to see who is more liked...

5. Increased Computer Use

Facebook may increase overall computer use. Clear rules and limits should be established.

Ultimately, if you do allow your child to have a Facebook account, even if they are underage, you need to keep an eye on their use. The easiest way to do this is to have your own Facebook account and be your child's "friend". This way, you will see everything they write and upload and can even see what their "friends" are up to.

You can also consider installing filtering software to help you limit time online as well as to filter websites that a child should view.

To learn more about how to keep your child safe on the internet, take a look at our eBook. A downloadable FREE chapter is available here.

Are You Concerned About Formspring.me?

2011-02-15T12:45:00.000+13:00

Formspring is a question and answer-based social website, launched in November 2009. The site allows its users to set up a profile page, from which anyone can ask them questions. The questions and their given responses are then published on the user's profile page.
The questions can be asked with a user's name hidden, or they can be visibly sent from another Formspring account, according to the asker's preference. Users can however choose to disallow anonymous questions, and have the ability to block selected people from asking further questions, even if the asker has remained anonymous. Formspring also allows a user to link their profile with other popular social networking profiles.
It doesn’t take much effort to search Google for ‘formspring users’, before coming across profiles that can be accessed. In many cases, after scrolling down through the questions being asked, it’s not long before questions start to get nasty.
One teacher in the US writes:
Formspring.me is a very simple site. Users like my 8th and 9th graders create accounts, which give them a formspring page. If you or I go visit that user’s page, we see a box to type in with a title that reads “Ask me anything.” You fill out this box and it anonymously asks the user any question you can come up with. The user will then post his/her answer, along with the question, for all to see. Simple concept, right?

Here’s the dilemma: anyone who works with young people can quickly point out that anonymity nearly always breeds irresponsibility. This case is no different. While doing a little research, I was (un)fortunate enough to come across a couple of former students’ pages on Formspring.me and can honestly say that I will never look at those students the same way again. After only a couple of minutes browsing around, here are a couple of things I saw that set of alarm bells in my “teacher brain”:

Conversations on each page quickly degenerated into some general types of questions/comments:

“I hate you” comments were remarkably prevalent. I saw people calling each other names that I wouldn’t use around my closest friends. Moreover, the frequency of these comments was staggering. In a lot of ways, this site more or less encourages cyber-bullying, and does it in a public space.
“You’re awesome” comments are much less disturbing, but encourage a pretty self-centred view on life. For example, I saw a few comments such as, “Why are people judging you? You’re so nice!” Not surprisingly, the students in question respond with statements about how they are good people that don’t judge other people but that other people actually judge them.
Questions/comments about sex. Every question that can be asked about a person’s sexual history, preference, etc. is being discussed in public for the world to see. Like I said – I’ll never look at some kids the same way again.

This site allows a space for kids to do discuss these things in an uncontrolled environment without talking about issues with parents or teachers or people who may have a little more experience and wisdom.
Think MySpace encouraged risky behaviour? Looking at two pages on Formspring, I saw full names, cities, and cell phone numbers posted for all the world to see. At our school, we try to teach kids what information to put out there and to be responsible citizens of the internet. Apparently our lessons aren’t sticking.

Now, I’m not saying we should sue the website and get it shut down or anything like that. I’m not even necessarily saying the site should be blocked by school web filters. What I am saying, though, is that this is just another site that parents and teachers need to be aware of and, hopefully, talk to their students about using responsibly. I know I will.

The comments from this teacher would be similar to others. In New Zealand, there has been a significant increase in the use of this site, as its awareness increases. Parents are encouraged to talk to their children about the site, and discuss the dangers it poses.

Do you have some experience using Formspring.me? Do your children or students use it? I’d really appreciate hearing your thoughts, comments, and questions on this one.

Google Safe Search for Kids

2011-02-03T12:56:00.000+13:00

In case you haven't noticed, search-engine giant Google has made some changes to their interface. How does this relate to Google Safesearch? Well, if you search for anything you'll notice a drop-down link to the right of the search button. This drop-down link doesn't appear on the Google homepage, you have to be on the page that displays your search results.
Clicking this link will give you the three filter options: off, moderate, and strict.

Keep in mind, this filter can easily be changed by children if you haven't locked your Safesearch settings (see below for instructions).
This information is an an update on this topic as there are serious differences in the search results if you haven't locked this on your home computer. You won't see a huge difference by changing the filter from "moderate" to "off" in the Web results, but do the same in Image results and you'll be shocked at what comes up.
For example, a harmless search like "teens on cell phone" on a moderate filter is exactly that, harmless. But simply change the filter to off and you won't believe what comes up. I didn't believe what came up. Parents should take immediate action on their home computer.
If you've ever felt that porn was a threat to your child's online safety, then take Google Safesearch seriously. Continue reading below to learn how to lock it.

In addition to being safe on social networks, we can't forget that the Internet is full of malicious websites. Google.com is the most popular search engine in the world and is used by millions of people every day, most likely including you and your children. Without the proper filtering, searching in Google's image or video database can yield some scary results, and it's important for parents to know how to shield their children from those results. Fortunately, Google has provided multiple ways to safely filter your child's search results.
Setting and Locking Google Safe Search -
1. Head over to www.google.com, and in the top right corner you'll see a link called "Search Settings". Click it.
2. You should now be at the Preference page. From here you can set the type of filtering that you want. Choosing "Strict filtering" is the only way to activate Google Safe Search.
3. Now all you have to do is lock Safe Search. To do that, just click on the link called "Lock SafeSearch". From here you'll be prompted to log into your Google account (if you don't have one, making one only takes a second). Then you can lock it.

NB: Article reproduced from http://internet-safety.yoursphere.com/

Kids and Smartphones

2011-01-29T16:55:00.000+13:00

Smart phones for kids are the same phones used by adults. These phones are packed with many features, and any decision to buy one for your child needs careful consideration.
A ‘smart phone’ is a new generation of cell phone that works similar to a computer. They have full access to the internet, email, and many applications you would expect to find on a computer.

There are hundreds of models on the market and powered by operating systems such as Windows, Symbian, Android and Apple’s iPhone. Prices range from around $1400 for the latest iPhone, to around $200 - $300 for a phone running the Android operating system.

Phone sales for smart phones have escalated over the past 6 months and continue to be one of the hottest products on kids’ wish lists! We believe phones running the android operating system will be the most popular, due to its affordability.
All phones come with wireless connectivity to the internet. In New Zealand, like other countries, wireless connectivity is freely provided in various parts of the city. Here in NZ, FREE wireless connectivity is provided at city libraries and ALL McDonald’s restaurants nationwide!

Children are now able to sit at McDonalds and surf the internet for free, and unmonitored. Is this really such a god idea? Parents wanting a solution to at least monitor their children’s’ internet activity are able to identify and address any issues as they arise.

We have looked at various products on the market and have tested one we see as beneficial to the NZ parent. Phone Beagle is a small application that is installed on the Android smart phone. Once it is installed, it records all internet activity, all text messages, picture messages and GPS location data.

All data is accessible from an internet site, therefore parents are able to review the data, regardless of where they may be. Phone Beagle is around $69.95 for a 1 year license and can be purchased HERE.

Increase Business Productivity in 2011

2011-01-11T15:01:00.000+13:00

Business productivity in 2011 will be at the top of the list for most companies. As business confidence starts to increase, opportunities to maximize profits are essential to the success of any organisation.

Finding new ways to do things better, are always in the minds of business leaders. Being in a position to ‘do more with less’ is a phrase we are all well aware of.

Smaller organisations are no different to large corporations. Their desire to succeed and be profitable is the same. Yet smaller organisations do not have the same resources as larger ones. This is most prevalent in the area of Information Technology.

Internet usage in the workplace often provides a headache for managers. Where do they draw the line between acceptable use and unacceptable use?

Research shows that around 70% of staff spend between 1 – 4 hours per day surfing the internet on topics such as social networking, playing games, shopping, online video streaming, joke sites, funny picture sites and other time-wasting sites.

Staff engaging in such activity can cause animosity within a team, and cause an imbalance within team morale.

The potential for lost productivity from a financial perspective is huge. A staff member earning $20 an hour, spending just 1 hour per day on non-work related internet surfing, could loose at least $5,000 in potential lost productivity for that business.

Managing internet use in the workplace and identifying internet activity of individuals are a lot simpler than one may think.

Targeting specific computers for an internet audit, implementing Acceptable Use policies and implementing simple software solutions can be done at a minimal cost. The results will speak for themselves.

WebSafety NZ Limited works with businesses helping them manage the internet using a 3 step process. Find out more here.

Are You Using the Internet to Babysit Your Children?

2010-12-03T15:30:00.002+13:00

It’s almost the end of the year. Fantastic! The kids have completed their exams and we are winding down at work, looking forward to a well deserved break.

We plan to put our feet up, relaxing and taking time out, while our kids keep themselves occupied by digging in the garden, flying their kite, playing outside with the kids in the street, kicking a ball around the park with their mates and getting lots of fresh air.

Wait a minute! Do kids really do all that stuff these days? In most cases, the answer is NO.

May children today spend hours of their time in the new playground we all know as the Internet. While it may be comforting to know our kids are close by, there is far more danger lurking in the electronic world than many parents may think.

“The internet has the potential to setup, lure, trap, convince and entice the young and vulnerable into all sorts of situations”.

Understanding the internet surfing habits of your children will help you to understand how aware they are, when it comes to cyber safety. Many children are taught cyber safety in school, and learn about the dangers of sharing personal information, and the importance of keeping that information private.

Just like adults, children make mistakes, and are learning as they go along. By installing Monitoring Software on home computers, a parent can block sites that are inappropriate and monitor the computer activity of their children.

Glancing through chat logs, a parent should recognize friends that are talking to their kids. If any name is not recognized, a parent can take action.

We’ve tested a number of products and find PC Pandora to be one of the best on the market. We have also discovered others having the same opinion in several surveys that can be found online.

Whatever you do, enjoy the festive season and make sure your kids do too.

My Computer is Running Slow - What Can I Do?

2010-11-22T09:41:00.000+13:00

We have all experienced it. New computers run well at the time of purchase, but after a few months they seem to grind to a snails pace.

Computers in the home are often used by many people, who use the internet in many different ways. What some of us don’t realize is that the way we use the internet may be harmful to our computer.

Anti-virus products are designed to prevent viruses from infecting computers. BUT, they are only as good as the update file they use, to identify viruses. In most products, the update file is updated automatically. By scheduling regular scans on your computer will ensure viruses are kept at bay.

Malware (malicious software) and spyware are similar to viruses but operate in a slightly different way. They are generally designed to sit on your computer, and gather information.

Machines are often infected with malware to record details on the computer and send them back to the infector. The infector uses the information for financial gain and criminal activity.

Computers infected by malware are often slowed down due to the methods used in collecting information.

Free software downloaded from the internet such as Adaware and SpyBot Search & Destroy are great products to run and remove malware and spyware from your computer.

Such infections do however, come from the internet. To get a better understanding of the types of sites that are being visited, will help identify the possible risks these sites pose to your computer. Many sites containing free games or software have the potential to infect your machine unknowingly.

Criminals often infect free software with malware, as this is an easy way to infect a machine.

By installing monitoring software such as PC Pandora, you will not only be able to see what sites are visited, but also block certain types of sites you deem inappropriate.

How To Spot a Scam

2010-11-10T13:06:00.000+13:00

Scam artists have been around a long time, and as new technology evolve, so do the methods scam artists utilise, to prey on their target.

Many email scams have been doing the rounds over the years, and while most of us realise offers of huge sums of money are too good to be true, the criminals have come up with new ways to look for vulnerable suspects.

Phishing emails are those designed to ‘trick’ a suspect into clicking on a link. The link will usually take the person to a page that looks very similar to a business they transact with. It may be their bank, internet service provider, or another institution.

The common thread with phishing emails is this:

• The link site ALWAYS has a site address DIFFERENT to the legitimate one. An example of this for the ASB Bank may be: http://www.asbbank.com Where the correct internet address for this bank is: http://www.asb.co.nz

By taking extra time and hovering the mouse over the link, the internet address or URL will display for about 10 seconds. This is the key in identifying these scams.

However, it must also be stressed that there are other times whereby the legitimate site may be infected. In this case, the scammer may place a file on the site which could be hard to detect. An example of this could be: http://www.asb.co.nz/files/temp/banking/trick_file (where ‘trick_file’ is the file that may look like your banking logon page. Again, placing your cursor over the link will identify the location of the site you are about to be redirected to.

Remember, no legitimate business will EVER ask for a user name, password or account number using email.

Phone scams are the latest to hit our shores. We have seen several that may direct us to a site that will help clean viruses on our machine, or similar.

Remember, NO legitimate business will EVER ask you to on the telephone to click on links on the internet, unless you have made prior arrangements with them, such as a legitimate computer support company.

Cold calling requests to access your computer may infect your machine with spyware that has the potential to record passwords. These scam artists are looking for banking account details for financial gain.

Many Parents Turn a Blind Eye on Cyber Safety

2010-11-01T13:58:00.000+13:00

WebSafety NZ is concerned that many parents are turning a blind eye when it comes to the subject of cyber safety.

Over a 12 month period we ran several Internet Safety seminars presenting to parents on the subject of cyber safety. Although the seminars were well marketed by the schools, attendance remained poor.

We offer a service whereby we install cyber safety software on home computers and teach parents how to use the software. However, the service remains under utilized.

Our concern is that a lot of what children are exposed to on the internet is either not known or understood by many parents.

WebSafety NZ recommend that while educating parents and their children on the dangers of the internet is the first step, installing monitoring software remains an essential tool for a parent to understand how their children use the internet.

Children are engaging in social networking and creating profiles on sites such as Facebook as young as 6 years old. Facebook require an individual to be at least 13 to create an account. However, children often lie about their age.

Younger children are more likely to give away personal information freely when asked, and are not mature enough to understand the consequences of their actions. Monitoring children’s internet surfing is recommended by WebSafety NZ from the age of 5, or as soon as they start using the computer.

Kids Give False Information to get on Facebook

2010-10-08T13:44:00.000+13:00

With the eminent demise of Bebo (www.bebo.com) , children are creating profiles on Facebook at a younger age.

Facebook requires a user to be at least 13 years of age but children are giving false information about their age to allow them to create a profile. In some instances, children as young as 9 or 10 are on Facebook.

In most cases, parents have no idea what their children are doing on the internet. Many of us assume our children are too well behaved to go behind our back and do something we may not approve of online.

The fact is that our children ARE creating profiles on Facebook at a younger age than they should. Children ARE deleting their history so mums and dads cannot see where they have been surfing to and parents can take control with minimum effort.

WebSafety NZ is educating parents in their home with their cyber safety assessment. They are explaining to parents WHAT they need to be aware of, depending on the age of their children. The service also includes helping parents install monitoring software and show them how to use it. The software will monitor, block, record and report on all activity a parent chooses. The base package is $99.

Young children on Facebook don’t want to be young. They want to be cool online and appear more mature. Unfortunately, it takes many years for maturity to develop, and these children do not understand consequences. As such they are a lot more vulnerable to giving away personal information and are risk of being bullied or preyed upon.

Installing an appropriate monitoring software product will allow parents to keep an eye on what their kids are doing on the internet and address any concerns that may arise.

Top 3 Reasons for Parents to Install Monitoring Software

2010-09-17T12:12:00.000+12:00

We all want the best for our children and most parents like to think we have good kids. In most cases that is true. However, our children need to be careful when using the internet.

A lot of the time kids don’t fully understand the dangers, nor the reasons for making sure they are not posting personal information about themselves online.

The three reasons why parents need to install internet monitoring software are:

1. Personal information: Children are posting personal information about what they are going to be doing and where they are going to be doing it. This is a dangerous practice. Posting information about what we got up to is fine as it has already happened.

Remember, there are grown men out there who are sexually interested in young boys and girls. Posting personal information about where you will be at a certain time can put that person at risk.

2. Predators: As above, some grown men, usually lonely, spend large amounts of time trawling the internet, generally social networking sites, trying to make contact with young boys and girls. The intention is always sexual, and these people know how to make a connection.

Educate our children to only accept ‘friend’ requests from real people that they know outside of the internet.

3. Cyber bullying: Even though this has been around for some time now, it is still growing, and still a problem. The anonymity of the internet allows for even cowardly people to carry on with bullying behavior. It is very destructive and can occur 24/7.

The effects on our children are anxiety, stress, loss of appetite, lack of self esteem, depression and in some cases suicide.

Teach children to tell a parent about anything that makes them feel uncomfortable that they see or read on the internet.

Parents can easily install simple monitoring software such as PC Pandora (click here), that will allow them to monitor children’s internet activity. That way, at least we can review usage once a week, and discuss the dangers or concerns with our children to ensure they keep safe while using the internet.

Teachers and Children on Facebook

2010-09-14T12:47:00.000+12:00

As our education systems move more into the computer environment, the boundaries between the Teacher and student can become muddled.

While some schools may setup a Facebook page for school related issues, the boundaries of friendship between a Teacher and student should never be crossed.

Teachers are at risk on Facebook of having students sending them ‘friend’ requests. On some occasions the request may come from a Teacher. Likewise, Teachers are vulnerable to ‘Facebook slagging’, where a student may setup a defamatory page about them. This has already happened several times in New Zealand.

Parents should educate their children on the consequences of Facebook contact with a Teacher, if it is outside the realm of standard teaching methods. It not only puts the child at risk, but also the teacher.

Installing monitoring software such as PC Pandora, will show the parent WHO their children are talking to on social networking sites.

Social Location Apps Smack Privacy

2010-08-19T16:05:00.000+12:00

If parents didn’t have enough concerns to worry about when it comes to keeping their kids safe on the internet, they do now. Subjects such as sexting, cyber bullying, stalkers, predators and privacy issues on social networking sites are topics we are still trying to get our head around.

The latest technology that utilizes SMART phone GPS features are known as ‘social location applications’. These applications have the ability to ‘announce’ where we are to our ‘friends’.

Four Square is one such popular application that allows registered users to connect with friends and update their location. Points are awarded for "checking in" at venues. Users can choose to have their check-ins posted on their accounts on Twitter, Facebook or both. Launched in January 2010, it has become popular with smart phones users.

On 19th August 2010, Facebook launched their own social location application. As this is so new, not much information is available. However, I imagine that the application will be able to announce the location of the user to ALL their Facebook friends.

Most teenagers have around 200 – 300 friends. A lot of the time they do not know all of these people personally. Is announcing exactly where one’s location is, to several hundred people of which some you do not know, who have access to personal photos and other information, really such a good idea?

In a few years time when smart phone technology with GPS is cheap enough for us all, parents need to be concerned about location based applications. Teenagers may see it as ‘fun’ but there is real dangers we need to consider. I for one will not be activating such technology on my phone!

NZ Suicide Rate Higher Than Road Toll

2010-08-12T12:46:00.000+12:00

While reading the article on Stuff today http://bit.ly/bl2DAK I am not surprised. The fact that it is 50% higher is tragic. New Zealand has one of the highest rates of teen suicide in the world per capita.

More education needs to be made available, in helping parents identify patterns and risks early, before they get out of hand. People do not decide to take their own life all of a sudden. There will be a pattern of behavior over a period of time that will lead to it.

Implementing software to monitor internet activity will help parents in knowing where teens are going to on the internet. Our software captures sites visited, search terms used, email and also records chat. Details are presented in summary format, with the option to drill down into the detail. This still allows for a certain level of privacy.

The Newspaper Publishers’ Association CEO Tim Pankhurst says "I would like to see quite a lot more media coverage of what leads people to such a desperate act and what intervention there could be to help them."

WebSafety NZ Limited believe a pattern of activity, whether email, text messaging, internet surfing or a combination, may show signs of negative behavior. Therefore using software to monitor usage can help identify that behavior before it's too late.

Is Internet Addiction Related to Depression?

2010-08-06T15:52:00.001+12:00

Recent studies in Australia tend to say YES. In a study conducted on data from 1,041 teens aged 13 – 18, it identified that after 9 months, the risk of suffering from depression in teens were 2.5 times higher from those who claimed they were addicted to the internet, than those who said they weren’t.

Parents need to play an important role in restricting and limiting time their children spend on the internet.

As parents, we cannot be over their shoulder 24/7. That’s where ‘parental control’ software comes in. Simple to install, parental software such as PC Pandora will give a parent the ability to block types of sites they choose, be able to monitor internet activity, and set automatic time scheduling to limit activity.

The affects of internet addiction leading to depression are too great to ignore. Children become withdrawn, and their social life and school work ultimately suffer.

Facebook in New Zealand

2010-08-02T14:58:00.000+12:00

Facebook in New Zealand is growing at an alarming rate. We now have almost 1.7 million users!

Looking at the data more closely, it is great to see that over 45,000 of these users are 65 or older. I congratulate this group and it is a great way for them to not only embrace technology, but also keep in touch with family.

The results also show that 29,000 users fall into the age group of 13 or younger. Given that a user must be at least 13 to join Facebook, I wonder how many children are on Facebook by faking their age?

Children often don’t understand the importance of privacy, and run the risk of making themselves vulnerable by sharing too much information, if they do not set secure privacy settings on their Facebook profile.

Please contact us directly, should you require any help with your Facebook privacy settings. WebSafety NZ recommends parents sit with their children and ask them to show you the privacy settings on their Facebook profile. That way you are empowering your children, and can possibly both learn at the same time!

Do You Prefer to ‘Like’ or ‘Retweet’?

2010-07-26T13:45:00.000+12:00

Social media integration is common on the internet these days. Sharing information has become simple. No longer do we need to cut and paste a url into an email, we simply ‘retweet’ it. That way, anyone following us on Twitter will see the link in our tweet.

Likewise, reading an article we like, may encourage us to read more articles by that author. By clicking on the ‘Like’ button we show the author we are interested in their material.

Social networking has become an important tool for a lot of businesses today, and many of us have a requirement to use social networking tools as part of our daily job.

What about those of us who don’t have a business requirement to use social networking in our job? Why should we miss out on all the fun?

Small business owners need to be concerned about monitoring internet usage in the workplace. Not because you want to ensure your staff have fun, but because you may be paying staff to surf the internet all day, when they should be doing something else!

Internet monitoring in the workplace does not necessarily require software purchases. Let’s look at an example. Perhaps you have a staff member under-performing in the workplace. As a business owner, you are not in a position to look over their shoulder all the time. You may suspect there is excessive non-work related internet surfing going on. We call it ‘Cyber Slacking’.

A simple internet audit of the machine will identify ALL activity occurring on that machine. At WebSafety NZ, we find that in the course of performing a forensic internet audit, we often discover that a user surfing non-work related internet sites has been doing so for many months.

Internet usage monitoring, combined with a robust Acceptable Use policy, will allow you to set the boundaries and make staff accountable.

Cyber Safety Interest from Parents

2010-07-20T12:19:00.002+12:00

This year I have presented a number of 1 hour Internet Safety Seminars to parents through the schools in Christchurch. I am always fascinated to see how many people turn up.

The schools always do a fantastic job in marketing. We also supply marketing material to schools to use as well. The school usually send out early notification to parents through newsletters and the like, as well as several reminders leading up to the event. After all, this is something their children spend a lot of time using, and most of us are aware that there are dangers. Many of us are not quite sure of how serious those dangers can be.

Leading up to the first few presentations I had great expectations of filling the school halls. Unfortunately, this was not to be. In general, attendance has been very poor. I am not sure why. Perhaps it is difficult for parents to get away in the evening. It often means hiring a baby sitter. Perhaps parents don’t think their children are at risk? Or maybe some parents don't want to know about it? I would love to hear any comments.

The most successful presentation to date was in May. It was a public presentation, well organized and marketed by the La Vida Centre Trust. Well done guys, just under 100 in attendance.

Today I came across a very concerning chain letter story that did the rounds in Australia. Click here for the details. As a result, parents demanded to know more, and a seminar is being held tonight, where they expect well over 300 attendees. Let’s hope it is well attended. I will be presenting at 2 more schools in August. Understanding the issues through education is so important!

How Are You Protecting Sensitive Data?

2010-07-15T14:43:00.003+12:00

In today’s economy business owners focus on operational expenditure and ensuring they maximise profits. We live in a competitive environment and strive to be the best we can be.

We trust our staff and expect them to show loyalty to the business.

McAfee carried out a survey on ‘The Enemy Within’ and identified that in Europe, 5% of staff accessed electronic information they knew they shouldn’t have accessed.

In a business where strategic or competitive data is passed on to an opposition company, a business could loose thousands of dollars in potentially lost revenue.

If you are a smaller business, data protection software can be costly to implement. All businesses should have an Acceptable Use policy, which will outline general use, terms and conditions staff are expected to maintain, and information on data protection.

In addition, businesses are able to implement simple computer monitoring systems, which record all activity occurring on each computer.

Staff will think twice about leaking sensitive information to an opposition company knowing it is not only against policy, but also that they will be caught once monitoring logs are reviewed!

Cyber Bullying in New Zealand

2010-07-07T15:28:00.000+12:00

New Zealand schools are not immune to cyber bullying, and just like the rest of the world, this problem exists nationwide. It is destructive because it is 24/7. It is relentless and causes stress, anxiety, loss of appetite, and depression.

NetSafe produced a fantastic dramatization of primary school aged children. this video can be seen here.

Internet in the Workplace

2010-07-04T21:16:00.000+12:00

Managing the internet in the workplace can vary from business to business. Some do it well, by blocking most sites except those used in the business. Some may prevent a handful of time-wasting sites from being accessed, while others have no blocking at all.

Often, we find smaller businesses don't look at internet management software as an investment. Once business owners understand how much productivity may be lost through cyber slacking, they quickly realise the benefits.

Research shows that a conservative estimate is that 65 - 70% of staff spend time on non-work related internet surfing. Those people will spend 1 - 1.5 hours a day on sites related to shopping, games, video and social networking.

Lets say the average staff member is payed $20 per hour, that amounts to over $4800 per annum, just for one staff member!

WebSafety NZ work with businesses and implement simple software solutions to manage the internet.

What Are Our Kids Doing Online?

2010-06-30T13:49:00.000+12:00

I recently discovered two surveys about internet usage by our children that make interesting reading. The first report from Norton is available here, and was compiled from a survey from 9000 users, both adults and children from 12 countries.

The report notes that kids spend twice as much time surfing the internet than their parents know about.

The second report from McAfee is entitled ‘The Secret Online Lives of Teens’, and is available here.

The McAfee report contains facts from 13 - 17 year olds in the US, and was compiled in 2008. Naturally, social networking is on the rise. WebSafety NZ's concerns are around the lack of understanding around privacy.

Another fact was that around 32% of teens don't tell their parents what they are doing online, and with 16 - 17 year olds, 56% have admitted to hiding what they are doing online.

The importance of parental software has to be highlighted. KNOWING what your children are doing online is an important part of parenting. Yes we want to trust our children. however, they have a long progression of learning and monitoring / blocking software allows parents to stay on top of their game.

Parents Need To Change Their Mindset

2010-06-08T13:23:00.000+12:00

As a parent, we want the best for our children. We want our kids to grow up in a healthy environment. We protect our children from harm, shield them from dangers, and make sure they are looked after when we are not around.

So why do we not apply the same principles when it comes to the internet? Statistics show that only a third of parents have any form of Parental Control software on their home computers.

Is it because parents are unaware of such software? Or is it because parents think they may be invading their child’s space?

As parents, we need to apply the same parental principles in the real world, to the cyber world as well. There is a growing gap between what parents THINK their kids are doing on the internet, and what they are actually doing.

Privacy issues are a big concern these days, and parents are seriously misinformed with the amount of personal information their children my freely give away.

We are not invading our kids privacy by deploying such software. Responsible parents need to guide their children. For children, privacy needs to be earned. It is not something given automatically.

Parental control software comes in various formats, and can be put in ‘monitor’ mode only. That way you will be in a position to at least SEE where your kids are going to on the internet. I recommend PC Pandora, and can be found here. It is easy to install, and the install guide can be found here.

Teach Our Kids To Be Safe Cyber Citizens

2010-05-24T10:23:00.000+12:00

Parents often feel they are loosing touch with technology and their kids will always know more than they do when it comes to the internet.

Parents can feel more comfortable if they take a step back and look at the internet technology from a single view. It does not matter what the new service is, the behavior should always be the same. We need to teach our children to be SAFE CYBER CITIZENS.

It was only in the last 10 years that Chat Rooms were popular, and the norm. We then progressed to Instant Messenger programs such as MSN and Yahoo Messenger.

Social networking sites were next, and have only been around for 5 years. Yes, we here about Facebook almost weekly. Facebook is one of many hundreds of social networking sites in existence.

There have also been some dangerous sites popping up such as ChatRoulette , an anonymous webcam chat site, and formspring.me , an anonymous site where users ask questions of each other.

There are always going to be new sites popping up that may be more dangerous than the other. However, the behavior we want our kids to portray is one of responsibility. We do need to teach our kids about them, but also teach them the consequences of negative action.

When you teach your children about privacy and the importance of thinking carefully before posting anything to the internet; when they understand that anything posted to the internet lasts forever; when they understand the consequences of bullying; when they understand that real friends are only those around them and not just on the internet, we make good progress in equipping our children to be SAFE Cyber Citizens.

How To Manage Your Kids on Facebook

2010-05-09T19:40:00.000+12:00

Given that the popularity of Bebo is on the downward trend, and that in a few years it may be gone forever, Facebook is ever more popular.

Unfortunately, this popularity is resulting in younger members. A user should be 13 years of age at least, to create a Facebook account. Yet children are getting around this by manipulating their birthdate, to make out they are older than what they actually are. We are seeing children as young as 10 now on Facebook!

This is of concern, and it is important for parents to monitor their children's Facebook activity. Here are some tips I recommend:

- if you are not on Facebook, get your kids to help you create a profile

- ask your kids to help you setup / go through your privacy settings with you. That way, you are empowering your kids to educate you, while you are able to see how much they know about the privacy settings.

- once you have gone through the privacy settings, suggest you go through their privacy settings with them.

- ensure your kids privacy settings are well locked down.

- teach your kids the importance of NOT accepting anyone as friends. They should only accept people they know as friends. Otherwise, these strangers have access to all the personal information on your child's profile, including access to their friends. There is a growing trend where children try and 'outdo' their mates, when it comes to the number of friends they have on their profile.

- ensure the 'allow tagged photos' setting is unticked. Otherwise, anyone can upload a photo to their profile, and tag that photo with someone elses name. That photo then appears on that persons profile as well.

- make sure YOU are a friend of your child's profile. that way you can keep an eye on posts and friends attached to their profile.

- encourage your kids to 'unfriend' anyone attached to their profile who they do not know. This is done by clicking on that person's profile, and selecting the 'unfriend' link toward the bottom left of that profile.

Social networking sites are here to stay, and Facebook is constantly evolving. It has become the standard in the western world. As parents, we need to understand how it works, and how best we can monitor our children's activity on such sites.

Cell Phone Internet Usage

2010-04-22T12:04:00.000+12:00

Connecting to the Internet via a cellphone is not a new thing, but it is a growing trend. One of the reasons for this is that technology has come a long way.

Most cell phones are coming out with some kind of operating system on. The popular standard is either a Symbian operating system or the Windows Operating system.

As data becomes cheaper to transmit, kids are going to be all over the internet on their mobile phones. Parents are only starting to grasp the concept that they need some form of monitoring / filtering software on their home computers. Soon they will need to extend that the cellphones as well!

I found a worrying trend in a story in an Australian paper:

Alarm over children using the internet

CHILDREN as young as seven are routinely surfing the net on mobile phones and new generation gaming devices.

Primary age children are getting the hi-tech devices passed down to them by relatives, prompting concern by authorities and some parents.

Federal Government cyber safety expert Greg Gebhart said yesterday he regularly visited schools and found up to half of grade 3 and 4 students had mobiles, many with internet access.

Mr Gebhart, a senior education trainer with the Australian Communications and Media Authority, said new-generation gaming devices used by young children also had internet access.

"What we used to see only in grade 5 and 6 is now moving to grade 3 and 4 as far as access to technology," he said.

"Kids generally only get one of those from their parents. If you got something like a Nintendo DS two or three years ago it didn't have internet capability."

Primary school parent Megan Bortolussi said she was very worried by the trend to pass on mobiles to increasingly younger children.

"I reckon we're handing stuff like that over and not even thinking about any of the consequences such as the effect on health," she said.

"With cyber bullying and everything that goes with that, do they really need them? I don't think kids need them, certainly not that young."

But Dandenong North primary school student Nikita, 9, said having a mobile was handy. "After school my mum might be waiting outside and if I can't see her I'll call to see where she is," she said.

"I feel safer if I have a phone especially if someone strange might be following me when I walk home from school."

Nikita said her mum set strict rules about the mobile, such as not using it to make plans with friends without first getting permission.

Parents Victoria spokeswoman Sharron Healy said kids should not use mobiles during school time.

"A lot of parents might think that if their primary kids are walking home on their own then perhaps it's a bit of a safety issue to have a mobile phone with them," she said.

"But as regards the internet, that's each parent's decision about what they allow for their kids."

In New Zealand, the cheaper phones are still free of the above operating systems. Within 3 years, subscription based services will be available to provide proper protection on cell phones.

Until then, I'd stick with a 'cheapie', and not pass an expensive phone with all the bells and whistles onto young ones.

When Should I Install Parental Control Software?

2010-04-11T19:57:00.000+12:00

Now that cyber safety is being talked about more, and we are seeing more news reports about the dangers, Parents are wondering when they should install such software.

From my experience, parents are only thinking about monitoring software when their children are around 12 years of age. The reality is that children are discovering the Internet at an earlier age.

The Internet is uncensored and as such, our children can stumble on the most disturbing material imaginable, unless we protect what they can view. Lets think about it. Television usually has some form of parental guidence messages from 9pm, if the program contains any objectionable material. Movies are classified R13, R16 and R18, as some material is unsuitable for younger viewers. So why would we allow our children to use the Internet without some form of monitoring?

I recommend installing some form of Parental Control software on any computer, from the age of 5 years old. That way you can be assurred that the computer is sufficiently protected from unintentional objectionable material appearing on the screen. You can also monitor the activity taking place, using a simple web interface. Parents in Christchurch, New Zealand are feeling more comfortable once I install a choice of cyber safety software on their home computers, and teach them how to use the software.

Chat Roulette – The Most Dangerous Site on the Internet

2010-03-24T13:59:00.000+13:00

Have you ever wondered what may be the most dangerous site on the Internet? Well, I know, and as parents, you need to know too!

The Chat Roulette website was created by Andrey Ternovskiy, a 17 year old high school student in Moscow. The site was launched in November 2009, with 500 visitors a day. One month later, there were 50,000 visitors a day!

The site is growing at an alarming rate and it let’s you speak with and see anyone in the world who has a camera on their computer. The site randomly chooses another user, anywhere in the world.

Unfortunately, you have no way of knowing who the next person is, that the system randomly selects to appear on your screen. Each user’s location can also be pinpointed on a Google Maps style interface. This can be seen at www.chatroulettemap.com .

Parents are advised to BLOCK Chat Roulette for the safety of their children. Remember, the internet is unfiltered and uncensored, and there is a lot of content that is inappropriate for children.

Chat Roulette has grown to 1.5 million visitors per day. If we look at the statistics, we can see a trend.
• 82% Male, 18% Female
• 64% clothed with face, 23% nude, 13% clothed with blocked face
• 3% chats

It appears that the original concept of random chats does not appear to be how the site is being used. One commentator says it is 89% Male, 47% American and 13% Perverts. I would say the figure of 13% is conservative.

Social Networking Sites for Young Ones

2010-03-16T13:24:00.000+13:00

Social networking sites such as Bebo and FaceBook are regularly in the new, and usually for all the wrong reasons.

However, what we don't here about often are the social networking sites that are safe for our kids to use.

There are two New Zealand sites which come highly recommended. HectorsWorld is run by NetSafe and is an interactive cartoon site with excellent teaching resources for kids, parents and adults. It teaches kids how to use the internet safely while having fun. It teaches kids about cyber safety, using interactive cartoon imagery and activities. While there is also a wealth of resources for both parents and teachers to use also.

The second site has only been recently launched, and is aimed at the lucrutive US market. That does not stop anyone from using the site though. Minimonos is another cartoon interactive site that teaches kids about the environment we live in, and has various activities that allow the child to contribute to the environment positively, in a friendly way. There is also a feature where they can chat to friends and make new friends at the same time.

There is a third site, which is not yet launched. It is currently being piloted in selected schools around New Zealand, and is called SuperClubsPlus.

SuperKidsPlus has been in Australia for sometime, and will be luanched nationwide this year. The difference between this site and some others, is that a teacher at the childs' school needs to authorise the creation of a user account. This prevents someone from setting up an account and providing false details. Parents can look forward to this safe environment for our children to play on!

Know Where Your Kids Are ... And Everyone Else Will Too!

2010-03-11T14:35:00.001+13:00

Once again Facebook is diminishing our privacy. From next month Facebook are launching a location feature to identify where a user is, with each post they make.

Facebook say that users will have a choice of whether they opt in for the service or not. I hope it is not automatically applied to profiles, and users need to opt out if they don’t want the service.

The main reason Facebook claim they are launching this service, is to allow for more targeted advertising, based on location. It is a shame that advertising takes precedence over personal safety, but it is a testament to the world we live in today.

I recommend parents familiarise themselves with the settings first, before teaching their children about the settings and consequences of having this setting activated. I for one, will be keeping this setting disabled.

Is It Safe To Give Our Young Kids Cell Phones?

2010-02-22T09:51:00.000+13:00

As technology becomes more accessible and our lives as parents become ever busier, managing time becomes an art in itself. Our kids seem to be involved in more activities, and as parents we need to juggle 'dropping and fetching' with our daily schedules.

Add to that the struggles of busy traffic, and we wished our kids had a cell phone, so we could at least send them a text or phone them, and tell them we would be 20 minutes late.

Children are being given cell phones at a younger age, but as parents, we are concerned about the safety aspect. How do we know who might be talking to our kids on the phone? How many people have our children given their cell phone number to? Lets face it, most children are too young to understand the consequences of giving away private information such as their cell phone number.

Cell Phone Block / OK Software
Dean Computer Consulting now sell software to manage who phones the cell phone number of your children.

Not only does the software have a 'block' list to block certain numbers, by activating the 'OK' list, mums and dads can enter their own numbers in the software, and ONLY those numbers can phone the cell phone. This is an ideal application to load on the cell phone for younger children, allowing us as parents to keep in touch with them. At $45 per year, this is excellent value!

Currently, Vodafone have the Nokia 6121 and the Samsung s5600, which both support the software. Telecom have the Nokia 6120 which supports the software, and are all reasonably priced.

Cyber Bullying - The Facts

2010-02-08T21:17:00.001+13:00

Bullying has been around for many years, and it will be around for many years to come. However, with the advent of technology has come new ways to bully.

Cyber bullying is the intentional bullying of another person through electronic means. On a computer it may be through social networking sites, instant messaging, forums, blogs, chat rooms and email. Off the computer it is done through mobile phones.

Cyber bullying is the number one concern facing children today. Recent studies conducted by the Peace Foundation throughout 40 countries have revealed that New Zealand has the second highest number of reported cyber bullying cases.

We are not trying to wrap our kids up in cotton wool. Cyber bullying is relentless. It is 24/7 and destructive. For the victim it causes stress, anxiety and has played a part in some teen suicides.

Victims of cyber bullying may show signs of withdrawl, may avoid the computer, may get nervous when an email or a text arrives, may have poor marks at school, show a lack of participation, be anxious and show stress, or may have mood swings.

As parents, we need to be aware of the signs. As parents, we need to educate ourselves with monitoring software available, that can manage cyber bullying. WebSafety NZ (www.websafety.co.nz)install various monitoring software on home computers to monitor for cyber bullying and self harm conversations. They also offer cell phone number blocking software to manage cyber bullying.

Parents need to empower their children to also STOP bullying. Remember, it is not only children that are the victims, children are also the perpetrators! By explaining the effects of cyber bullying to your children, they will start to understand how destructive the behaviour is. They may also be able to play a part in preventing it in the future.

I highly recommend the 'cyber bullying' site within NetSafe (www.netsafe.org.nz). There are two 6 minute movies on cyber bullying. One is a New Zealand dramatisation aimed at Primary School age level, and another aimed at High School aged children. It is well woth looking at.

Anonymous Internet Surfing

2010-02-03T12:45:00.000+13:00

We know technology is always on the move, and new ways to do things surface all the time. As parents, we often struggle to keep up with the pace.

Anonymous surfing has been around for some time. The latest web browsers have 'private surfing' features built into them, and will hide all references to sites visited.

There are external 'proxy' sites, whereby any internet address typed in, cannot be tracked. Anyone I find using such sites are covering something up, in my opinion.

There are 'TOR' clients that can be downloaded, effectively allowing you to surf the internet as if you were on a private network.

The latest site offering a means to surf the internet anonymously is 'www.startpage.com'.

My recommendation is to know about it, then add it into your 'blocked' websites list within your Parental Control software program.

Keep in Contact With Your Kids Safely!

2010-01-20T11:07:00.000+13:00

As the wired world of technology ever increases, the need for parents to keep in touch with their children becomes a necessity.

Children are wanting (and getting) cell phones at a younger age. However, as a parent, we want to ensure that unsuspecting people are not talking to our kids on their cell phone. As a parent, we only want certain people to be able to contact our young children.

Dean Computer Consulting www.dcc.net.nz now offer Bully Stop! Bully Stop is an application uploaded to your mobile phone. By activating the ‘OK’ list, you add the numbers allowed to phone your child’s cell phone. ONLY those numbers will be able to call, and all others will be blocked.

The software also has a ‘BLACKLIST’ list. Activate this, and any numbers in that list will be blocked from calling. This is typically used to manage cyber bullying.

A unique feature of the software is that it logs all calls in and out, including numbers of text and picture messaging, whether blocked or not. Its password protected and new models are being added weekly.

Your Top 5 Items For 2010 !!

2009-12-29T14:30:00.001+13:00

1. Parental Education Parents need to take time and educate themselves to understand what all the fuss is about. 'Google' some keywords like 'internet threats for kids' etc, and you will find plenty of resources.

2. Get that Computer Out of the Bedroom! If its still there, get that computer out of the bedroom. It's a no safe zone when they have unfetted internet access. Computers need to be in a visable location so you can see what your children are doing.

3. Educate Your Kids Once you have educated yourself around the dangers and risks, sit your children down and explain it to them. Draw up a set of internet house rules. You can find examples of these on Google. That way your children can agree with you, what the terms and appropriate behaviour should be.

4. Understand the Issues Around the 3 C's Contact: understand the various scenarios: you may be contacted by fraudsters, scammers, sexual deviants and predators. Scammers are often after personal details for criminal gain, such as your birthdate, social security number, bank account number, credit card information or online passwords. Learn how to identify these.

Content: learn about the appropriate content, not only pornographic imagery, but also extreme speech, sites relating to drugs, alcohol, explosives, and more.

Conduct: Discuss with your children appropriate conduct. Posting sexy or adult like images on the internet may seem harmless at the time, but can be used against you by anyone. Any personal material posted by anyone becomes part of their electronic footprint. This can last a lifetime, and can be problematic when applying for a job.

5. Educate, Discuss, Monitor Once you have educated yourself, and discussed issues with your children, make them aware that as part of the internet house rules, you will be monitoring their internet activity. You do not want to pry into their personal messages, but merely want to ensure they are kept safe while online.

Install Parental Control software as a minimum. There are many software companies out there producing fantastic products at reasonable prices. For a total monitoring solution, look at PC Pandora by clicking the link on this page. As a minimum, I install K9 or OnlineFamily.Norton as a minimum, depending on the home configuration.

FaceBook Privacy Settings

2009-12-18T13:02:00.003+13:00

Research has shown that around 80% of children don't use privacy settings on social networking sites. There are several issues with this, and they all relate to how much information someone else can see about you.

Employers are now searching social networking sites on prospective employees, to gain additional information on their personality. Photos of you engaging in out-of-hours activities can sometimes have a negative effect on a job prospect.

Due to the many compaints FaceBook must have received, they have recently forced users to review their privacy settings, before continuing to their profile page.

FaceBook users need to take time reviewing their privacy settings, and understand how these settings are applied. FaceBook provide a button allowing for the user to view their profile as it would look to others. It's a good idea to make use of this, so you can understand the results of the settings you are applying.

Its also a good idea to be reviewing these settings, as many users have found that there is more being exposed to everyone since FaceBook made this change. An explaination of some of the settings you should take a close look at can be found here: http://bit.ly/6UjbA5

Cyber Bullying

2009-12-11T12:34:00.000+13:00

Cyber bullying is bullying. Its still in its infancy, but growing fast. Its bullying via an electronic medium, either by cell phone or computer. It may be nasty, mean or offensive messages sent by text, instant messaging, email, or on any other electronic medium.

What may start out as a harmless prank, can soon spiral into a taunting and destructive scenario. Cyber bullying is relentless, sees no boundaries, and causes great damage mentally and phsycologically.

Text messages spread very quickly, as do messages online. The victim often feels they have no escape, and withdrawl from all activities into themselves. They often find that they cannot explain the situation to parents, as they often do not understand how damaging cyber bullying can be.

In New Zealand, Netsafe have an entire site devoted to cyber bullying. At http://www.cyberbullying.org.nz/teachers/ you will find a link to 2 online videos. These are about 5 minutes each, and the first is an NZ dramatisation of a cyber bullying scenario being played out.

In Australia, Ross Bark has just made a 12 minute dramatisation of cyber bullying, called Best Enemies. This is about real life situations, and shows how destructive they can be.

In the US, cyber bullying has resulted in children taking their own lives. In Christchurch, NZ this month, a mother removed her 11 year old child from school, due to relentless bullying.

Parents need to understand how the technology works, know how destructive it is, and ways to prevent it.

Crisp Thinking in the UK have developed software called IMSafer, that monitors chat sessions of popular messaging programs and social networking sites. Any conversations it identifies that are related to bullying, self harm or sexual grooming, are copied and emailed to the parents instantly. This software forms part of my cyber safety packages I install InHome, for parents in Christchurch, New Zealand.

What Parents Don't Know about their Kids on the Net

2009-12-02T16:45:00.000+13:00

In days gone by, a parent would give their wee Johnny or Jackie instructions of how to keep safe while playing. These would consist of playing nicely, not to play on the road, be nice to other kids and don’t be late.

These days it’s a totally different ball game. Our kids have swapped the fun of running around the neighbourhood, to running around cyberspace. With it, come more dangers than you could imagine, by playing in the neighbours backyard.

The internet is a fantastic reference tool. It is also uncensored and uninhibited. In addition, if it is also unmonitored and unmanaged, it can be a hive for everything you wanted to protect your young ones from. As parents, we now have the responsibility of protecting our kids online. After all, they are exposed to cyber stalkers, sexual predators, impersonators and bullies.

The internet has become a necessity for most of us. Finland has become the first country in the world to declare broadband Internet access a legal right. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/15/finland.internet.rights/index.html ) Ask your child what they would rather do without from a cellphone, tv or internet and see what their answer is. More than likely the answer will be the internet.

For children, the internet is all about communication. For adults, it is the CONTENT that becomes a problem. Children often do not understand issues surrounding privacy, and in many cases do not use privacy settings within social networking sites.
In two surveys reported this year by Pew Internet Research -- of 700 and 935 teens, respectively -- 38 percent of respondents ages 12 to 14 said they had an online profile of some sort.
Sixty-one percent of those in the study, ages 12 to 17, said they use social-networking sites to send messages to friends, and 42 percent said they do so every day. In a lot of cases, 2 out of 3 parents are unaware their kids have a social networking site.
Social networking sites require a user to be a minimum age of 13, but often this is flaunted by younger users who will provide a false age. There is no way to verify the true age of the user.
Children are not equipped to understand the importance of privacy. As a result, they often post images of themselves up on the internet. Once a photo appears on the internet, it no longer belongs to you. Anyone can copy a photo and do as they please with it.
In the past, we had 17 and 18 year olds dressing in sexy clothes and heading off to the local dance. Today we have 12 and thirteen year olds dressing in sexy garb, photographing themselves with their latest camera phone, and posting the images to their social networking profile. There is a growing trend for young girls to post sexual images of themselves to give the impression of a more edgy character.
Many teenagers have unlimited access to the internet and their parents have no idea what their children are doing. Many children are receiving unrealistic sex education through hard-core websites.
Recent studies show that the average age of first exposure to pornographic material is 11 years of age. This is usually when the child is doing their homework, and accidentally stumbles on it. 90% of 8 – 16 year olds of viewed pornographic images at least once, while doing their homework.
Parents need to understand that installing Parental Control software is a minimum. We are prepared to pay for baby sitters to look after our kids when we go out in the evening, yet are prepared to leave the kids at home in the school holidays to use the internet unmonitored?
I recommend installing the K9 software product from Bluecoat Technologies. You will find it at www.getk9.com

How Many Kids are Not on FaceBook?

2009-11-20T14:18:00.000+13:00

Even though there are many social networking sites in existance, the one that seems to attract the most attention is FaceBook. It attracts the the most attention because it has such a huge user base.

In Australia, a recent survey has revealed that 29% of ALL time spent on the internet is on FaceBook. This figure is so large, that commentators are now referring to internet time as 'Facebook time' and 'Non Facebook time'.

Australians also now spend more time on the internet than any other country in the world. At least they are first at something!

Writers of malware, spyware and viruses are now targeting Facebook, as an ideal place to get the most 'bang for their' buck in relation to the amount of users they can infect.

I have noticed an increase in the virus 'KoobFace'. KoobFace is an acronym of Facebook. However, after reading information on www.wikipedia.org about this virus, I now know that Facebook infections are only a small part of what it does.

When a user is infected, it sends messages to other users in the 'friends' list, claiming they have been captured in a video, and ask the user to click on the link. Once the link is clicked, the user then becomes infected.

This is a clever yet dangerous virus. Clicking on links within Facebook messages, regardless of who you may think it is from, is to be avoided.

Figures have also shown that as much as 80% of children on social networking sites do not use privacy settings. These settings are at the top right of the page under 'settings'. It is important to go through them and understand them. I always recommend turning off the feature that allows 'tagged' photos of you. That way, anyone taking photos of you cannot post them to Facebook at leisure, and have them splashed across all your friends profiles.

How Young Is Too Young To Be Using Social Networking Sites?

2009-11-16T10:09:00.000+13:00

Reasearch shows that a growing number of children are using social networking sites. Some sites such as FaceBook, have a policy whereby the user MUST be at leaset 13 before they can create a profile.

In a recent study by Pew Internet Research, 38% of respondents ages 12 to 14 claim to have an online profile, while 61% of kids ages 12 to 17 said they use social networks; 42% of them daily.

Peer pressure plays a big part in kids creating online social networking profiles. There is also a growing trend of kids lying about their age, to enable them to create a profile. Kids will change their birthdate to reflect that they are at least 13. The problem arises where these children often do not understand the dangers faced with such sites, and may easily give out personal information such as names, addresses and phone numbers.

Internet predators will often target social networking site users who are young. Parental control software provides a powerful tool in restricting the types of sites allowed to be visited. One product highly recommended is the K9 product from www.getk9.com

Social Networking Sites - Know What Your Kids Are Doing

2009-11-06T13:02:00.002+13:00

Children spend hours on the internet, and parents often don't know what they are doing. There is a growing gap between what parents THINK their kids are doing on the internet, and what they are ACTUALLY doing.

Social networking sites are huge for our children these days. Its all about communication and keeping in touch. It is often the case where kids try to out-do each other in the number of connections or 'friends' they have, attached to their profile.

My 15 year old daughter has 342 connections and rising. One area to consider, when a child has so many connections, is the amount of people who have access to your personal information. Not all connections attached to children's social networking sites may be close friends. As such, there is cause for concern to monitor certain activity.

At www.imsafer.com they market a product that does just that. It monitors chat activity. The free product monitors chat programs such as MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger. However, the paid product that costs 25.95 UK pounds annually will also monitor popular social networking sites such as FaceBook, Bebo, MySpace and others.

It works like this: It’s a downloadable safety device for parents that analyses their children’s online chat and social network conversations. Once installed on a home PC it scans communications, analyses content, detects inappropriate relationships and alerts parents of any potentially harmful behaviour or contact from other users. If imsafer™ does spot something worrying, a child sharing inappropriate personal information, the signs of cyber bulling or the threat of an online predator, the parent immediately receives an email alert and/or SMS.

A product that identifies conversations about bullying, threats, sexual grooming and even self harm is a product worthy of paying for. It provides peace of mind to any parent, and takes a responsible approach in identifying any behaviour we ought to know about.

Taking Responsibility Around Internet Access Is Not Spying

2009-11-01T16:06:00.000+13:00

Parents may sometimes feel that installing parental control software on a computer their children use to access the internet is intrusive. They may feel that having to purchase software that records everything typed on the computer, as well as recording screen shots of internet sites visited is spying.

As a parent, you are responsible for your child's safety. Many parents now drop and fetch their children from school, because there is the perception that it is no longer safe for them to walk to school. Yet parents are happy to let their children use the internet without any form of protection at all.

The perception that it is not safe for children to walk to school is somewhat unfounded, and in some circumstances, overkill. However, the dangers of unmonitored internet access for children is well documented and the results are in our papers monthly.

The dangers of unmonitored internet access are so serious, reputable companies are now offering software to manage internet access for free. Parental Control software is a minimum on any computer used by children to access the internet.

Products out there that go further, such as recording what is being typed and saving pages visited have the ability to email such information to the parent, based on the setup. This is not spying, but rather taking the interests of the child seriously. Children need to be guided between what is safe and what is not. For a child, privacy is right a right, it is a reward that needs to be learnt.

Parental Control Software - The Least You Can do

2009-10-22T12:31:00.002+13:00

Every parent has a responsibility in keeping their kids safe online. Safety on the internet is in the media every week, and there are some horror stories.

Parents are bombarded by the dangers of online social networking sites, the need to protect your identity, ensuring kids understand privacy, online predators and grooming, cyber bullying, online gambling, pornography and sites promoting negative content.

It can be daunting for some parents to understand what they need to do to make an effort in restricting access on the internet. Parents often may not be in a situation where they can afford to pay for such software.

There are numerous software companies that provide packages at varying costs. Some may have more features than others, and it can be difficult to choose. By understanding the dangers children are exposed to, and the degree of exposure your children may be exposed to, will enable you to make a judgement as to whether you install one of the free products, or invest in a package you pay for.

Parents must ensure that the computer used by children to access the internet is in an open area. That way they can take a glance at the screen every so often to see what they are doing.

It is important to discuss with children some of the potential dangers with them, and know what kind of sites they use on the internet.

Parental control software is vital and needs to be on any machine children use to access the internet. It works by filtering out internet sites that fall into certain categories. Most parental control software come with a default list of categories already defined. These are then customisable, and you are able to create exceptions, restrictions on time use, and view logs.

In the category of free software, K9 Web Protection http://getk9.com is a great product and highly recommended. It is easy to install and setup, and has great support.

In the category of a paid product, there is PC Pandora http://www.pcpandora.com/ which has a whole package of functionality. Not only does it have the parental control software capability, it can record ALL information happening on the computer. It captures every keyboard entry typed in, screen viewed and monitors social networking and chat sites. These are just some of the features.

Whether you choose to install a free product or a paid one depends on you. Having no software on a computer used by children accessing the internet is not an option.

Children and Online Gambling - Where's your Credit Card?

2009-10-18T13:49:00.000+13:00

Online gambling has been around for many years in the form of sites hosting online poker and the like. Such sites have flashy pop-up ads that attract young people. These sites will often offer free credits when joining. This allows the user to experience the thrill of winning, without having them pay any money.

People quickly get hooked, and very soon are buying credits with a credit card.

These sites are authenticating a user based on their ability to provide credit card information. Since most parents have a credit card (or a debit card), credit card information for children is easily obtainable. Since children are impressionable, their habit can quickly spiral out of control, and there is potential to rack up huge bills in the process.

Stories are coming out that young children are now breaking into houses looking specifically for credit or debit cards to feed their online gambling habits.

In New Zealand, lotto have recently ramped up their gambling offerings to the public. In addition to the recently introduced online lotto purchases, there is now a new game called 'bulls Eye', allowing for punters to choose one number to win a million dollars. In fairness to Lotto, they do set an upper limit that can be played within a certain period of time. However, the risk of children being hooked on online gambling sites remains a risk that parents must be aware of.

Wireless is Convenient, but is it Safe?

2009-10-10T12:36:00.002+13:00

A wireless connection to the internet gives us freedom. Just like a cordless telephone, wireless internet means we can access the internet on our computers anywhere in the house, and even outside! It means that more than one person can be accessing the internet at any one time, and gives us freedom of choice.

There are still may of us who do not understand how that technology works, and what risks it may pose to our connection to the internet.

Security is the most important part to consider, when moving to a wireless connection. Why you may ask? If you do not have a secure connection, your connection is OPEN to anyone who wants to use it. Having an open connection means that your wireless router or base station is sending out signals from as soon as it is switched on. It is telling everyone 'Hey guys, I'm open and available'. Anyone in the vicinity who switches on their wireless capability on their laptop, or any other device, will pick up the wireless network and identify that it is open.

This allows anyone to use your internet connection. If they download large files such as movies, they may use up your monthly bandwidth allocation. Worse still, if a crime was committed through someones open wireless connection, the network ip address will show it came from that device. It is essential that ALL wireless connections are protected.

All wireless routers have a default password that is set at the factory. YOU must change this password, as the default passwords are available on the internet. Once you change the default password, set up the encryption. WEP is an earlier form of wireless encryption, and no longer recommended to be used. If your router has WPA or WPA2, use either of these, and preferably WPA2. Set a strong password that includes letters, numbers and special characters. Only then can you feel safe and secure.

Space Faking

2009-10-02T12:13:00.000+13:00

Space faking is the name given to those who masquerade as others, on sites such as social networking sites. It is a worrying trend, and it is growing. Although such activity may often be seen as a prank by the offender, it could be perceived as identity theft.

A space faker will copy or swipe a photo of another person, then setup a new social networing profile, using the other persons photo. This activity was often related to impersonalting celebrities. It is now more mainstream, and innocent teens are discoverying others have setup a profile with their photo, for purposes of cyber bullying.

Governments in both NZ and Australia have legislation tabled in their respective parliaments to make space faking a crime. In the meantime, anyone discoverying another person bein involved in space faking should report the incident to the police, as well as contacting the internet site concerned.

Cyber Bullying

2009-09-28T14:48:00.002+13:00

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

2009-09-22T22:02:00.000+12:00

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

2009-09-16T13:48:00.000+12:00

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

2009-09-12T14:41:00.002+12:00

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?

2009-09-07T10:07:00.002+12:00

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.

Parental Control Software

2009-08-30T15:55:00.002+12:00

Parental Control software is software that allows internet or web filtering. By applying web filtering to your home computer, you have the ability to control what is viewed and what is prevented from being viewed.

How does it work? Well, there are about 50 to 70 categories that an internet site may fall into. Some internet sites fall into more than one category. Parental software will come with a default setup. Typically, it will prevent such sites as those hosting pornography, those promoting alcohol, and several other categories. Such software has the ability to set your own categories, allow particular categories only for a short period of time, as well as setting time limits on when sites can be accessed.

Many companies offer parental control software for around $50. However, there are companies that offer parental control software for free. This does not mean that products offered for free are at all inferior. With the growing number of incidents of a negative nature happening on the internet, reputable companies are now providing parental control software at no cost.

One piece of software I highly recommend is the K9 Parental Control software provided Blue Coat Systems. It is available from http://getk9.com This software is easily downloaded and just requires you to enter your email address to receive the license key.

Once installed, it allows you to either have a dog bark every time I banned site is accessed, or this feature can be turned off. It is easily customizable, and keeps a log of all sites accessed.

Parental control software such as K9 web protection is a must for any parent of children using the internet.

Protecting My Computer with Free Antivirus Software

2009-08-25T05:46:00.003+12:00

Every computer connecting to the internet requires some form of anti-virus software. However, some of us may not understand why, or do not want to pay for it. Others are unsure of what product they should have.

Anti-virus software is available for free. Although there is some limit in the functionality they offer, the functionality provided is enough to do the job. There are several reputable and recommended products available, and I will briefly go through three of them.

Avast anti-virus software is available from http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html and is rated as one of the best free anti-virus products available.

Antivir, available at http://www.free-av.com/en/download/index.html is the second in the top three, and AVG, downloaded at http://free.avg.com/ is the third on the top 3.

All free anti virus software provides a 'paid' version. The paid version comes with additional functioanlity. All products have the ability to auto-update, and run scans at a predetermined time, set by you. They are all easy to use, and no one should be without anti virus software on their computer.