INTERNET SAFETY PLEASE READ ONE AND ALL !!!
the very best i have found on the topic!!!!
INTERNET SAFETY (Email, Chat, Discussion Boards,
Newsgroups)
Tip 1: Don't give out personal information
This includes last name, city, address, phone numbers,
and your school name or location. The amount of
information that is easily obtainable on the Internet is
always increasing. Even if you don't give out all of your
personal information, with the right clues, and the right
resources, figuring out the rest is not difficult.
If you do If you do give out personal information, make
sure you trust the person. Make sure you know as much
personal information about them as they do about you
and verify it! Usually the smart thing to do is to keep
online friendships online.
Tip 2: Don't plan meetings with people from the net
No one can ever be sure of the real person sitting at the
other keyboard. You can seriously put yourself in danger.
These dangers can include stalking, abduction, assault,
among other dangerous acts.
If you do If you do plan a meeting with one of your net
friends, ALWAYS make sure the meeting is done in a public
place like the mall, a restaurant, or the movies, and bring
a friend along with you. Restaurants are usually good
meeting places. Just remember that your comfort level is
always the most important thing. The moment you do not
feel comfortable, get out of the situation quickly!
Never let them drive you anywhere. Do not get into their
car, even if they claim to help out (such as, giving you a
ride to your car or home.)
If you don't bring a friend, tell someone where you
are going. Tell a friend. Let your friend know where you
are going and how long you will be.
Tip 3: Don't respond to online harassment
Receiving threats and harassment can be common online,
especially for gay teens. It's usually best not to respond
to the threats.
If you do... If you do respond, it should be to the
postmaster of the person's Internet Service Provider. This
address is usually postmaster@theirdomain.com. Some
online service providers have special email addresses for
reporting harassment. You may also report harassment to
your own ISP. If you receive harassment in a chat room,
report it to the moderator. Report IRC harassment to the
Channel Operator.
Tip 4: Be informed
The best defense is always education. Keep yourself
updated on the latest technology and trends for the
Internet. Be careful not to be swept away in all the hype
though.
Tip 5: Use common sense
The last on the list, but definitely the most important.
Don't do anything online that you wouldn't do in person.
That includes your language and actions and what you tell
the person you're "gonna do" to them. The main reason
you even hear about bad things happening to people
because of the Internet is usually because they didn't use
common sense. The Internet is a new technology and has
seen a tremendous amount of growth very quickly... lots
of people are online, without even knowing what they're
doing. This is how they become vulnerable and can
become online victims.
YOUR FAMILY COMPUTER or USING A SHARED
COMPUTER
Tip 1: If you are using the family computer or shared
computer, make
sure you have your OWN private email address. The Coalition
provides a list on ,page 5 ,
of free email providers to get you started. This is especially
important
if you are not out to your family. You don't want Mom or
Dad, reading
your private email to your new Internet friends do you?
Tip 2: Did you know that Netscape and Internet Explorer
keep track of
where you are going online? Both browsers create history
files that
get saved to your hard drive. These history files are also
used for the
browsers autocomplete URL feature. So if Mom or Dad or big
brother
sits down at the computer and types "www.c" the browser
might
autocomplete the URL as "www.coolgayyouthwebsite.com",
the
website you visited a few days ago. To get rid of this you
should
follow the instructions for your browser on how to delete the
history
files.
Tip 3: Netscape and Internet Explorer both cache the
websites you
view. What "cache" (pronounced "cash") does is store the
website
HTML and images temporarily on your hard drive as you surf
the web.
It does this to make your surfing faster. However, when your
done
these files still hang around. Now your browser will delete
them as its
cache limit fills up, but it doesn't automatically delete all of
them. To
fix this you should "clear your cache" when you are done,
that way no
one will be able to view the locally saved cache copies of
pages you
viewed. Check your browser for instructions on how to do
this.
Tip 4: Did you know that when you delete a file from your
computer,
it REALLY isn't gone? Say you move a file to the recycle bin
(or trash
can for Macintosh) and then empty the recycle bin/trash
can... Think
your file is gone? NOPE! When you empty the recycle
bin/trash can all
this does is tells your computer's directory (the directory
keeps tracks
of what files are what and where they are and how much
space they
take up) that that the file's space on your hard drive can
now be
used for another file when needed and also to not display
the file
anymore. However, the file is still there. It is possible that
the file
could be there for a few more minutes or for several days or
weeks
depending on how big your hard drive is and how often you
save files
to your hard drive. Utility applications like Norton Utilities'
UnErase can
search your hard drive and recover files that have been
deleted. How
can it do that? Well remember that the file is not really gone,
the
directory just said it could use the space the file took up. It
will use
the space when a new file is set to be saved in that
location. So how
do you "securely delete" a file? You can find little utilities out
there
(sorry at this time, The Coalition does not have a list for you) that
will
delete the file and then write over the file with garbage
data. Because
the only real way to delete a file is write over it with junk.
Your
browser's cache files (see Tip 3) are deleted all the time,
and you
guessed it are recoverable with utility programs. Some of
these
programs will erase all free space (free space=space not
used by
current files) on your hard drive therefore writing over
everything that
was deleted. If you want to make sure your deleted files are
not
recovered you will need to run this utility program often or
when ever
you delete files.
Tip 5: Well with all this talk about saving to the hard drive,
and
securely deleting files, where can I safely store my files?
Removable
medium such as a floppy disk, zip disk, jaz cartridge, can be
your
peace-of-mind. Data stored on these removables is as
secure as you
locking up the disk. Remember if the data is valuable that
you make
backups. Having your three year personal journal on only one
zip disk
is a bad idea! What if you stepped on it? Three years of
writing down
the drain. Make a backup. Make three backups of important
stuff,
that is what the experts do!
Tip 6: The safest and most secure way of protecting a file
you do not
viewed by other people is to encrypt it. Encrypting uses
fancy
mathematics to scramble up the data in your file. The only
way to
de-encrypt it is to use a secret key that will de-scramble it.
This is
very secure because it is very difficult to de-encrypt a file
without
the secret key, only really really good hackers can do this
and they
are probably trying to hack into more important files than
yours
anyway. You will have to find an encrypting utility to do this.
(sorry
at this time,The Coalition does not have a list for you) Besides
your files,
you can also encrypt the email you send on the Internet. To
learn
how, do a search on "PGP" in your favorite search engine.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE |
