Posted

Apr 4th 2008

Lol.
CYBER SAFETY, OOOOOOOH:

Cyber Safe
By Jessica -LAST NAME HERE- 8-2 8-B

The internet. A great tool for everything; homework, projects, a curious mind, communication, games, or even “for the lulz”. With the internet comes other things, like “chat speak”(‘lulz’, being part of that), and more serious issues. These serious issues being safety. Safety is something that we need even in real life, and on the internet, it’s probably more serious than the real world. For what I am going to talk about is Cyber Safety; It’s a big deal!
Like stated, the internet is used for many things. There are millions of sites, all different. Some sites are just for games, or displaying information, but others are called social networking. Social Networking is the biggest reason for internet safety being important; SOCIAL.
Social is connected with a society, multiple people, and communicating, or on the internet, you talk to someone. And on the World Wide Web, the rules are important to know, because that’s exactly what it is, world-wide. Websites, like mysapce, among others, are social networking. You can communicate with someone across the street, or across the globe. Now, on myspace, you can set your profile to private, but, there are things made to get around that, just as there are places you can go to in order to hack someone;s account, and get a fake email that expires in fifteen minutes(guerrillamail.com).
Thus, if one were to use one of those to get around a block, personal information can be used to identify you, your location, or, if an adult, your financial assets. Things that can be used to identify you(typically put on a profile) are your name(never EVER put your last name on anything), age, gender, picture, phone number, and adress/location(as stated before). Things that you could put on a profile are your hobbies/sports you enjoy, and interests.
Why would this information be harmful? Who would want to identify me? Well, you can talk to someone via comments, shoutbox, email, forum, chatroom, etc, but make sure you’re being safe about it. If you don’t know the person your talking to in real life(IRL), remember that you can’t be too sure that they are 13, 14, or whatever age the claim to be, because on the internet lurks cyber predators. These predators use the internet to hunt victims to take advantage of, in ANY way, wether it be sexually, emotionally, or financially. When a predator gets hold of someone’s personal information, they can try to become your friend, pretending to be whatever age they want, and then try to “squeeze” more information out of you. Some teens end up giving their addresses to these predators and they(the predators) arrive at the teens house and end up, well, no one really knows what, until it happens.
Not only do some teens give out too much information, but they also pretend to be much older,(say, 18 or 16 instead of 13 or 14), and end up “hitting” on older guys on these social networks. They even purposely give the male their address so the two can “meet up.”
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children receives missing children every day. More and more, children are being abducted by predators. They even have what’s called the CyberTipline, where you can report inappropriate material of underaged children. This content has been defined in the Children’s Internet Protection Act as visual depictions that are obscene, or material “harmful to minors.”
Now, other than predators, there is cyber-bullying. Cyber-bullying is when one(or possibly more) person(s) uses technology for social cruelty, like harassment, impersonation, denigration, threatening, and stalking. ABC News produced a survey made by I-Safe.org in 2004 of 1,500 students between grades 4-8. The results were:
-42% of kids have been bullied while online, and one in four have had it happen more than once.
-35% of kids have been threatened online, and nearly one in five had it happen more than once.
-21% of kids have received mean or threatening e-mails or other messages.
-58% of kids admit someone has said mean or hurtful things to them online, and more than four out of ten say that it has happened more than one.
-58% of kids have not told their parents or an adult about something mean or hurtful that happened to them online.
As seen from the survey, over half of the children admitted that someone has bullied them online, and the same amount said that they have not told their parents or an adult that something mean or hurtful happened to them online. If you are bullied on the internet, you should tell an adult. If you are being bullied, say, in a chatroom, ask him/her to stop. If the continue to do this, you should leave. If you don’t like what someone is saying to you, you shouldn’t have yo deal with it, especially if you have to power to leave.
The internet can be fun, but only if used correctly. It’s a great tool, and full of games, funny videos and images, along with information on your favorite band or actor. With communication over the internet comes problems, and with problems, you need safety. With the facts presented, cyber-safety; is it a big deal?



Gehy.