Introduction


Buy a newspaper today, and odds are you'll find a story about online abuses: a public figure arrested for soliciting a child online ... a teenager assaulted by somebody he met in a chat room ... identity theft made possible by poor safety procedures in a large company ... e-mail fraud being perpetrated on the public in staggering numbers ... or a new destructive computer virus.

The Internet has quickly become an integral part of society. Businesses, schools, media, and communication with others all are highly dependent on opportunities the Internet has created. Unfortunately, it is not only "good" people and businesses that are leveraging these new technologies.

The rash of criminal misuses of the Internet reported in the news leaves many feeling like they should prevent their children from using the Web at all, quit banking or shopping online, and regard e-mail messages as potentially threatening. You're left with a general feeling of vulnerability and helplessness. When you can't even see online criminals coming, how can you protect yourself from them?

Avoiding the Internet isn't a very practical solution. While there are legitimate reasons for concern, there is much you can do to become more empowered and start using the Internet on your terms. That's what this book is all about.

Is This Book for You?

If you use the Internet, this book is for you. You don't have to be a teen blogger or even have children. You can be any age at all. You don't have to be a techie type. In fact, if you have a fear of technology and you want to use the Internet, this book should help to reassure you that protecting yourself online doesn't require a degree in technologyit requires a change in your behavior. If you consider yourself a technical person, you need the skills presented in this book as much as the least technical person does.

If you want to take steps to ensure that you and your family are safer while browsing, shopping, communicating, and interacting online, this book will help you create the infrastructure necessary to do that.

Start with a Technology Base

You absolutely must protect your devices from attacks via spam, viruses, spyware, Trojan horses, worms, and so on, and there are plenty of books that will tell you how to do that. Although we provide a "Technology Toolkit" section (see Part Four of this book) that outlines some basic tools that you will find useful, technology is not the focus of this book.

This book is intended to help you and your family be safer after those protections are in place because technical protections alone are not enough. Those protections guard against software attacks. This book will help you learn how to guard against the human predators roaming the Internet.

Think about it this way: You put protections into your home to help keep you safe from intruders. You install locks on windows and doors, set up outdoor lighting, and perhaps even use motion detectors and a security system. These can help to keep you safe. But all of these precautions don't help at all if a stranger is able to talk his way into your home, or if you hand over your credit card or bank account number to a stranger online.

How This Book Is Organized

To help you understand the current status of the Internet environment, the risks that can affect everyone, and how to become safer online almost immediately, this book first provides a checklist of steps you can take to become safer today and is then divided into four parts.

Part One provides an overview of the types of activity going on today that can put you and your family at risk online. Chapter 1 explores how the same types of crimes that occur offline are now being committed online, only with different tools. Chapter 2 explores many of the misconceptions about anonymity online that can lull many people into behaving differently than they would in a face-to-face situation and putting themselves at risk. Finally, Chapter 3 looks at some typical traits and behaviors of online predators so that you can understand the motivations and methods of these people and better protect yourself against them.

Part Two comprises 13 chapters that offer simple steps you can take right now to be safer online. Each of these chapters offers a fictionalized example of risky behavior, an analysis of that behavior, an overview of the broader risks, and advice for protecting yourself.

In Part Three, the focus is on the action plans you can put in place to better protect your family, starting today. For example, Chapter 17 provides a discussion guide you can use to begin the dialog with your family and friends about creating a plan to help keep all of you safer online. Chapter 18 offers resources and advice for how to report abuses you encounter and how to work to effect legislation; this chapter also provides information about some different grassroots efforts to improve online safety for everybody, worldwide.

Part Four provides valuable resources for you. It includes

  • A glossary of terms to help you stay on top of the abundance of technical and social networking terminology that is quickly becoming part of your vocabulary. Each glossary term appears in bold the first time it's used in the book.

  • Information about the basic technology tools you should put to work to protect your computer and filter access to content, if you want to do so.

  • A list of valuable Web resources for information about online safety and reporting abuses.

  • A list of common abbreviations used in e-mail, instant messaging, and text messaging.

Special Elements

Throughout the book, you'll notice special elements that are worth mentioning, including:

  • Find Out More These are tips about where you can get more information about a topic, either in another chapter of this book, or from a Web site or organization.

  • Think About It These offer ideas that might intrigue you or challenge the way you think about online safety. They also make interesting kick-off questions for discussions with family and friends on a specific topic.

  • Sidebars These provide background information or more in-depth data about a topic in the chapter.

How to Get the Most from This Book

This book provides many specific actions you can take to protect yourself and your family online. By simply reading this book, you will gain a much better understanding of the types of threats that exist online and what you can do to make you safer than you are today, immediately.

The best way to use this book is to first read it cover to cover. For the most part, you will quickly understand the principles because I relate them to common situations in your everyday life. Absorb the main messages, and then go back and focus on the possible areas of risk one by one. If you use e-mail frequently, go back to the e-mail chapter and pick the suggestions that work for you. If your child wants to start an online journal (called a blog), go back to that chapter and review my advice. Not all advice will work for every individual or family; choose the suggestions that are right for you.

Don't try to absorb every tip and suggestion I provide the first time out. Remember the first time you got behind the wheel of a car? You were probably nervous and didn't think you could ever deal with all the sensory input that came at you as you drove that first tentative block. You might read this book and feel a similar sensory overload. But give yourself time and implement the advice bit by bit, and you'll feel more comfortable implementing the advice that applies to your situation in short order.

The Internet provides a lot of opportunity for sharing, communicating, commerce, and entertainment. By educating yourself about how to use it in a safer way, you can feel more confident enjoying all the advantages it has to offer.

In addition to this book, I've created a Web site at www.look-both-ways.com. It provides additional material and links to help you in your efforts to become safer online. On this Web site, you'll find additional examples you can use to practice with; templates for negotiating safety expectations with others; recent news articles that might be of interest; top safety tips for different types of online products and services; overviews of new Internet features as they're developed; an update on emerging online safety issues and ongoing tips to help you stay safe; and links to other resources. The site also includes a way for you to ask questions about Internet safety that you might still have or that might come up in the future. I will try to respond to your questions as quickly as possible and make the questions and answers available for everyone to learn from.

Note

Though the material presented is based on true examples, at the time of the printing of this book, all example companies, organizations, products, domain names, e-mail addresses, blog handles, blog sites, depictions of IM chat sessions, e-mail message examples, Web site examples, logos, people, places, and events described or illustrated herein were fictitious or were owned by the author. No association with any real company, organization, blog site or handle, Web site, domain name, e-mail address, IM session, logo, person, place, or event is intended or should be inferred.




Look Both Ways. Help Protect Your Family on the Internet
Look Both Ways: Help Protect Your Family on the Internet
ISBN: 0735623473
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 157
Authors: Linda Criddle

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net