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Protect you Family from Internet Pimps

By Rachel Lower

Picture the internet as a real place you can walk around, jogging up and down each street or field... Is it the safest most appealing, pleasant city in the world that your are imagining? Is it a valley full of exotic flowers, next to a rain forest, next to a beautiful canyon? We often first get the internet under the impression it is safe, fun and educational, brilliant and friendly. And then the day comes when our internet-innocence is shattered... when we see the "bad part of town". Unfortunately the lines are blurred and you could be in the prettiest part of the internet only to find a nasty surprise jumping out at you. How can you protect your family from one of the worst evils on the net -- pornography and its pushers?

Case #1 - The worst kind of spam...

You are used to spam, "FREE" spam... "100% FREE" spam... "GET YOUR" spam... "WIN" spam... and the one day not long after the MLM and the free vacation emails you find one titled "HOT GIRLS" spam from "Good Clean Porn", if I ever heard an oxymoron that is it. It starts downloading -- a graphical email -- pictures of "hot girls". You are shocked, because not only do your and your husband use this inbox but so do your 15, 11, and 9 year old sons. MLM spam may be annoying and useless, but pornographic spam is down right evil. "Sending porno spam to eight year old's inboxes every day, the porn pimps of the internet...!" They should be in jail, but they aren't. They are all over the www. What can we do about spam in all of its forms?

Mail Filter for your email program -- Go to the website of your email program (i.e. Microsoft Outlook Express, Netscape Messenger) and find their latest filtering program. There are also filtered email accounts, such as at SpamCop.net
Spam protect scripts on any websites you have -- An example from HostedScripts.com or accomplish the same task by linking to their page of fake email addresses at http://www.hostedscripts.com/scripts/antispam.html. If you have your email address displayed on your site you can put it in javascript to hide it from spam robots.
Check your browser privacy -- Analyze your browser! It may be giving out your email address itself! Scroll down to where it says "Does your browser give out your e-mail address for FTP connections?"
Most spams have an "unsubscribe" option somewhere inside the message which should NEVER be clicked, it only verifies your address is spamable.
Remember to NEVER open attachements or click on links in spam!
Preventative measures -- Spammers draw emails from message boards, guestbooks, mail lists, news groups, and personal websites. You can get a second email address from a place like Mail.com or Hotmail.com, and only use it when you have to submit an email address. Don't give your children access to the second account. You could never give out your email address to anyone that isn't family or friend. You could also only submit your main email to 100% trusted sources, who can gaurantee your email will not be picked up by spammers through them.
Check out this email program for kids!
Report spammers to SpamCop.net!
If your have an instant messanger (i.e. ICQ) remove your email address from your 'info'
Share the same email address with your children
For more information check out STOP SPAM NOW!

Case #2 - No wonder it is often called "the net"...

Your child is doing a report on Japan. She is especially interested in what girls her age are up to on the other side of the world. She types in, logically, "japanese girls". She clicks on the first link, which takes her to a page full of dirty links and pictures of underage (or seemingly so) asian girls doing whatever the porn pimps make them do these days. Your teenage son stumbles upon a porn site. Soon he finds himself going to the quite often, first out of curiosity, then out of compulsion. He quickly becomes addicted and will struggle with it for many years to come. A boy in America kills his young neighbor girl, bewildering everyone. Later they find a truckload of pornographic links in his 'history' file, some to quite sadistic sites. Puzzle solved, one kid dead and one sitting in prison. (That is a true story I watched on a news program.) Children are being violated by or trapped in the net of internet pornography websites. So are husbands. Ruining marriages. Leading men astray. In fact, grown women are falling into the trap as well. How do we keep the sickness from entering our home through the computer?

Family Proxy -- Check with your Internet Service Provider to see if they have a filtering proxy. Mine does and it works! It isn't any slower for me than the un-proxied connection!

Pornography Blocking Software -- For example, CYBERsitter!
Move your computer to an open space, don't let your child on it when your are out of the room, etc. -- Make some family internet rules and boundaries.
Filtered Search Engines -- Some of the major search engines offer filtering. Look for a little box by the search you can checkmark, or see the advanced search options.
Be aware of your child's internet activity - Learn how to access each browser's (i.e. Internet Explorer, Netscape) History, Cache and Cookies. The History will tell you where your child has been. Your cache and cookies can provide more information, going back months in case you have not checked for some time. Check "recent documents" on your Operating Systems start bar. Look in the trash bin. You should note that older children are aware of all of these and can prevent your from seeing anything suspicious. Nothing is every really deleted from the computer. If you know something is wrong you can take the computer in to be scanned for pornographic deleted files.
If pornographic sites are being surfed, don't hesitate to take 'extreme' measures. You could get rid of the computer, or ban your child from using it. You could get rid of the internet service, or just never let your child surf unless you are sitting right next to them.
Have a clean network of kids sites bookmarked, at a 'start page' -- Basically sending them to the fenced in park with adult supervision rather than the one that anyone can get in and with the broken beer bottles.
Teach your child about the sins of pornography, from lust to fornication. Age appropriately of course.

Case #3 - PREDATORS

She was 15 when someone chatted with her about sex, started asking for pictures... He used his son that was her age to get to her. He even described to her how he molested his own daughter. He sent her porn. And no one was the wiser. In the chat rooms, in email... they are our there. Pedophiles. They are SICK and full of SIN and they want your children. How do you keep your children safe? The #1 advantage predators have is that most parents have been unaware of the danger out there. You have to share the following with your children. Their life could very well depend on it.

NEVER give out personal information. NEVER give out specific information.
bball17: Hi, m/f? Where are your from? Age/grade?
sporty69: m. Dallas. 15. 9th. You?
bball17: f/14/8th/Columbus.
bball17: Do you play basketball?
sporty69: some, you?
bball17: yep
sporty69: What is your mascot?
bball17: Generals.
sporty69: lemme guess, your lucky jersey # is 17?
bball17: how did you ever figure that out?
sporty69: lucky guess....

Innocent conversation? Sporty69 is really a 45 year old man posing as 15. He now knows your child is in Columbus, on the grade 8 sports team called the "generals", jersey #17. All he has to do is find what school in Columbus has the general as a mascot and show up at a game. He then looks for #17. A pedophile has just been invited into your life. NEVER give a city, NEVER give location specific details, NEVER a last name if even a first. It is important to sit down and discuss what can and can not be shared with chatters online.
Make sure your email program does not have your full name in the sender line
Do not list your personal information in internet directories
Keep your business sites (which usually require contact information) entirely separate from your surfing and chatting internet identity, not even using the same email address
For more information read Setting Safety Rules For Your Child On The Internet

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Protect you Family from Internet Pimps