President's File

Oh Yeah! It’s April, baby! My whooping sticks have moved from the corner of my office to the corner of the family room, so they’re closer to the car and the links.

Actually we’ve made the trek to the driving range a couple of times… It felt good to swing a club again. After not touching a club all winter I was feeling a little rusty, but after knocking a few hundred balls around the yard I’m feeling pretty good. The only thing I’m struggling with is my short game… That’s going to take some time and practice to my “touch” back. I can’t wait to get out on the course, put a peg in the ground and then grip and rip it.

Commentary – Children and the Internet

In recent weeks there have several highly publicized cases on exploitation involving the internet. I thought this would be a good time to review the risks and talk about the steps you can take to protect your children while they’re on-line.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the risks children face on-line include:

• Exposure to inappropriate material. Your child may be exposed to material considered to be sexual, hateful, or violent in nature or encouraging dangerous or illegal activities. Children could seek out such material but may also come across it on the web via chat areas, E-mail, or even instant messaging if they’re not looking for it.

• Exposure to child predators. Your child might provide information or arrange an encounter, possibly risking his or her safety or the safety of other family members. In some cases child molesters have used chat areas, E-mail, and instant messages to gain a child’s confidence and then arrange a face-to-face meeting.

• Harassment and bullying. Your child might encounter messages via chat, E-mail, or their cellular telephones that are belligerent, demeaning, or harassing. “Bullies,” typically other young people, often use the Internet to bother their victims.

• Viruses and hackers. Your child could download a file containing a virus that could damage the computer or increase the risk of a “hacker” gaining remote access to the computer. This could jeopardize your family’s privacy and safety.

• Legal and financial. Your child could do something that has negative legal or financial consequences such as giving out a family member’s credit-card number or doing something violating another person’s rights. Legal issues aside, children should be taught good “netiquette” which means to avoid being inconsiderate, mean, or rude on the Internet.

How can you protect yourself and family?

• Never give out personal information, such as your home address, school name, or telephone number in a public forum such as a chat room or newsgroup.

• Before sharing personal information with anyone make sure you’re dealing with someone both you and your children know and trust.

• Do not post photographs of your children in public forums such as newsgroups or on publicly available web sites.

• Avoid listing your child’s name and e-mail address in public directories.

• Find out if your children have a free web based, e-mail account, such as those offered by Hotmail or Yahoo. Ask them for their user ID and password. If they do have such an account, find out where they access those accounts. Is at school, the library, or at friends home? Ask them for their user name and password.

• Find out if your children have an on-line journal, web log or personal web site. If they do ask them to show it to you.

• Never allow your child to arrange a face-to-face meeting with someone they’ve “met” on on-line without an adult family member’s permission. If they do arrange a meeting, make sure the first meeting is in a public place, and be sure to accompany your child.

• Never respond to messages that are suggestive; obscene; belligerent; or threatening. If you or your child receives a message that is harassing, or of a sexual nature, file an abuse complaint with the senders ISP.

• Always remember people online may not be who they seem. Just because someone says they’re a 12-year-old girl doesn’t mean they are. They could actually be 40-year-old man.

• Any offer that’s “too good to be true” probably is. Be careful about any offers involving you going to a meeting, having someone visit your home, or that ask you to sending money or credit-card information.

• Set reasonable rules and guidelines for computer use by your children and consider keeping the computer in the family room, rather than your child’s bedroom.

• Make use of Parental Control or content filtering applications to help prevent access to inappropriate material. Parental Control or Content Filtering applications are not 100 percent effective, but do help reduce the chance of your child accessing inappropriate materials on-line.

End Notes

For more information about protecting your children and teenagers on-line visit the Center for Missing and Exploited Children on-line at http://www.missingkids.com.

Only one new addition to my reading list for this month:

Cobra II : The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor


Your questions, comments and book recommendation are always welcome. You can reach me at jasetaro@mags.net or jasetaro@yahoo.com.
—Jeff Setaro

 

 


 
 
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