Cyberbullying is different to
the normal school playground bullying, in that it happens
in the privacy of the Childs home. I say ‘the
privacy of home’ for the simple reason that a
lot of parents still believe a child or young person
is safe from bullying in their home.
DirectGov
on the Young People page describe Cyberbullying is when
one person or a group of people try to threaten, tease
or embarrass someone else by using a mobile phone or
the internet. Cyberbullying is just as harmful as bullying
in the real world. If you see it happening, report it.
Don't ignore it.
The most common occurrences of bullying take place in
the form of telephone calls or texts messages to your
child’s mobile, through social sites, instant
messaging, such as MSN, Video hosting sites such as
Utube, web cams and gaming sites. This type of bullying
is often compounded by other people deliberately, or
unintentionally, resending emails, or commenting on
videos.
Unfortunately this is not the only way your child could
be under attack, or even you. People pose as being of
a similar age as your child in order to ‘Groom
them’, with instances of children being tricked
into providing pictures of themselves in compromising
situations, and then being blackmailed. They can receive
a virus, which can wipe out programs, or read your child’s
address book, or simply crash your child’s computer
and render it worthless.
Worse still they can receive a ‘Trojan horse’
which is effectively a back door to your child’s
computer, and if it is in any way connected to your
computer, it can be a backdoor to your computer, your
bank, and all your personal details, everything needed
to clone your identity.
All of these can be avoided once you know how. DirectGov
provides a comprehensive ways to protect your child
and how to understand the problems your child can encounter.
All the places your child is liable to visit is invariable
safe, provided they are aware of potential problems.
Most sites provide ‘a report button’ to
report cases of bullying and or abuse. You can apply
filters to stop your chid receiving certain emails,
and filters to block certain sites, such as ‘adult’
sites.
It is important to educate your child of the possible
dangers, with the right sort of education and guidance
the internet is perfectly safe for your child to use
and enjoy.
Crack Sites.
As a parent you have probably never heard of the term
‘Crack sites’ but if you have a teenage
son or daughter, you can guarantee they have heard of
them. A crack site is a site where you can download
pirated versions of popular software, or if you have
the software they will provide you with the ‘Key’
needed to operate the system. You can also find totally
illegal programs, i.e. software to hack into someone
else’s computer or mobile phone and use all their
credit. Apart from all this being illegal, along with
the download comes the Trojan horse, and/or, a nasty
Virus. Tell your child not to go on these sites, and
they will do just to see why they can’t.
Better still is education even, if it is by stealth.
On our free download pages, Anti Virus we feature a
program called AVG antivirus. This program will block
emails and downloads if there is a virus, and it can
be used to check programmes from an external source,
DVD, or portable hard drive.
Why I use this one and like it is because, it is perfectly
free, and when you are searching Google or other search
engines, a pop up will appear as you hover over a link,
and tell you if the site is safe and free from viruses,
or whether it is unsafe to use. This is usually enough
to prevent most people clicking on the site. This freebie
can be found on the Anti
Virus page.
Here
is an example of a safe site
