Net Security

Credit Cards and the Internet

If you don't want other people to see your credit card number when you send it over the Internet, send it from a secure server. Most browsers have one of these built in. A secure server encrypts the information it sends over the Internet. This means that even if someone unauthorised does hack in and gets access to that data, they can't read it anyway.

Your Internet Cookies

Cookies are special messages that let a web site keep track of what you visited on that site. This information is stored on your computer for the next time you visit that site. These files, known as cookie files, usually have the name cookie in them. If you don't want other people using them or seeing them, delete your cookies when you leave your computer (this is important in Internet cafes and if you share a computer at work).

Internet Explorer also keeps a history file of where you have been on the Internet. Again, delete it if you don't want other people looking at it.

Your Safety on the Internet

The Internet is anonymous. People's user names bear no resemblance to their real names. Do not use your full name or give your name and/or address and/or phone number over the Internet.

Never give your password to anyone, no matter what they say.

Never give information about your kids to anyone on the Internet.

Children and the Internet

As for TV, children should be supervised in the use of the Internet. They should be taught a few simple rules to protect themselves, such as not telling anyone their real name, their address, their school or where they live. Apart from this, the main concern with kids and the Internet is the fact they can access anything on it. If you don't want your child looking at pornography etc, a software sentry will allow or deny access to sites based on a list keywords and off-limit sites. What the sentry blocks may not be your idea of offensive.

A popular sentry is NetNanny, available from Http://www.netnanny.com/. This is for PC's and offers a parent defined directory that allows you to set what you want your child to have access to. It creates a log of your child's activites and monitors all activity on the PC, both on and off the Internet.

See the Internet Filtering Section in our Youth Web section for more filtering products plus advice on how to protect your kids.

There are lots of resources for kids on the Internet.