Comments on: Internet Safety & Security

By: chinch kabel

chinch kabel — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:24:39 +0000

I would expert this report to be much nearer the truth than the scare-mongering stories from tabloid journalists. Many of these are not something which can be legislated against; however they are things that parents recognise that children are particularly at risk of being negatively affected by.

By: configuration management

configuration management — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 06:39:14 +0000

The point is, there are a lot of security issues related to a network such as the Internet. No FAQ could possibly cover them all. That is why this FAQ concentrates on Internet Explorer. Because there are millions of people who use Microsoft Windows family products, and because those millions have the ability to blend Internet Explorer with these products, the seriousness about security should be of paramount importance to everyone. Remember, software products are only as secure as the environment in which they operate.

By: Aviva Figler

Aviva Figler — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 20:35:58 +0000

To Whom It May Concern, For the past 2 weeks or so, neither my workers nor I have been able to log onto the Bank of America website to manage our accounts - either from home or work so we know it’s not an issue with our proxy server connections (we have absolutely no problem logging onto any other sites). When we try to log on, we get an error “The connection has timed out” (using Mozilla Firefox) or “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpages” (obviously, using Internet Explorer), etc. What is going on?!?!? There is definitely a problem with your website and only if I hit Retry or the F5 button a significant number of times, am I then, finally, sometimes, able to log on.
Why am I sending this e-mail to you? Well, I can’t log onto to any other Bank of America-related site because of the above-mentioned problems. Since you seem to be affiliated with “Internet Safety & Security”, you are the only site I can successfully log onto to ask about this and get this fixed…. Please advise as I (and my colleagues) am getting beyond frustrated with your company due to this.

By: Annalie Killian

Annalie Killian — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 12:15:21 +0000

Hi Todd, I have seen an interesting documentary programme on an inflight programme once that came to the same conclusion, and as a hyper-connected mother who sits side by side with a 14 and 11 year old every night on our Macs- either Twittering and social networking or researching (me), downloading music, MySpacing and chatting on messenger (14y old) or playing Stardoll online fashion game or making and editing her own YouTube movies (11 year old), I can attest that the risks to kids are not so much “stranger danger” but what they are exposed to.

Though I have good content filters on my LAN, and caution my children about the destruction of innocence that seriously graphical porn sites will do and that is NOT something that cannot be undone, sadly, in their young lives there is very little that has not sooner or later crossed their screens or arrived as spam in their in-boxes, with them innocently clicking. This is attrocious, but I am as intrigued by how the children of their age take it all in their stride as an inevitable part of life and simply don’t get phased by it, joke about it and literally ignore it as “noise/junk!”

Something I think poses a more significant risk is damage to self-esteem through trolls, and of course cyber-bullies, though in this household we have only experienced one trolling incident to date out of literally THOUSANDS of online hours…and that made for a good conversation on how to approach it and deal with it.

I am glad that such a credibly-endorsed report has been published and congratulate BoA on being active in this space….the biggest threat to children is that paranoid parents could prevent them from enjoying all the learning and skills benefits that the internet offers- at an acceptably low risk compared to other social interactions in an adult environment.