Internet Safety Parents' Guide [Paperback]

Victoria Roddel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 18, 2007

Paperback 6x9. PROTECT YOUR CHILDREN. The internet is not different than public everyday activities as far as parental concern, supervision, permissions, and restrictions are concerned. This book explains. ISBN 978-1-8472-8933-9. Originally published in print 2006.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Victoria Roddel has owned and operated the Cyber Criminals Most Wanted website at ccmostwanted.com since 1999 and has written several books about internet safety for the end-user.

Product Details

• Paperback: 136 pages
• Publisher: lulu.com (July 18, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847289339
• ISBN-13: 978-1847289339
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,342,205 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars some caveats, April 8, 2007

By 

W Boudville (Terra, Sol 3) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Internet Safety Parents' Guide (Paperback)

The advice given in the book is mostly accurate and common sense. Some amount of it also pertains to anyone of any age using the Internet. As general guidelines, including those related to etiquette and safety.

However, there are two caveats. Firstly, it recommends that if you are at a cybercafe or publicly accessible computer, and browsing at a "protected or secure" area, that this is done using encryption (i.e. https). Since there could be malware on the computer. The problem is that encryption is insufficient against malware like keyloggers. These capture your keystrokes. They read in plain text everything that you type. The fact that encryption happens is irrelevant. The encryption refers to the channel and not to the endpoint where you are at. Another drawback is that the website that you are going is presumably some well known location, like a bank at which you have an account. But an unknown computer can have a pocket universe, where the routing to a bank URL goes to a fake website, pretending to be the bank. Perhaps in a Man In The Middle attack, where what you type is relayed to the real bank. Then, the fake website monitors all traffic. Later, it can log in as yourself. Here, the encryption happens to the fake website. Again, the encryption only protects the channel from evesdroppers. It cannot protect you if that endpoint is bogus.

A second caveat is the text's recommendation that a teenager's username should not indicate "age, race, religion or gender", because this could invite attacks based on that information. I respectfully disagree with the recommendation. By way of explanation, I offer an analogy. Last week, on the University of Southern California campus, there was an event, "Take Back the Night". Run by a women's group, and meant to educate women and men. It suggests that women do not lock themselves indoors at night, due to fears of assault or rape on the streets, since that is tantamount to blaming the victim.

Similarly, suppose you are a teenage, and you want a username like buddha_fan, because it expresses your religious belief. Yes, this can cause you to get hate messages. But if you really want that username, perhaps you should go right ahead and do so. Because to do otherwise is to give in to bigots, as you would be restricting your behaviour on the Internet because of prejudice.

A counterargument, that is perhaps implicit in the text, is that you, the teenager, should wait till you are an adult. Then, you will have the maturity to deal with such problems. My response is that maturity should be sooner rather than later. Please note, I'm not saying, in the above example, that it is good that you should get such responses. But in the event that you do, it helps you develop within yourself earlier. An inoculation.

There is also another aspect. Revealing information about yourself in a username is much safer than the Take Back the Night campaign. I agree with the latter, but pragmatically, some streets can indeed be dicey at night. That campaign does entail some physical risk. By comparison, choosing certain usernames is far less riskier. You at a computer in your home or library are much safer than being on certain streets.