In the world today, there are many people who take advantage of children. It used to be that we had to worry about predators in parks and playgrounds, and in our neighborhoods. In today’s society, we now have to watch and protect them from online predators.

Statistics indicate that children who use the Internet often are targeted by online predators more often because they can disguise themselves as same age as the child using the Internet. There are however, guidelines for parents to follow in order to protect their children from the dangerous side of the Internet.

Protect Your Passwords

It is critical that you limit your child’s access to certain Internet sites. One way to do this is to password protect your computer and under no circumstances give those passwords to your children. Most children will share passwords with their friends and it defeats the purpose of having them. Passwords will also alert you when your children use the Internet, and you can keep a better watch over what they are doing. They will not be able to sneak on the computer when you are sleeping or at work because they will not know what the passwords are.

Monitor Computer Time

It is very important that you monitor what your children are doing online. Tell your child what is appropriate and what is not. Warn them of the dangers of online communication. Sit your child and watch what they do and say online. More importantly, watch what is said to them. If you are suspicious, keep a log of what is said and contact the local authorities.

Block Access

Blocking access to sites that are not appropriate will go a long way in protecting your child. Many Internet providers provide tools that will allow you to better control your child’s time on the Internet. Using parental controls to protect your children is advisable to all parents. With them, you can set the parameters to keep your children safe. With parental controls, you block sites and chat rooms that you feel may be unsafe for your children.

Parental Controls

Parental controls are a great resource for parents in the fight to keep children safe. However, it is not a parental replacement or babysitter. Studies have shown that parents who have direct involvement in their child’s Internet use have fewer incidents of predatory harassment.

Kid Safe Browsers

Because of the growing problem of online predators, safeguards have been developed. Kid safe browsers are specifically made for children and do not allow certain keyword searches to be performed.

Internet Safety

Children are extremely vulnerable to Internet predators because they are by nature very trusting. It is important that you teach them safety protocol. It is important that they understand that under no circumstances should they ever give out their personal information on the Internet, and explain to them why these precautions are necessary.

It may be difficult to explain why these precautions are necessary without scaring your child, however, being cautious is very important when it comes to online safety. Some children are willful and will give their information anyway. This is when it is necessary to restrict their online activity altogether until they are more responsible.

Pre-teen children should always have a parent present to monitor what their activities are. They may not appreciate you looking over their shoulder; however their safety should be your number one priority. When it comes to your child and the Internet, there is no such thing as being overprotective.

Parental control has become quite necessary these days. The children are getting introduced to computer at a very young age even before realizing what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, they easily become the victim of online crimes. There are a number of malicious websites on the internet which packaged themselves in a way that children easily get attracted to these sites.

Parental control is necessary specially for the parents who are working and have to leave their children back at home.  It is not possible for them to restrict their children from using internet as it may hamper their studies. The only thing they can do is to keep monitoring the online activities of their children or installing parental control software on their computer.

As a responsible parent you can follow few parental control tips mentioned below to keep your children safe from online crime. You should ask them to follow certain rules while surfing internet.

Your children should immediately inform you if they get any kind of scary or strange message. The cyber criminals quite clever and approach the children quite intelligently. If the children do not accept their message they try to scare them. The children should simply ignore these kinds of messages and chat room invitations from any unidentified person. The children should not disclose their real names and other personal details to anybody unless they know the person well. Your children should not meet strangers live even if they pursue hardly or ask to meet in any public place. The children should not send or receive photograph through internet unless they know the person.

Apart from guiding your children you should follow some rule as well

You should let your children know about the harmful sides of internet. You can also spend some time with them to know which are the sites they visit frequently or whether the sites are harmful or not. If you want to get more information you may visit cybercrime.gov. You should keep a track on your children’s friends with whom they love to interact. If possible you can meet their parents to keep them aware of the online crime. You may request them to monitor their children’s online activities as well. Sometime the children may access internet while they are in school. You should make it sure that the school in which your children study has parental control software installed on their computer. If cannot watch the online activities of your children every time you can install an internet monitoring or parental control software on your computer. Some software companies offer parental control software which has the capability of filtering the website that may be viewed on the browser. You may specify some rules and restrict different kinds of websites from opening. There are a number of parental control software which offer email filter to restrict spam or junk mails from entering into the mailbox. Internet monitoring software keeps track of your entire online activity by taking snapshots of the sites you have visited or tracking your instant messaging or chat room conversation.

Apart from taking all kinds of security measures it is necessary to teach your children on how to surf internet safely. Otherwise their future and career may get ruined.

When you first heard about internet gambling, you might have been surprised by the fact that it was allowed to happen. When live gambling in casinos is so heavily regulated, how could internet gambling be legal? And even if the law allows gambling, statistics would have to show that only fools would play, right?

Forget the hype, but know the facts.

Online Gambling – Is it Legal?

The answer to this question? It depends. There are two major federal laws related to internet gambling:

The Interstate Wire Act of 1961 The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006

The first law made it illegal to use wire communication for gambling purposes. But, in 1961, lawmakers couldn’t have envisioned the internet. So although the internet does uses ‘wires,’ the exact meaning of the term allowed for too many loopholes.

So, in 2006, the second law was passed. It focuses on the online gambling company rather than the gambler. It is a felony for any company to accept any money related to online gambling. This is why the companies you can gamble with online are located outside of the US where it is difficult prosecute. But, the government also expects US Banks to stop money from going to these online companies. Because of this, you might eventually have trouble paying for online gambling with your US bank account or credit card. However, it is not a problem at the moment.

So while the federal government won’t come after internet gamblers, they could still be breaking the law. The UIGEA leaves it up to the states to determine whether or not internet gambling violates their state’s laws. Experts believe that any law states might pass would make it a misdemeanor to gamble online rather than a felony. And again, there is no expectation that states would pursue the gambler rather than the gambling company. But if you have any concerns, you should check with your state’s gaming commission to understand whether or not you are violating any state laws.

Basic Online Gambling Facts

There are several different types of online casinos, and we can only expect for them to get more elaborate as online gambling evolves. Today, the three main ones are:

Web-based Casinos – these casinos allow you to play without downloading software and the possible pop-ups or spyware that may come with it. These casinos will require that you have a higher speed internet connection than the other types, since you’ll be transferring the games and graphics across the web as you play. Download-based Casinos – these sites require that you load their software onto your computer before you can gamble or play the casino games. These are generally faster, making them popular with players. Of course, you have to go through the initial set-up process, and you are risking the possibility of downloading software from an ‘unknown’ source – which always includes the chance that you could get a virus as well. Live-based Casinos – here, you are actually playing in a ‘live’ or ‘chat’ environment. Today there are even webcam-based casinos where you can watch a live dealer and even other players. This is as close to a walk-in casino as you can get on the internet.

Safety is probably the largest concern that online gamblers have, but when it comes to gambling, statistics show that trust in the industry continues to increase. This is evident in the increase in the number of players and funds invested between 2000 and 2006. It is estimated that the industry grew from about $10 billion to more than $14 billion in just these six years. You can gamble online safely if you take the time to investigate your options. Before you invest your money in playing, check ecogra.org, an independent, nonprofit agency that rates and approves online gaming sites.

Internet predators have become a fixture of sorts on many social media sites which necessitates the need for users to exercise caution. Since the advent of the internet ‘instances’ of cyber crime have evolved into regular and expected occurrences. Now the growing popularity of social network sites has cyber criminals taking direct aim at them with their internet scams. What is it that makes the social networks such an attractive target for this type criminal behavior?

Here are 3 very ‘inviting’ reasons.

Casual Atmosphere

Social network sites are meant for just what they imply and that is to socialize. This type of atmosphere is casual and relaxed therefore people for the most part are NOT expecting devious behavior. It is just this type atmosphere that cyber criminals depend upon and thrive in. Their ability to manipulate others is based upon a ‘blind’ trust or having others believe in their own sense of security.

Ease of Use

Most social media sites by and large are set up to be easy to use and navigate. This allows even the less than ‘tech savvy’ to become involved but they also bring along their own naive nature relative to internet security issues. This makes them even easier prey since they are unaware of or unfamiliar with many common internet scams.

This ease of use on the other hand has also made it just as convenient for the ‘sinister online element’ to gain access to their unsuspecting prey. There are no security systems to work around or advanced coding to decipher therefore the ‘door’ is wide open for the criminal element gain easy access.

Popularity

As we all know crime always seems to gravitate towards the largest population bases offline and this remains true online as well. The very popularity of social media sites has put them in the ‘cross hairs’ of the devious minded predators that lurk on the internet. Safety in numbers is NOT something innocent site members can count on when interacting within online social communities.

Internet predators have settled in quite comfortably on many social media sites to the point that they have almost become accepted ‘fixtures’ to users.

For the 3 reasons we have spoken of above cyber criminals are attracted to many of the online communities. The structure of these sites offers the perfect opportunity for the criminal element to successfully implement their internet scams. For the users they must simply be aware that cyber crime does exist and will continue to do so calling for the need to exercise caution when socializing online.

There are many reasons to want to protect your information online, so the quest for a ninja proxy is not an unreasonable one.  The image of some shadowy electronic surfer, gliding through the internet ether unnoticed is quite appealing to.

The problem with proxy servers,is what they do, how they work and most importantly who runs them.  Proxies are appealing because they can hide your IP address and idenity from the web sites you are visiting, well they do if they are set up properly.

But for those who seek the ultimate ninja proxy, I want to tell you of a very real threat.  There are of course thousands of free proxies on the internet which people bounce off for a variety of reasons from security, bypassing censorship and other less legitimate uses.

The threat comes from the rise of cybercrime, the stunning rise of cyber crime orchestrated from the well organised cyber criminals across the globe.  For instance there are very advanced criminal gangs working from South America, Brazil in particular.  They steal from peoples bank accounts, they steal peoples data, they steal peoples identities – their crimes are committed from a keyboard in front of a VDU screen.

But what of the risk from Ninja proxies?

The cyber criminals need your data, they need you passwords, user accounts.  One way they can easily obtain many details is by setting up a free proxy.  The method is simple, hack into an internet web server with poor security, then install or enable a proxy server on it.

Post it to a few anonymous proxy server lists, wait for the ninja proxy finding tools to pick it up and soon you’ll have thousands of people surfing through your server.  That means sending absolutely everything they do online is under their control.   They can intercept and store any information that passes through.  Logging every packet of data, you can soon steal important details from thousands who use the server, including our budding ninja.

The criminal possibilities are varied – theft from accounts, identity theft, blackmail.  They can redirect you to fake web pages, copies of your bank site, and then compromise your computer with viruses, keyloggers and trojans.  Basically you are sending everything you do online to a bunch of cyber criminals.

The beauty of this method if you’re a cyber criminal is obvious, instead of hacking into peoples computers, sending out millions of spam emails, you simply wait for people to send their data to you.

There are legitimate and highly secured servers which you can use as a ninja proxy.  They are run by legitimate companies and controlled by professional administrators, they are rarely free though but ultimately they are safe and secure.   Don’t use a proxy server if you don’t know who it is run by, you’re much safer online using no proxy at all.