All three groups bear rights and responsibilities when it comes to Cyber Safety. We all have the right to use the internet free from harassment, threat, or theft. We all have the responsibility to take care of our internet use.
So what does that mean?
Well think of it like your car. If you have your license and registration, then you have the right to drive your car. With that right comes the responsibility to provide insurance, follow all the traffic laws, and drive defensively.
Car use is like internet use. First, you need your license. That means, as a student, you need permission from your parents to use the internet. They decide when you are old enough for your "license." Registration of your car is required to drive it on the road. "Registration" is also important when it comes to social networking sites. Proper registration on most of those sites, requires you to be either 13 or 14 years of age.
Then there's your first responsibility: insurance. Insurance is a safety net. Some people drive without it, and some people use the internet without it, and they usually both pay in the end. Don't get stuck without insurance!
Like drivers' insurance, often the parent helps pay for it when the student starts out, and often the school provides drivers education to keep the cost of insurance down. This is the same with internet "insurance." The parent and the school may use a variety of tools to provide insurance and protect their children on the internet until they are able to do it on their own.
Insurance for the internet includes tools that provide the first line of defense, things like firewalls, anti-virus software, anti-spyware, an updated operating system, and appropriate privacy settings, especially on social networking sites. Parents may want to "upgrade" their insurance and use monitoring software to keep track of where their child goes on the internet, and use filters available through their internet service provider (ISP). A list of filters and parental controls that are available free from some of the more popular ISP's can be found at http://kids.getnetwise.org/tools/ispoptions. If you are looking to purchase more specific tools and filters, there is a search tool to help you at http://kids.getnetwise.org/tools/. Schools are responsible to use tools like this as well. More often than not, they have their own technology specialists who set up their own firewalls and filters. Insurance like this (tools) will help protect your computer, your privacy and your personal information. It is a good start, but it is only a start.
The second responsibility that you have as the student, parent, and teacher is to follow the rules of the road. When they are followed, it allows everyone on the road to be safe. Without them, accidents, injury and death could result. Marshall County Schools provides their own rules of the road for internet use in school. It's called the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). It can be found on pages 31-32 of the Student Services Bulletin which can be accessed at http://boe.mars.k12.wv.us/. This must be read and signed in agreement, before students are permitted to use the internet at school. The AUP addresses the basic rules of the road for internet use, things like appropriate sites and "netiquette." Rules of the road need to be established at home as well. Drivers with permits are restricted to driving during certain hours of the day and must drive with a more experienced driver to coach and supervise them. This same concept is appropriate for students, too. It is helpful for students to have some time restrictions on internet use, for example, late night use is not usually a good idea. An adult to monitor their use is a good idea to make sure they are not inadvertantly putting themselves in a dangerous position, whether it is dangreous academically, financially or socially. A website that provides 10 very clear and appriopriate rules, not just for students, but for anyone using the internet, is www.protectkids.com/parentsafety/socialnetworking.htm. One of those rules is: never post photos or give out personal information without parental permission. That includes things like full name, address, phone number, email address, school, hometown. Another is never plan a face to face (f2f) with anyone you only know from the internet. Please access this site for further helpful guidelines for your child's protection.
Driving defensively is the third responsibility associated with the internet. You may be very responsible and always talk appropriately without any mean conversations or inappropriate comments or photos posted. My parents always used to tell me they trusted me, they just didn't trust anyone else. Just because you are using the internet with the best intentions and for the right reasons doesn't mean someone else is. So it is your responsibility to assume the defensive driving position.
What does that mean?
It means, don't assume you are safe. Assume there is always someone trying to steal your personal information. Defensive driving includes a lot of things, like:
- making strong passwords and storing them safely. A strong password includes a combination of numbers, letters, and symbols.
- keeping personal information personal.
- not responding to emails or IMs from people you don't know.
- not posting any pictures of students. If you do, make sure they are appropriate because even if you delete them, older versions may remain on other people's computers and may still be circulated without your permission.
- checking the privacy policy on websites. Just because a website has a privacy policy does NOT mean they keep anything private. The privacy policy just tells you what the policy is. There may be no privacy and no restrictions. So any information you put in may go right back out to whoever wants it.
- knowing the COPPA law (Childrens' Online Privacy Protection Act) and reporting any website that violates your child's privacy rights (http://www.onguardonline.gov/topics/kids-privacy.aspx)
- reporting any unwanted or inappropriate sexual comments or pictures to the cybertipline.
- reporting any threatening or harassing communication to local law enforcement and to the social networking site it happened on. www.facebook.com/report#!/help/?page=843 for Facebook. www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=help.reportabuse for MySpace. www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/request.py?contact_type=contact_us for You Tube.
- checking the websites used to make sure they are valid. You don't want to get scammed. Use common sense first; check the domain. In the URL address, what is the extension and what does it mean? ".gov" means it's a government site. ".edu" means it's a college or university site. ".org" means it's a non-profit site. ".com" means it's a commercial site. The ones to be most wary of are the ".com" sites. Next, check to make sure the site doesn't have some spelling in the title that's close to, but not quite right; a lot of scam sites look like they're taking you to a useful and appropriate site, and then when you get there, it's something totally different than what you thought it was going to be.
- Once you've done this, if you are unsure of a site, there are tools out there that can give you further confirmation. You can go to http://www.stopbadware.org/home/reportsearch, and put in the URL of the website in question. It will run it through its database to see if that site has any "badware" (malware, viruses, or phishing type programs) associated with it. http://www.phishtank.com/ is run basically the same way and checks for phishing programs. For more software and websites that check website validity, go to http://actuallyfree.info/thirdpartysites.aspx.
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