Online safety and preventing inappropiate online content access

In our never ending aspirations at datersdigest.com to make your experience as enjoyable and secure as possible, we have made this website page to help parents and businesses understand how to keep their children and employees away from inappropriate online material.

Parents

Parents are concerned about the online surfing habits of their children and with good reason: With the phenomenal growth of both good and bad aspects of the Internet, even the most "net savvy" kids can get into trouble. Stopping the exposure of young innocent minds to inappropiate content on the internet is always a parent's concern when their children are on the computer.

Employers

Businesses are also using filters to reduce liablity for condoning a "hostile work environment" where employees are subjected to objectionable sexual material on their fellow workers' computers. In addition to porn, businesses are also filtering other types of material that may distract employees (social networks, sports, health, or financial information, etc.) Productivity in the workplace is essential to controlling labor costs and maximizing your company’s resources. Time is money. According to eHow, "...the average executive spends approximately 108 minutes every day reading and sending emails. Over a five-day work week, that equals nine hours of lost productivity. The Internet has led to a new workplace phenomenon: countless hours lost to non-work-related Internet surfing each day. Lost productivity means lost profits, and this is dangerous in a competitive marketplace in which workplace productivity is vital to survival."

Talk to them

The first step in prevention is to talk to your children or employees about the consequences of viewing objectionable online content. Parents should take the time to sit down with their kids and explain in a clear manner about the dangers and pitfalls when looking at unsuitable internet subject matter. Employers should talk to their employees about the impact on their job and productivity when viewing inconsonant content from the internet while on the job.

Hardware prevention

Routers are either wired or wireless devices which allow you to share one internet connection to many computers and other network devices. Many routers have built-in interfaces to restrict access using keywords or website addresses. You can configure user profiles with time-of-day access restrictions and content categories tailored to users' needs. In addition, e-mail and content filtering make this a truly versatile system for parental and employer supervision.

Software prevention

Internet content filtering applications are becoming more and more popular as a means to deny inappropiate internet content. Many programs allow you to create different levels of security and filtering based on the parent or employer's input. Most filtering software is pretty flexible when configuring the parameters to refuse connections to certain websites or URL's depending once again on the level of restriction one would want.

A few internet filter programs that handle internet content filtering:

• Net Nanny
• AOL Software
• PureSight PC
• Cyber Sitter
• Safe Eyes
• CyberPatrol
• McAfee Family Protection
• FilterPak
• imView

Spamming and phishing

Even legitimate websites can contain people who are spammers or phishers.

Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, online classified ads spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam, junk fax transmissions, social networking spam, television advertising and file sharing network spam. People who create electronic spam are called spammers.

Phishing is a way of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT administrators are commonly used to lure the unsuspecting public. Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. People who act using phishing techniques are called phishers.

Online Safety Tips

• Do not give out your social security number, email, home or office address
• Do not give any specific information about where you live, where you work, landmarks by your home or office
• Ask questions. If someone avoids answering your questions, avoid them
• Do not give out your home, work or cell phone number
• Never meet strangers