|
Common problems
Young people make friends easily, and are often willing to give
out personal details like their email address, home address and
phone numbers to characters they meet online, especially if the
child is using the Internet from a place they think of as "safe",
like home or school. It is useful to remind youngsters to be a little
cautious and not reveal personal information too easily.
The best advice for adults is to talk frequently to young people
about their experience of being online, encouraging them to explain
what they do and discussing any problems that come up.
In particular, children should understand about "stranger danger"
and the importance of not giving away personal information without
thinking first. If they do arrange real life meetings with people
they have met online, they should always tell an adult, take along
someone they trust, and meet somewhere public.
Schools are giving children access to email in a controlled way,
with many education authorities giving an account for the whole
class and individual accounts only for older pupils. Often pupils
may only send email to others on the local council network and not
out to the Internet, as a way to prevent them receiving email from
the outside world. Schools sometimes also use software to filter
out undesirable messages, to reduce the volume of incoming junk
mail and to try to prevent children sending rude or abusive messages
to others. This software is not usually completely effective and
cannot guarantee that there will be no problems.
Junk mail (sometimes known as Spam) is a major nuisance on the
Internet, is pretty much unavoidable, and is almost impossible to
stop altogether. Huge amounts of unsolicited commercial mail travel
the Internet, offering things like get-rich-quick schemes, pornography,
unlimited credit and false qualifications. You can use the filters
that are built in to email software and services to reduce the volume
of rubbish that reaches you. The best advice is don't reply to junk
mail, as this just confirms to the sender that their message reached
a real person, and you will likely then receive even more. Also
be cautious about giving your email address to registration forms
on websites, and putting your email address into public areas such
as website "visitor books", as these may contribute to
you getting more junk mail.
Chain letter email also gets sent around the Internet, and again
it is best to ignore it and delete each such letter you get. Passing
on such messages to other people can annoy or upset people.
Bullying, abuse and harassment by email between children is also
a possibility. If this happens within a school or within schools
in the same area, you should report it to teachers who will use
the school's anti-bullying policy to deal with it. If it happens
through a personal email account outside of school, report it to
the provider of the sender's email account (e.g. the part of the
email address after the @ sign, like @hisISP.co.uk) and ask the
company to stop the individual doing it again. You can also use
the software to "block" the sender, to stop receiving
any more messages from that one address.
If the email is seriously nasty, or breaks the law in some way
such as by making false allegations against you, contact the local
police. Print or save a copy of the email as potential evidence.
Remember to be careful about what you say in email. Messages are
easily copied by the recipient and sent on to others, reaching a
much bigger audience that the writer intended. False, inaccurate
and abusive comments in email about people or companies, that damage
their reputation or interests, can lead to embarrassment or even
legal action in the courts. Email is not anonymous, and can usually
be tracked back to individuals. It is best not to say something
in email that you would not be happy to make public.
Be aware though, that it is possible to fake the address an email
has come from, so the real sender may be hiding his identity behind
someone else's name.
Computer viruses are at least an irritation and can cause serious
damage to your computer, your files or your reputation. The most
common way of spreading these malicious pieces of software is to
conceal them in an 'attachment' to a piece of email. If you read
an email like this, and click on the symbol representing the attached
file, the computer opens the file and the virus starts to cause
its harmful effects; for example, it might send a copy of itself,
plus a link to a pornographic website, to everyone in your email
address book. The best defence against viruses is to install anti-virus
software on your computer, and keep it up to date (regular updates
are usually available online). Some web services such as Hotmail
do run anti-virus software that checks attachments. You should also
watch out for email messages that come with big attached files,
especially if these are from people you don't know or with subject
line titles that mean nothing to you; delete any suspect message
and empty the email software "trash" folder.
|
