In light of the massive raids and arrests yesterday over child pornography, I feel that it is very timely to be looking at protecting our kids while they’re on the internet.
During my morning programme on Sonshine FM this morning I’ll be talking with Simon Johnson, the author of a new book titled Keep your Kids Safe on the Internet.
On his website, Simon says In 2002, I left a corporate IT job and a six figure salary to spend time with my wife Anna prior the birth of my daughter, Amelie. Like most parents we spent considerable time planning for the arrival of our daughter – but I couldn’t prepare for how it changed me.
Amelie’s’ birth put my life into perspective. After she arrived, I had no desire to return to full-time corporate life. I wanted to do something more meaningful and positive – something with impact! While I didn’t immediately know what that was, I was open to ideas.
I had been using the Internet to send friends and family some pictures of my daughter. At the time I was receiving an average of 100 inappropriate, spam e-mail messages a day! While fixing my spam problem, it occurred to me how I wouldn’t like my daughter to receive this junk. I thought, “Well if I can protect companies from Internet threats like spam, then why can’t I protect my own daughter?” I then had a look around for software, books, reviews – anything I could find on the topic of protecting children online. Unfortunately, everything I looked at was either outdated or completely useless.
The book is very helpful. It looks at the various threats such as predators in chat rooms, viruses, spam, adware, hackers and rates several software packages.
The companion website is also very helpful. There is a lot of free information on the site as well as forums where you can ask specific questions about keeping your kids, and your computer, safe.
For those in Perth or those who would like to listen on-line via the website I’ll be talking to Simon sometime between 10:00am and 11:00am this morning.
Posted by Rodney Olsen
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