Security Notes from John McCormick
(author and cybersecurity expert with 40 years computer experience)
Please, please, please, remember that people in chat rooms may only be pretending to be your friend. Some are predators of the worst kind. The FBI and other police agencies are constantly in chat rooms and often pretend to be young students just to lure bad guys - and they find a LOT of bad guys. The police aren't looking for you, but the predators ARE. They could even be posing as police or FBI while online.
Bad things can and DO happen to kids just like you. Use the Internet and enjoy the friends you meet there, but NEVER give out any personal information. That means don't give out your exact age, tell anyone your address, where you go to school, or other information which could lead someone to discover your physical location or exact identity.
Give out just enough general information to let people interact with you, such as "I am a high school student" "I live in a small town" "I hate math class" and so forth.
If anyone tries to get more details, especially including your first and last name, please tell a teacher, parent, or cop.
Of course this doesn't apply when you actually know the other person in the real world and know who you are exchanging e-mails with. Your classmates and friends may share their online names with you so you can send them e-mails, but remember that in public chat rooms everyone reads your messages. The safest way to make certain you are really e-mailing someone you know is to get their address from them face to face and you should still use caution.
Instant Messaging is NOT safe in any way shape or form. I am an Internet security expert and I hear reports every day about people intercepting instant messages. Doesn't matter if it's AOL, MSN, Yahoo! or some other IM.
If none of the above advice means anything, then just remember this: although most things you do on the Web appears to be very transitory, disappearing in moments, EVERYTHING that happens on the Internet goes through hundreds or thousands of Internet servers and every data packet is recorded for ever.
Express yourself freely but keep your identity secret.
Some important ways to do this include:
1. Be cautious in choosing an online name and e-mail address. Including your age or favorite hobby is a bad idea and completely unnessary since people will get to know you online even if your address is xxxy@geek.com. But skateboard88@geek.com could give people clues about your interests and probably your age.
2. Don't use your local e-mail address such as xxxy@penn.com or xxxy@adelphia.com. Using a local ISP address tells people te general area where you live. This is also a bad idea because they tend to offer less virus protection. And, what happens when you change your ISP? Right, everyone has to get your new address. It's smarter and easier to get one or several of the free e-mail accounts available through Yahoo.com or even mail.usa.com
3. Go to Yahoo.com and form your own class club. Then you can restrict membership to those you invite. That way you have a secret chat room, but you should still be careful because it's possible for someone else to capture some of the chats.
Yahoo Chat Rooms
Sign up for a free Yahoo e-mail address and identity. Yahoo! asks for a lot of personal information in order to open the free account. The simple way to deal with this is just give false information and keep your profile confidential.
Once you have set a Yahoo identity you can set up a club just for your school, club, friends, or sports team. See www.clubs.yahoo.com
One of mine is http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/highlandranch This isn't a teen chat room so it probably won't interest you but it should give you an idea of what you can do with a club you build for your own friends.
Now, send your club information just to the people you actually know and invite them to join - as long as you keep the club "private" you will always know who you are talking with online.
For more information see Teen Safety on the Internet, an article on Internet Safety from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. You can access it directly if you have Adobe Acrobat and are comfortable using it, but I have supplied a plain text version which many people will find easier to read.
