Online Chat Rooms- the best teacher Chat Rooms- newest form of pen friendship Virtual friends, even in the past were fun- you could just be yourself with the person you wrote to without any inhibitions. The newest form of this pen friendship is of course net friendship and there is no better way to make friends that to log on to online chat rooms. With lifestyles becoming hectic, wee office hours and more net savvy people, online chat is here to stay. With new technological innovations everyday, the cyber space is rapidly changing from the virtual space it has been. These days, you can talk real time and see the person you are chatting with through a video chat. Networking on Online Chat Rooms Social networking sites are good to network your way in finding people with similar sets of interests and professional preferences. But online chat rooms are better by a notch- you can find the room for exactly what you are searching. Topic based sites are definitely a lot quicker and hassle free for any one. Say if you are looking at setting up a charity group, you might find a room specially aimed at this. Most of these rooms are moderated so that you do not have to bother about the communication going out of context. In fact, some of the best online chat rooms are commonly visited by very knowledgeable people and you can easily look at improving your knowledge base. Respecting the Age Requirement Norms in Chat Rooms Many online chat rooms require a minimum age requirement of 18 years to enter the chat portal. This is not to be mistaken for the chat room being inclined to either adult content or violent. This in fact is a good idea because often kids find it difficult to adhere to the chat room norms and end up messing with the topic of discussion. Privacy also becomes an issue if kids participating in an adult chat room do not know how to protect themselves. Tender souls may be surprised and shocked at very naïve and innocent acts of adults and may lead adults to be more conscious unnecessarily. Especially user created rooms and private rooms may be a zone where kids should no way be allowed as it could be offensive to both the child and the adult. So, it is better to choose a chat site that monitors the age requirement norms well. Live chat sessions in online chat rooms can be the best way to experience the cultural diversity in the world. We all have studied in social science in our school days about how the Indians or the Japanese lived but such knowledge is of no use if we do not get real time experience. Chat rooms are the best way where by we can know about cultures from across the globe without actually visiting the places. And all this socializing and knowledge is free with the free online chat!!
Facebook Safety Facebook is an excellent tool to stay in contact with friends and family, and also to meet new people, however we quickly forget an important childhood lesson—”don’t talk to strangers” – “but they are my friends you may say…” As Fb (Facebook) relies on people’s openness to share their information on a semi-public forum, some dilemmas are posed. There is a strong need for humans to be connected to each other and Fb seems to take advantage of that need. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Whether it’s reconnecting with distant relatives or keeping track of close friends without having to duplicate information, or even to see what happened to that high school sweetheart, the strong interconnectivity of the internet cannot be denied or ignored. Thus it is easier to learn to adapt and live with, rather than find ways to live without this valuable tool. The uses of Fb are far reaching. A Cape Town organisation has successfully located numerous missing children by posting their pictures on their group site. The effect that Fb is having on our society is still not clear. In terms of research, Fb is still new and there is currently a large amount of studies being undertaken on various aspects of the impact of Fb. For example, many corporate companies have implemented policies to deal with social networking forums such as Fb, MSN (another social network –Windows Live Messenger) and the like, owing to reduced productivity in the workplace. The current research on the effects of Fb on family life, work and mental health will be interesting. The problem is that research takes time and the publication of these findings too takes time, and Fb is still relatively new. So you have taken the time to create a nice full profile on Fb. You have even included details as to where you live, work, your contact numbers and interests. You then are going on holiday and you post that on your status update something like “Ten days before holiday to Thailand!” The problem is that not only does everyone know that you will be out of town, they also know personal information about you and possibly your family. There would most probably be some pictures of your house on Fb in your photo albums and suddenly you have made it really easy for a would be burglar to have an option here. People even post that they are missing their husband while he is away. This can be a security risk too. Before going head first into the Fb world, I would ask myself some questions: 1. Do I provide personal information and photos etc on my profile? 2. Am I really friends with all the people who have access to my Fb profile? 3. Do I trust the people who can view my profile and its contents? 4. Do I know how to use the security settings on Fb? Who would you let into your home after hours? Who would you let into your home and allow them to look at your videos, photos and weekly plan? The information that you put onto Fb can easily become public and is available 24 hours a day. Information such as where one works, while may be interesting for friends to see, can have a negative effect. The more information that you make available about yourself the more information a would be predator can get. For example, a con-artist could easily get more information about you by pretending to be a close friend when telephoning your business for example. By already having quite a lot of your personal details, it becomes easier to convince your reception or a co-worker for further information, such as your other contact numbers and so on. Now the con-artist could impersonate you when contacting some of your service providers as he/she already has your personal numbers, work numbers, email address and possibly your home address. This is the information that is often used to verify you to your service providers. A con-artist could contact a common service provider such as a telephone company and request that they want to change the postal address details. The operator from the service provider may confirm your address details to the con after he/she has presented other personal information such as birth date, contact numbers and work address. Even if the service provider does not accept the information that the con provided, they will tell him/her what information they require before they will be able to divulge or make changes to your account profile. Thus, the con can contact other service providers and between a few, and with some clever communication can get the missing information. Each service provider asks different security verification details and it is likely that the con will get through to at least one service provider to whom can provide further information, such as your home address. Now you are not only at a financial risk, you may be at physical risk too. Included in this fraud is attempting to predict passwords for example by having personal information about you. A common hacking tool is called “social engineering” whereby a hacker psychologically manipulates situations to gain further information about you to fill in missing gaps that he/she needs to con you. For example, many people use their child’s name as their password on their computer, or their birth date, or any easy to remember information. By creating a trust relationship with you, you may without knowing it, be giving possible passwords/access information to a hacker as he/she attempts to create a psychological profile of you. If you lose your credit card or your identity document, Fb becomes even more unsafe. If the person who finds these personal documents becomes a friend of yours on Fb (or if your profile is open to the public), then the balance of your personal information is available. Cases of fraud regularly occur in the work environment whereby a fellow co-worker is involved in fraudulent activity either directly or indirectly via a partner. In the work environment, information such as identity numbers, home phone numbers and possibly addresses are fairly easily available in many companies. It is also common for co-workers to be friends on Fb, the rest is self-explanatory. The point is that, the more information there is available about you, even more information can be obtained from that very information. Thus, fraudulent activity becomes easier with more information. Phishing (technique of fraudulently obtaining private information) is a common occurrence that takes many forms such as emails from legitimately looking companies attempting to update their database, and requiring you to confirm details via email or telephone for example. The more information there is available about you, the more openings there are for fraudsters to gain entrance into your life. The possibilities are endless and the methods used to con people too are endless. Psychologically deviant behaviour is a concern for public forums. We need to be aware that child friendly websites have been known to attract not only children but paedophiles too. Facebook has a minimum age for membership of 14 years of age. Paedophilia is a concern for young teenagers and I would not rule this out as a concern for parents just because “every one’s child is on Fb and therefore it must be safe”. If this was true then crossing a street would pose no risks as everyone is doing it… . The point is that parental involvement is always important. I am not saying that one needs to be like a hawk, but what I am saying is that teaching your children about the risks and role-playing possible scenarios that they may be faced with, is an important part of any new activity that has risks. For example, the same way a parent needs to oversee a child when learning to swim (and thereafter for many years of swimming), the same applies for internet based activities. Excuses such as my children know more than me and they teach me about computers is a common complaint. It is easy to get advice and that does not mean that you need to be a computer specialist, but as a parent you already have the knowledge of what would be acceptable behaviours for your children, so it’s just the vehicle that you need to adapt to. This can be fun too. Facebook provides a perfect place for voyeuristic behaviour (the sexual interest in or practice of spying on people, usually while they are doing personal actions). Once a Fb user lets another Fb user see his/her profile by accepting a friendship, the profile remains open to each party unless either the friend is removed from the profile (“unfriend”- Oxford word of the year for 2009) or privacy settings are applied. Now if your profile is open to your friends, these friends can view your photos, videos and other information at any time and as many times as they want. This activity goes unnoticed, so if [...]
