The Internet is a jungle, a perilous place. You never know what is lurching behind the next link or the pop-up that just appeared. The Internet is a net, a trap, which can lure and capture even the most seasoned surfers. Considering the fact there are 4.2 million adult websites with over 372 million pornographic pages on the Internet, allowing a child to roam freely in its realm is frankly foolhardy. While the Internet contains many valuable resources, it is fraught with danger. In order to keep your children safe, you need to be aware, control your computer, and follow some simple steps.

Most parents assume that their children are innocent and that they would never look for adult material. According to Family Safe Media, however, the largest group of viewers of Internet porn is children between the ages of 12 and 17. Everyday there are 68 million search engine requests for porn, representing a total of 25% of the material accessed on the internet, the majority of which is made by young people. According to a New Zealand Internal Affairs Study, the largest single age group viewing child pornography is young people between 15 to 19, accounting for a quarter of the 202 convicted child porn users.

The Washington Post reported in July 1st, 2004, that more than 11 million teens regularly view porn online. Even if your teens don’t look for porn, unless you take the proper precautions, it will come looking for them in the form of pop-up ads designed to deceive and misdirect surfers to adult sites. The Kaiser Family Foundation found that among teens online, 70% have accidentally come across pornography on the web. According to a study conducted by the London School of Economics, nine out of ten children aged 8-16 have viewed porn on the Internet, mostly unintentionally, after having searched for an innocent sounding word while looking for information or pictures.

Many adult sites have addresses which are based on typos of common websites such as dissneychannel.com, cartoonnetawork.com, neopetts.com, musicplus.com, and thousands of others, each deliberately attempting to expose children to pornography. For example, the typo hotmale.com leads to a hard-core gay porn site instead of the popular e-mail provider hotmail.com. Many sites for children, which are entirely legitimate, are surrounded by such typo-squatters, websites which link directly or indirectly to adult sites. In order to avoid such unpleasant and potentially traumatizing surprises, parents can install Strider URL Tracer with Typo Patrol to block squatting domains that serve adult ads on typos of children’s web sites. Another approach used by pornographers is the use of spam, mass e-mails directed to hundreds, thousands, and even millions of e-mails at once.

According to Jerry Ropetalo’s “Internet Pornography Statistics,” 2.5 billion pornographic e-mails are sent every day, representing 8% of the total mail received. In some cases, clicking on such links merely leads to some adult site. In the worst of cases, and if you don’t have an updated anti-virus program, the site may install malicious spy software and Trojan horses on your computer, effectively taking control of your browser, linking it incessantly to other adult sites, adding toolbars, and banner ads. According to a study reported in Youth and Society, in 26% of cases where youth accidentally stumbled into pornographic websites, the youth stated being exposed to another sex website when they were attempting to exit the initial website.

In order to reduce the likelihood of adult material reaching your children via e-mails or pop-ups, it is important to install anti-virus software like Norton or McAfee and to ensure that the virus definitions are kept up to date. For any e-mail account, it is important to select a filter to block and discard unwanted emails. The security level for any internet browser should be set at least at medium, which is safe, yet still functional. For even more safety, filtering programs like Content Protect, Cyber Sitter, Net Nanny, Cyber Patrol, Filter Pak, Cyber Sentinel, McAfee Parental Controls, Cyber Snoop, or Child Safe are essential. Children are generally safe to use computers at school since twenty-one states, including South Dakota, have laws requiring schools and public libraries to equip computers with filtering software or to adopt policies to restrict minors from access to obscene materials. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, however, only 25% of home computers used by teens have a filter or parental controls. Adolescents’ access to sexual and reproductive health information is minimally affected by such pornography-blocking software. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, only 5% of health-related information was blocked out when such software is set at a moderate level while blocking 90% of adult content. These programs operate with a password, allowing parents to override the controls. It should be noted, however, that computer savvy kids are capable of by-passing these programs. No software is superior to parental supervision.

Besides surfing the web, and accessing e-mail, another danger posed to young surfers is blogs. Web sites are usually overt and openly accessible. They are like the window displays of shops on a main street. You see what’s in the window and you walk in. Usually, there are no surprises. If it’s an adult site, it often has a warning. You have to agree to certain terms and conditions before entering. This is very much like a bar or an adult video store with signs on the door saying “18 and Over.” Blogs, however, can be like a numberless door down a back alley in a seedy neighborhood. You never know what you are getting into. Unlike a website, which is more easily accessible, blogs are private pages on a blog site, often accessible only by a password provided after free registration. To access a blog or forum, one needs first to find the web site and then search through it for whatever one is looking for. For many teens, having their own web site, a blog or a forum, is the in thing.

While teen girls may have always played dress up and posed as models in private, in their rooms, during sleepovers, the availability of camcorders and cell phones capable of taking digital pictures and making mini movies has turned this relatively innocent girlish behavior into a public phenomenon with such images being posted on their personal blogs. In Morocco, a conservative Muslim country, a scandal erupted regarding the Sky Blog website in which teenage girls had posted sexually provocative photos of themselves. As many of the girls were minors, and some of the images could be deemed as child pornography, they were quickly shut down by the authorities. Teenage girls must be informed that it is an image, and not a diamond, that lasts forever. Gone are the days when a picture was practically private, being difficult to duplicate and distribute. That picture that was only intended for your boyfriend - who would never dare show it to anyone - can easily be posted on the internet as a prize, or as an act of revenge for breaking up with him, becoming readily available to millions of viewers.

On a seemingly innocent note, some teens use blogs as their personal online diary. Since a diary, by nature, is sensed to be private, this very concept seems inappropriate from the onset. Teens should be made to understand the dangers of exposing the intimate details of their lives online to an ocean of strangers. By providing personal information about where they live, the school they attend, the friends they frequent, the places they go, and posting pictures of themselves, they are merely facilitating the task of stalkers and sexual predators who might attempt to contact them. According to a study by the NOP Research Group, 29% of children aged 7-17 would freely give out their home address if someone asked them online.

While teens have an overwhelming urge to chat, the telephone in the living room or kitchen, where mom and dad can overhear the general tone of the conversation, is the best place to engage in such behavior. The very worst place is the internet, via Yahoo, Google or MSN messenger. Unfortunately, the Kaiser Family Foundation reports that chatting is the most common recreational activity young people engage in on the computer. While chatting with friends online might be fine, chatters are regularly approached by strangers, some teens just like themselves, but also others who are much older and who do not have wholesome intentions. According to Detective Chief Superintendent Keith Akerman, one in five children who use computer chat rooms have been approached over the Internet by pedophiles. A Pew Study reported in JAMA that 89% of sexual solicitations were made in either chat rooms or instant messages. According to Online Victimization by the NCMEC, 1 in 5 children received sexual solicitations while online; 1 in 3 received aggressive sexual solicitation involving requests to meet, followed by phone calls, mail, money or gifts. According to the Girl Scout Research Institute, 30% of teenage girls said they had been sexually harassed in a chat room. Considering the fact that 13 million youth use instant messaging, and 1 in 4 kids participates in Real Time Chat, only 25% of the youth who received sexual advances while online reported it to a parent. According to the Girl Scout Research Institute, only 30% of teenage girls informed a parent of such abuse.

There is no question that every parent has the right to know with whom their children are speaking. On the phone, this is possible. On the internet, it is impossible. All you see is a username, funny-boy, punker57 or cutiegirl39. You never quite know whether your 13-years-old is talking with a classmate or a 52-years-old pedophile. It is simply impossible to know since keyboards and computers are perfect means of misrepresentation. Teens are also tempted to present themselves as older than they really are. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 31% of 7-12 graders pretend to be older to get onto websites. According to Internet Safety: Realistic Strategies and Messages for Kids, half of teens aged 13-18 often communicate through the Internet with strangers, one in eight youth aged 8-18 discovered that someone they were communicating with online was an adult pretending to be much younger, and one third have talked about meeting strangers they met through the Internet. These messenger services, which rely primarily on typing, can also include the use of web-cams, head-sets, and microphones, effectively functioning like a visual telephone. While it can cut down your long-distance bills drastically, the use of web cams are also conducive to cyber-sex, an activity you certainly do not want your teens to get involved in.

Finally, one of the greatest dangers to teens online is found in peer-to-peer networking, including Kazaa, eMule, BearShare, Gnutella, FileTopia, Bit Torrent, Morpheus, Shareaza, LimeWire, and numerous others. These are sites where users can share songs, videos, and movies. While most of the songs available can be heard on the radio, the vast majority of movies being transferred from one computer to another are pornographic films, many of which are actually illicit. Unless you want your sexually repressed teenage son to become gorged on adult entertainment, it would be wise to ensure that no P2P programs are installed on your computer. Even if your child has innocent intentions, many users often disguise the names of their files. A teen may search for “Cinderella,” “Snow White,” “Mulan,” “Britney Spears” or “Lindsay Lohan” and download the file only to discover that it is pornographic material. You can be as specific as possible in each of the search criteria: Title: Disney; Type: DVD Movie; Rating: General and still receive a flood of porn, both legal and illegal, since such material represents 35% of all peer-to-peer downloads. The result of our search: 84 files on Lime Wire, a few Disney films, several children movies, some adventure and horror films, along with 14 pornographic flicks, including titles referring to lesbianism, incest, and bestiality. Even if your teens want to download a regular film, they have to filter through all this filth to find it. If your child insists he/she is only interested in downloading music, there are sites like napster.com and mp3.com which deal exclusively with music. Peer-to-peer is not even a proper place for grownups looking for “adult entertainment” as much of the material being traded is child porn. The possession of child pornography is a major crime. This is not the type of material anyone wants to inadvertently download. If parents only perused some of these programs, they would understand the perils their teens are exposed to.

Due to all these dangers which are inherent when surfing the web, it is important for parents to monitor their computers. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, however, only 23% of parents have rules about what their kids can do on the computer. The easiest way of doing this is by placing the computer, not in an office or a bedroom, but in an open, public, visible area like the kitchen or living room where parents can keep an eye on their children’s internet activities while attending to other household duties. Unfortunately, as the Kaiser Family Foundation has reported, nearly one third of 8-18 years old have a computer in their bedroom and 1 in five have an internet connection there. For some parents, controlling the computer would demonstrate a lack of trust. However, as Family, Friends, and Community reports, 64% of teens admit that they do things online they would not want their parents to know about. According to a poll conducted by the Girl Scout Research Institute, 85% of girls could chat online without their parents’ knowledge, 57% could read their parents’ e-mail, and 54% could conduct a cyber relationship. As the research indicates, failing to keep an eye on one’s teens is as foolish as not tying one’s horse. As the Prophet Muhammad said: “Trust in God, but tie your camel” (Tirmidhi).

Supervising one’s teens is not sufficient. Parents need to understand computer lingo. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 42% of parents do not review the content of what their teenagers read or type in chat rooms or via instant messaging. In fact, parents don’t know the meanings of some of the most commonly used phrases. 57% don’t know LOL (laugh out loud), 68% don’t know BRB (be right back), and 92% don’t know A/S/L (age/sex/location). 95% of parents didn’t recognize the warnings teens use to notify each other that they are been watched: POS (parent over shoulder) and P911 (parent alert). When teens are typing online, the content of their messages must be monitored and when parents are not around, the computer should be locked. This means that there is no access to the start button and programs without typing a password. Creating various users with particular limitations would be a vain exercise. Even if parents blocked access to the internet for one particular user, it could easily be overcome by accessing another program, like Real Player, which in turn can access the internet.

Another particularly effective method of supervising one’s children is spy software like 007 Spy Software, Remote Spy, and Personal Inspector, among many others. These programs allow you to monitor and record the activities on a computer such as web sites visited, windows opened, every key pressed (including logins and passwords for ICQ, MSN, AOL, AIM, Yahoo Messenger or web mail), applications executed, internet chats, e-mail sent, and even takes snapshots of the entire Windows desktop at set intervals. You can actually see every single thing that your child has seen while surfing the net. Most of these programs can operate in stealth mode, meaning they do not have icons and do not appear in the program list. Furthermore, most of them are totally undetectable to most anti-spy programs. While monitoring the internet activities of an adult would constitute illegal interception of personal information, minors are not subject to such laws. Keeping an eye on your teens’ browsing patterns and e-mail communication is responsible parenting. While this may seem like much to some, these are actually very simple steps which can help prevent your child from getting entangled in the web.