Dangers on the Internet

Exposure to Inappropriate Material The Internet contains countless materials that are sexual, hateful, or violent in nature, or encourage you to do activities that are dangerous or illegal.

Physical Molestation You may be asked to provide information that puts your safety at risk and also endangers your family and friends. You may also asked to have a face to face meeting with a person who has introduced himself as somebody else to gain your trust Worst cased include child pornography, rape, and kidnapping.

Harassment You may encounter e-mail or chat messages that insult, harass or humiliate you.

Legal and Financial Troubles This includes asking for you or your parent’s credit card number of doing acts that violate your rights as a minor or as a person.

Invasion of Privacy You have the right to privacy. There are people on the Internet who will extract personal information from you to identify who you are. Never give out such information without the approval of your parents. You have the right to say No.

Drugs, Alcohol, Tobacco and other Dangers Numerous websites and newsgroup encourage minors to use drugs and alcohol and to smoke. There are also websites that even teach you how to make bombs and explosives. Some websites even sell weapons to anybody or direct buyers to places where they can acquire one.

Gambling and other Inappropriate Behaviors There are sites that enable people to gamble with real money using credit cards. Minors are never allowed to gamble.

Group Activity Create different rules when surfing the Internet. Use the different DANGERS on the Internet as your guide in creating the rules.

Give some possible unwanted outcome for the following actions done on the Internet. Telling your name and address Meeting a person you met in a chat room alone Giving someone the password of your e-mail account Responding to mean or rude messages Sending your scanned picture to someone you met in a chat room

Entering gambling websites Reading materials with illegal content such as websites telling minors where they can purchase alcohol and drugs Not following the schedule of Internet use set by your parents

Basic Internet Terms 1. Internet a huge network of computer around the world. These computers are all linked together, and they can “talk” to each other, sharing information. If your computer is connected to the Internet, it can connect to millions of other computers worldwide means of telephone wires, cables and satellites.

What can I do in the Internet You can send electronic messages to people. You can read pages on the World Wide Web. You can do research on practically any topic. You can play games with people in other parts of the world.

You can chat with people. You can even buy things on the Internet and have them delivered to your house.

2. World Wide Web Part of the Internet that consists of millions of interlinked pages (documents) of information form all over the world. These linked pages have text, pictures, sounds and many more * The Internet is different from the World Wide Web. The Internet connects millions of computers, while the World Wide Web is a way of accessing information of the Internet.

3. Web Browser A program used to locate and display Web pages on the World Wide Web. It connects your computer to another computer called the Web server and then enables you to take information from it. It runs on an Internet-connected computer.

2 Popular and Commonly Used Web Browsers Internet Explorer Netscape Navigator

4. Web Server A computer that delivers Web pages. It accepts and processes requests, and then sends the requested Web page to Web clients.

5. Web Client The computer accessing a Web page.

6. Website A site or location in the World Wide Web. It is a collection of inter-connected Web pages that have a common theme.

7. Web Page A document in the World Wide Web containing text, images, animations or sounds. Each Web age has a unique URL.

8. URL of Uniform Source Locator The address of a website or Web page on the World Wide Web. Examples: http://www.disneychannel.com http://www.yahooligans.com http://www.dictionary.com

9. Search Engine A program that enables users to find the information they need to the Internet. After the user has typed one or more keywords, the search engine returns a list of the documents or files that contain one or more of the keywords in their titles, descriptions or text.

Examples: http://www.yahoo.com http://www.google.com http://www.msn.com http://www.altavista.com http://www.askjeeves.com

10. Home Page The first page that shows up when you start your browser. The very first page that appears when you enter a website. Your own personalized page on the Web.

11. ISP or Internet Service Provider A company that sells or provides Internet access. You can subscribe to them and pay monthly, or may use prepaid.

12. E-mail or Electronic mail A way of sending messages electronically from one computer to another through the Internet.

13. E-mail Address Your mailing address on the Internet. Every e-mail address in unique for each user. E-mail addresses have the following format: Username, the “@” symbol followed by a domain name (a unique name used to identify web pages). Example: richardit112@yahoo.com

14. Spam A term that refers to junk e-mail. Generally, it consists of e-mail advertising sent to a mailing list or newsgroup.

15. Chat Is a way people in different places to “talk” to each other by typing what they want to say into a computer. Once a chat has been initiated, either user can type on the keyboard what he wants to say and the text will immediately appear o the other user’s monitor.

16. Chat Room A virtual room where chat sessions take place.

17. Emoticon Small icon composed of keyboard characters that imitate facial expressions to show the mood or emotion of the writer Example:  

18. Modem An acronym for modulator/demodulator. It is a device that links a computer to other computers through a telephone line.

19. Upload The act of sending a file to another computer through a network.

20. Download The act of getting a file from someone else’s computer and then saving to your own computer.