Anonymity

Should those who send email or post information on the Internet be required to say who they are? Or should they be entitled to be and remain anonymous even in the face of prosecution? Conversely, should we and our children in particular, be able to avail ourselves of an express right to remain anonymous?

The use of anonymity might be argued to be the ultimate expression of a right to privacy. There will however always be a tension between anonymity as a privacy right and its use to purposefully hide identity in order to engage in anti-social or criminal behaviour.

Anonymous

There are several ways to become anonymous below is a list of services available:

Anonymous proxy servers hide your IP address and thereby prevent your from unauthorized access to your computer through the Internet. They do not provide anyone with your IP address and effectively hide any information about you and your reading interests. Besides that, they don't even let anyone know that you are surfing through a proxy server. Anonymous proxy servers can be used for all kinds of Web-services, such as Web-Mail (MSN Hot Mail, Yahoo mail), web-chat rooms, FTP archives, etc.

Basic safety guide to parents

Safety online

Parents have become increasingly worried about the dangers of the internet. It's vital that you have some family rules about using websites and email and warn your children about possible risks. These include accidentally viewing pornography, or being targeted by a paedophile looking to set up a meeting.

You may want to:

• keep the computer in a family area, rather than someone's bedroom
• take an interest in what your child is looking at on the internet
• talk about her experiences of using the internet and tell her to come to you if she's worried about anything
• stress that she should never give out personal details such as her address, telephone number or the name of her school

Be aware of any changes in your child's behaviour or moods and ask as sensitively as you can what the problem might be.

Private messaging

Some websites allow private chatrooms for one-to-one chat. It is not advisable for children or teenagers to spend time in private chatrooms. It’s much more fun, and safer, for children and teens to stay in public chatrooms.

It is sometimes possible to ignore unwanted private messaging on a message board. If you are getting unwanted private messages it is important that you inform the board administrator or the forum moderator and ask them who you should turn to. The administrator is able to prevent a user from sending private messages. If however you get no response contact the owner of the domain.

Sources: netsafe, publicproxyservers, bbc, phpbb.com