OP: I live close to an amusement park. I’m spending a lot of time there. What about you, where do you live? Do you have anything interesting close to your home?
Child: Oh, no I live in M district and there is nothing interesting.
OP: In M? A good friend of mine is living there. He lives close to the school.
Child: I know the school, it is where I study! But I have to take the bus because it is far from my home.
This can be a short scenario of an online predator trying to find out your family’s address. And if you are thinking this is not possible than think again because 1 in 5 children receives sexual proposal and their numbers are increasing. Online predators come in different shapes and sizes, and have differing expectations from their online predatory experience. They get in touch with their victims, through chat rooms, instant messaging or e-mails. Their targets are children between 8-15 years specially because they are vulnerable and they can easily get confident with strangers.
MSN and Yahoo Messenger are the most used chat applications. That’s why parents should control and even block msn and block yahoo messenger reducing in this way the possibility for children to create relationships with strangers. The number of online predators is dramatically increasing these days and it’s not an easy job to discover them. Hiding behind a monitor and creating a fake profile will give them the possibility to connect with hundreds of teens trying to get into their lives and gaining their confidence. Parents cannot completely control this situation. What they can do is to block chat, block messenger or any other communication channel while they are not around. Also, they should establish rules and talk with their children, explain them the Internet traps and teach them to never give out personal information over the Internet. It’s a dangerous virtual world and, just like in the real world, children cannot defense themselves against online thieves, online predators, sexual exposure and even human traffic.
Application Blocker is first of all, a parental software that also includes a block msn tool which can restrict access to chat rooms and instant messaging software. The default list with chat applications contains the latest versions and a great opportunity is that if a new version is released you can add it to the list. This has to be done only once because Application Blocker, the block msn tool, will keep the settings.
You can choose to allow your child to chat because the block chat software can be scheduled to allow chatting between specific hours. If you want to receive alerts when your child is trying to access a blocked application, you have to enter your e-mail address and set the e-mail sending frequency.
Choosing the best for your child will always be a difficult mission, but we are here to give you a helping hand. We can’t protect your child in real life but we can assure him a safe web surfing.