kids online safety: When is a Good Age for a Kid to Get a Smartphone? - 08/20/21 09:24 AM
Do you have kids who have been asking you for a smart phone? You might even know people who have kids your kids’ ages, and they have smart phones. How old is old enough for a smart phone and what age is it a good idea?
 
This might sound like I’m bragging, but I’m not, people tell me ALL THE TIME “Your kids are amazing!” And then they follow up with, “My brothers kids grunt one-word answers when you ask them a question, they don’t look you in the eye, they don’t “talk” and they are always seemingly preoccupied and want to … (5 comments)

kids online safety: Your Kids Digital Lives Are in Shambles - 01/17/19 05:25 AM
If you have a teenager, you probably have a battle in play: do you or do you not manage your teens mobile devices. Though some parents see this as an invasion of their child’s privacy,(which, frankly, is stupid) there are many reasons why you should start managing what they are doing online.
Some of these reasons make a lot of sense. Mainly, what your kid does at age 17 and under, is your responsibility, or in essence, your fault if they screw up. If they send a nude photo, that’s child porn, and that will come back to bite YOU and them.
And, … (9 comments)

kids online safety: 10 Tips on Discussing a Screwed Up World with Kids - 08/22/18 07:44 AM
Do you have children? How do you talk to them when something like a mass shooting happens? What about a robbery in your neighborhood? Do you talk about nuclear weapons? If you are like most parents, you don’t know where to start. Here’s 10 tips that you can use to talk to your kids about our screwed up world:
Young Kids – Ages 2 to 6
Parents Are in Charge – We control the “information flow” which means we can restrict what information they have access to. No mobile phones, no tablets, no TV news or conversations in the house or others homes … (1 comments)

kids online safety: What age is it OK to leave Kids home alone? - 11/02/16 11:57 PM
Sooner or later, you’ll need to leave your child home—unsupervised, alone—for an extended period. And even though you may have smart devices to keep a constant check on your child, this doesn’t mean you can instantly teleport home in the event your smart security system relays a realtime video of a kitchen fire.
It’s one of the toughest challenges facing parents: At what age can they leave a child home alone without breaking the law, without endangering that child? Even if your child is older than the minimum age to be legally left alone, this doesn’t mean they’re ready to face this … (4 comments)

kids online safety: Predators use Emojis to target Kids - 09/12/16 11:47 PM
Who’d ever think those silly little yellow circular faces and other such cyber symbols would become such a worldwide smash? I’m talking about emoticons, also known as emojis. Five years ago Apple put an emoji keyboard on its mobile devices. Six billion of these doggone things are sent every day.
But a story at kdvr.com says this isn’t as innocent as it seems.
The story mentions Sheila Allison and her 12-year-old who regularly communicate via emojis. For instance, Allison’s job means she’s not home when her daughter is going to bed, so she sends emojis for zzzz’s, kisses and princess. (There’s an emoji … (7 comments)

kids online safety: Parents legally can spy on their Kids - 05/27/16 12:25 AM
Just because something is legal, does that mean you should do it? In the case of spying on your kids’ phone activities, some say yes. Though the very same mode of operation is illegal in most states when the eavesdropper is your boss or anyone else and you’re the “eavesdropee,” this same mechanism is legal and encouraged for parents to their kids.
You’re probably envisioning a parent listening in on their boy-crazy teen daughter’s phone conversation. But it’s more than that.
According to a nydailynews.com article, the Court of Appeals in New York ruled that secretly listening in on and even recording a … (1 comments)

kids online safety: Posting Kids’ Photos online is illegal? - 04/21/16 12:21 AM
In France, anything is possible. Like getting tossed in jail for posting your children’s photos on Facebook.
Yes indeed, it’s true. People in France might be put behind bars for putting their kids’ pictures on Facebook. Or, they may face heavy fines. This is because the French authorities deem posting kids’ photos online threatens their security.
Parents are being warned about the consequences of this violation. The authorities believe that posting images of one’s kids online can lead to some pretty nasty things:
Photo-napping, particularly by pedophiles Stealing the images and posting them on adoption sites Kids, when grown, suing their parents for emotional … (6 comments)

kids online safety: Products to keep Kids safe online - 03/16/16 12:03 AM
Some people believe that monitoring your kids’ online activities crosses the line of privacy or trust. But monitoring and controlling online activities is, essentially, no different than controlling access to the cookie jar or TV or even locking a liquor cabinet.
Which brings me to a way that parents can always know exactly what their kids are doing in cyberspace. And control when, too. This is possible due to a type of software known as “parental control” that monitors the goings-on of any connected device in the home network, in concert with a mobile app.
Parental control software is very important to most … (1 comments)

kids online safety: Sorry, stop posing Kids' Photos online - 02/03/16 09:56 PM
Frankly, naked babies shouldn’t be a big deal. If you don’t have naked baby pictures of your kids in the kitchen sink then you aren’t human. BUT….the world has changed. If you compare posting your children’s photos online with whipping out a wallet photo of your toddler daughter in the bathtub to your dinner party guests, I will have a bird.
This is because people just love to post images of their partially or completely naked toddlers and preschoolers online: in bathtubs, those inner tube swimming pools, on beaches or wherever.
Awww, ain’t they purty little young’uns! Well, here’re the problems:
One particular image … (5 comments)

kids online safety: Is your Daughter chatting with a Pedophile? - 12/21/15 09:57 PM
That’s a horrible question to ask. There is a very alarming report on nbcsandiego.com, about a dad who regularly checked on his kids in the middle of the night, and one night at 2 a.m., upon checking his 12-year-old daughter’s room, saw that she was gone. The window was open.
He fled down the street where he saw her just about to get into an SUV, which turned out to be driven by a 27-year-old man the girl had met online a month prior. The predator’s name is Scott Stilwell, and he insisted to dad Tim LeBlanc that he was 16.
A fight … (5 comments)

kids online safety: Do you know what your Kids are doing online? - 11/12/15 10:04 PM
Your child is active online. Did it ever occur to you that he or she uses a fake name so that they can’t be identified by you? Chances are, you, the parent, also uses a pseudonym. It’s very common.
Cyberspace is full of obvious pseudonyms, but a phony name can also be a regular name that many people have. Your child will be lost in a sea of David Johnsons or Amanda Millers.
Intel Security did a study and found that 40 percent of kids use aliases or alternate accounts. Intel Security also found:
Many kids fessed up to cyberbullying, including making threats. … (3 comments)

kids online safety: Things to tell your Kids about Privacy Online - 07/29/15 11:25 PM
Those were the days when all parents had to worry about was the creepy guy lurking near the playground. Now parents have to worry about creeps all over the world reaching their kids via computer. And there’s more to worry about. Here’s what to teach your kids: 
Screen names should not be revealing about location, age or even gender. Never use the full name. Choose a name that would never outright point to the user, such as “Chris J,” when everyone knows the user as Tina Jones. “Chris” can make Tina (Christina) still feel connected to the screen name. And “sweetcheeks” … (0 comments)

kids online safety: Company proves why you shouldn’t post Kids’ Pics online - 04/06/15 12:05 AM
What if you knew there existed a possibility that some company, without your knowledge, grabbed a photo of your child and put it on their product and then put their product online for sale?
Koppie Koppie sells coffee mugs with photos of kids on them—and YOUR child could be one. Though this begs the question, who on earth would want a coffee mug with a photo of a stranger’s child on it, there’s actually a market for this.
Koppie Koppie has taken photos of kids from Flickr. Koppie Koppie is actually more of a social experiment, says the duo who run … (57 comments)

kids online safety: Predators use Facebook to groom Kids - 10/15/14 11:13 PM
Lock this guy up for good. That’s a most fitting motto for Brandon McIntyre, 22, who pretended he was “Katie Thompson” on Facebook and threatened to kill a girl’s family if she refused to go on trips with him.

This New Jersey nutcase made another ridiculous threat (ridiculous, because, how could he think that even young victims could take him seriously?) to a 12-year-old, telling her he was a cop who’d have her expelled from school and sent to state prison for failing to obey a police officer. The “order” was to send him explicit photos of herself.
Posing as … (3 comments)

kids online safety: The Sweet Sixteen Rule - 09/04/14 10:53 PM
Your child is turning 16! As a parent in the US, your mind is occupied with planning the big sweet 16 party and preparing for a new driver on the road (and the crazy high insurance that goes with it). During this exciting time, there’s something else you should be thinking about—your child’s credit score.

Child identity theft is more common than we want to think it is. According to a study by Identity Theft Assistance, 1 in every 40 households with minor children has been affected by child identity theft. Thieves love this kind of identity theft because1) it gives … (3 comments)

kids online safety: How to keep your Kids safe Online - 04/27/14 10:45 PM
Every parent should know all the ways they can keep their kids safe in the online world. In McAfee’s 2013 study, Digital Deception: Exploring the Online Disconnect between Parents and Kids it was found that:

86% of kids think social sites are safe and post personal information such as their email addresses (50%) and phone numbers (32%) 48% have looked at content their parents would disapprove of 29% of teens access pirated illegal digital media 12% of teens met a stranger online and then in the physical world 54% of kids say their parents aren’t involved in their digital lives at all … (4 comments)

 
Robert Siciliano, Realty Security and Identity Theft Expert Speaker (IDTheftSecurity.com Inc)

Robert Siciliano

Realty Security and Identity Theft Expert Speaker

Boston, MA

More about me…

IDTheftSecurity.com Inc

Address: PO Box 15145, Boston, MA, 02215

Office: (617) 329-1182



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