Bsmart with Bsafe Online - The First Edition

Dangers and Risks Posed by IM
Instant Messaging - Dangers, Risks & What you CAN do!

Is this the Instant Messaging that is occurring in your home?:
Jane94: hey john! u there?
John5: (friend from school): yes j - how r u?
Jane94: doing good. get the math homework done yet?
John5: r u kidding -

Or is this the conversation?:
JasonSmart (unknown person): Hi there Jane. How are you?
Jane94: I'm fine, doing my math homework. Who are you?
JasonSmart: Math..I am good at math..can I help you? What grade are you in?
Jane94: I am in 6th grade. You would help me?

In less time than it takes to finish the Math problem, a complete stranger has befriended your 12-year old daughter. And yes it is that easy!

We've all heard the horror stories, on Dateline NBC and other news forums of our youth being identified and victimized by predators using the Internet and more specifically, Instant Messenger (IM).
This is easier than one would imagine to be accomplished as an entire relationship can be established without the parents knowing and worse yet, without our children understanding that the person they are chatting with is a fraud at best.
Even sadder is that we take precautions to educate our children on strangers, install alarms on our homes and yet many households are unaware of the instant and unmonitored access strangers have with our kids through IM.
. A child with access to IM can communicate anywhere, with anyone, at any time on the IM network - all without a parent's knowledge.

Dangers and Risks

Unmonitored, private conversations with potential criminals
Immediate dissemination of personal information
Virus, worms and Trojan horses can be easily sent to large groups - instantly

Quick CAN do's!

Know your child's IM member number, screen name, and password.
Reviewing his or her IM profile to ensure that no personal data is listed.
Know your child's online friends, just as you would know their real-world
friends.
Continue to use Bsafe's filtering software and upgrade to v5.0 which will include
IM filtering.

How can I tell what version of the Filter I have running?

How can I update (or reinstall) my filter to the newest version?
Review IM configurations and if possible only allow known profiles to contact your child through IM.
Never download or accept transfer files or images through IM.

How can Bsafe Online help?
Bsafe Online provides cutting edge filtering solutions and is offering an IM filtering solution in our next major release (v 5.0). This version will provide:

Filter out inappropriate words (similar functionality as filtering Web sites)
An allow list of IM addresses that your child is allowed to converse with (only after you approve them)
A message will be sent to any "unknown" person who sends your child an IM stating "This conversation is being monitored by Bsafe Online". This will instantly scare many potential predators.

We will be shortly announcing the availability of this upgrade so please stay on the look out for our newest v5.0 that will provide this critical additional level of security to your filtering package.

(Thank you to District Attorney's Office County of Los Angeles for use of information).

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