Dear young people,
Allow me to warn you about the dangers of internet. The idea of a pedophile waiting for
you with a bag of candies in front of your school is the past. Such people use the Internet for such activities. It is easy for them to obtain sensitive material and identification of children there.
They share such information to other Internet users with similar interests. Police in many cases
recorded across a series of photos that are circulating on the Internet worldwide (Wicksteed,
2014).
Likewise, there are people who purposefully appeal to children and offer sexual
services. For school-aged children an offer of several thousands of dollars can be very appealing and can lead them astray. Unfortunately, there are cases when the reward for prostitution may be a cell phone, money or other benefits such as concert tickets.
Internet however offers many types of harassment such as anonymous messages that can harm a person without much risk to the culprit. The intimity of you can be put to danger if your pictures are shared with unknown people. This is valid as well for private data. Please be sure to guard your personal information and not to disclose to anybody.
Another rampant danger of internet is the credit card abuse. If the credit card number falls into incorrect hands, money can be sapped from your account within minutes without any possibility or retrieval.
Cases of kidnapping happened, which were based on the information publicly available that can permit the criminals to learn on the habits of the victim. So please take into account that your life and information related to your privacy should not be a public good, available just to anybody. Thanks a lot for your attention.
- Wicksteed, Joseph H. The Challenge of Childhood: An Essay on Nature and Education, Chapman & Hall, London, 2014.
