For a long time I have been dealing with people around my age that simply do not understand the pitfalls of the Internet. I guess I can understand it because when I was going to school the closest I got to a computer was in the library.
Times have changed radically and we know many parents are getting lessons about the Internet from their kids. I have always vowed to stay on top of technology so that I can at least be on a even keel with my kids, sadly this is not the case for the majority of the parents out there.
Last night my kids were in the office with me on another computer playing a game and I heard my eight year old tell her seven year old brother don’t click that it is probably spyware. This caused my eyebrows to raise and I joined them at the desk to see what the issue was, and sure enough the seven year old had been lured off a dad approved site onto a website that was packed with kids games and all kinds of nasty embedded spyware.
I gave my daughter a high 5 and we re-directed to a site that was safe. My son is slowly getting a clue but he still has a tendency to click anything that popups, especially when in game mode.
I have to re-build that machine which I have isolated on the network about every 90 days because no mater what I do some stuff still gets through. Thanks goodness for Norton Ghost. We are making progress with the kids skills, but I was pretty happy the eight year old clued in that something was amiss. Good training on my part I guess. [TechDirt]