While the internet has a lot of good, it also has a lot of bad. I’m not here to try and scare you guys or show the internet is a bad place. I’m here to give you tips on how to act and how to react online.

When you think of the internet, pretty much the first thing that comes to mind is surfing. Type in what you want, click enter, and a list of websites comes up and you go on your merry way. This is probably the safest aspect of the internet, but it still carries its dangers.

The first thing is popup windows and ads. Have you ever been surfing a webpage and all of a sudden a new window opens in and says “Click here for a free IPod” or “You are the 1 billionth person to view this page!” well it’s not true. Those windows popup so that companies can lure you to their website, get you to buy junk and even to install stuff on your computer to steal your information. While clicking on one is mostly harmless, if you notice things like windows popping up often or if your computer slows down a little or whatnot, tell your mom or your dad and explain to them what happened.

Explicit sites. There are a lot of bad sites out there. There are pornography sites, sites dedicated to violence, and whatnot. If you know you shouldn’t be there, or if it makes you uncomfortable, close your browser windows and open a new one. You are in control of where you go.

Remember when I made the example of a window saying “Click here for a free IPod”? Things online are never, ever, ever free. There is always a catch to it and you never see that free IPod. Usually the only free thing you get is junk mail both online and in your mailbox.

When I was a kid, there was a site that promised a free www.something.com webpage for me. I looked all around the site for a catch, read the user agreement and I couldn’t find anything where I had to pay. So, being new to the internet, I didn’t see a problem with it. I did a lot of big nono’s like giving out my full name and address.

A few weeks later, I got a bill in the mail asking for money and I got some junkmail. I explained to my parents what happened, and they were a little mad, but we just did ‘return to sender’ and it stopped. I was lucky.

MSN is a fun way to talk to friends online

This brings me to my next point, giving out personal information. Almost anything out there requires you to register for something. Online email providers like hotmail, chat programs like MSN or AOL, website groups to access information…

The usual things asked are your name, address, country, postal code, telephone number and things of the sort. Do you know what to do? Fake it, make something up. For my addresses, I usually put 123 sesame street or 123 fake street. For my name, I put Bread Crumb or some silly name like First for my first name, and Last for my last name. I have never had my registration rejected from sites for having put in a fake name. And, if they do reject you, ask your parents what to do and explain why you want to register for it.

Outside of surfing, there are a lot of other aspects such as email. Everyone loves to email their friends or co-workers to catch up on stuff or send funny jokes or pictures. I’m a big email user. I use it to get messages from church members for the media on Sunday mornings, I use it to keep in contact with my partner Nicolas, I use it to notify me if there are replies to topics on message boards I frequent…

Things to watch out for are pretty simple. Beware of email messages from people you don’t know. If you get a message from an address you’ve never seen before, especially if there is an attachment to the email. Attachments are those extra things that can be added to the message such as a picture. The best thing to do is to simply delete it, or ask your parents what to do.

Speaking of attachments, there are two typical types of bad attachments: WORM and Viruses. WORM stands for Write Once, Repeat Many. This is one file that you open, and it makes endless copies of itself. This creates problems on the computer by using up your computer’s memory, which slows it way down, and it also uses up the hard drive space. Viruses can do anything from slow your computer down, to steal your personal information, and even erase your whole hard drive. Viruses are serious.

If you ever get bad messages or threats by email from people, it’s no different than getting bullied at school. Take steps to make the person stop, or tell an older person such as your parents or a teacher. You would never get in trouble for doing this.

A step up from emails is the chat program and message board. Message boards are sites you can go to and leave public messages to each other. Chat programs are like MSN where you can have a real time conversation with someone over the internet. They come in all shapes and sizes, can be typing or voice, and come with a variety of options to play around with. You can talk to your friends faster than by email, have conversations with them and even have conversations with more than one person at a time.

Using MSN, I could be chatting with various friends at the same time and that’s the really cool part about it. I even have online friends around the world that I’ve met through the years. One lives in New Zealand, another in London, England, another in Saskatoon, in Austria… It’s great to make new friends online as long as you know how to pick them and when to draw the line about personal information...

Part 2 of Brett's guide to Internet Safety will feature in the September Issue of Portrait Magazine!