In yet another study about how kids use the Internet, a recent survey revealed that 11% of kids 11-18 years old admitted to having sexually explicit chat sessions. 25% admitted to visiting adult web sites and 10% revealed that they have had meetings with people they first met online.
Almost half the children surveyed admitted that they lie to their parents about what they are doing online and tell their parents they are working on homework as a cover to disguise their activities.
Moreover, the study also concluded that 87% of parents believe that they were completely aware of what content their kids were accessing on the Internet and were confident their kids would not engage in any activities that the parents disapproved of.
Read the whole story at PC Advisor.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Cool and Useful FREE Application for Windows
If you're like us and use your computer a lot, you probably have lots of little yellow sticky notes around your desk space, on your monitor and on your keyboard. Pay a bill. Make a phone call. Order a birthday gift. Whatever you need to remember to do on the computer always seems to end up on a yellow sticky note stuck to the computer.
While reading the latest PC World magazine, we came across a very simple but very cool little program that does sticky notes right, just like real people use them. There have been many sticky notes programs released over the years, but none of them worked the way real sticky notes are actually used. Well, this one does, and it is really handy. You can create a little sticky note and stick it anywhere on your computer screen. You can also make them semi-transparent and make them stay on top of other windows if you like as well as set the colors and font to suit your preferences.
It's called, appropriately, Stickies for Windows. You can get it here and it's completely free.
While reading the latest PC World magazine, we came across a very simple but very cool little program that does sticky notes right, just like real people use them. There have been many sticky notes programs released over the years, but none of them worked the way real sticky notes are actually used. Well, this one does, and it is really handy. You can create a little sticky note and stick it anywhere on your computer screen. You can also make them semi-transparent and make them stay on top of other windows if you like as well as set the colors and font to suit your preferences.
It's called, appropriately, Stickies for Windows. You can get it here and it's completely free.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Keep Your Windows Updates Current
The SANS institute Internet Storm Center has estimated the survival time of a computer that has not been updated with Windows updates and patches at only 4 minutes. Read the full story here at ComputerWorld.
While this seems a little hard to believe, it is probably not that far from the truth. Here in our office we keep detailed logs of our firewall activity. Since we use a high end commercial firewall, they are much more detailed that those available to the average user on their home systems. We see attacks and probes every few seconds. There are hundreds of thousands of computers that intentionally probe the Internet for vulnerable computers. It is really a shame that the Internet is such a great resource and it is abused by so many people. The number of undesirable characters out there that want to do you some virtual harm is simply mind boggling.
So next time you see Windows pop up a message telling you updates are available, don't ignore it.
While this seems a little hard to believe, it is probably not that far from the truth. Here in our office we keep detailed logs of our firewall activity. Since we use a high end commercial firewall, they are much more detailed that those available to the average user on their home systems. We see attacks and probes every few seconds. There are hundreds of thousands of computers that intentionally probe the Internet for vulnerable computers. It is really a shame that the Internet is such a great resource and it is abused by so many people. The number of undesirable characters out there that want to do you some virtual harm is simply mind boggling.
So next time you see Windows pop up a message telling you updates are available, don't ignore it.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Internet flaw could let hackers take over the Web
Computer industry heavyweights are hustling to fix a flaw in the foundation of the Internet that would let hackers control traffic on the Web by altering computers DNS settings, and poisoning the Internets major DNS servers all over the world..
Major software and hardware makers worked in secret for months to create a software "patch" released on Tuesday to repair the problem. It is not known whether the patches actually fix the problem or prevent it from occurring in the future.
DNS is like a phonebook for the Internet. Whenever you acecss a web site using a friendly name like ebay.com, your computer will query its assigned DNS server to translate ebay.com into the actual IP address assigned to ebay.com. Hackers have managed to design viruses and trojans that change your computers assigned DNS server to go to a DNS server they control. This allows them to create fake web sites and trick you into entering user names and passwords giving them access to your personal information and accounts.
Last month we released EZDNSWatch, a free program to help users monitor their DNS on their local computers. This is a very real problem, and we strongly encourage users to download and install this program.
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